by Julian Miles | Apr 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The battlefield is littered with carcasses to the point where soil has mixed with ichor to form a gritty green mud that shines as the searchlights swing by.
I wave the site teams to either side.
“Get the spotlights up! We’ll never find anything in this without brights.”
Dosun of Team Two mutters.
“It’s called sunlight. We get it daily.”
Turning to face team two, I point at him.
“Dawn is nineteen Terran hours away, Specialist Dosun. Do you expect wounded soldiers to wait for aid?”
“No sir. Sorry, sir. Voice went off while I was testing my mouth.”
That reply is amusing enough for me to let it go this once.
“Get me light in under five minutes, Specialist, and we’ll call it evens.”
One of his colleagues slaps the back of his head, but they’re moving noticeably quicker.
Come to think of it…
“Specialists, vent the spotlights towards the battlefield. The heat should help deal with the ground mist.”
This is a miserable planet. From the tops of observation towers, it seems beautiful. Down among the clinging grey vines and stealth predators, it gets ugly fast. You quickly get to see how resilient you are, or what your guts look like as something with more teeth than brains pulls them out.
I can’t see any of ours amongst this mess.
Team Two put their lights on before raising them, which gives a curious false dawn effect as my shadow shrinks back, going from giant to human size.
“Contact!”
My escort are whatever the stage better than resilience is. I wasn’t even aware. Looking about, I see a low hill. There’s something-
Team One bring their lights up.
That’s one of ours, sitting on top of a pile of… Ours. Sweet mercy, what happened here?
“Identify yourself!”
“Bloody tired of fourth platoon, second company, Field Engineering Battalion Six. Put those bastard lights out unless the jadebloods have actually given up.”
“They’re gone, soldier. I’m Lieutenant Macintosh of Scout Platoon Eight. We got sent to see why you were running late.”
“I’m Specialist Gilbert Edwards, sir, and more jadebloods than I’ve ever seen is why.”
I continue walking to one side, taking in the remains of camp fires and bivouac sheets.
“You were ambushed by Sloshan after breaking trek for the night?”
“They came from all sides. So many they were running up and over each other, like some nightmare wave. Major Hurst realised we were done for. We pulled back, using everything we had, looking to make the jadebloods pay. Did that until our power packs ran out. Weren’t many projectile weapons: out of ammo in seconds. After that it was fists, feet, and blades.”
He brings up jade green hands. One holds a tactical knife, the other some sort of sword. Both blades are a lighter shade of green. I realise he’s coated from helmet to boots in ichor.
“I used to teach primitive weapons during downtime. Like to think it helped a little.”
“How many in the platoon, Edwards?”
“Set out with one hundred eighteen. Jalla and Turth got lashed by a bloodvine the first day, so we sent them back before their arms rotted off. One hundred fifteen died here, Lieutenant.”
Numbers flicker across my bracer display. Estimated enemy strength tallies to over a thousand!
“Against better than ten-to-one odds, finding one soldier alive is very welcome.”
He nods.
“What next, Lieutenant?”
“My people could use primitive weapons training. You fancy a transfer away from the glory and commendations?”
“After the funerals.”
Resilient – and respectful… I salute him.
by submission | Apr 6, 2025 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
I had just stepped into my shower, having had to wait a full five minutes for the water to become hot enough. It took forever for the water temperature to get up to at least tepid in my apartment. Usually, it was either freezing cold or scalding with no middle ground. The shower was a small stall, plastic walls, glass doors, low water pressure; thoroughly apathetic. Not even a tub in this dump, if I wanted a bath I had to check into a hotel. As I gazed through the not nearly clear doors, I noticed the profusion of dried soap dots and realized it had been a while since I cleaned in here. Put it on the to-do list. I rinsed my torso and took the bar of soap off the shelf and started to lather up.
My thoughts went to all the other stuff that was on my list for today. I was swamped at work, and I had that big project the boss had dumped on me yesterday. Even getting there on time was going to be a hassle with the reported train delays. And then tonight that stupid party I was obligated to attend with undoubtedly bad food and boring people. God, that was going to be terrible.
I was about to step into the spray to wash off the detritus when the lights flickered out. I sighed. Not uncommon in this old building, the circuit breakers were popping all the time. With no window and the bathroom door closed the room was unviable black. It was so dark that there was no difference with my eyes open or closed. Well, the towel was on a hook right next to the shower, and I knew where everything was on my body and as long as I didn’t drop the soap, I should be fine. I let the water wash over me and it was invigorating. Maybe with no sight my other senses were sharpening and it felt amazing. As if I wasn’t just washing the scum from my skin but I was scrubbing my soul clean.
I happened to look through the door and I noticed the pattern of white spots had multiplied and become impossibly brighter. I shouldn’t even be able to see them in the dark. I reached out a wet hand to see if the image would wipe away and realized there was no glass panel. I wasn’t looking at soap specks but…stars.
What the hell?
