by submission | Apr 14, 2013 | Story
Author : Dennis Von Euw
“ 'X-ray 3' to 'Harvest Queen', come in, over”
“This is 'Harvest Queen', what is your status?, Over”
“We've completed the survey on the asteroid. It shows no transuranics, and damn little heavy metals. The bulk is just stony regolith., over.”
“Understood, 'X-ray-3', stand by to return to Mother.”
“Are you nuts?”, asked Jarvis. “You didn't say a word about the crystals. The lab boys back on Earth have been screaming for them for years!”
“Relax. Has ol' Smitty lead you wrong yet? This is our lucky day! Ten years we've been pushing one bucket or another around the Belt together, and what do we have to show for ourselves? Nuttin', that's what. This is our chance to make good. The Captain never offered us a sign-up bonus when we came aboard, and we don't owe ship-stores a deci-cred. We'll plant our own beacon on this lump, and come back on our own ship some day and clean up!”
“I don't know. Everybody we've talked to says Capt. Erickson is no-one's fool, and not a man to cross”, replied Jarvis, “but ya haven't steered me wrong yet. Do it.”
After placing their own device on the surface, the pair made their way back to the scout ship.
“ 'X-ray 3' to 'Harvest Queen', ready for take-off, are you in range? Over”
“Roger X-ray, begin blast.”
“Damn! Negative burn, I say again, negative burn, We can't get the ship to lift, over”
“Acknowledged. Stand by”
“Well Captain, you were right. Those two couldn't be trusted. Luckily you already knew about the crystals down there.
“Luck be damned! I've used that rock to test new men for years. Yes, there's crystal down there, but it's useless. You wouldn't know it to look at it, but the scientists say the structure is all wrong for their needs. Alright Helm, proceed on course to our next waypoint.”
“But Captain, we haven't retrieved 'X-ray 3' yet.” exclaimed the XO “What about them?”
“What about them? We'll pick up the scout on our way back in 6 months.”
“But they only have enough stores and oxy for 30 days, Sir. They'll die!”
“I have no sympathy for pirates, Mister! The Belt is dangerous enough for honest Spacers, without
carrying vipers around with us. You're new here, XO, so I'll overlook your outburst, but never second-guess my orders again. Understood?
“Aye, Sir! My apologies. Ready to leave orbit.”
“Very well. Execute!”
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by submission | Apr 13, 2013 | Story
Author : Ryan Watson
The war had finally been instigated. Nobody was truly certain how it had started or which nations were involved. All anybody knew was that it had been a month since the missiles were launched. All high profile personnel were secretly escorted to underground bunkers. Rank dictated the depth of the bunker as well as the strength of materials used in its construction. Senator Nathaniel Keyes was a presidential candidate. He was sitting in a steel bunker 35 feet underground.
“Senator, it has been 1064 hours since the last impact. The radiation hasn’t appeared to have leaked to this deep. We have survived the attack sir.”
“I can see that Johnson. Any news from the other bunkers?”
“Not yet. We’re not sure if the communication uplinks are still running. We’ll know shortly.”
“Excellent. Keep me posted.”
“Of course sir. What should we do in the meantime?”
“What town is this bunker located in Johnson?”
“Hinderland sir. Population 14’500. A small town in central Idaho, it was chosen for being so insignificant that it wouldn’t be the target of any major strike forces.”
“You sound like you’re reading that off of the brochure Johnson.”
“The logistics package, Sir.”
“Does that package have a map Johnson?”
“Of course”
“Pass it here.”
The senator looked over the map, taking careful notice of what the town had to offer. As tempting as scouting for survivors or food was, nothing on the surface had any radiation protection. The people would be dead, the food inedible.
“Let’s go bowling Johnson.”
“I beg your pardon sir, did you say bowling?”
“You heard right. According this map the lanes are only five minutes away.”
“Surely there is something of more value….”
“Cut the bureaucratic bullshit Johnson. Everyone within a hundred miles is probably dead. Who cares what we do. I want to go bowling, whether you’re coming or not.”
