by submission | Sep 9, 2012 | Story |
Author : George R. Shirer
There are three types of people who become FTL-pilots: crazies, masochists and sad sacks.
I’m the last.
At least, that’s what my boss would tell you. That I’m one of those sad bastards who can’t let go of the past. Then he’d probably tell you what a fine pilot I am because he doesn’t want to risk alienating a good FTL-pilot.
Today’s run is just a short hop, from New Mars to the colony on Weaver’s World. The cargo bay is jammed with stasis pods, loaded with replacement workers. It’ll take sixteen hours to get to Weaver’s World. That’s just long enough for a nice chat.
As soon as I’ve got clearance from traffic control, I flip the switch. All the hairs on the back of my hands stand on end as we transition to FTL-space.
Three hours into the flight, Grandma Peg appears. She doesn’t look like I remember her at the end, careworn and sick. This is grandma as a young woman, in her twenties, wearing her engineer’s coveralls, ready to kick ass and take names.
“Hello, Charlie,” she says, taking the copilot’s seat.
“Hello, Grandma. How are you?”
“Still dead. And yourself?”
“Still not dead,” I say, cheerfully.
She laughs and we settle into comfortable silence. After a little while, some of the others show up. My dad, who died in the Newt War, and my sister, Caroline, who bled out in the delivery room because of a faulty auto-doc.
They’re hungry for news of the living. Especially Caroline. She wants to know all about the daughter she died giving birth to.
“She’s thinking of becoming a pilot.”
My dead sister’s face lights up. “Really?”
“If she does, she won’t stay,” I warn. “She doesn’t believe in ghosts.”
Dad laughs. “Another rationalist. If I only knew then, what I know now.”
Lots of people don’t believe you can interact with the dead in FTL-space. This, despite the evidence to the contrary. Most of the doubters think ‘the dead’ are just some type of FTL-space life-form with telepathic abilities. None of the doubters have been able to explain why aliens would appear as our dead and I don’t believe it anyway.
At the halfway mark to Weaver’s World, Allison arrives. My wife looks as lovely as ever. The rest of the family fades away, to give us our privacy.
We talk. I tell her about my life and she tells me about her existence. You can’t touch the dead, so we can’t dance. Not properly. I still cue up the music and we shadow dance with each other, swaying back and forth.
At the deceleration point, a chime rings. I turn to the controls, but Allison calls my name and, smiling, takes my hand. Her fingers are warm and solid.
“Oh God,” I say. “When did it happen?”
“A few minutes ago,” she says.
“How?”
“Does it matter?”
I decide it doesn’t. My dead wife takes my hand and we dance into eternity.
by submission | Sep 8, 2012 | Story |
Author : Sean A. Murphy
“I would first like to thank you all for your time and consideration, but I have to open this session with an apology.
I do not have any easy solutions to offer you, nor even any that may ask you all for some tremendous investment. I know many of you expected and were fully prepared to put the considerable resources of your peoples to work. In fact I expect that if I asked this gathering, expenditure greater than the full sum of all prior human accomplishment could be attained. Unfortunately a proposal is not what I come to you with. Rather what I have is a prospect, an idea which I feel it is now our duty to explore.
Human history is riddled with tales of beings of intelligence beyond the familiar. From the titans and gods of old to the Hollywood movies and popular culture of today, our collective culture is fraught with tales of life beyond our own. These ideas may have a myriad of inspirations and most if not all are undoubtedly mere imaginings, but the current of belief since the dawn of man has maintained that, however distant, we are not alone in the universe. I ask you now, esteemed representatives, if you are prepared, if we are prepared, to be right.
I have found a structure in the silence of the stars. My experiments and the issue of the day have led me to look into space as no other has before me and I tell you I have found something. The data is here. It has been poured over and confirmed by the greatest minds of our generation. It is indisputable. The conclusions I draw from it may offend you but this is not something we can afford to ignore.
This design presented now behind me, gentlemen, is a system of interconnected and communicating nodes, as I have so far mapped them out. As yet I cannot offer you a translation of what they say but I assure you all the foremost data and linguistics analysts have showed beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are both nonrandom, and not naturally occurring. Not only that, but in my detecting of them they have also detected me. Even as we speak several of these nodes have turned, from as best I can tell, a listening ear to our lonely planet.
