Sunset on Mars

Author : Laura Bradford

He chased her even as her ship touched the stars.

At night he gazed through the glass of his telescope, feeling tiny compared to the evening sky, but his days were all routine: get up, go to work, watch the flying cars crisscross and block his chance ...

Madison Avenue

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

Okay, I have to admit the first skywriting advertisement I ever saw was pretty nifty. I was in boot camp in San Diego, and a plane was writing a “Bartle’s and Jame’s” advertisement thousands of feet above the ground and just barely within my ...

Dream Wave

Author : Moebius

There are six of us huddled together in the pallid, bluish light of the spacious galley. Tense, wiry and sallow. We sit together in a disjointed approximation of camaraderie. I don’t know any of the faces around me and I am afraid to make any connections. Our eyes ...

Cadeio III

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer Jack Roberts, captain of the starship Royal Fortune, studied the image of a blue-green planet on the monitor that was attached to the left arm of his command chair. This planet is a real puzzle, he thought. It was surrounded by 132 heavily ...

One Thin Dime

Author : Bradley Hughes

E=mc2. The most famous formula ever. Not that there's been a lot of competition. Einstein's formula reveals that matter is just one of many forms of energy. Energy is what gets you out of bed in the morning, and energy is what leaves a bruise if you fall on ...

Out West

Author : Sam Clough aka "Hrekka", Staff Writer Back when there wasn't a war, Cohesion used to take me on drives. We usually went west, way out of town. After a few kilometres the world got weird: most people didn't like it, but Cohesion said that it helped him think. Out of all the ...

Viva

Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer "Seven months after the Storm latched on to her memory, she didn't know my face. Four months later, she forgot me entirely. A month after that, she forgot everything." Jacob lowered his head. It was his day to speak at the Storm Virus Survivors ...

The Library

Author : Mark Shillaker

It had taken Perry all night to find the library. It was a pile of rubble of course but these days the whole city lay in ruins. Perry had only ever known dust and smashed concrete but his grandfather remembered cities with streets and skies filled with ...

Experiment

Author : Guy Leaver

Ellison looked at Anstis, then back down at the person lying on the bed.

"And you say he's been like this for hours?" he asked. Anstis grinned and nodded.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Ellison was beyond words. There had been several advances in the field of ...

Aliens Overboard

Author : Viktor Kuprin

After the battle of Attalus III was lost, we retreated with the Tsoor flotilla. Wreckage streamed off the alien ships as we made the mind-wrenching transition into S-space. I prayed that our cruiser wouldn’t shake apart.

It was only a micro-jump, just ...

Cryoshift

Author : Kaj Sotala

Case #6-694-39245: Michael Jones.

Born September 5, 1993. Died and suspended July 8, 2012. Looks ordinary - stabbed in a drunken bar brawl, lay bleeding on the ground for a couple of hours before people noticed. Dead before reaching the hospital. No "do not ...

Hooky

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Chase. Release. Brake. Swipe. Lead. Chase. Close. Double back. Hide. Wait. Run.

I’d lost them but it was always hard to tell. I’m a robot on the lam. Call me Ferrous Bueller. I didn’t go to School today.

I crouch down ...

The Last One

Author : Michael Varian Daly

The woods went dead still. Carmichael did a breathing pattern to slow his pulse, keep his temperature down, not overtax his battle suit.

He had a moment of peace a few dozen heartbeats back, laying upon moss, visor open, taking in bird songs, ...

Aaron

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Aaron was quite obviously not your ordinary student. He was several years younger than any of the others at the university, but clearly far smarter. His appearance was a little eccentric, clothed in a mix of fifties white collar littered with popular ...

Kill the Poets

Author : Benjamin Fischer

“My lady, is that a joke or an order?”

Kalifornia raised a painted eyebrow at the the Chief Constable of Luna. The Chief was a solidly built man, veteran of the bitter room-to-room and sometimes hand-to-hand combat of the Secession. He had ...

She can Read Reality Television

Author : Sean T. Rogers

She can read reality television with uncanny ability. Five minutes into the program she knows that the gay chef, the one with the balding mohawk, will be asked to leave, told to pack his knives. The vagaries of throwaway statements are her tealeaves. She sees ...

Downtime

Author : Sean Donovan

“The computers are down,” said Dhir. His voice was steady and unbroken though Lim knew that inside he was shattered.

Lim stared at him, her eyes blinking back tears of sorrow and fury. The computers are down. She repeated the phrase to herself, ...

Seed

Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer To the Dar, Seed is immortal. Seed knows he is not immortal, it’s just that the nature of his cellular structure, the length or certain mitochondrial chords that determine his long lifespan. Longer than the Dar, longer than the normal human ...

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