Rumors

Author : Matthew Green

There were rumors of course, most were squashed, but on a ship full of soldiers with nothing to do but watch the stars go by, rumors happened. It was like getting cleaning detail, no use trying to prevent it, just grab a space suit and scrub.

The most prevalent was that the war was over a year ago and the ship was just squashing various rebellious factions that hadn’t got the news. Higher-ups didn’t let the lower-downs know this because that would result in a drop in efficiency. All very scientifically tested and all that. People spreading these rumors brought forth facts such as how little equipped the pockets of rebels were and how each trip between hold outs took longer to get to. Most were wiped out and the rest were getting harder to find. That explained the lack of any form of action for several months now.

Another, more frightening rumor was that they had miscalculated when the ship had sling-shot around that black hole. Somehow we were slung into the far reaches of… somewhere and didn’t know where home was. That one scared me the most. As a maintenance tech, I was privy to the storage holds of the ship, and I knew we only had enough food in stock to last six months at most. The commander told us that mail transmissions had been turned off so the enemy couldn’t triangulate our position. That was four months ago and by now everybody knew the truth; burst transmissions couldn’t be tracked that way. The rumor mill liked to churn that one out during the late shift. I used to like working at ship’s night. Some people complained about having to step outside and brush off the antenna arrays and scrub out the various vents and sensor assemblies, but I enjoyed it. It got me out and moving, and I liked the view. Well, I used to like the view, now I just wanted to live under a sky again.

I heard another voice that I recognized. “Hello Roy,” he greeted.

I was on cleaning detail, again, and turned toward the suit that was approaching. He waved one gloved hand at me as I stared into his gold visor. Suits didn’t display the occupant’s rank like normal uniforms did.

“Dave?”

“That’s me, me matey.” He said in his pirate voice.

“Damn man, they said you were dead.”

“That was the rumor.”

I turned back; the brush I had been using had drifted to the end of its tether. I retrieved it with a practiced move and resumed brushing dust off the antennas. They coated easily out here in the nothing.

“Don’t bother, at our speed it’ll be years before we’re close enough to use that.”

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Last Letter

Author : Debbie Mac Rory

Dear John,

How are you? Such a stupid way to start a letter like this. You’ll probably never get it anyway, and even if you do I’ll never know your answer. But I hope you’re well. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. You were right. But I don’t think I would have made any other decision.

I know when you first met me, sitting at the space port, staring up at the sculptures of shinning metal and watching the scurrying of their army of workers as the next flight was prepared, that you thought it was a kind of fascination on my part, a poor planet bound creature held enraptured by the shining towers. You thought that if you offered me some small part of the stars, a part of you, strange and exotic and alien with the memory of a thousand stars seen from the bridge of your ship, that I could be happy, and you could keep me with you.

And for a while I was content, truly I was. We would lie in the rose-gold dusk of day-start, as Filha’s pale light faded and Mãe began to rise. I would lie with my head on your chest, listening to the beat of your heart, and the echoing chamber of your chest, and hear words as you would have spoken them on your own world, before they reached your lips to become words for my ears.

But for every story you spoke, for every star in my sky that you pointed too, and told me of the peoples who lived there, the ships that passed by, I wanted, I needed to see them for myself. I listened to your cautions of time warps and life spans; how my race wasn’t equipped for the rigours of travel. But you could never understand what it was like for me, what it was truly like to be condemned to a planet bound existence and watch the lines the great silver ships traced across the sky. You offered me visions and remembrances of visited worlds; but the ships offered me the stars themselves.

So I’m writing this letter to say, you were right. The stasis is harder on my body than any other member of the crew, and when I was woken for this phase, I didn’t recognise the person looking back at me. My once flame coloured hair has turned grey, my face is lined. I still pass as fit for the helm but I know now I won’t make it to step out onto the next port.

But on my phase, when I’m alone on deck, I’d adjust the filters and watch as pinpoints of light streaked past. I capture images of distant nebulae and far reaching galaxies to gaze over when I’m in my cabin. I won’t reach them, but I’ve gotten to see them all. And it was so worth it.