I can understand your outrage gentlemen but I assure you I have not taken any unilateral action on this planets behalf, they became aware of me the moment I began my experiments, as you yourselves obliged me to. I realize these are not the results you were hoping for, but this may be our only option, indeed our only salvation.
Said as plainly as possible I put this statement before the General Assembly. There is nothing we can do about our sun; we simply do not have the technology. But they might.”
-Excerpt from Dr. Wilkos Bradshaw’s address to The General Assembly of the United Nations, September 20th 2047
by Julian Miles | Sep 7, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I’m not in the moment. I am the moment, locked in by law-enforcement combat conditioning. Beyond my fixed perceptions, there is nothing. The instructors told us to take in the whole enhanced experience at these times, letting the moment become us instead of becoming our madness.
There’s a nanopede traversing the barrel of my gun, its tentacular manipulators working devotedly to provide gecko-like traction in the sheen of tarnish-repellent gloss upon the burnished alloy. The legs move in waves, reflecting little coruscating showers of light as it makes its way about its incomprehensible business.
“One.”
The stock of my gun is jammed tight into my shoulder, so tight my clavicle aches, but I can’t diminish my grip. The sights are aligned to the probable target vectors and the filament to my combat eye swings rhythmically in time with my heartbeat. My peripheral vision shows my team and headman distributed for optimum coverage.
“Two.”
The warehouse is silent. Our stealth gear means we are invisible even to a Tabino, the plastic addicted rodents famed for denuding citizens in moments. Thankfully the only citizens nearby are in the passing air traffic that illumines the darkness fitfully with bright beams through the torn roof. They strobe by like the strides of giants made of light.
“Three!”
The darkness is hurled back by the phased pulse of six demolition charges that turn air into energy with an efficiency that can suffocate the unprepared. Which is what we all hope our targets are. As the expanding rings of blue fire flash along exposed conductive materials, the bass thrum of a grazer amped from it’s workcycle of plasma cutting up to illegal death dealing autopulse reveals some of our targets were very prepared.
My legs are a separate entity, hurling me forward on an irregular course. My sights show no targets yet the autopulses increase from one to eight, stretching out towards us like ribbons of purple light. They must be cycling the grazers without regard for cooling.
“I’m hit!”
One of the ribbons intersected with my headman and his right thigh has been blasted to superheated mist. Now I understand why they’re running the grazers so hot – they can chop us down. I desperately try to find them, overriding the sights to fire at the originating end of the nearest lethal ribbon of light.
“Bastard!”
The scream over open comms coincides with the ribbon I was using to orientate my fire winking out. I’m just fighting my single-minded kill directive to rediscover speech, so I can pass the sight-override manoeuvre on, when two of the ribbons slash sideways and bisect in my chest, vapourising my forearms and detonating my gun. I watch in macro-awe as the nanopede executes a flawless pike off the gun barrel and drops from view behind the expanding pink and silver ball composed of gun shards, denaturing chest armour and limb fragments. Then the physics happens and I am dropped off the impaling spears of energy, falling behind a thankfully solid stanchion.
The medical unit on my belt exhausts its entire repertoire in under five seconds. I am going to live, my arms and weapon having reduced the death dealing beams to merely searing.
Released from combat mode, I open our tactical channel and tell my remaining team-mates about overriding their sights. Wordless growls of thanks make me smile.
The moment stretches and snaps, normal time and senses are resumed and I manage to race the pain into the welcoming embrace of sedative oblivion.
by submission | Sep 6, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey
Ensign Morecock felt ashamed when he returned from shore leave, but only moderately so. He knew his actions could quite possibly get him discharged from Space Fleet, but it was well worth it.
Since first contact with the Sybaris, progress toward mutually beneficial intergalactic commerce and trade were exceeding even the most conservative estimates. Morecock’s ship, the USV Horizon had been selected for the first human delegation ever to visit an alien planet. A Sybaris delegation was likewise bound for Earth.
Six months later, Horizon’s arrival at Sibaria was greeted with much fanfare by their magnanimous hosts.