I reached for the towel and it wasn’t there. The towel wasn’t there because the hook wasn’t there, and the hook wasn’t there because the wall wasn’t there. Perplexed, I groped around for the control handle to turn off the water and paused. At that moment the wonderful spray was the only tangible aspect I still had, and I didn’t want to lose it, so I let it run.
Up above me I saw more miraculous stars. There should have been a ceiling and five more stories of my apartment building. They were all gone. The stars were more beautiful than I had ever seen. In the city you barely catch a glimpse of their splendor except on that rare clear night but even then, they never looked like this.
I held onto the built-in handrail and tentatively put my toes out, stretching for the floor mat. No mat; no floor. My entire reality was ultimately limited to three walls of plastic and a showerhead.
Well, I still had the pleasing cascade of warm water, so I went back to my shower. I didn’t have to worry about how I was getting to work or if I was late. And my workload had just been reduced to zero. No party to attend so I was good there. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have a care in the world. For the first time in my life, I was going to take a nice long relaxing shower.
And marvel at the spectacular stars.
by submission | Apr 5, 2025 | Story |
Author: Jennifer Peaslee
The stale air of the Interplanetary Dynamics office reflected the collective mood of its desk jockeys. Ash Zendar, stewing in a stiff-collared uniform, barely glanced at the form in front of them before stamping approval for a three-cycle visit from the dangerous K’noth planet. Number nine hundred and ninety-eight.
Today, Ash’s five years on the job were going to pay off. Today, they would stamp their 1,000th consecutive approval and earn a bonus of ten thousand credits. Ash stamped a form allowing the transport of bog-standard goods between planets Daruta and Zyke. Nine hundred and ninety-nine.
The hairs on the back of their neck raised in anticipation. They glanced at the top of the next form, their hand positioned to stamp APPROVED before the ink on the last form had dried. With this, they would finally have enough for Gil’s treatment.
Then their stomachs dropped. They read the top of the form again. A request for sentient cargo transfer from Arth to Helian.
“Could be nothing,” they muttered. Request for sentient cargo transfer covered all sorts of applications, from prisoner relocation to discount travel arrangements. It also happened to be notorious for allowing the continuation of the sentient slave trade. And Helian was not a planet known for its liberal attitude.
Their hand wavered. They scanned the form in its entirety and bit their lip. Under “reason for transport,” whoever completed the form wrote “indentured servitude enforcement.” Technically legal. Indentured servitude, while distasteful to many, opened the possibility of interplanetary immigration for those who otherwise could not afford it. But again, it was easy to hide unscrupulous acts behind the generic “indentured servitude” label. And “enforcement” had nasty implications.
But it wasn’t Ash’s job to administer the law. Their job was to approve as many forms as possible so that the company could make an obscene profit.
Ash began to lower the stamp. Gil’s face appeared in their mind. What would she say to this?
Ash grabbed the DENIAL stamp and pressed it to the form, sighing a little. They took the next form and read it carefully before stamping their approval. Number one.
by submission | Apr 4, 2025 | Story |
Author: S. Douglas Hall
Doctor Hibberd’s shoulders slumped and he laid his clipboard on the table. The buzzing at his lab door overshadowed the normal beeps, clicks, and whirls from the lab around him.
He ran his hands through his graying brown hair and adjusted his sturdy black rimmed glasses before reaching for the latch on the door.
“What is it now?” Hibberd forced open the door to find a man in a suit. The fluorescent lighting from the hallway outside his lab hurt his eyes at first.
“Doctor Hibberd,” the man’s mouth quivered, “I’m from…the accounting department.”
Hibberd took a deep breath and let it out with a sign. “I didn’t ask who you were. I asked, “What is it now?””
“Cost…overruns.”
“What do you mean…cost overruns?” For a moment, the irony of needing something explained to him, the lead scientist at ValueMax Enterprises, crossed Hibberd’s mind before the anger of being interrupted returned.
“You are over budget…way over budget… on…” the rep from accounting referenced the paperwork in their shaking hands, “ammunition?”
“Show me.”
The man in the suit stepped inside the lab door and handed Hibberd a printed spreadsheet of the costs from his lab.
A mix of bleach and formaldehyde assaulted his nose before he got two steps into the lab. Red and green lights from the displays on various machines contrasted with the otherwise dark room.
A loud thumping erupted momentarily from somewhere nearby.
Hibberd’s eyes grew large and round, “It’s nothing. Nothing to worry about.”
Both men looked back at the budget spreadsheet and the large red numbers at its bottom.
“It’s not my fault,” Hibberd motioned toward a heavy door with thick ballistic glass labeled Irradiator. “Sometimes they die in the machine and sometimes I have to shoot them…repeatedly.”
“You have to do what?” The man in the suit stared at the irradiator’s door.
Hibbered picked up his clipboard and flipped through several of the attached pages. He quickly circled something on one page and looked to the irradiator door while nodding. After pausing for a moment, Hibberd looked back to the man in the suit. “Oh, you’re still here. If you need paperwork for the…
“Cost overrun…”
“Yes, cost…overrun…I can provide you with a print out…”
A pair of thuds rang out from the irradiator’s door.
