by submission | Oct 9, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey
“Greetings, friend and foe. I humbly thank you all for temporarily putting aside our differences and attending this unprecedented, historic peace conference.”
Twenty-three translators echo my words into twenty three different alien languages for the heterogeneous collection of delegates filling the cavernous convention chamber.
“My great-great-great-great-grandfather started this inter-planetary war – a war I hope to end today.”
A confusion of muttering, chirping, slurping and howls erupts from the congregation as my words are translated, absorbed and reacted to.
“He certainly didn’t intend to. Great-grandpappy4 George was a peaceful man, I’m told, who happened to be the leading specialist in laser technology when Earth’s astronomers detected a massive asteroid headed straight for us in the year 2035, Earth reckoning. He was asked to design and build an enormous laser on the moon capable of blasting it to smithereens – which he did, and in 2040, the asteroid was successfully destroyed.
“To us, he was a hero.
“However, in the brief, but hectic blasting frenzy, one shot missed. One fateful, three hundred gigajoule beam continued straight on through space for fifteen years until, despite all probability, it destroyed a space vessel belonging to the Thitherith.”
The reptilian delegation collectively hisses.
“The Thitherith, mistaking our errant laser as an act of war, assaulted Earth in a massive invasion in 2096. They brought lots of lasers of their own. With the aid of our fledgling space fleet and Great-grandpappy4 George’s laser, we managed to push the Thitherith out of our solar system.
“But not for long.
“For thirty years the attacks persisted. For thirty years the solar system and surrounding regions of space were ablaze with lasers, explosions and death. Then things got really heated.
“You see, with all those ultra-powerful lasers zipping around it was just a matter of time before another spacefarer got hit by a stray. Before we knew it, three other local races were up in arms over perceived, but unintentional hostilities. Of course, they all brought lasers.
“By 2140 we had regular laser battles from Cygnus to Sagittarius and five more indignant races had joined the fray. By 2190 lasers were bigger and more destructive, four home planets were asteroid clouds, seven were uninhabitable and multi-colored lasers criss-crossed the heavens hourly. On top of all this, reports of armed armadas bearing down on this sector seeking justice were coming from every quadrant.
“It’s now 2227. Twenty-three races are currently at war. Existing laser-beams will pollute the galaxy for fifty more years before they are too weak to do any harm.
“It is time to do something
“I’ve dedicated my life to stopping this escalating catastrophe. It has occurred to me; in the one hundred and eighty-seven years of galactic mud-slinging since Great-grandpappy4 George fired the first accidental shot, no one has addressed the fact that it was a simple faulty assumption that got us into this imbroglio. We have collectively believed that space beyond our local sphere was so inconceivably vast that our actions could not possibly adversely affect anything or anyone else. We know, now, this was foolishly naïve. We know, now, it’s a small galaxy afterall.
“I hope to convince this honoured assembly that our horrendous conflicts have been the result of a tragic misunderstanding – one that we can end. Today, by ratifying the Neodymium Accord, we can put aside our endless hostilities, stop polluting space with violent energy and ban the use of destructive laser technology. Today, we can choose to work together toward the first United Coalition of Planets and an age of peace.”
The room fell silent. I wait with baited breath.
by submission | Oct 8, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Antonio pitched forward onto the ice, the exit wound in his left upper back clearly visible. He was dead. I finished reloading my rifle and took cover behind what remained of the wall of the dome. It was almost entirely a ground war now. Between our anti-aircraft lasers and the aerospace support from the Lunies, it was hard for an enemy drone or fighter plane to get through. In the distance, I could see several vehicles approaching. Hovercraft tanks, most likely. I doubted I had anything left that could hit something that heavily armored and do much damage.
My hands and feet were getting numb. It wasn’t that cold out, only -20°C according to the readout in my helmet’s display. Something was wrong with my battlesuit’s heaters. I did a sensor sweep and could still only see the heat signatures from the hovercraft. If there had been individual soldiers on foot, I might have tried to pick one or two off.
I looked back at the fragmented dome. Inside the area of the dome about a quarter of a kilometer in the distance I could make out a few hectares of hydroponic crops, long since frozen and shattered. Off to the left were rows of much smaller geodesic domes: individual houses, some of them remarkably intact given the pounding the giant habitation dome had taken. I wondered what the cities in the Americas and Russia and Asia looked like? The Lunar Free State and Lagrange-5 had been bombarding the enemy for close to eight months. That had to be taking quite a toll.
