by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 19, 2008 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Carter had watched the glittering mass approach his ship with a strange kind of indifference, simply stared as it washed over his bow view port and coated his freighter without ever considering the possibility it may be hostile. As he stood by helplessly while it ate holes in his hull, he wondered how he could have been so stupid.
The cloud hadn’t appeared on his scanners, hadn’t appeared to have any mass at all until it surrounded his ship, sticking to his hull like glue. He could only watch, fascinated at first, then terrified as blisters appeared on the inner surfaces of his ship’s skin, bursting and depositing little spheres of quicksilver inside. It wasn’t the balls that terrified him, though the smell of rotting egg meat burned his nose, it was that the little balls solidified, unfolding into lithe multi-legged, long bodied eating machines. They burst into his bridge and forward walkways by the hundreds, and as they hatched, began vomiting on and then literally drinking up anything their stomach juices contacted and dissolved. Once satiated, the gleaming silver bug-beasts folded back into balls and just as quickly dissolved into liquid again, before dividing into several smaller balls that would start the process anew.
Carter watched long enough to realize he had a serious problem before high tailing it to the lower cargo hold. He had hoped to get into the tow craft and out into space before it was eaten too. Hitting the cargo bay door release at the far end of the corridor while still at a full sprint, he ran hard into the door itself before he realized it wasn’t opening. Shaken and bruised, he could see through the window that the silver vermin had eaten through the bay door seals, evacuating the atmosphere, most of the cargo and a good portion of his escape vehicle. Carter noticed that in the now airless bay, the silver creatures moved sluggishly, their cycle of dissolving, gorging and reproducing having slowed to a crawl. This gave Carter an idea.
Bobbing and weaving to avoid the falling balls of liquid death, Carter sprinted the length of the ship to the aft engine compartment, then down into the maintenance room below it. The engines were offline, and the silence was deafening as he pulled the environment suit on feet first, engaging the autoseals once he’d pulled it above his shoulders, and clamping the helmet onto his head, he watched the light strobe from red through amber to green as all the seals engaged, and the atmosphere stabilized.
Carter carefully picked his way across the cramped space, keying the override for the airlock and cycling the outer door, leaving the inner door wide open. Alarms screamed in the small space, and he was sure they echoed elsewhere in the ship, but in a moment he ejected himself into space and let the evacuating gases carry him away from his vessel and into the peaceful calm of total vacuum.
He turned to look at the remains of his craft, floating amidst the wrecked and half eaten cargo containers and shrapnel from the shuttle. As he powered up his suit thrusters in short bursts to accelerate himself away to safety, he wondered how long before someone picked up his beacon, and whether his oxygen would last. It was then that he noticed the flecks of silver congealing into tiny balls on his visor, and by the time the smell of sulphur reached him from the depths of his boots, he didn’t even have time to wonder if anyone would hear him scream.
by submission | Jun 18, 2008 | Story
Author : Guy Leaver
For days I was kept there. Held prisoner within a tailored cage, unable to move a muscle. Incarcerated into solitary confinement, with only my thoughts and emotions for company. No food did they give me; I knew not how I was sustained. I knew only that with each passing day, I began to feel less and less. It began with my extremities. I struggled, but couldn’t move an inch. Nothing I tried to do did anything the stay the inexorable advance of sickly warmth. I wondered if I was being devoured by some foul creation of the invaders, my living tissue being dissolved to feed whatever vile beings lay beneath those terrifying suits of armour.
As the days went by, I grew accustomed to my fate, resigning myself to the fact that when the warmth reached my head, I would die. I was not afraid. I was a warrior. It would take worse things than death to break my spirit. I worried only for my family; for my younger sister, and our baby brother. I wondered if they had survived, if they had fled into safety. When the invaders had come, the people of the village had been given no warning. Despite their towering suits of armour, the terrible beings somehow managed to get within the confines of the settlement unnoticed. Only ten… and yet, they destroyed everything in their paths. Implacable juggernauts carving flesh and stone with long energy swords. The people panicked. Those who could, fled into the forests, and those of us brave enough to fight charged at the looming machine-people, anger in our eyes, and fire in our hearts.
