Author: Condallas Snokoanovich I lie awake in the darkness, staring at an exceptionally clear star-filled sky. Two moons in crescent phase are peering from the horizon like the eyes of a black cat watching from the distance. The quietness around me would have been ...

Author: Melissa Kobrin Dear Kayley, I have no idea when you’ll read this. I guess it depends on what planets your parents decide to trade with before coming back to Provident. But I need to vent to someone, and you’re the only one I can talk to about this. Just please ...

Author: Mark Renney Tanner had always managed to navigate his way through life unnoticed. He became acutely aware of this when he first began his work as an Eraser. Ordinary looking and extremely reserved, even as a young man Tanner realised that this did not fully account ...

Author: David C. Nutt Nystrom 6 is a heavily altered planet- by what or whom was why we were there. On its surface is a 100-meter-wide glass smooth band of an unknown substance. It circumnavigates the globe at the equator and pole to pole. We had dozens of scientific survey ...

Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer Rachel scrolled through what passed for news on her phone, coffee slowly cooling on the kitchen table. Malcolm would already be at work, leaving her in peace for this precious little time before she herself had to get dressed and head to ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I’m about to tear the end off another sachet when a voice sounds in my mind. “Go easy on the sugar. Too much of it makes me ache.” I look about. There’s nobody else except for the two staff. It’s not a busy period: early in the morning ...

Author: Paul Cesarini “I hate them. I hate them so fucking much,” she said, looking through her rangefinder. She had been there on the roof of the house – or what was left of it – for most of the night. She was tired, hungry, and grubby, but this was no different than any ...

Author: Rick Tobin Cold steel from a small revolver in his sweaty palms gave little comfort to Jack Chase, sitting alone amidst feral wheat still struggling in an abandoned field near his grandfather’s rotting farmhouse, long since left to crumble after the 2024 financial ...

Author: Gerri Brightwell We travelled for years before finding a habitable planet. Its one continent would be enough—to the south volcanoes let out wisps of smoke, to the north winds tore across deserts, but between lay a fertile land of easy rivers, and plains creased by ...

Author: Alastair Millar Eighty lights is a long way to go for a party, but Prosperina Station orbits Dis, the rogue gas giant PSO J318.5-22, and where there's no sun, the nightlife never stops. More importantly, the Company had decided that I was due a good time, and they ...

Author: Bob Freeman 10:43 It was always 10:43 His classy watch, each beat synched with the atomic clock in Colorado, was stuck. Scientists warned about the hole in the sun, the X-class magnetic burst. No one paid attention. "But the flaming telegraph wires in the ...

Author: Amanda E. Phillips “Mechaornithology,” he said, stumbling over the word in his agitated state, “is a valid and incredibly undervalued field of study.” He tapped the tri-folded letter in his lap as if it somehow proved his point. “Field of study,” I repeated in a ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “Pack, pack, package.” I jump, then look down. Seated neatly by the fallen trunk I’m lying on is a trifox. This one’s got amazing green eyes, the pair offset to the right of the long nose, with the third pretty much dead centre in the ...

Author: Joe Wood Most folks hide the question at first. Maybe they’ve seen me on patrol. Maybe they find me tearing thistles out of my lawn, or walking over to pick my daughter up from school. It starts so casually. Just a chat between neighbors. Somehow, in the haze of how ...

Author: Paul Cesarini Lee tapped twice, zipped his fly, picked up his rifle, then went back to work. He could’ve used one of his three remaining disinfectant wipes in his med kit to wash his hands, but decided not to. Med supplies were way too low and way too valuable to ...

Author: Majoki I’m that guy who gets run over by the car forced off the road as the good guy or villain flees during the exponentially epic chase scene in every action movie. I’m that random bystander who gets Swiss-cheesed in a hail of bullets, as the everyman hero ...

Author: Nancy Geibe Wasson My friend first began to disappear back in co-ed youth sports while being chosen for teams. She said she was in attendance and accounted for, abruptly became invisible for five whole minutes, and then wham! She was back, selected to a team, ready ...

Author: Vidyut Gore Some romances are meant to be. Chandra, the beautiful Moon, gazed across the dark expanse of space at him, her existence visible only because of his blazing radiance. Suraj, the embodiment of the dazzling Sun, conjured into personhood in the minds of ...