by submission | Mar 21, 2024 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
The uniformed Da’Ri officer saw me enter the bar and nearly ran to me. He was at my booth before I had a chance to settle in and was talking at light speed before the first round hit the table. Things did not go well for the Da’Ri today. As an observer for my people, it was with mixed feelings I watched the humiliating unconditional surrender of the Da’Ri empire to the Human Confederation. Still, I was looking forward to some quiet time at the bar. Ah, the grinding life of a diplomat!
“Mr. Ambassador I formally request asylum in the Zrall Republic.”
That was a shocker. Other than a Da’Ri functionary (a military attaché I believe) I had no idea who he was. Before I could make any further inquiry he seized the conversation.
“I am, was, a junior officer in the military intelligence division.”
I nodded and motioned for him to continue.
“About two cycles ago my boss said the humans were getting close in boosting warp drive efficiency and we needed to distract their scientific efforts. He threw a dozen certifiably insane theories and proposals on the table culled from our Ministry of Science trash bin. None of it classified, most of it insane and ridiculous rantings. Some even circulated amongst the scientific community as jokes.” He paused. I motioned for the barkeep to bring my new companion a drink. I was intrigued, it was at least worth a drink. “Please continue.” I said mustering all the sympathy and concern I could.
He sighed. “The plan was to float this nonsense as “secrets” through our agents. Our plan worked. Money, personnel, and facilities were being re-directed into all the pseudo-science double speak. Blither-blather our own intelligence service let the humans ‘capture’.” The aid was looking around. He leaned in. “The plan was working so well we began to make headway in the war. Resources were already stretched tight for the humans and we were now grinding them down. Our comrades in the war plans department told us the humans would fall in less than a third of a cycle.”
I motioned for another drink to be sent. He went on.
“Two days later the Human armies materialized on our home world and every strategic world and colony. No warp signature, no fleet, no drop ships- just their armies and they materialized everywhere including inside our high security zones.”
I nodded. Space folding. What any race would give to understand that technology.
“And how they were equipped! Personal shields for every soldier! Filters that made our bio weapons harmless. Psionic force fields that enabled their adepts to toss about divisions, actual divisions, like toys being swept from a table!”
I nodded again. All this was known. It was a reversal that would go down in galactic history second only to rise of the humans as the undisputed super power of our galaxy. Their new technology made all our advanced sciences seem quaint at best.
My nameless Da’Ri attaché reached across the table and grabbed my lapels. “Don’t you get it? Their super weapons, their break throughs, their godlike powers! It was all our disinformation…the ravings of lunatics and mad men. They made it work! But the most terrifying thing is there’s more they haven’t perfected yet!
I granted his asylum request right then and there and got him off planet as soon as possible. This attaché might not have any detailed plans, but he might remember just enough for us to capitalize on what the humans will bring forth next.
by submission | Mar 20, 2024 | Story |
Author: W.F. Peate
A child’s doll sat in the deserted street pockmarked with missile craters. Little orphan Tara tugged away from our hands and reached for the doll.
“Booby trap,” shouted a military man. Quick as a cobra he pushed me, Tara and my grandfather behind him so he could take the force of the blast.
The bomb-doll burned a blinding red then fizzled. A dud.
“You would have given your life to save us?”
Military Man stuck out his hand. “I’m Colonel John Carter. I’m looking for the Honey Bee Museum for help. A swarm of bees took over our vehicle. My soldiers are fearless, but no one will come near a bee.”
“My granddaughter Dejah and I converted the museum into a shelter for war refugees who have been made homeless by this horrible invasion.”
Tara ran inside the museum where women and men shouldered bundles. Their eyes were dazed and minds in shatters from the ruin and struggle. Deafened half paralyzed wounded were bandaged like mummies.
Carter led us to his olive drab vehicle which had a buzzing black beard of bees.
Gramps danced a bee-waggle and the bees rumbled away like dump trucks.
Carter did a double take, “You talk to bees and they follow directions?”
Gramps explained, “Karl von Frisch got the Nobel prize for translating bee talk, the waggle dance, that bees used to communicate. My granddaughter Dejah and I trained bees to listen to humans doing the waggle dance. Just like sheepherders trained dogs to herd sheep by following human whistling.”