The last thing I remember was running towards our enemy, weapon drawn, ready to defend my home. But the screams…oh God, the screams. The very memory of such a sound chilled all but the inflicted parts of my body. Still, it is torture to my soul. As the being facing me down emitted the dreadful cry, I felt myself convulse; in horror, and in revulsion. My last memory of being free is seeing all my fellow warriors, my comrades, my friends, panic and fall about themselves in loathing and fear, as the other invaders took up their terrible battle cry.
I was a warrior. It would take worse things than death to break my spirit. As I felt the warmth creep over my face, I felt sick. I was filled with hatred for the plague upon our world that was our attackers, and I took solace in the fact that soon I would be dead. But as I finally felt my body fully succumbing to the transformation I had been subjected to, I was not greeted with death. Instead, I felt sensation flow back through my body, and light poured into my prison, blinding me. For an instant, I thought I was going to be free again.
Then I felt myself moving, but it was not of my doing. In a moment of shock, I realised that I was not in control of my own movements, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I trembled at what I saw. In front of me was a battlefield. Another settlement was being attacked by the invaders. As I watched, a man came running towards me, screaming a battle cry, and wielding a weapon. In horror, I felt my arm move to intercept him, and I saw him cut in half by a long energy sword. The burning, the cracking his bones, the flow of his blood…feeling rushed up my arm.
I screamed. Oh God, how I screamed.
by Patricia Stewart | Jun 17, 2008 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The Martian comedian had the audience at the Olympus Mons Laugh Factory rolling in the isles. They roared approvingly at his popular “green-neck” humor. Well, everybody in the audience was laughing but Martin. Martin was an astrophysics professor at Valles Marineris University, and his idea of humor was reading the answers on freshman astronomy finals. For entertainment purposes, he usually included a question about what happened to living matter as it crosses the event horizon of a black hole. The student’s imaginative attempts at feigning knowledge always drew out a few chuckles. But now, he felt like he was the one who needed to feign knowledge. “I don’t get it, Eridania. Of course we have green necks. Our entire bodies are green. Why does everybody consider that so funny?”
His primary wife was drying the tears from her antenna as she waved a sucker at him in an attempt to shut him up. Undaunted, Martin turned to Iapygia, “What’s so funny about going to family reunions to get dates? Where else are you going to find eligible mothers and daughters? It would be perverted if your primary wife wasn’t the offspring of your secondary wife. And really, who puts a shuttle up on blocks? That would damage the reentry tiles.”
“Martin, will you be quite!” snapped Iapygia in a controlled whisper.
“Well I don’t get it, Iapygia. Besides, what’s an opossum, or Bondo, or a Bubba? Why can’t he just talk Martian?”
“Were you born before the Great Tharsis Dust Storm?” Iapygia asked sardonically. “This is a classic parody of an ancient Earth comedian. Dogworthy, or something like that. They’re called theme jokes. He’s sort of making fun of all of us, but mostly the Martians living below the Hellas Planitia. The jokes are particularly funny when he tells them because: One, he was hatched down there, and two, the jokes are pretty much true. But Martin,” she said in a stern whisper, “don’t you ever try to repeat any of these jokes to anybody. You’d probably end up with a fat snout.”
“Don’t worry, Iapygia. I don’t even know why you’d want to take a flashlight with you when you go to the bathroom.” A few minutes later, the comedian thanked the audience and left the stage to a standing ovation. He was replaced with a heavyset comedian wearing a plaid poncho. “Oh good,” remarked Martin with relief, “somebody new is coming on. Maybe I’ll be able to understand his jokes.” A minute later the audience erupted in laughter. Well, except for Martin. “Aaaggghhh, not again,” he said with clear frustration in his voice. “What does ‘Git-R-Done’ mean?”
