Author: Beck Dacus I watched the luminous tails of thousands of ships decelerating into the Alpha Centauri system from all directions. A stray few of them fell prey to my frag mines, but most maneuvered or blasted their way through. *Good,* I thought. *Keep them cocky.* ...

Author: John McNeil A yellow bicycle leans on the sign at the trailhead. Its narrow tires are completely unsuitable for the trail. The sign says "Closed For the Season." It's November and there are several inches of snow on the ground. These are just foothills, not ...

Author: Lisa Jade My battery’s running low. I jiggle the connection to my hip, hearing a beep as it clicks into place. In a few hours, it’ll be light out – and I can sit at the window and gather some paltry amount of solar charge. It won’t be much, but with luck, it’ll ...

Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer The crawler sat heavily on massive tires in the only area of the hanger not lost in shadow. Its exterior bristled with scanning apparatus, and Baker knew from experience every cubic unit of interior space was packed with storage. The smell ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Opening clip: a heavily-built man sits on the tailgate of blue pickup truck. He’s smiling and unshaven, taking tiny sips from a red and white can of beer so quickly it doesn’t interrupt his speech. “Well, it’s been difficult, that’s for ...

Author: Leo James Topp Out of my office window, the colony ship sits low in the sky. The Test of Time. Sleek and flat, a shimmer along its underbelly, the viewing deck’s dome sat on top… I should be working. I know it’s a marketing technique, parking it over the city, just ...

Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks Her eyes are a blue million miles -Captain Beefheart It was October. The hickory leaves were yellow and smoke emerged from the woods. She was a woman and she was a girl and I was sure we had met before, walking this shoreline. I didn’t know ...

Author: Connor Long-Johnson It drifted there alone, on the precipice of the infinite abyss of space. The shiny, metallic surface beginning to melt as it moved ever closer to the nearest star. The blinding light of the sun reflected off of its red and white ...

Author: Greg Roensch The transport came in for a bumpy landing on Hos as the twin moons rose on the horizon. A medical technician by trade, Rael-6 had known this journey would come one day, though he worked hard to put it off. “It’s just normal aches and pains,” he’d say to ...

Author: Lily Shen Zayla lies down in bed beneath her blankets. Her plush down comforter feels like a warm bath. She listens to the soothing voice on her cell phone, guiding her meditation. The soft, furry darkness envelops her like a cocoon. Just let go, Zayla says to ...

Author: Leo James Topp Late night, deep in the Volkov Tower data-centre. I stand at one of the consoles, tapping furiously at the interface, hard drive’s smooth black casing jacked into the terminal. Alex is taking cover behind a server bank, aiming the carbine down a row ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The cargo bay seems deserted. It should be packed. We know someone performed a ‘war action’ here. They overrode emergency reseal functions and warning routines, closed off internal access, then dropped the environment fields. We don’t know ...

Author: Kathleen Bryson The moon was out that night and had turned to a slight pink. Taffy coloured, maybe cotton candy fresh from the sweating fairground. The moon was pastel. That is how one can be delicate about things; the moon can set a good example. I walked inside ...

Author: David Berger They all lied. The ones who went around suborbital and the first ones in orbit and the ones who went to the Moon and the ones who rode the space shuttle and lived on the Mir. They all must have felt it a little bit. But they all lied. They all ...

Author: Stephen C. Curro Clive Olsen reclined in his lounge chair with a sigh. It was past eight pm, and the city lights in the panorama window behind him glittered like a galaxy. Before him, a massive computer screen gave him a live god’s-eye-view of the factory floor of ...

Author: Tim Goodwin Rosetta found herself with some downtime between contracts, and was within shuttle-distance: why not see mom? In person? Why not see Earth? Her mother, bikinied and martinied, was polite, but opted for air kisses in lieu of hugging her dirty spacer ...

Author: Robert Beech The corpse had a handsome face. He had a strong jaw with a two-day stubble of beard, a straight somewhat aquiline nose, high cheeks, and full eyebrows over steel-blue eyes, now half-lidded in death. There was only one thing wrong with the corpse’s face. ...

Author: Brian Maycock The sound of sirens rising and falling as they pass by outside his room at night makes him feel alive. Someone, somewhere is fighting crime. He falls asleep around 5 am. When he sees it is Jell-O for breakfast he wonders if the plastic gloop he ...