As I looked around, my eye fell on a small, dark object a few meters away. It was a grenade. My battlesuit’s system interrogated it and the grenade’s computer confirmed it was functional. I ran over, picked it up, ran back to the edge of the wall, and looked around the corner. The hovertanks were getting closer. I could see their skirts had tessellated armor, probably a ceramic-matrix nanocomposite that might withstand a grenade blast. The ice between my position and the tanks had several small craters. If I could manage to get the grenade in one of them just before the tank passed over it, I thought as the vehicles closed in on my position.
I picked a crater and estimated how long I should wait before I made a run for it. I’d almost certainly be gunned down before I could make it back behind the wall. But I figured I was as good as dead anyway. May as well take a half-dozen temps with me to hell. I got ready to sprint for the crater when the tanks all suddenly stopped.
“Wěi! Wěi, can you hear me?” I reflexively jumped when I heard the voice in my helmet’s speakers.
“John? Is that you?,” I replied.
“Yeah, it’s me. Wěi, the war’s over! They’ve had enough of the Lunies and Laggies pummeling their countries. The temperate zone powers just agreed to a ceasefire and they’re ready to recognize us as a sovereign state!”
I gently put the grenade on the ice and then sat down with my back against the inner wall of the shattered dome. My hands were shaking and it had nothing to do with the cold. We’d done it. We’d won our independence. Antarctica was free!
by submission | Oct 7, 2012 | Story |
Author : Debra Lim
When the call finally came, I just stared at the phone. The answering machine picked it up, and Dr. Wainwright’s voice echoed throughout my small room.
“I’m afraid the implants didn’t take. I’m terribly sorry to tell you that she didn’t-”
I shut off the machine and just stood there, a heavy pain settling in my chest.
The implants had been a long shot anyway, they said. She was just too old, they said. It was a miracle she’d survived this long, they said.
Feeling the warm tears slide down my face without my permission made the pain explode into anger. I threw my chair across the room and fell to the ground, tugging my legs into my chest.
I imagined her coming to me now, sensing my pain, gently nudging me. She’d always been by my side, her happiness giving me the strength to get up everyday, to beat back my depression and finally make it into the Academy. If it hadn’t been for her, I might never have left my room.
“And now she’s gone, and you weren’t even by her side at the end.”
My voice sounded distant. Everything felt far away, and I closed my eyes.
–
“Stop that!” I squealed with mock anger, rolling on the ground. Nala’s silicone tongue slapped against my face awkwardly as we wrestled. She leapt back, her eyes alight with their usual green glow.
I held up my personal datapad, re-reading the acceptance letter for the umpteenth time.
Ms. Miller, you have been accepted into the Moses School of Engineering at the…
I hugged the device to my chest, tears streaming down my face. I’d worked so hard in the last few years, and not all of it was on academics. I’d gone shopping on my own, and even walked through the park, Nala by my side. I still avoided large crowds, but I’d made it a long way from the dark cave that had been my bedroom.
I looked at Nala, her bare metal tail wagging happily. I sighed, reminding myself to replace the fabric that had worn off of it. The exposed circuitry could get damaged without the protection.
Rolling to my feet, I reached down to pat her blocky head, and it felt a little too warm.
“Hmm, maybe it’s time for your maintenance check-up?”
–
“There’s not much we can do. There are no more models like this one anymore, and this company in particular went out of business over five years ago.”
Five years in technology basically meant ancient these days.
I looked down at Nala, her floppy, too large tongue hanging out of her mouth.
“We can try an implant that would allow us to remotely access her data files. We’d then be able to transfer her to a new body. She’d still be the same pet, just in a new suit.”
Nala just continued to smile her doggy grin up at me, oblivious to our conversation.
“Alright, do it.”
“There are risks…”
“But if we do nothing, she’s gone anyway, right?”
It hurt to say it, but it was the truth. The specialist would be in at the end of the week. By then I’d be away at the Academy.
I rested my hand on her head.
“I’ll be waiting for you at the Academy, silly.”
She let out a tinny bark as I walked away.