Senator Keyes walked to the airlock. He grabbed the mandatory explorative survival kit off of the shelf and secured his breathing apparatus. His radiation suit gave him a wedgie. He began to climb the seemingly endless ladder that led to the surface. He wasn’t surprised that his guard did not follow. The only sounds were that of his steel toed boots clambering against the metal of the ladder repeating endlessly as they echoed through the tunnel.
The landscape wasn’t as barren as he had expected. Among the haze and dust stood the skeletons of the town, yet no signs of life could be seen. He checked his map and headed off down the crumbled remains of 31st street. The alley was located beside the local Catholic Church. He laughed to himself as he envisioned nuns in bowling shoes. He took a mental note to share this image with Johnson. He walked down the broken asphalt of 31st street, not stopping until he came to the crippled steeple of the church. He located the building that he imagined was once decorated with dancing bowling pins and other cute decals as he descended the stairs. The dust swirled as he opened the door to the basement. Extracting his flashlight, Keyes shone the light around the room, finding it to be more or less intact. He walked behind the counter and grabbed himself a score sheet and a pencil. He placed himself on lane number 4. The automated pin setter was disengaged. His game lasted 2 hours.
Grab a ball.
Throw a ball.
Walk down the lane.
Set your own pins.
Walk back down the lane.
Write down his score.
Grab another ball.
Repeat.
He scored 249 points.
His personal best.
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by featured writer | Apr 12, 2013 | Story
Author : Bob Newbell, Featured Writer
Vandrin walked into the officer's club and saw Rudneth sitting by himself at a table in a corner. Fleet Admiral Rudneth was drinking shots of straight tyrofin. To all appearances, he'd been at it for some time. Vandrin doubted if his friend could stand on his own three feet. He walked over and settled himself on the forwardly inclined chair opposite Rudneth. The Fleet Admiral's three eyes blearily focused on Vandrin.
“I heard what happened,” said Vandrin as he poured himself a shot glass of liquor. “No one blames you.”
“My command. My responsibility,” said Rudneth a good bit louder than was necessary. He poured himself another shot of tyrofin, spilling half of it on the table.
“They say no battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy,” replied Vandrin. “Everyone knows the inquiry is purely a technicality. You won't be found culpable.” He extended his proboscis into the glass and sucked up the liquor in an instant.
“I'm the first,” Rudneth said. “In all of history, I'm the first one to fail. Even if this happens again someday, even if it happens a hundred times, I'll always be the first one who didn't succeed.” He tried to pour more booze into his glass but the bottle was empty. He turned to get the bartender's attention then quickly grabbed the table. The liquor had destroyed his equilibrium and the officer's club felt like it was turning over.
“Look, Rud, the situation is what it is. You can drink yourself under the table and it won't change a thing. All that happened was–”
“All that happened was we got beat,” said Rudneth as his vertigo subsided a little. “All I had to do was put humanity on trial. All I had to do was judge whether the human race deserved annihilation or not. We've put dozens of other civilizations on trial throughout history. Some passed the trial and were permitted to survive, others were found guilty and condemned to genocide. But the humans were the first to…” He let the sentence trail off.
“Get a hold of yourself, Rud!” said Vandrin. “All they did was–”
“Sue us!” yelled Rudneth. “Two hundred starships in orbit around Earth announcing humanity was being put on trial and they sued us for malicious prosecution! Used our own legal system against us! And it stood up in court!”
“Calm down! Let me get us another bottle of–”
“And then more lawsuits!” said Rudneth, ignoring Vandrin's offer of more liquor. “Defamation. Intentional infliction of emotional distress. Trespass to land. Frivolous litigation. Blackmail.”
“It's not your fault. The humans had a whole clan devoted to litigation. They practiced it on each other constantly. We were unprepared for the legal onslaught the — what did they call themselves? 'Americans'? — unleashed on us.
Rudneth cradled his head in his hands. “Our attorneys never had a chance. The cease and desist letters. The injunctions. The subpoenas, in the name of all that's holy, the subpoenas!”