Love, Calice

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Raining Cellos

Author : Pyai (Megan Hoffman)

Anton set the hypernav coords to just beyond the rim of debris.

“Aren’t we cutting it a bit close, Captain?” a thick gravelly voice came from behind him. Silverlo, whose face was a mess of scars, wrinkles and facial hair, frowned at him.

“That’s the point. The closer to the wreckage the better we are hidden. I want us in and out with minimal detection.”

“They’ll detect us hitting the hull of one of the derelicts…” his co-pilot muttered beside him. But Siverlo would do as Anton said. That was why he was still his co-pilot after 15 years, one war, two divorces and an alcohol shortage.

The hypernav kicked in and Anton closed his eyes. Watching the view window made him nauseous. Space sickness, they called it. He should be used to it by now. Towards the end the small ship made the usual rumblings it did as it was slowing, and with a loud POP in his ears they dropped into normal space again.

Anton opened his eyes in time to see a large scrap derelict hurtling at them. Or more appropriate, they were hurtling at. Silverlo let lose a string curses as he jammed hard on the control panel. One moment they were rushing towards the debris growing larger in the view window, and the next they were out of its path. Anton forced his muscles to relax. Yeah, that was another reason why Silverlo was still his co-pilot.

He could feel Silverlo’s glare on his back, but ignored him. His gaze was fixed on the small tugship coming out to them.

“T6703 to Unidentified Spacecraft. Identify yourself,” crackled the communication over the wire.

Anton smiled. “Negative. Not until you come through our lower hatch.”

There was silence. The hull resounded when the tugship latched onto the lower hatch door. Anton was there when they opened the hatch in the floor, and when Sergeant Ames stepped up.

And then Anton smiled, extended his hand. “Sarge, you made it.”

The other man shook his head. “Risky move, Anton. I couldn’t believe you hypernavved to inside the rim.” There was respect in his voice.

“No other way. Did you bring the supplies?”

Sarge nodded. “How is Mother doing?”

“Fine. Sarah’s kids are always over at her place. Jyn and I visit when we can, but it’s always a mad house.”

While he had been talking, Anton lowered a cable down the hatch and someone below in the other ship attached a large crate to it and tugged on the rope. One came up, and attached below it were three others.

Anton’s eyes opened wider in question. Sarge shrugged. “News that the rebellion still exists has filtered in. Somehow we ended up with more donations this month than ever before. Our biggest donor this time was the United Newfoundland Orchestra.”

Anton chuckled. “Since when did we stop being pirates and start being rebels again?”

The other man just smiled.

Two minutes later the tugship was firing “warning shots” across their hull, as they hypernavved away.

What no one had told them was that it was refueling day on Citrix, and the cargo lanes were longer than ever. So the coords that they usually hypernavved to were currently occupied by the hydrogen tanker UBX771. Anton still had his eyes closed as they hit the hull of the tanker. The ship exploded into metal bits, and the crates burst open. A halo of violas, bows and flutes floated outward, and they say it rained cellos on Citrix for a week.

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Smoke 'em if you got 'em, Gene

Author : Tony Pacitti

Jack pulled a SimStik out of its small plastic container and placed it between his lips. Alice cleared her throat and looked at him through drunk eyes and a patch of blonde, wind blown hair.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, the SimStik bobbing up and down as he spoke. He gave her one, put the pack back in his pocket and began patting himself down.

“What’sa matter?” she asked as she pulled a drag off her SimStik.

“Oh, nothing.” Jack smiled and laughed at himself. “I smoked when I was a kid. You know, actually smoked. Sometimes I forget you don’t need a lighter for these things. Force of habit.”

Alice’s eyes slowly fell shut, heavy with a night’s worth of drinking then snapped back open.

“I smoked once.” She stumbled and Jack reached out quick to grab her arm. She went on talking as if nothing had happened. “In college. Some guy I knew knew a guy who had a friend whose brother-in-law grew tobacco in his basement.”

