Author: Mickey Hunt Their rozière dirigible’s month-long flight from the eiderdown coasts to the Annual Gathering coordinates would demand precise maneuvering. “Once we find the northern jet stream,” Rho Aquilae’s father said, crisply, “we’ll journey to the proper ...

Author: Samuel Stapleton Xayana had no parents because she was engineered and grown in a lab, as most assassins were these days. Though it's not as horrendous an upbringing as you might expect: she grew up surrounded by peers, received an excellent education, had access to ...

Author: David C. Nutt It started with isolated incidents. Dead hiker’s bodies being found half-eaten. Forensic reports coming back that the teeth and claw marks were postmortem, small animal… most likely chipmunks and ground squirrels of some kind. Nothing too disturbing ...

Author: Michael W. Clark Now that I had eaten to the crew, what was I going to do? Autophagia? That seemed a pointless waste of energy. Cutting off my leg and cooking it? A waste of energy all round. Killing one’s self in space though was efficient, relatively simple, and ...

Author: David Barber Like lots of people in the months since the Signal arrived, Alistair ran the SETI app on his phone – not the SETI@Home data program – just feed from one of the new radio searches. He’d got into the habit of laying his phone on the pillow next to him ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer They rally about their standard bearer and draw swords – swords! – It’s 2894, not 894, you fanatiki. After screaming their ancient slogans of hatred, they switch to Ido so they can hurl challenges toward the armeo that surrounds ...

Author: David Henson Loretta Saunders tapped her father’s kitchen table. “Imagine this is our universe, Dad, and these five oranges represent all the particles in it.” She laid the fruits in a row. Whenever Jacob’s physics professor daughter summarized one of her ...

Author: Katlina Sommerberg “Not a golden goose, but almost as good as one,” Mabel said. “And you’ve got twenty.” She had her doubts, but her skepticism melted after seeing my living prototypes. The spring rain drizzled down, and all my hens came out to frolic in the wet ...

Author: Glenn Leung Since its accidental discovery two decades ago, the phenomenon referred to as the Veil has been a heavily discussed topic. For five years, nearly every University in the world sent their best researchers billions of lightyears away from home to study it. ...

Author: Tomas Marcantonio You’re not supposed to fall in love with an alien. The first time our lips touched I knew my spirit was being ripped down the centre, never to be whole again. I was forever doomed to live as a fragment of myself. Part of me here in this foreign ...

Author: Moriah Geer-Hardwick “What a mess.” Cabot wearily scans what’s left of the room. “Damn ATU didn’t leave us much to work with.” Spattered with blood and bits of debris, the ATU stands to one side, patiently awaiting its next objective. Stokes nudges a severed arm ...

Author: David C. Nutt It was a beautiful VR construction. Potted dwarf apricot trees, soaring arches, piles of ornate cushions and silk settees, thick oriental carpets. It was, by all accounts, the most perfect steampunk zeppelin grand salon the Adjustor had ever seen. ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Dawn is like a neon tube: a strip of too-bright light. Above it are the clouds that hang across the city all the time, below are the outer walls. From this far inside, the watch towers and turrets look like the bits that soldiers hid ...

Author: Michael Anthony Dioguardi The pianist pounded on the ivory keys and produced such sound that dust trickled from the ceiling. The shadows of his hands collided with the flicker of candle light, orchestrating a waltz of chiaroscuro. The trills and follies manipulated ...

Author: Shannon O'Connor I got the chip in my head so I could go faster and discover things nobody else knows, but I’m not supposed to tell anyone because my enemies could use the facts against me. I have to travel to search for new ideas to steal from scientists to find ...

Author: Guy Preston We were at Evan’s house when he asked me if I wanted an old record player. I told him I didn’t. He picked it up and made for the door. 'Where are you taking it?' I asked. 'To the curb,' he replied. 'Why?' 'It will disappear,’ he said. He walked out ...

Author: Katlina Sommerberg Kye rolled an unlit joint between her fingers. Miserably pining for a long-gone sky in the middle of Golden Gate Park, she couldn’t relax with tomorrow looming on the horizon. Next morning, she’d wake up to the same monotonous life. The world ...

Author: Debra Cazalet That’ll be you out there floating free in the crush of space, the sea of stars between thought and the heaviness of absence when all here spins, insentient and weightless objects collected by Pater_on, the one who commissioned your thoughts, who ...