–
I uncurled myself and stood. The tears had dried. I looked at my monitor, a picture of Nala and I at the park.
I wrapped my arms around myself and whispered.
“Thank you.”
by submission | Oct 6, 2012 | Story |
Author : Ian Florida
Metal grates against stone as my cell door shrieks open. They shout as they slam their rifle stocks into my ribs. I laugh. They pause. They think I should be afraid. They think the metal mask they’ve strapped around my head keeps them safe. I know better; I have a plan.
The leather bites into my skin as they strap me to the cart. They wheel me through the compound’s silver corridors. We enter the fluorescent halls of the medical wing. The light stings my eyes. I blink.
In that instant they jab the needle in my arm. The blue fluid flows down the tube and through my paper thin skin into my tight purple veins. I try to relax and remember the plan.
A thump shudders through the cart as we push past a door. My mind swoons but I don’t need to see to know where we are. The sterile stench of disinfectant fills my mouth. We’re in the operating room.
White masks and blue scrubs crowd around. I find the one clutching the blue sack. The world starts to dim. I don’t have the concentration to make him pull a gun or unstrap my bonds. That would be too much. Remember the plan, something simple. A single word.
“Lean.”
My need burns like the morning sun setting fire to the fog.
“LEAN.”
My vision starts to focus. They haven’t noticed yet. I glance to the side, quickly so I don’t give it away. His hand is resting on the line, cutting off the blue river’s flow. I smirk.
The surgeon drops his knife, “he’s awake” he screams with a voice that reminds me of my cell being opened. One reaches for an alarm, the man at the foot my bed raises his gun; they try to jab another needle in my arm.
“Freeze,” I whisper. They all obey.
“Cut me free,” I order. The lead surgeon takes his scalpel and slices the leather straps. I smile in thanks, but his face remains blank. He is my prisoner now.
I touch the sunlit window and smile. “Shatter.” I collapse against the empty window frame. My muscles shake. I slip to the ground and let my feet dangle from the tenth story window. I sit that way until the sun burns a ruddy red and slips behind the hills to the west.
I sigh as the last light flickers beyond the ramparts of my prison. The sun is dead. I give the surgeons their death as well. I stop all their hearts but one: the man with the gun. I release him so that he may release me.
I can feel his heart race as he realizes I’m no longer strapped to the table. I can feel the wind on his face as he turns to see why the window is open. I can see myself through his eyes: bleached skin that clings to limbs as thin as reeds streaked with blood and cobalt liquid. I feel his trigger finger finish the arc it started so many hours ago.
I leave his mind and return to my own, it’s better to die in the place you were born. If I can’t be on my own world, at least I can be in my own mind and free.
by submission | Oct 5, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey
When John Allen wakes, two suns, one red, one blue, peek through the line of smoking atmosphere generators fencing the horizon. He glances at his snoring wife as he shifts his weight to the edge of the bed. With luck he can get out of the house before she awakes. She’s not a morning person.
Dressing in his work coveralls is awkward due to his lame leg and arthritic fingers. He doesn’t know what caused his leg to ache so much, particularly in the morning. The “quack” doctor who comes once a year to check up on him is no help at all. He regrets the loss of mobility, but he gets by.
During breakfast, he checks the satellite readout of the day’s weather conditions. The damn monitor is on the fritz again, but after a few bangs he gets the readings he needs; 30% humidity. High temperature, 36 degrees Celsius. Oxygen 16 kpa. Nitrogen 44 kpa. Carbon Dioxide 6kpa. 32 mph winds, NNE. It was shaping up to be a good day.
John sips instant coffee as he scans the field maps on his tabletop console, dusty despite numerous air filters. Automated alerts inform him that a Nitrogen pump and a CFC emitter have failed and there are some irrigation malfunctions in sectors six, thirteen and forty-four. He should also check on the kamut field. The grain is nearly ready for harvesting. He could rely on the automated harvest indicator system, but some of these machines are older than he is and couldn’t be trusted. John prefers the tried and true methods of identifying crop readiness with hand and eye.
He hears Marg stirring. He slugs back the last of his gritty coffee, straps on his utility belt and makes for the airlock.
Outside, the breeze makes small twirling dust tornadoes across the yard. John puts his air filter on, grabs one of his many canes and makes his slow, limping way to the barn where his eeda-win beetle munches on frizzle, the tall, thin native grass that grows everywhere on this endless plain.
