Author : Alicia Cerra Waters We were lost in the desert on Omega, sitting under one of those skeleton trees, slowly drying out like everything else around us. They call Omega the first and the last; the first planet from its galaxy’s sun, and the last planet anyone would ...

Author : Priya Chand, Featured Writer I put two bottles and two cards in front of the NGO lady. She scooped them and nodded. “Karen Wallacho. Your sister isn’t here?” “She’s eight. She doesn’t get up this early,” I lied. “Your scarf is pretty.” She always had a scarf on ...

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer You had to fall into mine. Lord, but you are a sight for jaded eyes. Hair like liquid night, eyes a man could drown in, lips that form a bow Robin Hood would kill for. We’re a long way from Sherwood, milady, and the Sheriff’s ‘men’ are ...

Author : David Burkhart Only Anderson and Miller reached the concrete bunker door. The rest of the squad had fallen in a heroic attempt to reach and secure the bunker. With bullets whizzing around them, Anderson keyed in the code to open the bunker door while Miller ...

Author : Thomas Desrochers “You have to understand that, at the time, people still believed in a better future. There were people who could see the writing on the wall, of course, but nobody was willing to listen to them, much less able. When the barges stopped it was quite ...

Author : Rick Tobin Ventilation fan rumblings echoed over huddled mourners chilled in multi-colored, insulated, puffy arctic suits. Their drifting breath mists bellowed over a gaunt figure, attired in a jumpsuit dyed red on the left—solid white on the right, draping over a black, ...

Author : T. N. Allan There’d never been any protocols set in place for a disaster of this magnitude, no emergency course of action which might have retrieved the situation; but how could there have been? It wasn’t possible to make allowances for the unknown. Cromwell knew ...

Author : Priya Chand, Featured Writer Her hands groped the earth. Superheated fingertips sent urgent signals to the chip embedded in her neocortex. Owl withdrew, shook her hands and heard the particles cascade back home. "This is it," she said. "The motherlode." Whisper ...

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer The man coming round the corner blinks as I punch a killrod under his ribs and through his heart. By the time his body completes its slide down the wall, I’m over the barrier and extracting the other killrod from the receptionist’s eye ...

Author : Hillary Lyon “Just think of all the work you will complete, Connie, now that you have an extra month here.” Conrad ignored Tandie, the on-board computer that ran everything. Including scheduling. He was in the middle of a job, and didn’t care for distracting ...

Author : Paul Alex Gray “See everyone’s got a level,” says Cassie, swigging more than a mouthful of lager. “You can go way over. But you’ll pay. We paid! Remember? You’d always swear ‘never again!’” She smiles broadly and nods at my glass. I take the hint and swallow ...

Author : Olivia Black, Staff Writer Cold. For so long it has only know the frigid expanse of deep space, numb to the wonders, and horrors, of the galaxy. In this solitary existence, time has no meaning. It knows nothing, feels nothing as it hurtles ever forward, eon upon ...

Author : Riley Meachem The stars in our sky are run on electrical wires. Shaped like logos and dyed the color of neon and glass. They come on the fronts and backs of cars, on huge billboards. There’s a sort of beauty to it, I suppose, knowing that your mountains were drawn ...

Author : Beck Dacus I entered the war room, the data all pulled up on my reader. The e-whiteboard at the front told me that one of the colonels was trying to sell the idea of a space ark to the Admiral, telling him to devote materials to escaping the Solar System and trying ...

Author : Priya Chand, Featured Writer Sam looked at the tickets and crumpled paper, already softening under the onslaught of summer heat and Mei’s palms. “I never been to some classics concert before,” he said, holding his fists tight against his sides. “You never sat in ...

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer The room is a stock F-Class residential dwelling. With three people and a forensics robot within, it’s one small child short of standing room only. A young man in a lurid red suit, cut in the fashionable retro-zoot style, turns to his ...

Author : Samuel Stapleton Synthetic: a substance made by chemical processes, especially to imitate a natural product. The data analysis was grim. Predicted system stability - 62%. --- My small gathering of journey members stood off to one side. Tori spoke ...

Author : Leanne A. Styles I reached across and tightened the strap on my kid sister’s tatty seatbelt. She grinned; through the breathing tubes, through the pain. The shuttle we’d stolen had been recently decommissioned, but so far it was holding together pretty well as we ...