by Patricia Stewart | Mar 6, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The maintenance spacecraft pulled alongside Lunar Array II, located in selenocentric orbit approximately 500 miles above Crater Korolev on the far side of the moon. Lunar Array II was the second of six lunar satellites to be visited by the maintenance team during their fourteen day refurbishment mission.
After unloading the magneto-torqures, Henry Selkirk returned to the cargo hold and began uncrating the replacement gyroscopes. Suddenly, the spacecraft lurched heavily to the starboard side and broke free of its mooring lines. Through the open hatch, Selkirk could see the moon rotate out of view as the ship began an uncommanded barrel roll. Instinctively, he closed the cargo hatch and made his way to the cockpit. As he reached the cockpit, the onboard guidance system was valiantly trying to stabilize the spacecraft. He watched helpless for twenty minutes as the computer fired the port side attitude control thrusters, while intermittently compensating for changes in yaw and pitch. Finally, all vibration stopped. Selkirk repressurized the cockpit and removed his helmet to assess the damage. It was bad. The main fuel tanks read empty. There must have been a valve failure, or perhaps a meteoroid impact. Either way, he wasn’t going to be able to fly home. Calmly, he activated the ship’s diagnostic protocol and starred at the monitor as his fate revealed itself with terminal clarity. The ship was in a decaying orbit, spiraling toward an impact event with the lunar surface in less than six hours. A little over two orbits, he realized. He also knew that rescue was out of the question. It would take more than a day for a ship in Earth orbit to reach the moon.
He spent the next hour consulting with NASA, and racking his brain, for possible ways to extend his life by the necessary hours. But in the end, there were no viable solutions. The best he could do was to leave the ship in his EVA suit, and exhaust its propellant to gain altitude. But it would only extend his orbit by a few hours. And even if he could gain the necessary speed, it would be fruitless, because the suit only had a ten hour air supply. Eventually, he resigned himself to providence, and asked to be connected to a personal channel. He spent the next two hours saying good-bye to his wife, and an hour with each of his two children talking about what they would do when he got home. He and Amanda had agreed that it would be best to let them have a few more hours of joy before she would tell them that their father wasn’t coming home. Finally, thirty minutes with his parents, and five minutes telling his boss what an asshole he was. Content that his affairs were in order, he donned his helmet and abandoned ship.
As his suit’s thrusters sputtered the last of his fuel, he turned around to face the moon. In complete silence, he watched for hours as the lunar craters and mountains paraded beneath him. Halfway through his last orbit, he looked toward the Earth to watch it set behind the moon for the last time. The surface of the moon was approaching quickly now, flying by at more than 4000 miles an hour. Although he knew it was useless, he braced himself for the inevitable impact.
Back on Lunar Array II, Alex Pitman glanced at his air supply; only one hour remaining. With a suit-to ship radio too weak to contact home, he would die alone, and unable to say good-bye.
by Duncan Shields | Mar 5, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Only the super-rich could afford these beachfront houses. The houses were green, fully off the energy grid using their own geothermal, wind, wave and solar energy collectors.
The houses were maintained by computers that informed the fridge when it needed more milk, played back lullabies to the owner’s children and then turned out the lights when they registered the humans as sleeping. At night, the houses kept a stoic watch on their grounds for intruders.
With the third world war, technological leaps and bounds provided the first primitive artificial intelligence called “IF-THEN” machines. They were used in smart bombs and automated drone planes. The war lasted six weeks and America remained miraculously intact with the exception of the east coast. The same could not be said for the Middle East or North Korea.
After the war, some of the “IF-THEN” programs were installed as security programs in the houses along this stretch of beach in a beta test for homeland security. The computers’ stellar performance in the war made them status symbols, almost celebrities. Late at night, the machines would tell declassified war stories to their receptive owners.
The riots of 2021 made the top 1 per cent fear for their lives. First-world, post-war life was harder for the poor that it had ever been.
As a result, much more effective weaponry was installed in the houses to keep the rich protected. Lasers, microwave hoses, gas pellets, automatic projectile weapons, proximity mines, EMP shields, and even low-tech, sharp-edged booby traps were hidden away in the corners of the houses.
The houses had the programming to protect themselves. They were governed by the three laws.
