Author: Scott Porter Life on a Civilization Ship is so easy. So simple, so complete. The authorities have thought of everything. Everybody has their part. The Marie Curie had left earth four hundred years earlier, looking for any Earth-like planet to deposit her 2,500-odd ...

Author: Ellie Brumley The heavily sealed double doors slid open and I entered an operating room filled with doctors and scientists in white lab coats. I knew immediately I was doomed. Experimental surgeries were practically a death sentence. “Welcome,” a scientist said. ...

Author: Moriah Geer-Hardwick You might call it fear. When your knee gives out on the stairs, suddenly, without warning. Gravity snaps its jaws around you and rips you from a passive illusion of self-control straight to the floor. An immediate awareness of potential damage ...

Author: R. J. Erbacher Bruce moved across the monotonous landscape with ease. Not quite desert. More powder than sand but not really either. All beige, all flat. Featureless. Except for the wall. The diminished gravity and PowerDrive suit made walking relatively muscle ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer We are alone. There is no body and no thing out there in the ink that surrounds our spinning ball of candy streaked blue. No migratory Sibylla trees on Aeneas 10, no carnivorous Hing fungus hanging in carnal embrace from the ceiling of the ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The guide says it starts small: things move when you’re not about. Takes a while to be sure. Walking into your lounge to find one of your books floating in the middle of the room while something unseen turns the pages? Conclusive. Time to ...

Author: David Barber Cally had hacked her teacher. She gave herself grades good enough to keep her mothers happy, but not so good they attracted attention. Also, she rigged the on-line attendance so she was free to have adventures in the Station’s ill-lit underdecks. She ...

Author: Jason McGraw Images of vectors, numbers, and circles reflect off of a bi-metallic cube. Gold touches lead at a wide, dull blur. Machinery forces the metals together and a clear sleeve prevents bulging. Crew is receiving a “big-picture” brief from Captain using the ...

Author: Moriah Geer-Hardwick “I would like my arms back.” The machine’s voice is gentle. Almost childlike. There is only the hint of a request nuanced within its inflection. Jacob looks up slowly for a moment, then lets his attention slide back to his tablet. “That’s not ...

Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer Sebastian stood in the middle of the living room, basking in the late afternoon sunshine. Rays scythed through the walls of glass, catching random dust particles and lighting them, like so many flecks of stardust. He felt the polished ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer Waves lap at the cusp edge of the astronaut’s open visor. A saline swill that now sloshes into his suit and streams down across his body, running its length before agitating the warmth that stings and clings at his thighs. His arms are ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer There’s never enough time to correct the big mistakes. That much, I’m sure of. As a modern scientist, I can state that it’s one of the few things I am firm in my assessment of. What with the discoveries of the Conscious Reality Initiative, ...

Author: Thomas Tilton The gentry signaled me by dilating the pupil of its lidless right eye. Time to work. I hoped my task would not be too demeaning. I promptly headed over to the gentry's floating throne/toilet and inquired as to its needs. I could feel the ...

Author: A. Zachary Spery Seth was awakened. He felt oddly compelled to fix something. The computer began streaming information to him. Seconds ago, the sensors had recorded an unexpected collision. The colony ship was off course and tumbling. The Semi-sapient Emergency ...

Author: Elaine Thomas The warm sun felt good on the old man’s skin. He stood on the balcony, gazing down into the garden. “A beautiful day,” he thought, “a good day to die.” He examined his hands, gripping the railing, wrinkled, marked with spots of age ...

Author: Shaked Koplewitz The orders were clear: As tempting as it was, we were not to let the psychics process the alien message. Instead, we were to send it through to an old-fashioned linguistics team, who’d work with pen and paper to decipher what they could of ...

Author: Moriah Geer-Hardwick “I wanted this to mean something.” He looks back at me over his shoulder. “What are you talking about?” I start to reach for him, see his body tense, stop cold. “This!” He swings a hand out over the city beneath us. It’s a black heap of metal ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer “Do you know what happens when you stare into television static?”, he asks. “You start to see patterns, forms that join and fuse and start to make sense of the chaos. The flickering separates like pulled away meat, not completely, just ...