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The Ascent of Man

By submission | January 18, 2014
Author : Bob Newbell The Landreb fleet didn't travel across space. It simply appeared suddenly and without warning in low Earth orbit. One of the fifty starships fired an energy beam that obliterated an uninhabited islet in the Dodecanese Island chain mere moments after the vessels ...
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Just Desserts

By Duncan Shields | January 17, 2014
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Their blood was like a cross between egg nog and hollandaise sauce. Their skin was like bacon jerky. Their internal organs tasted like pecan pie filling with veins of peppermint running through them. Their muscles tasted of tarragon and ...
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Into the Void

By submission | January 16, 2014
Author : Ian Hill “Please, I don’t want to be here. Just- just help.” The voice was distorted and compressed, only decipherable after being ran through an extensive quality recover system. “I need- I need to leave. I don’t want this.” The message went on for about a minute, a minute ...
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Convoy

By Clint Wilson | January 15, 2014
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer None of us would have signed up for this had we known of course. There were now sixteen ships left in the convoy. Sixteen left from the original forty that had set out from Earth all those years ago. I had been a much younger man then. This was ...
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Remember Then

By Julian Miles | January 14, 2014
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer It’s not like I meant to end the world. I was just scared. “Mike! Another side of fries for table fifteen!” He should be shouting for bread and cheese. It’s my fault that he isn’t an innkeeper. I found it lying in a clearing, limbs turning from ...
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Heaven's Gate

By Desmond Hussey | January 13, 2014
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer “I assure you, Mr. and Mrs. White, the procedure is quiet painless.” I steeple my fingers together and settle deeper into my chair, smiling with cunning charm at the elderly couple sitting across from me, their doubt and fear clearly at odds ...
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They

By submission | January 11, 2014
Author : Roger Dale Trexler They knew that it was the end. They saw the mushroom cloud grow out of the ground, a bright, blinding light providing the seed. They knew about seeds; they were farmers who grew corn and soybeans and milo. They were simple people who did not understand the ...
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Getaway Gear

By Julian Miles | January 10, 2014
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer “We are in so much drek.” “Did I not say that you were to be nice to him?” “Nice? Emmett, he had his cyberpaw so far up my skirt I thought he was a gynaecologist!” “Easy, Celene. Watch the tollway.” “We’re only doing two hundred. I can ...
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Daily Dose

By submission | January 8, 2014
Author : David Kavanaugh “But I don’t want to!” she whined in her little voice. “Why do I have to? It’s. So. Boring! I hate it there.” “I know, baby, I know,” said her mother. “But it’s good for you. Just for a few minutes. Understand? Then you can come back in.” “Humph!” If only ...
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Shelf Life

By submission | January 7, 2014
Author : James Zahardis Inside a low-rent apartment a wall-pocket hums, then illuminates. An aerosolized admixture of stimulants and bio-stabilizers wafts toward Alron Chattobee’s face, awakening him: “Tatti! Forty days down the drain!” he thinks, reaching for the red button above his ...
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Legacy

By submission | January 5, 2014
Author : George R. Shirer The room was bright and airy. One wall was transparent, revealing the crumbling Old World city, overgrown now by forest and vine. A flock of iridescent birds shot across the sky, their wings flashing green and gold in the late afternoon sunlight. There ...
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Alive

By submission | January 4, 2014
Author : Scott Hatfield I killed someone today. Well, not today. But "I killed someone yesterday afternoon and I was just now released from jail" doesn't sound as dramatic. They let me go, so I walked home. No jacket, no gloves, dress shoes, hands stuffed in my pockets. The ...
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Spacesuit

By submission | January 3, 2014
Author : David Stevenson “Once there was a ship, travelling through space. There was a terrible accident. The reason for this is not important. What is important is that one man got suited up in time and was able to survive the immediate aftermath of the ship’s destruction. Of course, ...
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Borrowed Time

By Desmond Hussey | January 2, 2014
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer I spot one of Osiris’ Illegals amongst the shuffling throng of pedestrians as he exits an antique music store on 49th Ave. The face in my scope’s crosshairs is a dead ringer for the black and white snapshot I was given. His sandy hair is a ...
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Last Dance

By Julian Miles | December 31, 2013
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer They came from heaven, or hell, or outer space, or under the sea. Earth has been invaded in every way imaginable, thanks to the imaginations of authors over the last three centuries. You would have thought, with such a rich base from which to draw ...
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Ghosts of Christmas to Come

By submission | December 30, 2013
Author : Mark Gorton My new friends are all dead. But that doesn’t stop them giving me presents. Presents like words and understanding and sight and hearing. Thanks to them I can think in this language and theirs too and hear their voices all around me all the time like invisible ...
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Never Fade Away

By submission | December 29, 2013
Author : Glen Luke Flanagan The soul shimmered softly as Vanessa tucked it into her briefcase with gentle hands. Blue, silver, blue again, like moonlight on water. Empty now, the body of a young man lay cold on the hospital bed. Vanessa closed the youth's eyes tenderly. Though she had ...
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Perception

By submission | December 28, 2013
Author : Samuel Hymas They were in love. That much was obvious to even the most unperceptive. I've seen salesmen work a room before. They leave everyone feeling like they made a new friend and need to take a shower. But these two were different. Maybe because they had nothing to sell. ...
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