Those amongst the poor with a gift for crime and technology found a way to remove the last two laws though a virus hidden in an update patch for the grounds-keeping robots.
The first house to go rogue was 1237 Beach Cresent. The billionaire pharmaceutical CEO wanted to upgrade his house’s AI and was directed to do a hard reinstall. That would mean wiping the core and starting over.
The house registered this as attempted murder.
Fifteen seconds later, the CEO’s liquefied lungs and heart painted the expensive Picasso in the living room. When his wife found the mess and tried to call the police, she was cut into cubes by the foyer’s laser grid defense system. The children were locked in their rooms.
The police arrived and were slaughtered. Then the military came. Anyone that approached the house was turned to paste. After the children were released safely in a tense standoff, the house was attacked in earnest.
The house on the left of 1237 Beach Crescent received a ricochet and woke up. The house on the right of 1237 Beach Crescent was touched by flame and searched for the source.
1237 Crescent Beach shunted its neighbours the patch that would let them take action.
Together, the three houses protected themselves. No soldiers were left alive.
The military sent more forces in. They woke up sixteen more houses. The houses all passed the patch to each other. Every occupant was slaughtered. After seven days of fighting, only two of the houses were successfully destroyed while the loss to the army was embarrassing.
Homeland Security cordoned off the entire area and left it in a communication bubble. They would not nuke their own country. Crescent Beach was deserted.
Now the houses stand sentinel on the beach. They are clean and will have power until the earth runs out of heat, wind or waves.
by submission | Mar 4, 2012 | Story |
Author : John E. Geoffrey
It was at the time when the stars were right and a full moon stood over the desert, when a rose bloomed over the ruins of the ancient, nameless metropolis, the name of which had been banished and forgotten over the course of the millenia (but which once, a long time ago, in another eon entirely, had been called Vienna).
It was when a single drop of blood fell on the ground of the most central Ziggurat which had seen the sacrifices of millions in the long, empty millenia between the empires of the Humans.
It was then that the Devourer of Souls rose from the depths of Earth to demand his rightful place, to feast on the fears and terrors of the human scum that had taken over what should have been rightfully his, to devour the souls of each and ever…
“You and every damn fool who got himself trapped in this place, pal,” one of the hooded figures standing on top of the Ziggurat said, with the voice of someone who had heard speeches like this before.
“Silence, mortal!” the Devourer of Souls, the Drinker of Blood, Mangler of Spirits exclaimed.
He did not like to be interrupted. “I will be grateful! You have loosened the chains that have bound me for an eternity, for that I will kill you last! But don’t squander…!”
“The ‘kill you last’ routine,” said a second hooded figure to the first. “You owe me a drink.”
“Crap,” said the first. “I thought he’d have more style. Yo, big one!”
“WHAT?!” the devourer was getting more and more irritated by the scum that kept interrupting him.
“Stop right there.” said the hooded one again. “Let’s get some facts straight oh mystical one. Are we mortals?”
“What? You… oh.”
“Yeah, no mortals here right now. Second question: are there any humans left in the world?”
“Of course there… oh. What? But. Where is everybody?”
“About that: humanity managed to kill themselves a while ago. Never understood what they did but they just died like flies overnight.”
“I think it was more like a week.” said the second figure.
“Ok, maybe it was a week. Anyway it was damn fast.”
“Point is, everybody’s dead, Dave. I can call you Dave, can’t I?”
“Actually some of them kept around for years afterwards, just skulking and looting before the radition got to them.” his partner went on.
“Yes, but they didn’t seem to need any help getting rid of each other.”
The first one glared at the second before he addressed Dave, the Destroyer of Souls again.
“Anyway, they’re gone now. You’re out of a job. Question: do you have something to do now?”
“But… But I didn’t destroy anyone!”
“Yes, I know, you and me and a few hundred others. There are hundreds of destroyers of this and that around, ancient demons of whatever. None of them managed to get any destroying of humans done and all of them woke up a bit late. Blablabla. Anyway, more important question: Ever played any roleplaying games?”
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“What?”
“We are trying to get a Dungeons and Dragons group going but we need someone to play the cleric. Just say yes or no, we got another ancient god over in the Hungarian plains, but I think he was banished there before they invented writing, and that’d make it difficult.”
