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Lost in Translation

By submission | September 24, 2013
Author : Bob Newbell TRANSCRIPT OF THE FIRST OFFICIAL MEETING BETWEEN UNITED NATIONS SPACE AMBASSADOR JEFFREY CHATMAN AND AMBASSADOR VELDRIK-ORAN OF THE IMPERIUM OF ZETA RETICULI. UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK, 15 JANUARY 2086 CHATMAN: On behalf of the peoples of Earth, it is ...
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Self-Regulating

By Julian Miles | September 23, 2013
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer The spiders are watching me. Just like the flies, but cleverer. A fly can never be stealthy – except hoverflies, but they’re too difficult to control. “James, come out. We know you’re in there.” Of course they know. The spiders showed them. ...
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Timecasting

By Duncan Shields | September 22, 2013
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Timecasting is a strange way to travel to the future. It ‘throws’ a person forward. In this case, me. I’ll be the world’s first temponaut soon. The scientists keep playfully calling me a ‘temp’ and they think it’s hilarious. If all goes well, ...
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Book Review

By submission | September 21, 2013
Author : Bob Newbell "The Path Not Taken" Author: Quintus Caecilius Cordus Rigel Kentaurus Press, MMDCCLXVI AUC Reviewed by Domitius Felix Andronicus Mars Literary Review, Amazonis Planitia Quintus Caecilius Cordus' latest book may raise an eyebrow with readers expecting the grand ...
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Solid State

By Julian Miles | September 20, 2013
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer It’s really disappointing. All the science fiction stuff about energy weapons and faster than light travel turned out to be impractical or impossible. Even nanotechnology proved to be only useful rather than miraculous. “He’s coming round.” ...
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Sweet Dreams

By submission | September 19, 2013
Author : Glen Luke Flanagan Pain tugged at the edge of my consciousness like a forgotten memory, bringing with it a collage of broken images and angry words. Without warning, sterile walls hemmed me in, and voices washed over me like a sea of panic, none of them intelligible. “John.” ...
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The Other Side of the Screen

By submission | September 18, 2013
Author : Ian Muneshwar Billy lost his grandmother to the portable DVD player five months after his grandfather died. It started when she discovered that, with Netflix, she had access to an almost infinite supply of B-rated romances. Before long, she started using the portable Sony so ...
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Ringminer's Daughter

By Duncan Shields | September 17, 2013
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Ringmining attracted a certain kind of personality. Not exactly hermits but beings okay with long terms of isolation. Pairs or groups of people rarely worked the rings. Lena should have known better. Each ringminer scoopship was like a baleen ...
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Junkyard Funeral

By submission | September 16, 2013
Author : Aiza Mohd There’s a funeral being held in the junkyard today. Its mourners come in a neat little line of twelve, proceeding in that beautiful precision of steps that only them bots ever have. When I was young, I learned to tell for myself whenever the girl at the ticket ...
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Lucky

By submission | September 15, 2013
Author : Gabriel E. Zentner Today’s the day. I’ve got my ticket, got my number. Granted, everyone’s got a number. It’s not your standard lottery, and I suppose the odds are so much the worse for that. That being said, the stakes are a lot higher than a few hundred million ...
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Deafening Silence

By submission | September 14, 2013
Author : Adam Levey The pilot, Simon, surveyed the scene of utter devastation all around him. Spent ordinance drifted in the space between thousands of shredded warships, many the size of mountains, with gaping wounds as big as apartment buildings. Ammunition spilled from storage ...
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Birds of a Feather

By Desmond Hussey | September 13, 2013
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer Tensions are high in the control room as the Pegan ship passes the Moon. Speakers emit a constant chatter of enigmatic chirps, beeps and ultra-sonic tweets which constitute the Pegan language. “You’re telling me, we’ve been in contact ...
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The Alien

By submission | September 12, 2013
Author : Suzanne Borchers Zoe watched the starlit sky reflect off the ship next to her. She touched the smooth metal, and then began pounding it. She pounded the ship’s side again and again. Despite the pain she kept pounding. “Honey, stop.” Derek grabbed her, and held her to his ...
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Jigsaw

By Julian Miles | September 11, 2013
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer What a mess. I’m standing on the fifteen-foot diameter stump of a Redwood, sliced off three feet from the ground as if by a gigantic razor blade. About me, the effect radius covers nine miles. In front of me is the twisted confetti that used to be ...
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Breaking the Wedge

By submission | September 10, 2013
Author : Scott Summers At 18:55 Standard, the Breakwater dropped out of superspace above New Tellis and began jettisoning escape pods into the atmosphere. Leaking oxygen and billowing fire, the ship guns rotated on their axis and fired into the empty space overhead. Torpedoes, missiles ...
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Children of the Sun

By Desmond Hussey | September 9, 2013
Author : Demond Hussey, Staff Writer She appeared as a blazing slash across the midnight sky; a falling inferno, trailing multi-colored flames in her wake. Her impact shook the foundations of the continent, causing minor earthquakes and avalanches worldwide. Forest fires raged around ...
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They Don't Play LCROSS

By submission | September 8, 2013
Author : Connor Yeck Employee entry, Kennedy Space Center: I don’t know if the other guys do this, but I like keeping records so I’m typing some things on my own terminal while we wait. Is personal stuff allowed? The rockets are past the point of alteration anyway, so there isn’t much ...
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Welcome Home

By submission | September 7, 2013
Author : Nils Holst It had been five years since Theo had seen another human being, much less saluted one. “Captain Theodore Holmes of Alpha Company, Third Colonial Marine Battalion?” asked the man with the holopad. He didn’t look up as he scrolled through the UNSS Sargazzio’s ...
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