“That one’s going to need a lot of shooting,” Hibberd looked toward a door on the other side of the lab labeled Weapons Locker.
“What?” The man in the suit’s jaw fell open.
“What?” Hibberd looked back to the man in the suit. “I thought I already explained this to you.”
The man in the suit took a deep breath, “Look, you need to get your ammunition costs down or corporate is going to audit your lab and maybe close it down.”
“Yes, Yes…” Hibberd looked around the room, “invent a death ray. Got it.”
by submission | Apr 3, 2025 | Story |
Author: A.R. McHugh
Diamonds won her as a child. Looking at sedimentary quartz under 200x magnification, she was fascinated by the possibility of so much clarity, such mineral perfection.
Somewhere between her mother’s flashing ring and her father’s relentless pressure to produce better grades and faster times, a harder carapace around her teenage soul and a deep love of diamonds was born.
Earth, with its exhausted supply of diamonds, bored her.
A rover brought one back from Saturn, formed from the compression of methane soot in the thunderstorm alleys ten miles above the planet’s surface. She stared at it in its glass case at Houston, trying to comprehend its being. This thing did not simply bear up under pressure, but was formed by it. The Saturnian diamond was the expression of distant matter under pressure, and thus of the very texture of life as our phylum feels it.
Years later she found herself in another rover, going to that Saturnian diamond’s origin. She entered the atmosphere gladly, knowing there was no return. The many moments of her life, like inclusions, were pressed together as she fell in the tiny craft through Saturn’s diamond rain. Dropping downwards, the pressure increased until the rocks struck the wings of her craft, bonded with them, and melded into a speeding crystal of impossible hardness.
When the pressure grew beyond even that, the chimera melted, drowning what had once been a woman, in a diamond sea.
by submission | Apr 2, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julia Rajagopalan
Bertrand Dent knew that the lotto was rigged. Everyone knew. Only paid actors won, or friends of the Lotto Commission. Still, Bertrand stood in line at the Station 14 lotto stand to buy a ticket.
It was what everyone did when docking at a refueling station. 1. Dock, 2. Secure your ship, 3. Take a gravity-aided shit, 4. Take a water shower, 5. Get a lotto ticket, 6. Get drunk.
Long-haul spaceflight was harrowing, and stations offered rare comforts in their cold, metal worlds. The order of tasks differed from person to person, but Bertrand liked his order. He had plenty of time till the end-of-day drawing. Bertrand reached the front of the line and stepped up to the counter.
“One daily,” Bertrand said to the man behind the laser-proof glass. The man scratched his nose and printed out the ticket. According to the Lotto Commission, digital tickets were insecure, but Bertrand thought paper was just another way to control the winners.
Ticket in hand, Bertrand headed to his favorite bar, the Pink Fox. The Pink Fox was a dark yet clean establishment with enormous windows that overlooked the shipyards. He felt clean from his shower and pleasantly empty from his trip to the bathroom, and he was ready to drink.
Three beers later, the bar quieted as the bouncing lotto balls flashed onto the screen. Bertrand dug around in his pocket for his ticket. He knew he’d never win, but the dream was half the fun. Maybe he would buy a small property on Mars and start a business. Somedays, he thought he would buy out his partners and take over the hauler, but he wasn’t a masochist.
“The numbers are 19-21-48-54-89,” the pretty girl on the screen said. Bertrand choked on his beer. The paper sat in his hand like a live grenade.
19-21-48-54-89
It was impossible. It was a miracle. It was a giant target. He wanted to scream and shout and do a backflip, but he didn’t dare. He had to get to the claim window. Bertrand stood and waved down the bartender.
“All done?” the woman asked as she handed him the payment machine.
“Yeah, I gotta get back to my ship,” Bertrand said, pressing his thumb on the screen. He tucked the ticket into his pocket, his left hand still clenching the paper. He gave the woman a large tip, and she smiled at him.
“Wow, that was nice. You win the lotto or something?”
“Ha, I wish,” he said and hurried out. He couldn’t believe it. How had he won? Maybe the lotto wasn’t rigged. Bertrand’s feet clanged on the metal planks as he walked. He tried not to hurry. He didn’t want to draw attention. He just had to get to the claims office. Still, a big, goofy smile stretched across his face. The lotto wasn’t rigged. Sometimes, good things happened in this messy universe.
Across the concourse, he could see the sign for the claims office shining in welcome. Bertrand was only a few feet away when a large man stepped out in front of him. He wore a dark mechanic’s jumpsuit, but he walked like a soldier. He grabbed Bertrand’s upper arm and yanked him toward an alley between two food stalls. Another man stood in the shadows waiting.
“How’d you know?” Bertrand cried. “I didn’t say a word.”
“You don’t seriously think anyone ever wins, do you?” the man asked, a sad smirk on his face.
