Don't Look
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The controls were familiar to any race that had developed mechanical means to get around on their planet’s surface.
There was an altitude stick, turning/braking pedals, a throttle plus a variety of buttons and dials to let the pilot know ...
The Field Test
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“A one-way ticket to Ganymede, please.”
“You can’t buy a one-way ticket to Ganymede.”
“Why not?”
“Ganymede orbits within Jupiter’s radiation belt. The law says no one can stay on Ganymede longer than six months. Therefore, you need a ...
Mountain Men
Author : Aaron Koelker
They came like mountains in the night. Great behemoths of lumbering shadow that walked with thunderous grace. With beards of moss and fur of grass, they looked down upon the intruders without a hint of malice. Their great round eyes of polished stone ...
The Darkness
Author : Jack Holt
No one knows why the Darkness came back to life that day, but Stron the Peerless was sent to deal with it. There were others who knew the ancient ways of commanding the power of the Darkness, but none had studied them so single-mindedly as Stron.
It was forbidden to ...
Life Star
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The room was smoky with the singed emissions of substances that made tobacco seem like a health supplement. Everyone knew the risks, but when you were fighting the greatest tyranny to ever rule humanity, longevity just didn’t enter the ...
Lonely Lights
Author : Phro Metal
A chill autumn breeze blows through the trees lining the old, cracked cement path. Their leaves whisper like the fragmented cries of an artificial intelligence trapped on a dying CPU. Save for the weary pale glow of a single, distant skyscraper light, the ...
Security
Author : Christina Richard
It happened every Tuesday; we were lined up, yawning and drinking coffee as the wireless network light blinked from beneath our hairlines as we waited for our updates. What HR said when they installed the chip was that human networking technology ...
Reflection
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
This is what I’ve been waiting for my entire adult life. All my work has come to this. From the moment I signed up for theoretical physics as a youth, I was destined to arrive at this day.
Countless alternate universes with a finite number ...
Brave Old World
Author : Bob Newbell
Hugo swallowed his last protein pill, paid his bill, and left the cafe. As he walked out the door, the rocket thrust from a young lady leaving the parking lot by jetpack blasted him with fire. It was only his quick reflexes that prevented him from being ...
Beaming
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The sentence was passed. The switch was flipped on the transporter and Caleb’s protests were cut off in mid-scream. The concrete block fused with his head.
The first transporter accident taught us a valuable lesson about the covalency ...
Who's Better, Who's Best
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Jack withdrew the blade slowly, knowing with the sudden swell of blood from the wound that the blow was fatal.
"Nothing personal mate, it's a survival of the fittest thing and I'm simply better than you."
He felt the body beneath him go ...
Defragging
Author : Bob Newbell
Jimmy Shindorf reclined on the hospital bed. A hollow filament as thin as a thread penetrated his neck over the right carotid artery. An IV dripped normal saline at a slow rate into his left antecubital vein. They had suggested placing a Foley catheter, ...
Awoken
Author : Methias
He slumbered. He remembered. His recollections were filled with vague, half-things. Muted feelings, dulled senses, broken memories.
He remembered the last time he slumbered. He remembered the fall.
He remembered the fire and the death. He remembered a heat ...
Stranded
Author : Suzann Dodd
They were supposed to come for me in a hundred hours. That was the deal.
I was passing for a local, having done the course. I knew how to get over.
I'd been given enough currency to survive for two hundred hours; that was also part of the Contract. What ...
Building World
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
I lowered my huv from the sky and dropped into the garbage-strewn parking lot of Building World.
Parking next to a contractor’s huv-truck I made my way inside and stood there in front of the directory. Behind the digital sign was a sixteen ...
Keep Watching the Skies
Author : Bob Newbell
I set the display to pan to the constellation of Canis Minor. The holographic celestial sphere rotates all around me until the Smaller Dog comes into view. I wave my hand over the controls. The display zooms in on Procyon A. The white main sequence star ...
Come Tomorrow
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The echoes are thunderous, something that keeps most of the predators down here away. This far along, everyone is fatigued. Even the children no longer have bursts of energy. Existence is eat, sleep and march to the beat. The chant cadences ...
And Yet, It Moves
Author : Susan Nance Carhart
"There's no way to program my time machine remotely. Not really," Solberg told his friends. "I can't perform a unmanned test. I can't even use an animal for the passenger. But the modeling works. It all comes down to me."
The friends caught each ...
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