I said, “I used AI to record bee communication. Gramps and I created a Bee-to-English Dictionary using a time share on the college’s quantum computer.”
“I thought bees were dumb bugs.”
Gramps snorted. “One bee brain is the size of a grain of sand, but honeybees live in a super-organism. Their brains together make them sentient geniuses. Bees use consensus to choose a new home or get rid of bad queens.”
Carter held up his smart phone. “A smart bee?”
Gramps laughed. “We’re changing the future so bees and humans work more closely just like bees and flowers collaborate.”
“We’re spending billions. Losing thousands of soldiers,” said Carter with a grim tone. “I need a flying assassin to kill Sledgehammer, the dictator that caused this war. A weapon that can’t be discovered by metal detector or radar.”
“Bees,” Gramps and I said in unison.
We agreed to work with Carter. I clicked on an image of Sledgehammer on a computer screen I’d installed at the hive entrance.
The bees buzzed at him like mini-jack hammers. “Bees recognize human faces. I’ve used sugar water to train them to recognize Sledgehammer as an intruder. Bees kill intruders by making a bee-ball around the intruders nostrils and mouth that cuts off oxygen.”
The next day Carter got me a second floor hotel room above the parade for Sledgehammer and world leaders who were attending a summit meeting.
I released the bees. They flew inside Sledgehammer’s sleek black limousine. The limo swerved and crashed.
The next morning Carter pounded on my door. “Read this. ‘After the first death, three more world leaders died at the summit.’” His voice rose. “This one says ‘Autopsy shows dead bees in windpipe of the prime minister.’”
“Isn’t the prime minister a wife beater?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Who were the other two who died?”
“Evil dictators who should be in prison.”
The bees were getting rid of bad queens — bad humans. Bees were improving humans. And I thought we were improving them.
by submission | Mar 19, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“You’re mad!”
The humming stopped. “Yes, sir! I’m YRMAD.”
“You’re mad.”
“Yes, sir! I’m YRMAD.” The humming returned.
Major Biers turned to his non-com. “Corporal, can we have this thing shot?”
Corporal Khopar frowned. “On what charge, sir?”
“Gross disobedience. Gross negligence. Gross anything, everything. It’s beyond gross. Beyond disgusting.” Major Briers kicked at the innards which festooned brightly from YRMAD’s shredded core, pooling at his feet.
“Sir, respectfully, I don’t think we can charge a soldier for bleeding.”
“Is this thing really a soldier, Corporal? Look at it. It’s creepy beyond belief. Can’t you see that?”
Images from the operation that morning flooded Corporal Khopar’s mind: a sparse and rocky hillside, a make-shift bunker above the shantytown, civilians fleeing down the steep ravine, fighters dug in above, a denuded slope that offered little cover, a blazing sun that promised no mercy.
The scene set for the banal acronyms of battle: RPG, HEIAP, ABM, IED, SPM, EFP, UAV, GPMG, SAW, LRAR. The secret alphabet of carnage. But then an unfamiliar vehicle arrived. YRMAD stepped out. An untested acronym, creating an uncanny valley of suspicion and skepticism among the officers. But there were orders. And those orders were set to establish a new order: YRMAD.
Not until the violence of the day was over did anyone hear a sound from YRMAD other than its precisely calculated gunfire as it strategically advanced up the hillside. Only after routing the enemy, only after noticing that it was losing its innards, YRMAD had begun to quietly hum.
Major Biers had not liked that. Especially what it was humming: Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you.
The scene had deeply affected Corporal Khopar, and he couldn’t begin to explain to his commanding officer why he felt so protective of this strange wounded creature who had fought bravely and skillfully with his unit. So, he offered the bare minimum. “YRMAD did its duty, sir. Charged and dislodged the combatants’ position under heavy fire. Definitely saved our outfit some grief.”
Major Biers had no answer. Knew there was no answer. “Dismissed.” He turned and walked away, shaking his fist up at some imagined heavenly HQ. “Insanity. Bio-mech warfare. All of you are mad, mad, mad.”
The humming stopped. “Yes, sir! I’m YRMAD.”
