She’s Gonna Reply
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I’m about to tear the end off another sachet when a voice sounds in my mind.
“Go easy on the sugar. Too much of it makes me ache.”
I look about. There’s nobody else except for the two staff. It’s not a busy period: early in the morning ...
Heartland
Author: Paul Cesarini
“I hate them. I hate them so fucking much,” she said, looking through her rangefinder. She had been there on the roof of the house – or what was left of it – for most of the night. She was tired, hungry, and grubby, but this was no different than any ...
Field Work
Author: Rick Tobin
Cold steel from a small revolver in his sweaty palms gave little comfort to Jack Chase, sitting alone amidst feral wheat still struggling in an abandoned field near his grandfather’s rotting farmhouse, long since left to crumble after the 2024 financial ...
Harvest
Author: Gerri Brightwell
We travelled for years before finding a habitable planet. Its one continent would be enough—to the south volcanoes let out wisps of smoke, to the north winds tore across deserts, but between lay a fertile land of easy rivers, and plains creased by ...
The Right Stuff
Author: Alastair Millar
Eighty lights is a long way to go for a party, but Prosperina Station orbits Dis, the rogue gas giant PSO J318.5-22, and where there's no sun, the nightlife never stops. More importantly, the Company had decided that I was due a good time, and they ...
XBurst
Author: Bob Freeman
10:43
It was always 10:43
His classy watch, each beat synched with the atomic clock in Colorado, was stuck.
Scientists warned about the hole in the sun, the X-class magnetic burst.
No one paid attention.
"But the flaming telegraph wires in the ...
Mechaornithology
Author: Amanda E. Phillips
“Mechaornithology,” he said, stumbling over the word in his agitated state, “is a valid and incredibly undervalued field of study.” He tapped the tri-folded letter in his lap as if it somehow proved his point.
“Field of study,” I repeated in a ...
Fox Fox Fox
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Pack, pack, package.”
I jump, then look down.
Seated neatly by the fallen trunk I’m lying on is a trifox. This one’s got amazing green eyes, the pair offset to the right of the long nose, with the third pretty much dead centre in the ...
Dust and Embers
Author: Joe Wood
Most folks hide the question at first. Maybe they’ve seen me on patrol. Maybe they find me tearing thistles out of my lawn, or walking over to pick my daughter up from school. It starts so casually. Just a chat between neighbors. Somehow, in the haze of how ...
Lost Again
Author: Paul Cesarini
Lee tapped twice, zipped his fly, picked up his rifle, then went back to work. He could’ve used one of his three remaining disinfectant wipes in his med kit to wash his hands, but decided not to. Med supplies were way too low and way too valuable to ...
Intersection
Author: Majoki
I’m that guy who gets run over by the car forced off the road as the good guy or villain flees during the exponentially epic chase scene in every action movie.
I’m that random bystander who gets Swiss-cheesed in a hail of bullets, as the everyman hero ...
Not A Superpower
Author: Nancy Geibe Wasson
My friend first began to disappear back in co-ed youth sports while being chosen for teams. She said she was in attendance and accounted for, abruptly became invisible for five whole minutes, and then wham! She was back, selected to a team, ready ...
A Celestial Romance
Author: Vidyut Gore
Some romances are meant to be.
Chandra, the beautiful Moon, gazed across the dark expanse of space at him, her existence visible only because of his blazing radiance. Suraj, the embodiment of the dazzling Sun, conjured into personhood in the minds of ...
Too Human
Author: Lance J. Mushung
Patrol ship TFS-648 flew in open space following its faster than light hop. The hop put it on a course parallel to a large slow spacecraft. The 3D viewscreen in the command compartment showed in detail the unknown gray craft 517.2 klicks distant. ...
Freed
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I’ve often seen the graffiti around the city: ‘We will be freed’. Some of it is decades old. Like everybody else, I ignore it. The Detrin - referred to as ‘sticks’ since Eldasy’s seminal film - have been an underclass since their ...
Glass Slipper Magic
Author: Andrew Dunn
Snow outside sparkled like a thousand diamonds in a royal vault. William didn’t feel its warmth. Instead, he wielded a poker to stoke dying embers until they glowed bright and hot enough to send fresh logs smoldering. A simple task, but it warmed ...
Eyes like oceans, fathoms deep
Author: David Broz
You breathe life into me, I breathe life into you. Inhale, exhale, breathe, breathe.
The fans no longer spin, nothing spins, all is still.
Face to face, inches and miles apart, we breathe through this splintered air scrubber, through each other. You ...
Pluto’s Charon problem
Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks
Grandpa Damon leaned back in the recliner by the bay window. The late afternoon sun set his bronze face aglow. He turned to his grandson, Dominic, and said, “Son, Pluto is really two people. They are a planet and the God of the ...
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