Vandrin placed a hand on Rudneth's shoulder. “We're still hopeful for an out of court settlement. We're going to offer them warp drive technology if they drop the suit. We may not even have to face punitive damages.”
Rudneth didn't hear what his companion was saying. The tyrofin had finally taken effect. “Your honor, I object,” the inebriated officer said right before he passed out on the table.
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by submission | Apr 11, 2013 | Story
Author : Townsend Wright
“Now, who can tell me what antimatter does?” said professor Argent as he tightened the rope around his waist.
We were all a bit disturbed by the professor's request to go stand out by the empty old building and tie ourselves to a tree, so he was forced to repeat himself. Someone cried out “Powers the Enterprise?” One of those idiots who signed up for physics class for a nap.
A smarter student said “It causes a nuclear explosion.”
“Correct,” Malke proudly said, scratching his bald head. “But why?” This was a small, round faced man whom everyone knew quite well was insane, despite being an absolute genius.
I, rolling my eyes at my classmates' silence, pointed out “When antimatter and regular matter come in contact, they cancel each other out, converting both into pure energy, hence the nuclear explosion.”
“Very good, mr. Jones. Now I've invented something using antimatter. A kind of destructive device. No, no, don't worry, I'm not going to nuke the school. Well, I don't think I am. In any case that's not what the device is for.”
“What are you talking about?” asked the rude girl standing beside me.
“I call it the paradox bomb. It distributes antimatter throughout an area to annihilate all matter there.
“Where in God's name would you get that much antimatter?” I exclaimed, my knowledge of the man's declining sanity now reinforced.
“Wouldn't have to. The device produces the antimatter.”
“Still, that would take a massive amount of energy. Where would that come from?”
The old man smiled. “Ask the other question on your mind, mr. Jones.”
I was confused. “What—Why isn't there a nuclear explosion?”
“There you go! I also would have accepted 'why is it called a paradox bomb?' The thing is, the answers are the same. Once the antimatter is distributed, the resulting energy release is channeled back in time and is used by the machine to produce the very same antimatter.”
“Using something to destroy itself,” someone cried from behind me.
“Like the candle feeds the flame.”
“That's ridiculous!” I exclaimed. “It's impossible! It defies every law of physics! It—” the professor held up a small device and pressed a button. A flash of white light burst from the center of the abandoned building behind him. Wind pulled us all toward the light with tremendous force, that we felt the ropes tug around our waists. When the wind died down we looked at the building, only to see nothing, just empty space and the corners of the building's foundation cut into wedges lining up with a circular hole in the ground with the old professor standing before it.
“Any more questions?”
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by submission | Apr 10, 2013 | Story |
Author : Rob Sharp
He woke with the cursed sun. The sky had been swirling black and crimson, barely enough light passed through the veil of cloud and ash to power his sensory circuits, but he saw and heard all the same. It was an azure blue today, brighter and more vibrant than he’d ever seen, but he had no way of verifying if this was due to faulty optics or a faulty sky.
32,212,658,491 seconds. Give or take a few hundred thousand. How many processor cycles? Many billion times more. He could count them exactly, but it took only a few moments and was hardly a diverting past time.
The motors controlling his joints had long since decayed into useless balls of ferrous orange rust. This was of little real importance, as his central processing core had been severed from his actuary unit in the incident, leaving only optic and audio inputs available. Why and how they had lasted so long he couldn’t begin to comprehend. He couldn’t recall his inception or the mechanic and electronic method of his construction. Perhaps they were never explained to him. Why would they be, he mused.
When it was dark and the sky was clear he watched the stars. They moved slowly but surely across the firmament.
He wondered why he had been given just enough to survive, but not enough to thrive. Did his creator not think this might happen? He tried to understand his predicament from first principles, but he always hit the same barrier – he did not know how he, the world, or, indeed anything, worked. Worse, he didn’t know why. His observations of the sky, even given all the time in the world and the capacity to record, log and examine these observations effectively, could not answer why.
