Classified

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

My nervous system registered a strong palm-print between my shoulder blades just before I was shoved hard towards the ground. I landed face-first amongst a scatter of hot shell casings and a reek of spent gunpowder.

I heard bullets ...

Whyjean Complex

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Queen Louise XVI's afternoon reading was interrupted by the message 'Governess LaPointe requests audience' scrolling across the page of text which hung in space before her. "Granted," she spoke aloud, waving the texts into the ether. The ...

Trespass

Author : Dee Harding

Samsara has worn his locks for 15 years, shining and strong. He has adapted to them by sleeping sideways and letting them learn to clean themselves. Each tangled cluster of keratine farms its own rot, the rain, and the detritus of everyday life. Stray protein ...

Retirement

Author : Ian Rennie

They turned Valerie off this morning.

Nothing flashy, nothing officially announced. Two grey-suited daemons came in, picked up her sprite and walked out with it. When I went to the dorms to investigate, her room was blank, no sign that she had ever been ...

The General

Author : Jacinta A. Meyers

Lieutenant General Macy McMurphey Delane dreamt of meeting his nemesis.

It was a bit of an obsession. He imagined that, across the star-clustered chasm of drifting space dust, on the far edge of the galaxy, there was another command center probably ...

Distance

Author : Timothy T. Murphy

A month before reaching Europa, Heather woke to an e-mail from her grandfather. Her grandfather hated e-mail, so much so that she'd been shocked when he asked her to teach him so they could talk while she was away.

He hated cameras even more, so ...

Crey

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

Jack hated the Minotaur. Ever since he'd gotten off the silver bus to basic training at White Hook, the Minotaur had picked on him. At the Imperial recruitment office, Jack was told that he had some of the highest scores on physical, mental and ...

Bazaar

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

Kema Port. Hot, dry and dusty in general; the uncomfortable atmosphere an unavoidable side-effect of the equatorial location of the port. A walled city, surrounded on all sides by sand and rock, Kema is unforgiving. However, Kema the city is ...

Tau Ceti II

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Tau Ceti is a yellow-orange star slightly smaller than Earth’s Sun. It’s approximately 11.9 light-years away, in the southern Constellation Cetus. It has three planets. The most notable is the second planet in the system, Ketos. Ketos ...

Balcony

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

There are people in the depths of this city that have literally never seen the sun. They live in artificially lit shanty-arcologies and depend on shipment piracy for survival. Whatever they can’t grow hydroponically, they barter from the city ...

Jigaboo

Author : Geoffrey Cashmore

“See? Look, I said already. It don’ hurt.”

Herb watched again as the bump on Tommy’s hand faded from pink to grey then back to pink each time he clenched his fist.

“Well it’s up to you, buddy,” Herb sounded sceptical. “but it ...

The Coma Chip

Author : Asher Wismer

"...every person in my family," said Burt. "I'm the only one who hasn't plugged it in, but I know what will happen if I do."

"Why don't you get rid of it?"

"I can't," he said, and the weary lines in his face almost masked his ...

Fight, Farm Boy, Fight

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Carson lay still, blood oozing from his battered mouth onto the playground, his ears ringing as they laughed. "Come on freak, get up and fight." Quentin Taylor, the quarterback had landed the last blow, arm ratcheted back in a hail mary that had ...

The Hum

Author : Jim Wisniewski

At first I thought it was the viewscreen. The tiny, flickery viewscreen from a public matterfax at the Sont Mikaal gate station, with its scratched plastic case and the smudged dust of a dozen systems. A dozen systems' cargo terminals, anyway. Free patterns ...

Wzn Izfzuv Tells You How To Live Your Life

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

Wzn Izfzuv Tells You How To Live Your Life

This rotation, when I tell you how to live your life, we meet two Newflyers "“ newly infatuated individuals high on emotion. Let's fly right in, shall we?

Dear Wzn,

I've been ...

Syndie

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

The subject of this image has a real name, but by custom, he uses a 'messenger-name': Jay. He's moving on foot. The ground is broken and rough: with no road, he had to leave his vehicle behind. It'll be one more day before he has the first in a ...

…is Hard to Find

Author : James Smith

The girl out of the tank before lunch is Lila. Trip around the network shows the last of her bloodline petered out twenty years ago. Cryos are all from before the Patent Wars, so their sequences are in the public domain. The company turns a nice side profit ...

Janeing in The Slums of Bessport

Author : Michael Varian Daly

The musky odor hit Tanith the moment she stepped through the portal; man smell. It always got her queasy and excited, made her yoni tingle and moisten.

She marched with purpose down the wide debris strewn avenues, lined with derelict ...

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