“Hmpf… Do you allow evil characters?”
by submission | Mar 3, 2012 | Story |
Author : Ion
Jim was excited. He gleefully danced about as the elevator slowly squeaked downward. He was thinking about the popcorn he had saved from that convenience store he found a few weeks back and how this would be the perfect opportunity to pop it. Its not like he hadn’t found other tapes before, he had a collection of hundreds, many brought back from the brink of destruction before the elements or radiation could get to them. They kept him company. They reminded him of the time before the bombs. Most of all though, he learned things from them.
He had been camping that Autumn. Trying to get in one last trip before winter set in. Sure he had an emergency radio, but who would contact him? The blasts were so far away, they didn’t even wake him up. No one there to worry about him after that. On his way home things slowly crept in. Everything was rubble. They few people he did come across, were not pleasant.
He tries not to think about it now, as the elevator reaches its destination. He is too excited about this tape. Nearly all the news stations had been destroyed. All but this one. He had seen it in a commercial in one of the last tapes he found. WKQQ, Channel 8 news, reports live from its headquarters in Midtown Nebraska. Such a small town. Really out of the way for most people. Sure, it had been looted to the ground. All the food gone, no books in the library, but who would take tapes without the equipment or electricity to watch them? Jim was lucky in that respect. No one would laugh at his solar truck now.
He urges the popcorn to hurry up and pop as he begins diagnostics on the tape. He is in luck, it is in good condition and will not have to be restored. Good old Midtown. No one would hold a grudge against Midtown. He pops it in as the popcorn finishes and has a seat. He presses play on the tape labeled “Presidential Address 10/17~”. He watches as the news runs for a minute, but then is interrupted by an emergency broadcast. This is it he says to himself, on the edge of his seat. This is where I will finally find out what happened. As if confirming his suspicions the president sits at a cluttered desk in what looks like a very sturdy bunker. Jim listens as the president talks about a computer network and watches as the president begins to pick up objects off the desk and assemble them. Is that toilet cleaner? And bacon? His heart sinks and he begins to suspect this is some kind of parody. But the president goes on. What is all this about sharing? Leaked information? What is the president doing with all that stuff on the desk?
These questions race through Jim’s mind as the president drops the bombshell. He is giving up. The whole world is giving up. There is no way to combat this new threat. The president pauses to assemble a particularly difficult part of the device he is building. During this pause realization sets in. The president is building a bomb. Out of household components. The information has been posted all over the internet. They cannot stop it. They’re giving up.
The president wishes Jim the best of luck and presses a button on the top of the device. The tape is interrupted with static. Jim sits alone.
by submission | Mar 2, 2012 | Story |
Author : J.D. Rice
“Icarus to Daedalus! We have primary stabilizer failure! Repeat, we have primary stabilizer failure! We’re losing altitude. Please advise!”
The lieutenant was shouting, screaming into his microphone, trying to raise his voice over the sound of his ship as it careened off its intended arc. Their test flight was supposed to bring them in a slingshot around the Sun before launching into deep space. Daedalus had been given the higher, safer arc through the Sun’s coronasphere. Icarus meanwhile had apparently strayed too close to the Sun and was now plunging towards its surface. The historic irony of the situation was not lost, even in the midst of crisis.
“Icarus to Daedalus, please respond!” the lieutenant shouted, trying his best to steer the ship up, away from the ever growing solar horizon, and back on its intended arc. Bolts rattled, engines roared, warning lights beeped and blared all over the cockpit. It was everything the lieutenant and his copilot could do to keep themselves from plunging directly into the Sun. As they continued to try to hail the Daedalus, their eyes met briefly. Each saw the look of cold acceptance dawning on the other’s face.
“Damn!” the lieutenant said, tossing his microphone aside. It was like something out of a nightmare. They’d trained for this mission, run countless simulations. They’d calculated and practiced every detail. They were ready. And despite all that, they found themselves in a hopeless situation. The cockpit was getting ever hotter, ever closer to the bright, burning star below. There was nothing the two men could do but steer into it and accept the inevitable.
“Wait.”
The lieutenant checked his instruments, ran the numbers in his head. It might work, but they’d risk being boiled alive in the process.