It was the third time he’d had to compress his memory, and at each attempt he lost fidelity. Each compression was coming more quickly. He estimated this was the last time before he’d have to start deleting memories. Maybe it had got to that stage before, and that’s why he couldn’t remember the incident.
Maybe he’d found out why. Maybe he’d figured out what his purpose was and it was so bad he’d decided to wipe his own memory to forget it again. Maybe it was so bad he caused the incident. If he could smile, he would. A fine destroyer of the universe he turned out to be, if he couldn’t even switch himself off.
by featured writer | Apr 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell, Featured Writer
Captain Saylor walked on to the bridge of the Starship Endymion. The huge, panoramic windows showed innumerable stars streaking past the vessel. Saylor leaned over Lieutenant Shah’s shoulder and looked at the velocity readout on his control panel. The ship was traveling at nearly 500 times the speed of light.
“How long until we reach Epsilon Indi, Shah?” Saylor asked.
“Two hours, eleven minutes, sir,” came the reply.
Unless we run into another Cygnian ship, thought Saylor. The Endymion had recently encountered a Cygnian battlecruiser in orbit around Alpha Centauri A. The warship had threatened to bombard the cities of the Alpha Centaurians, a race of remarkably humanoid women. The Endymion had arrived just in time to defend the nearly helpless inhabitants. After forcing the Cygnian ship to fall out of orbit, Saylor and his crew had been left with little choice but to land the Endymion on Alpha Centauri A and engage the Cygnians in hand-to-hand, or rather hand-to-tentacle, combat. After a ferocious battle, the Cygnians were defeated.
Saylor smiled as he recalled the “gratitude” expressed by the women of Alpha Centauri A. “Now that’s my idea of a first contact mission,” he thought aloud.
“Sir?” asked Shah who had not distinctly heard Saylor’s words.
“Oh, nothing, Lieutenant. Just recalling our recent–”
Saylor never finished his sentence. Klaxons started ringing throughout the ship.
“Report!” commanded Saylor.
“Cygnian battlecruiser approaching dead ahead, sir!” said Shah. “Sensors show their particle canon are armed.”
“Arm our canon!” Saylor ordered. “Target their primary reactor. Be prepared to fire as soon as they get within weapons range!”
“Jeff?” came a faint voice from nowhere in particular.
“Ten seconds to weapons range!” said Shah.
“Bring us out of hyperdrive and prepare to fire in 3…2…1…”
“C’mon, Jeff, wake up.”
Suddenly, the bridge of the Endymion contracted to a small corridor. Saylor was lying on a bunk with his head nestled in a large helmet with cables coming out the top and feeding into a panel on the wall.
Saylor sighed with annoyance. “What it is?”
“Solar storm,” said Burroughs, his fellow astronaut. NASA’s proton detectors back home are lighting up like a Christmas tree. We’ve got about an hour until the hard stuff hits us. We need to get in the shelter. Don’t wanna travel eight months to get to Mars and then arrive with radiation sickness.”
Burroughs gestured with his head at the helmet-like apparatus. “Were you doin’ a good one? I was an old west gunslinger the other night.”
“Old space opera,” said Saylor. “Hot space babes, faster-than-light travel, evil aliens, that sorta thing.”
Burroughs laughed. “You’re on a spaceship and you used the Dreamcaster to imagine you’re on a spaceship?”
“A starship,” Saylor corrected. “Not a couple of canisters spinning on a tether. Filet mignon, not protein bars. Huge windows, not a couple of small portholes. No spending half the time fixing mechanical and computer problems. No cabin fever. And no solar storms.”
“It sounds a lot better than real space exploration,” said Burroughs with a smile. “But if you want to survive to get back to your implausible alien women and impossibly fast and comfortable starship, you’ll need to survive this storm. Shah and Nakamura are already in their shelter. Let’s get our end of the tether ready.”
Saylor stood up, looked around at the banal and ugly interior of his spaceship, and helped Burroughs move supplies into the tiny ship’s closet-like storm shelter.