“Honestly, Martin,” said Eridania as she made a threatening gesture of her right pincer, “if you say one more word, the next comedian to come on stage is going to hang an ‘I’m Stupid’ sign around your big, fat, green neck.”
by Sam Clough | Jun 16, 2008 | Story
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer
Peter sat on the harbour wall, coat high around his neck in an effort to keep out the spray of water in the air. The freezing mist had a way of insinuating itself between layers of clothing. The sea roared defiance to sky, and at the horizon air and water intermingled, melting together into a gray mess.
Savannah drew her gloved finger through the patch of grey, brought it to her nose, and sniffed. Still unsure as to what was causing the mystery liquid to bubble out from underneath a drive plate. She stood up, and retrieved a nanowelder from her kit. Before she could set to disassembling the plate, the entire ship rocked, and proximity alarms started droning like a swarm of very, very angry bees.
Able carefully reassembled the hive, his confident motions fruit of long practice. Tending his father’s beehives was one of his favourite hobbies, and had been ever since he’d got over his fear of stings. He felt a slight rumble through his feet. An armoured column was in the area. The sheer mass of unwillingly moving metal always bought an earthquake with it.
Bernard kicked the seismograph: the needle abruptly ceased its shiver, and registered one slight peak. Seismic surveys of outworlds were about as dull as ditchwater: Bernard was reminded of enthralling times that he’d had watching alcohol evaporate.
Moll groaned, wishing that she could transpire alcohol. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but then it always did. She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Her head was pounding, a rhythmic thump-thump, thump-thump. The wreckage of the party was still ankle-deep. Neb was slumped over the table, and Zal was picking his way towards the door, to answer the incessant knocking.
Tac pressed a hand to his armoured helmet, a useless attempt to ease the pain of the drumming piped through his implant. The drums, the call to war. They focused you, and drove away your fears and nightmares. The drumming never stopped, it modulated — your orders were embedded in the beat. The rest of Tac’s squad took up firing positions around him. Railguns cracked the air, forming gusts which threatened to knock him over.
Nathalie felt the displaced air, and flinched. The brick shattered on a policeman’s riot shield. She had gone to the demonstration because the politics had finally touched her life, restricted her freedom. Like thousands of others, she’d turned out to voice her rejection of the government. But it had got messy. The demonstration had turned into a full-blown riot and Nathalie was just desperate to get out. She spun round, looking for a way through the press of bodies. Someone caught her arms, wrenched them up behind her back: two policemen were pinning her, a tonne of bricks keeping her stuck to the ground.
Graph gasped as the rubble settled. It sounded like his ribs were splintering. One of his legs was definitely broken, and both of his arms were at least dislocated. This was, he assured himself, the last time he followed a radio signal into an ‘abandoned’ warehouse. He coughed, and grimaced at the pain. The explosive had left a residue in the air that was playing havoc with his lungs: his mouth was full of the taste of sulphur and metal.
Indar stared out at the blackness. The effect was electrifying. His hair was standing on end, and he could taste the metal tang of a forcefield.
“This is it,” the girl said, “you’ve reached the top, just moments before the earth will stop…”
by submission | Jun 15, 2008 | Story
Author : JT Heyman
Joe Zimmerman was walking down Main Street when the Cken Confederation teleported him aboard their ship. He found himself standing on a small dais in the ship’s central chamber, surrounded by the staring eyes of several dozen Cken council members.
A Cken arbitrator, atop a much higher dais, called for order in a singsong voice. Slowly the noise of the council subsided.
“Where am I?” Joe asked. Not the most clever words he could have said in his first contact with the Cken, but then not many humans had actually met Cken by that point.
A tall Cken , standing between Joe and the arbitrator, handed him a translation module and said, “You are here as part of a survey to confirm that Humans are complying with the Cken-Human Peace Treaty. I am the Cken Advocate.”