When he arrived fifty years ago this place was nothing more than a cold, inhospitable sea of sandy dunes with minimal plant life and a handful of hardy insect species. Today, the atmosphere is thin and dusty, but breathable. Water, drawn from deep, ample aquifers fills ancient craters with small, algae rich lakes. He’d helped introduce over five thousand agricultural and medicinal plant cultivars and personally engineered a breed of cattle that could subsist here.
For years this moon was a much needed, though humble bread basket for the seedships heading further into space. Today, he’s the only farmer left on Thuprair-E, fifth moon of the massive gas giant now cresting the horizon. The others, including his two sons, had left for more exotic and easily terraformed planets and moons. With the latest hi-tech machinery and temperate environments, the work elsewhere was much easier. John stayed. He likes a challenge.
Little Squirt croaks when John enters the tin Quonset. The giant, metallic green beetle shuffles in its stall, eager to get out. Massive, powerful pinchers clack anxiously.
It takes longer these days, but John has rigged an ingenious method of tacking up Little Squirt in the complicated harness and getting himself settled into the two-wheeled cart which contains all the tools he’ll need for the day.
“Come on, old friend,” John urges as he twitches the reigns. “We’ve got a long day’s work ahead.”
John gets his bearings, then slowly, steadily, beetle and man trundle off across a brave new world.
by Clint Wilson | Oct 4, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
I descend deeper into the heart of semi-quadrant 26F, my maneuvasuit’s floodlights guiding me all the way. Massive gears and cogs riding on giant turbine shafts dwarf me, rotating silently on their bearings as layers of viscosium, barely a dozen molecules thick, keep everything at a cool 190 degrees or less. Yet on I monitor. Firing my vertical jets I drift into a side shaft, which will guide me through the lower ion exhaust plenum and straight into the grand hydro-valve gallery of this particular sub-engine portion of my overall keep.
Like my father and his father before, I am a proud and loyal maintainer of the machine. Pausing at a calibration platform I take a moment to measure the erosion on the nearby upper beta crankshaft’s friction journals using my helmet’s laser guided micrometer. As I suspected, the extra stress placed on the shaft’s aft third of its length, by the rerouted spring scissor and its eighty-ton ballast, installed almost a century ago by my own ancestors and their kinsmen, is finally starting to take its toll.
If left unattended for another year, give or take a few weeks, the bearing surfaces of the crankshaft’s rear section will eventually overheat and start to pollute the sub-machine’s viscosium lubrication system. The resulting extra friction caused by microscopic metallic debris will most certainly end with catastrophic failure to at least the local sub-structure. And nobody wants to have to deal with that type of engineering nightmare. Luckily for the people on the surface I was born into this job. I know what needs to be done.
Without hesitation I transmit my findings via comlink to semi-quadrant headquarters, requesting a platoon-crew containing at least six senior apprentices, a gantry crane, and some two hundred hours of access to any one of the local B-class machine shops and their stores.
Within minutes the work orders have been logged into the motherboard of the main quadrant, my eager young engineers deployed in their fully charged maneuvasuits, heading quickly in my direction, and to top it off I have been granted carte blanche at machine shop sub-terra 39X, an old personal favorite. Hector knows how I like my parts manufactured, practical and without the frills. I always tell him, “It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to work.”
It’ll take us less than a month to build a replacement upper beta crankshaft, so we can then lift the old eroding one from its journals and re-bearing the entire lower valley at our leisure.
And once we’re done, will we disassemble and discard our strategically placed temporary unit? Of course not, we will daisy chain them together via a constant velocity coupler and allow them to work as one. If there was one thing my father always taught me, it was, “Overbuild son. We’ve got endless resources coming down from the surface people. Why not use them?”
And he was right. The folks up there will never stop providing us with what we need to keep the machine running. It is their first priority above anything else.
I myself have never been to the surface, and as a loyal maintainer of the machine I know I never will. And that’s just fine by me. I will continue to micro-measure every gap, to spec every tolerance, to replace every corroded power terminal, to hone and re-sleeve every worn cylinder, until the end of my days. My place in life is well laid out before me. And like my father and his father before, I have a job to do.