The Sybaris were a semi-aquatic, technologically advanced race of ancient space explorers. Those who had first-hand experience with them often commented on their flirtatious nature (by human standards), but so much was still misunderstood about their culture and physiology. It was clear, however, that they were a passionate species, being very casual about public displays of affection, even towards humans. Sybaris ambassadors claimed that they had abolished war over five thousand years earlier and had devoted their resources exclusively to two things; space exploration and pleasure seeking. Earth, with its massive oceans, was a tantalizing tropical paradise to them and they were most keen to make contact with the local inhabitants.
Morecock slunk into his quarters and breathed a guilty sigh of relief. He felt certain no one had spotted him slip into one of the many pleasure houses on Sibaria. Everyone was so preoccupied with the breathtaking, exotic architectures and landscapes of the planet that it was easy to steal away for an hour and claim he simply got lost in the labyrinthine canal system of the capital city.
As the USV Horizon sped back home to share the news and bounty of its historic cultural union, Morecock lay on his bunk and fantasized about his own illicit cultural exchange. He was ridiculously proud to have been the first human to copulate with an alien and fell asleep to erotic memories of hedonistic tentacles, prehensile orifices and copious amounts of saline fluid.
In the morning, it hurt when he peed.
In the afternoon, it hurt when he breathed.
By evening, it hurt to move and his tongue had swollen to the size of a large egg.
The ship’s doctor took blood samples, gave Morecock a shot for the pain and held him in strict quarantine. Extensive steps had been taken by both races to rule out any possible exchange of harmful pathogens, but the doctor wasn’t willing to take any chances.
For twelve weeks Morecock lay on top of his sheets, pale and wan, sweating copiously. On week thirteen he watched helplessly as his skin began a slow, agonizing boil, like thick porridge. Fat bubbles swelled all over his body, and then deflated with a release of crimson hued steam and an audible “fthh” sound. For another week, puce ooze seeped from the resulting holes. Morecock had long become delirious and was kept sedated with a powerful soporific.
Forty-two weeks later the doctor led Captain Krup into the observation room adjacent to Morecock’s cell. The two men stared in horror.
“How many have been affected?” the captain asked, obviously shaken.
“Sixty-nine, sir. Male and female.”
“How?”
“We believe it was via some form of sexual contact.”
Behind the tinted glass, what was left of Morecock’s body had become a cradle for a squirming infant Sybaris. Wanton, sensuous tentacles probed Morecock’s gooey remains for sustenance as the tiny cephalopod cooed gleefully.
Back on Earth, the awaiting human population eagerly welcomed the Sybaris delegation with open arms.
by Duncan Shields | Sep 5, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Season six of Starfleet Academy had just started on the television. Pizza boxes were stacked high around him. The lights were out. Underwear and dirty clothes lay strewn about the place.
Jim’s laziness was catching up with him. He was growing fatter by the month. His uncle had gotten him work as a janitor in the science wing of the university but he wasn’t liking it. It was only part-time but it was hard on his back and the boss kept disrespecting him.
He reached forward to turn up the volume on the remote control when a flash of light erupted in the front of the television and a large figure stood blocking his view of the show.
He pushed back from the television, scraping the floor with couch. The effort left him wheezing.
“Jim, don’t freak out. I only have a few minutes to talk to you.” The figure fumbled around the boxes and clothes and turned on a desk lamp.
Jim looked up into the face of the intruder and froze. It was him but a few years older. Still grossly overweight and unkempt but with less hair and more grey.
“Jim, I’m you. I’m still the janitor in the science department. They’ve invented time travel. I’m one of the only people that has a key to the place after hours. The whole team has gone out to celebrate and I’m here alone. I’ll probably get fired for doing this but here.”
He handed over a few pieces of paper with some numbers on them.
“These are lottery numbers. Use them wisely and don’t get greedy. Keep the janitor job and don’t spend like a crazy person.”
As he spoke, he grew several gold rings out of his fingers and a gold tooth appeared in his mouth. A diamond stud sprouted out of his ear. Modest but expensive.
“Also, do some pushups and hit the gym. Even a little regular exercise will do the trick. My heart is ready to burst and I’ve been told that I only have a year to live before I need a transplant. Luckily I can afford it so that’s not too worrying but please do that.”