Corporal Khopar smiled. “Yes, you are. Let’s get you cleaned up, soldier.”
by Julian Miles | Mar 18, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I’m not one to fight against futile odds, no matter what current bravado, ancestral habit or bloody-minded tradition dictates. That creed has taken me from police constable to Colonel in the British Resistance – after we split from the Anti-Alien Battalions. I loved their determination, but uncompromising fanaticism contrary to all evidence became intolerable.
Today I think there might be hope. I’m standing in a car park high on a hill somewhere in Sussex. Behind me is the helicopter gunship that brought me here. In front of me is a green-skinned biped with huge grey eyes stood in front of a silver teardrop the size of a double-decker bus.
My earpiece clicks.
“Well, you were right. Now what?”
Captain Molton, recently ex-AAB, sounds equal parts angry and enthused. He’s still reconciling bigotry with facts, so it’s not surprising.
An F-22 bursts from the low cloud and hurtles down. I swear under my breath. All this effort for an AAB kamikaze in a super-stealth converted Raptor to kill the lot of us before we can even start.
A pale amber beam shoots from the top of the teardrop. A humming fills the air. The F-22 explodes. I duck back towards the gunship, then stop in awe as flaming debris bounce and slide off an invisible dome that shields the car park.
“I do hope he wasn’t a colleague.”
The voice is high-pitched, and has a Texan drawl.
I glance towards the alien, then stand up.
“A former colleague demonstrating why I left the AAB to join BritRes.”
The alien chuckles.
“A wise move for all of us. Your AAB are intractable.”
“They think you should all be killed, along with the sizeable portion of the population who think fighting to the death is a bloody silly idea.”
“Will the population who think otherwise cause trouble?”
“Initially, yes. Depends entirely on what you want, to be honest.”
We’ve been fighting them openly for eight months, and by all accounts a secret war went on for decades before that. In all that time, nobody even tried to ask why.
My earpiece clicks.
“Ask him, her, it, whoever what that amber beam is.”
The alien nods. They can eavesdrop!
“Easier if you call me Adro. As for the beam, I’m surprised you didn’t recognise it. It’s the latest version of a Teleforce projector. Obviously decades of development have allowed us to refine it, but the heart of it still obeys the core principles set down by your visionary Tesla.”
No fucking way!
“A Tesla death ray?”
“It can do more than that. The effect ranges from shutting down a vehicle right up to what you just saw. Bigger installations can exceed his original design capacity of destroying 10,000 targets at 400 kilometres.”
“How?”
“We bought his work via subterfuge. In 1935, after being dismissed by the US and UK governments, he thought he was entering a contract with Russia via the Amtorg Trading Corporation.”
“You’ve been around for that long?”
“We live about 300 Earth years. This operation is still being run by those who instigated it.”
“To what ends?”
Here it comes.
“Wheatgrass, hemp, and bamboo. Having lost our equivalents long ago, we’ve been looking to replace them. We’d have raided, but we also require human horticultural expertise to adapt them, as such things are long-dead sciences for us.”
Fear, secrecy, and the limitations of men. So much hatred and death could have been avoided.
“First we stop the fighting. Then we get you growing.”
Adro pauses, then nods.
“A good plan. Entirely acceptable.”
The AAB are going to hate this.
Tough.
by submission | Mar 17, 2024 | Story |
Author: Charles Ta
“We’re sorry,” the alien said in a thousand echoing voices, “but your species has been deemed ineligible for membership into the Galactic Confederation.” It stared at me, the Ambassador of Humankind, with eyes that glowed like its bioluminescent trilateral body in the gurgling darkness of its mothership.
I shifted nervously in my seat on the other side of our floating metallic conference table.
“I don’t follow,” I broached. “It was my understanding that, after we’d made first contact, we’d be welcomed into the wider galactic community.”
“That was the case,” the colonial cnidarian replied, “until the Raithians received new information about your species’ past that forced us to… reevaluate our initial assessments.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We mean,” the Raithian responded, “that your species has demonstrated to the galaxy its inability to coexist with itself and the cosmos peacefully. You annihilated your home solar system a century ago, and your colonies would have triggered an intergalactic war without our intervention. In simple terms, flesh-thing, humanity is unworthy of integration. Despite its technological advancements, it has remained primitive. Belligerent. Foolish. Ungovernable. That is why we brought you here: to discuss the Confederation’s intentions with your accursed breed, for the sake of all life.”