“Sounds sketchy.”

“But that was the fun of it! Smoking real tobacco rolled in paper. Man…I knew, just knew we’d get busted at any second,” She laughed and leaned in, putting her head on Jack’s shoulder and her hand on his side. “Mmm…but we didn’t.”

Jack rolled his eyes and took a drag off of the small plastic stick, feeling the chemicals spill into his mouth and work their magic. SimStik begat chemicals which begat chemical reaction which begat the simulated sensation of smoking a real, honest to goodness tobacco cigarette.

After his lungs were full of what his brain believed to be smoke, he exhaled slowly and watched as a cloud that wasn’t actually there dissipated into the cool, summer sky.

“It’s funny,” he said before taking another drag, “an advanced, science-minded species and what do we have to show for it? No colony on Mars, no patches for the ozone layer. No proof of intelligent life out there and no flying cars. We don’t even have a cure for cancer, just this dodge around it” he paused and held the SimStik out dramatically. Alice looked up from the spot on his chest that she’d nestled up against. “Just this little plastic straw that makes our brains think we’re perpetuating a filthy habit with none of the undesirable side effects.”

He looked down intently into Alice’s eyes and asked her, “What would Gene Roddenberry say?”

Jack looked down into Alice’s eyes and though he’d like to chalk the stupid look up to the booze, he knew that she hadn’t the slightest clue as to who Gene Roddenberry was.

“Forget it.” He said with a grin, “How’s about we head back to my place for a drink? Can’t promise it won’t get you drunk or destroy that pretty little liver of yours,” he tenderly caressed the side of her right breast, not entirely sure if that’s where the human liver was but one hundred percent certain that she wouldn’t know either, “but I’m sure top scientists are working on it right now.”

With there arms around each other the stumbled away from the bar.

“Why Jack,” Alice joked, “It sounds like you’re trying to take advantage of me.”

He wasn’t trying. He was doing.

Here’s to another Friday, he thought as he dropped his used up SimStik into a high tech looking garbage can.

“Thank you for choosing SimStik,” it said cheerfully over a corporate jingle, “The world’s healthy alternative since 2043.”

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Liberty

Author : Benjamin Fischer

The Shore Patrol has to ring three times before she comes to.

“Ma’am, we would prefer to not break down the door,” one is saying. “Please open it now, ma’am.”

Groggy and maybe still drunk, she paws at the suite’s intercom in response to their annoying persistence.

“Aye,” she croaks, bracing herself against the headboard.

He is nowhere to be seen, of course. They never stay until the morning and most of the time she likes them that way. No buyer’s remorse. No uncomfortable second round of introductions. No waiting for the bathroom while the other showered. And no awkward pauses at the door, no unnecessary questions about a sequel.

One of the shore patrol coughs, loudly.

“Be just a minute,” she says, her voice cracked and raw.

The champagne had been good and maybe even French–not the usual Tycho knockoffs that nine out of ten casinos in Golden refill their bottles with. That’s why she drank so much, she tells herself. Make the most of the boon. Seize the night. Fuck it. She was a superstar and medical can always grow her a new liver.

The room is a deluxe package, with unlimited water and an almost depressingly vast selection of feeds. She dials up FOX LUNA so she doesn’t have to hear herself in the toilet. The news network comes blazing in on three walls, the anchor’s rugged face reaching from floor to ceiling. “-inevitable conflict. NATO forces did not respond to what they have billed ‘morally bankrupt brinksmanship’ but multiple sources claim that both America and Luna are rapidly mobilizing strategic-”

“Room! Mute the TV!” she orders from the bathroom.

A complimentary bottle of mint mouthwash clears the last of the bitter taste of vomit from her throat. Gargling the thin green fluid, she rolls her shoulders and stretches her neck. She pads back to the main room, naked and feeling slightly more human.

“Do I have time for a shower?” she calls through the intercom.

“Ma’am, anyone not answering the recall by thirteen hundred-” starts one of the MAAs.

The other cuts him off.

“I’m sorry. No, ma’am. You do not.”