As older Jim spoke, fat melted off of him. He didn’t grow buff but he did look decidedly trimmer. The missing hair didn’t look so bad. There was confidence and a healthy glow to his eyes. His posture improved and he seemed less panicked.
“And Jim, please go back to school. We both have a natural aptitude for math. It’s how I could figure out how to use the controls here. Imagine what we could accomplish if we really applied ourselves! Jesus, if you’d have studied then maybe I wouldn’t have ended up just being a goddamn janitor.”
The older Jim’s stained jumpsuit whispered away in fragments and was replaced by a lab coat and clipboard.
“My colleagues will be back soon. We can’t use the time machine for personal use so I’ll no doubt face disciplinary action if I’m caught. One more thing. Ask Janine out. While my work is fulfilling, I regret not having kids and she was the one.”
There was a pause while an expression shuddered across older Jim’s face.
“Okay I have to go. I need to get home and tuck the kids in and tell my wife the good news. Remember what I’ve said.”
There was another flash of light and he disappeared.
Jim sat staring at the empty space where the older version of him had stood. He slowly put down the remote control, looked around, and started cleaning up his apartment.
by Patricia Stewart | Sep 4, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“You know, Albert,” said Thomas Hoofnagle, “this has all the makings of a stereotypical science fiction story.”
“How so?” asked Albert Arnold as he made some final adjustments to the torpedo’s structural integrity field.
“Surely you are not oblivious to the fact that the UN is about to launch that torpedo into the sun with the specific intent to inhibit the rate of nuclear fusion in its core. You don’t see a million ways that plan can go wrong? Like the sun can go nova, or it could condense to a white dwarf. That kind of stuff.”
“Don’t be an idiot Tom, you know as well as anybody that this is the most understood of scientific principles. There is as much a chance of this going wrong as there is the sun not rising tomorrow.”
Hoofnagle spread his arms sideways and made an expression implying “That’s exactly my point”.
It took Arnold a second to realize what he had said. “Stop it, Tom. You know what I mean. The inhibitor’s effect is thoroughly understood. It will slow down the fusion rate in the sun’s core by exactly 0.12838441 percent. And, one hundred years from now, the amount of energy emanating from the surface of the sun will be reduced by the exact amount needed to compensate for the effects of global warming. Just in time to bring the Earth back from the edge of the cliff that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had predicted in their climate models. Our names will go down in history as the men who saved mankind from their own shortsightedness.”
“I’m sure they will throw you a big parade when you come out of stasis.”
“About that, Tom. You should reconsider your decision. Don’t you want to be around to see the fruits of your labor?
“No thank you. I’m content living out my life in this century. Now, let’s launch this puppy, so I can go home and get drunk, and forget that I ever heard of the United Nation’s Initiative to Curtail Solar Radiation.
***
Arnold’s return to consciousness happened quickly. He sat up, and immediately recognized that he was in the stasis recovery room. He blinked his eyes into focus and looked out the large picture window toward the Houston skyline. It was snowing outside, and the wind was howling like a banshee. He looked at the calendar that was hung on the opposite wall. It said “August”. Oh shit, he thought, Tom was right. But it can’t be. I’m sure our calculations were correct. “Nurse,” he yelled.
Arnold hadn’t seen the young man napping in the chair next to his bed. “Damn,” he exclaimed as he fell out of the chair. He quickly jumped to his feet and explained, “Thank God you’re awake. Sorry, Mr. Arnold, but we had to bring you out of stasis twenty years early. There’s a problem.”
“I can see that through the window. What the hell happened? The inhibitors shouldn’t have…”
“No, no, sir. You don’t understand. It’s not the inhibitors. It was the climate models. Those bastard ‘scientists’ from last century fabricated so much evidence to ensure their perpetual funding that they hid the real problem, an impending ice age. We need you to turn off the fusion inhibitors. We need every available BTU in order to stop the oceans from freezing solid.”
“You don’t understand the science, son. The inhibitors did what they had to do eighty years ago. It just takes a century for the effects to percolate to the surface. The sun is going to cool, and we can’t stop it.”
