Down and Out
Author : N. Thomas Parshall
“Twenty minutes to launch, Shortfall”
“Roger that, Command. Shortfall ready for launch.”
“Copy. Stand by.”
Lt. Commander Warren Sheffield looked over at his co-pilot, Major Emery West, who was busy with his own checklist. “Almost that time, ...
Opportunity
Author : Martin Sumner
McCloud joined me at the round table in the bay window of the Red Café. I was on my second double espresso. The day was just beginning to come into focus. “Good morning, Professor.” He put his cup of hot water on the table before asking if it was ...
The Hatching
Author : Jason Frank
I walked around an hour 'fore I found where they landed, no crowd, no cops, no reporters, not no more. They weren't out yet so I unrolled my blanket and didn't pay no attention to the dog hairs flying up off it. I had plenty of time to sit and start in on ...
The Third Millennium
Author : Laura E. Bradford
"Here we are," said the time traveler; "the third millennium."
"Oh my God," said Jamie, looking around. It was his second day with the red-haired girl who could travel in time, and everything so far had been magnificent. "It has a bit more ...
Boppin'
Author : Jeremy Herman
Gilbert smeared a napkin across his glistening face as he watched the stage anxiously. The crowd around him was enthralled with the performance they were watching. Big Band music had been popular with the people for years now. On stage the drums, ...
Prayer
Author : George R. Shirer
Our Father, Who art in Heaven . . .
Jode eyes the pressure door’s lock. In the lower right corner of her eye, the timer is counting down. The numbers, though, are still green so she’s not too worried.
Hallowed be thy name . . .
The lock is dead ...
Last Dusk
Author : Ian Eller
Immortality. He had wished it, wanted it, even demanded it. When it had been offered, it seemed too good to be true. But he took it and despite all his fears, despite all the cliches and platitudes that warned him he had flown too high, it was real. There ...
Substitute Time
Author : John D. Horton
LaKeidra took her seat on the empty back row just as the substitute turned to face the class. When she saw how green the woman’s eyes were, LaKeidra nearly jumped. She’d never seen eyes that color outside of a mirror.
“Good morning class,” the ...
Adult Education
Author : Ian Rennie
Patrick held up the device and tried not to talk too fast.
"This," he said, "Is a visua. It's a way of making images."
Mr Nolan stuck his hand up. Mr Nolan always stuck his hand up.
"Like a camera?" he said. Patrick shrugged.
"Sort of," he said, ...
Chatterbox
Author : J.D. Rice
There’s nothing worse than a malfunctioning robot. If you’re lucky, they just shut down and have to be replaced. Call Alan Cybernetics Solutions, they’ll sent out a truck with a refurbished model, and you’re all set. Less lucky, and you’ll have a robot that ...
A Question More of Custom
Author : Ben Klug
They met at the top of Excelsior Tower, in the restaurant. She entered from the lobby, he from the roof. The wind sheared off against the windows, a long low sound. She smiled, waved, and ran to embrace him.
“Darling,” he began, as always.
“How are you? ...
Logan's Eden
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Technically, there were still two sexes.
The gene techs realized that there was one way to double the births of a new colony. Doubling the births meant a more stable gene pool in half the time it usually took. The solution was obvious ...
The Greatest Lover of Space
Author : Jason Frank
"Space is... so vast, so empty, so cold... anyone who has experienced it must desire confinement, fullness, warmth..."
The Greatest Lover of Space (TGLoS) speaks but the words, filtered through the protective arrays of my specially constructed spacesuit, ...
On the Way to Forgotten
Author : Andrew DiMatteo
I stared out the viewport at the other ships in the fleet. Contact was infrequent - a few transmissions a year, telemetry exchanges, stuff like that. Never my deal since all I did was water plants all day, but we were a fleet, goddammit. It wasn’t ...
Alone Beside a Methane Sea
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
Harry Morgan was a bear of a man. Over six feet and in excess of 240 pounds. He eschewed a prosthesis, preferring to simply pin up the sleeve of his MCU where his left arm had once hung. He wore the morphic combat uniform of the ...
Routine Traffic Stop
Author : Dan Hope
"Shut it down! SHUT IT DOWN!"
Officer Jepson hovered at a safe distance and watched as the man floated across the landing pad, bobbing up and down, bumping into the guard rail as he slapped frantically at the controls strapped to his forearm. Packs were ...
The Arrival
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The control harness turned blue a second before I knew we were going to be hit. I pressed up against the back of the transport in a futile simian effort to get as far away from the pain as possible. The light outside the windows went ...
Goodbye
Author : N. Thomas Parshall
If I hadn’t made the tran-atomics strike, we couldn’t have afforded the cottage in Coventry. If we couldn’t afford the cottage, we wouldn’t have been docked during the strike. If we hadn’t been docked during the strike, we would have waited to ...
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