We Could Be Heroes

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Tom fished through the basket of coffee pucks until he found one marked simply 'Columbian'. "Got a thing against coffee flavoured coffee do you Sam?" He couldn't see his friend through the glare of the flood lamps, but he could hear him ...

Basement

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer I was ecstatic that I could create this kind of complexity in a chain-reactive static chemical crane array. The underchains made a little room between the different string permutations when the time came. It was the moment I'd been ...

Once Bitten

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer In the steamy clearing, Roda crouched to be at eye level with the small centaur-like creature dressed in spider silk trews and waistcoat. Professor Malken stood, dressed in a way that indicated many years of expeditions. Roda's fashionably ...

Hollow Planet

Author : D'n Russler "Quick! Someone get Raul some water, he's nearly finished!" The Survey team rushed to follow Hallie's shouted command, as, verging on panic she checked her barely-moving team member's vital signs. Yahn, the team's medic, slowly moistened the dark-haired ...

The Life of Flame

Author : Joe Russell Awakened. Confused. Red alert. Hull breach. Life support failing. Mad scramble. Explosions. Death. Escape hatch. There is a blur and then for a time nothing. When I awake it is to the vast cold of space. I am alone. The HUD on the suit displays system ...

Medal

Author : Damien Krsteski Just as I made my way next to an older lady on the pew, the general climbed on the stage. All the commotion died down, everyone's ears eager to hear him speak. After some quieting down, he began, his tone as morose as the weather outside. "My fellow ...

Watching The Stars

Author : Cal Glover-Wessel I guess I thought there would be more turmoil, more mounting panic, but when you know the date and time of the end I guess it's easier to accept it. There were no riots; there were no religious upheavals. It was as if the whole world had skipped ...

Which Way Is Up?

Author : Julian Miles, Featured Writer Gravity sucks. I mean, who wants to be stuck to anything because it’s so big you can’t get away from it? I was born in the same cubby that Mom and Dad raised fourteen of us before the aches got ‘em. “Drive stress”, the officers call it. ...

Super Troopers

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer Packed into the ship's tight squad bay were twenty five lockers and twenty five cryo-beds. Inside their frozen coffins rested men and women engineered for their speed, agility and overall physical prowess. Perfection incarnate. These ...

The Future

Author : Dave Rudden It screamed as the last of the connectors plunged in. A proper scream, a gut-scream, lifting it off the surgical table in an arched back gasp-shudder orgasm of pain and raw hate that made every hair on my exposed arm shiver with sweet appreciation. The ...

Better Than Lilacs

Author : Donovan Pruitt So much blood. My blood. The wind shouted for just a moment, throwing sand over the stone and down my back. My hat tumbled off lazily, dancing in the dirt, taunting me out of arms reach. I wouldn't move for it. Move and I'm dead. My duster stank of ...

Good Work, Soldier

Author : David Shute They've had me running assassination jobs for awhile now. Terrorists, political loose ends, and the occasional despot in between bigger jobs. It kicked off with Nan Kang-Dae, a North Korean defector picked up by the Chinese authorities. His government ...

Making the Cut

Author : Dan Simon He didn't remember signing the death waiver. He didn't remember enrolling in University at all. But he was at University, so he must have signed a death waiver at some point. He was beginning to crack under the pressure. That was all. He had gotten an A- ...

Tongues

Author : Julian Miles, Featured Writer That was what they looked like. Tongues. In every possible colour you could conceive that a tongue could turn. They came to earth as refugees from a conflict of such horror that only the vaguest rumours and hints escaped, the details of ...

Weathervanes

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Shifters, they called them. People not in line with our own universe but only barely out of sync. It could happen to anyone. A person wouldn't even know if it was happening to them. One of the more extreme giveaways was if someone was speaking ...

Zero Degrees of Obliquity

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer Gregori Milankovitch relaxed in his folding camp chair, admiring the dull red sun as it skimmed along the cloudless horizon. "What a beautiful sunset," he casually remarked. "Why do you insist on calling it a sunset?" snapped Mrs. ...

Aces Deep

Author : Julian Miles, Featured Writer I flick wing over wing and dive, engines howling as some bright blue nastiness passes through where I was. Half committed in the dive I pull the nose up and jink sideways, broadside to angle of travel. The parachute effect yaws me and I ...

Think Fast

Author : Andrew Bale I should have just slept with her, in retrospect. She had been attractive and suggestive, but there had been something about her that smelled like trouble, and sure enough, she had come back to the hotel bar with her arm wrapped around six feet of good ...

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