“I haven’t broken any laws,” Joe said.
“We’ll see,” the Advocate said. “State your name and place of residence, for the record.”
“Joe Zimmerman, Oldbridge, Massachusetts,” Joe said. “Earth,” he added after a moment’s thought.
“Are you familiar with the terms of the treaty?”
“I know some of it,” Joe said. “No military ships in orbit without announcement. You got some planets and we got others. I’m not a lawyer but it was in the news last week.”
“You know enough. You will be the Human Advocate.”
“What? Wait!” Joe turned to the arbitrator. “I’m not qualified.”
The arbitrator peered down at him and said, “Under the terms of the treaty, all Humans were to be made aware of its contents. You were made aware. You are the Human Advocate.”
“Where were you going when we subpoenaed you?” the Cken Advocate asked.
“What? Oh, the grocery store.”
“Do you have a list?”
“Yeah … I mean, yes, I do.”
“Present the list as evidence.”
Joe suspected he was being set up. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. The Cken Advocate took the list, read it quickly, then gave it back. Joe couldn’t read the Cken’s expressions. They were too … alien.
“What is the first item on your list?”
Joe looked at it. “Cake mix. My wife is baking a cake.”
“Baking. How … quaint,” the Cken said mockingly.
The Cken councillors whistled in derision. Joe recalled that Cken ate their food raw.
“The second item?”
“Milk.”
“Milk!” the Cken crowed. “A liquid produced by mammalian mothers for their young, taken by the Humans for their own consumption!”
The councillors called their disbelief in their singsong voices. Joe knew this was not going well.
“It’s soy milk!” he shouted.
“That may be,” the Cken Advocate said, “and we will certainly investigate your claims. Cooking food, though distasteful, is a Human fashion, and therefore irrelevant. Your consumption of milk does not violate the treaty, although it reveals Human willingness to use other species for your own benefit, which is troubling to anyone who signs a treaty with you.”
Joe began to relax.
“However, I dare you to explain the final item on your list, in direct defiance of the treaty! Read it!”
Joe looked at the list and his eyes widened. He read it softly.
The arbitrator said, “You will read it so we can all hear, Human.”
Joe Zimmerman never wanted to be famous He never wanted to have schoolchildren know his name and his place in history. Sometimes, you get what you don’t want.
He gulped and said, “A dozen eggs.”
The Cken councillors flapped their wings in horror amidst the calls for war.
by submission | Jun 14, 2008 | Story
Author : Aaron Springer
Papa said that they had to give us gifts. I like gifts.
The big dirty man gave Papa a basket of plants and Papa smiled.
Papa promised to go back to the sky and make it rain for them. I liked watching Papa make it rain. All the colors on the machine were pretty. Papa said rain is like water falling from the sky. I wanted to see it, and Papa said I could.
I looked up, dizzy because I couldn’t see the ceiling. Papa said there wasn’t a ceiling, only sky, but I didn’t believe him. There is always a ceiling, otherwise space gets in.
I looked at the kids in the group of dirty people that had come to meet our shuttle. How they could be so dirty I didn’t know, but the smell made my eyes hurt.
When I looked back down, one of the kids had gotten very close. He looked funny, with pieces of cloth on his arms and legs, and dirt all over him.
On our way, Papa explained that they worked dirt like he worked the sky, and, together, they made all of the food. He said sometimes the “Grounders” didn’t understand how important we were, and had to be taught a lesson. He said that sometimes they would stop sending food up the elevator, and he would turn off the rain, or worse.
Papa raised his arms, and a I felt a bit of water hit my face just below my eye. I looked up, and saw puffy white things. They were dropping water. That must be rain. I liked it.
On the way back, Papa explained that the people called us Rainmakers. He said that one day I would make rain, just like him. He handed me a yellow plant. He showed me how to split it open and eat the pale meat inside.
I was reading in school about something they had a long time ago.
I wonder what the Grounders would think of snow?