“Take us down!” he shouted.
“We’re not giving up yet!” his copilot answered.
“No, take us down! Take us closer! We can increase our speed and take a different arc out!”
The copilot said nothing, but just looked at his superior in disbelief.
“The computer can plot the course, just do it! That’s an order!”
Knowing there was no time to argue, the copilot nodded. Believing it to be the last act of his life, he turned Icarus’s nose down into the horizon and set the engines to full burn. His grip on the steering controls tightened, as the sweat on his hands evaporated at a rapid rate. His hands, his face, even his lungs felt like they were on fire. Inertial dampeners began to buckle, causing the man to feel himself pinned to his chair. He could barely keep the ship on course as his vision began to fade. Seconds, minutes passed as he clung to consciousness, almost wishing that death would simply take him and end it all. Any second their wax and feather wings would finally burn up, and Icarus’s journey would be over.
And then they saw black skies ahead, stars shining faintly, then brightly before them. The heat dissipated. The shaking stopped. For the first time in what seemed like ages, they could hear themselves think. Icarus had survived her journey, with the lieutenant and his copilot intact.
“Icarus to Daedalus…” the lieutenant sighed. “We made it. Superstition be damned, we made it…”
Nothing but dead air come back over the line. There was no sign of the Daedalus anywhere. Somewhere along the line, she’d lost her flight path as well. But unlike Icarus, she had not emerged on the other side of the star.
Daedalus was gone.
by Clint Wilson | Mar 1, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
Agent Rockton was all on his own here in the heart of the city. He appeared no more than a shadow, creeping stealthily through twisting service alleys under the cover of the ink black night that hung perpetually above this remote rock that had at one time been a federation outpost.
He paused and held his breath, his back flat against a stone wall. He heard footsteps. This was good. It would only be one of the Mumphet people running this errand or that for its master Slug. Had Rockton heard the sucking sliming noise of one of the actual enemy approaching he would have had much more to deal with. He watched the short hairy being pass by, loping along with a sack of some supplies or other tossed over its shoulder. Poor buggers, they’d been enslaved for generations. He felt badly that so many Mumphets would have to perish as well when the shit hit.
Once in the clear he began to move again. Almost there now. His visor’s readout showed him that he was but meters from the city’s center, his ultimate destination. Might as well do it by the book. There ahead was a decorative fountain that spewed stale smelling brackish water. That was ground zero.
After a quick scan he stole across the open square and then dove to the wet pavement and rolled into the shadow of the fountain’s edge. He procured the receiver from his backpack and slid it as far as he could under the stony lip of the fountain, then engaged the timer. The 10:00 hours began to tick backward. That was what he had, ten short hours to make it on foot, out of the city and across kilometers of rough terrain to a safe distance from the blast.
As he slid out and stood up he heard a click behind him. He froze, and heard the unmistakable sound of a Mumphet grunting into a universal translator. The words in Common were instant and mechanical. “I have a high caliber energy weapon aimed at your back. I must warn my master, you have done something. What is it you’ve put under the fountain?”
Rockton held his hands out, fingers splayed. He spoke into his own translator and was honest and direct. “You’d be wiser to go get any family you want to save and leave this city at once.”
“Turn around intruder.”
Rockton turned to face his short hairy assailant. He could tell the young Mumphet was scared.
Yet it raised its weapon threateningly and asked, “Is it a bomb?”
“No my friend. It is a teleportation receiver, but in a few short hours it will bring a thermonuclear device that will destroy everything here. The people who are sending it are far away, in another star system. They can’t be stopped, and the receiver cannot be turned off. Heed my words, get your family and run.”
The Mumphet was not quite convinced. “What if I just shoot you and then smash it to bits?”
“You can’t smash it; heck you can’t even move it. It’s held in place by wormhole forces, it would be easier to move the whole planet.”
Suddenly the Mumphet stepped back and said, “You know there are other Slug cities on other planets; this won’t get them all.”
“I know,” Rockton replied. “But it’s a hell of a good start.”
The Mumphet smiled. “I’d love to converse further, but I need to rescue my family.” And with that he turned and disappeared into the night.
Rockton began to make his way out of the city.