I stood up from my seat, anger rising within me. “If you’re planning what I think you are, humanity will defend itself to the bitter end.” I retorted, glaring at the astral siphonophore before me with contempt. “You have no right to come to our systems and destroy us simply because your Confederation deems it necessary. We humans are far from perfect, and yes, we have committed terrible atrocities in the past. But we have also aided your kind, learned from our mistakes, and strived to curb our violent tendencies as much as possible. Let me remind you that our last war was with your sworn enemies, the Undari Empire, and that since then, we’ve dismantled many of our most destructive weapons in accordance with the Confederation’s existing non-proliferation treaties. What more, then, do you want from us?”
The transparent spacefarer remained silent as it listened intently.
“If you’re going to eliminate us,” I argued, “at least give us one last chance to prove ourselves. To redeem ourselves. It’d be a shame to exterminate one out of the six spacefaring species you’ve discovered after eight billion years of searching. Life this advanced is scarce, I’ve been told, and has almost no chance of arising elsewhere. Plus, the Vorroh absolutely love our music, and they’re deaf, only able to feel vibrations through their frills.”
I held my breath as the phantom star jelly pondered on my defense, electricity coursing through the zooids that formed its dozen tentacles. Eventually, it too rose from its seat, looming tall as it hovered towards me.
“Very well, hominid,” the creature of many minds conceded, its ghostly voices now low and uncanny. “Though we remain committed to the Confederation, you’ve persuaded us to… challenge its ruling, or even delay its enforcement. Perhaps we were wrong about you.”
“Thank you,” I said, secretly relieved as I smiled, then respectfully bowed down to the alien delegate–or rather, delegates merged as one being–facing me. As I turned to leave the mothership, however, I froze upon hearing the Raithian’s haunting last words.
“You have fifty years until we return,” it warned. “Don’t disappoint us again.”
by submission | Mar 16, 2024 | Story |
Author: Stephen Price
The stranger arrives at the community hall dance early, before the doors open. No one else is there. He stands outside and waits. Cars soon begin to pull into the parking lot. They are much wider and longer than the ones he is used to. He watches young men and women step out of the vehicles, some only teenagers, talking over each other exuberantly and laughing as they climb the stairs and enter the hall. They buy tickets and put out their hands to be stamped.
The 19-years old woman he has travelled to meet is dropped off by the man he recognizes as her father. She and her friend leap from the backseat of the sedan. They charge up the stairs, laughing and chatting, peering about at the others starting to stream in. He knows her name is Paula Francis. His heart lurches when he sees David Williams, also only 19 years old, approaching with a group of friends, loud and boisterous in the way young men are when they have had a few drinks. It is crucial that Williams does not meet Paula.
The stranger does not waste any time. He strides up the stairs, buys a ticket, gets his hand stamped and looks about for Paula. He finds her and introduces himself. He is tall and good looking. A few years older, he is able to easily charm her. They spend most of the evening together, dancing to the band and getting to know each other.
“Do you know what’s interesting about your name?” she asks him at one point, when they are getting some air to cool down from all the dancing.
“What?”
“I always thought that if I had a son, I would name him Damian. After St. Damian.”
“He was known for his compassion.”
“That’s right,” she said. “Saints fascinate me.”
He is about to tell her that his mother also studied the saints, but before he can get a word out, she squeals, “I love this song.”
She grabs his hand and leads him back to the dance floor.
The stranger manages to keep her apart from David Williams, who he monitors closely and sees that he is enjoying himself with other young women on the opposite side of the hall. He is also good looking and charming.
As the evening winds down, the stranger asks Paula if he can walk her home.
“My father is picking me up,” she tells him. She agrees to give him her phone number.
When her father pulls up, he opens the back door and lets Paula and her friend slip in. He promises to call and closes the door when they are safe inside. He watches David Williams and his buddies running off, callow and drunk, in the opposite direction.
“Oh my God,” Paula’s friend whispers, wide-eyed. “You spent the whole night with that guy. He’s so cute.”
Paula giggles and looks back to wave at him as her father pulls away, but he is gone. Nowhere to be seen. It is as if he disappeared. Vanished. Like he was never there.
Later, she will be disappointed that the stranger does not call. She will not let it get her down. She is young and pretty and there are plenty of young men who want to dance with her.