“Aye.”

Her whites are strewn on the floor and mixed in with the chaos of the bed, and she decides that her medals and her underwear aren’t worth the hunt. A quick once-over of her uniform determines that while it is unsat, it will get her back to the ship, whiskey stains and all.

The chiseled features of the anchorman silently watch her straighten up her gig line and pull her skirt down to a slightly more modest mid thigh. She clears her throat.

“Room, mirrors.”

The FOX stud evaporates into an endless series of her. Her hair is shit, but that is what covers are for. She twists the brown mop on her head into a mockery of a bun and sets her hat at a jaunty angle.

She shrugs–she looks even more hung over than before. But hell, she’s been out all night, drinking and whoring and she doesn’t give a damn if everyone knows. Tonight she can be the talk of every wardroom between here and L5. Tomorrow–well, the wicked and the innocent are one and the same when the tac nukes start flying.

She nods to herself.

“Room! Door!”

She strides out into the bright florescent light of the hotel hallway. A first class and a third class Master-at-Arms are waiting for her, arms crossed and visibly impatient.

“Good morning, boys,” she smiles.

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Stealth

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

In a dark, empty hanger, a needle-like flat black fighter rested in its cradle… thinking.

“You see General,” a small man in white gestured toward the ship, “those pods mounted beneath each ‘wing’ are the main armament. The magnetic rail guns. They are able to launch a projectile the size of a soccer ball to transonic speed within their seven meter length. Each ‘wing’ serves as a magazine and carries seventy combined solid and nuclear rounds.”

“The turrets mounted top and bottom are automatic and purely defensive. They only come into play while the ship is exposed when firing.”

“That’s all very well and good, Doctor,” the General said wearily, “but I want to find out more about the propulsion system, what I read… is it true.”

“The General is aware of the PK work that we are conducting?”

“Yes, but I thought it was all theory.”

The little doctor chuckled. “No, my dear General, we have entered the practical phase. It sits before you. Perhaps I had better explain,” he said removing his glasses.

“The concept of PK, that is telekinesis and telepathy, has been around for millenia, but it has only been in the last fifty years that we could select for it in vitro. Only in the past fifteen years have we been able to employ it to move objects this large with the aid of a PK amplifier.

Simply put, since the speed of thought is, as far as we know instantaneous, the ship simply appears out of nowhere, fires, and disappears. It is vulnerable only for a few seconds, hence the turret mounted automatics.”

“How does the pilot operate the ship?”

“Well,” the doctor continued, “The first attempts were standard. The pilot simply sat in a cockpit and ‘thought’ the craft where he wanted it to be, but their thoughts were limited to the speed that their bodies would react to,” he shook his head sadly. “There were many casualties.”

“We tried direct linking to the PK amplifier. This was much more effective, however the men tended to over compensate in their movements, leading to similar results.

Our third attempt was similar to the second, but this time we linked the men to the PK amplifier through a virtual construct that simulated a cockpit but run at a speed approximating that of thought. Unfortunately, after long periods on duty, the men had trouble adjusting to ‘normal’ speed. There were…incidents.”

“So, that is all behind us now? The Mark IV is ready for testing?” General Kaskorov asked, running his hand along the sleek black hull.

“Oh yes, it is,” the doctor said gleefully, “you see, after PK and pilot training in simulators at normal speed, the pilot is sedated unawares, his entire central nervous system is removed, and implanted into the ships core.”

“So, he is the ship?”

“No Sir, he is merely in the ship. Through a VR construct, he runs his missions, and leads a normal life off duty, booze, women, gambling… what have you. All virtual, of course.”

“And they don’t realize that their life is a simulation?”

“No, Sir.”

“He can’t hear us?”

“No. There are no external audio pickups. Any necessary outside contact is sent through his virtual commander. After that, he’s allowed to follow his own life, within the parameters of the construct of course.”

“You mentioned telepathy.  Can he…”

Both sets of turrets swiveled and fixed on the two men.

“Oh shi…,” was the last thing Kaskorov said.

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