by Julian Miles | May 7, 2013 | Story
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“A Tamborda Eleven-Ess-Two should never be underrated. Treat each one as if it just came off the production line.”
Master Needle’s words are soft-spoken yet carry upward to all in the gallery. On the dojo floor, his whipcord frame stands in an attitude of relaxation amongst the wreckage and rubble that simulates a city street. With a teeth-grating hiss, the mechanical doom that is a Tamborda-11S2 strides into view, its hatchet profile swinging as it searches. With a low whine, it locks onto the Master and moves swiftly in a standard intimidate-and-subdue protocol, the result of which should be another dead human.
Master Needle waits until it looms over him before moving. He hooks his right leg over the extending left arm while pushing off with his left leg. The Tamborda is still selecting proximity subdual protocol when the Master’s right hand shoots forward and round to touch the base of the skull at the spinal junction. With a crackling whine, the Tamborda ceases to move. Master Needle dismounts as the juniors applaud until cuffed into silence by their mentors.
“That is the way. Decision and precision are the true weapons of a Kochola practitioner. When you possess both in such quantities as to allow you to know every joint and seam in every model the Federati send against us, then you might return from your grading. Until then, you study.”
Everyone bows to him, founder of the martial art that allowed us to survive. Where South America fell and Africa capitulated, Europe only staggered. Who would have thought that acupuncture combined with an exhaustive knowledge of the robots sent to slaughter us would mark the start of a renaissance in us, the Resistors? Master Needle took a motley crew that spent more time running and hiding than resisting and fashioned a force to save us, using dojo and biker gang principles.
As we start to turn away, his voice carries a last admonition: “Do not push the robot over to celebrate your victory. Every one taken undamaged is another warrior for free humanity the following day.”
We pause to be sure he has finished the lesson, then carry on.
“Patch-bearer Grace. You are ready.”
Those words electrify me. Without thought I leap the gallery rail and land crouched before Master Needle, head bowed. To think I had come to this day. From scavenging the wastelands of London to the grading challenge that will either prove me a Kochola adept or leave my corpse lying unmourned.
If I survive, I will go out to spread the Art That Keeps for as long as I can survive. The Federati do not like us and have taken to carpet-bombing areas where we are establishing chapters.
I take from Master Needle a leather roll of needles so fine as to be almost unseen, yet strong enough to drive through sealant and polymer, conductive enough to short-circuit delicate systems. These are mine until he comes to take them from my body. Acolytes we have plenty of. Piercing needles are more precious than flesh. I see that the roll has eighteen coloured threads wrapped through its seams. I am to take a roll with provenance.
My dread switches from passing the graduation to not adding enough coup-threads. I feel a burden lift and look up to see Master Needle smile a knowing smile.
“Save your trepidation for avoiding the robot’s masters, Grace. Now take the Art That Keeps and make sure it keeps you riding, counting coup and teaching for a very long time.”
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by featured writer | May 3, 2013 | Story
Author : Bob Newbell, Featured Writer
The aliens came in a spherical spaceship that would have been at home on the cover of a 1930s pulp sci fi magazine. Their ship was nearly a thousand miles in diameter and could easily be seen in orbit with the naked eye. For three weeks the human race sent radio signals starting with sequences of prime numbers and working up to more complex attempts at communication to the ship. There was no response.
As the world debated what to do next, smaller spheres abruptly emerged from the spacecraft and started plummeting to Earth. A total of 17 spheres landed at various points in North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the floors of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Each mile-wide ball embedded itself exactly half of its own diameter in the Earth's crust. Humanity's militaries scrambled to respond to a possible invasion.
Over the course of several days, as the armies of various nations surrounded the seemingly inert vessels, seismologists began to pick up something resembling the primary waves or P-waves that precede earthquakes in the areas around each sphere. Concern that the spheres might be some sort of weapon that could shatter the Earth abated as further study revealed that the seismic waves were powerful but harmless collimated beams of sound that were directed deep into the planet's interior. The sound was highly modulated, leading scientists to believe it was some form of communication. Recordings of the sound signals were played back to the spheres by various means: loudspeakers, probes sunk into the adjacent ground, even via direct contact with the surface of the objects themselves. Again, there was no apparent response.
Eleven days after the spheres had begun their transmissions, a second set of signals were detected. Seismologists informed an already stunned humanity that the second set of signals were originating within the Earth itself. Moreover, these new signals were themselves modulated like those coming from the spheres. At first it was thought that the terrestrial signals might have been reflections of the signals originating from the spheres, perhaps representing some sort of acoustic location or imaging modality like the sonar used by submarines. Further analysis of the signals from both the spheres and the Earth's interior demonstrated the unmistakeable hallmarks of communication. Humanity was witnessing a dialog.
For four months a ceaseless subterranean conversation took place. Then, abruptly, all was silent. One by one the spheres wrenched themselves free of the ground and flew up into orbit to rendezvous with the mothership. The alien moonlet arced across the sky and left low Earth orbit bound for deep space.
For years we've tried to establish communication with whatever intelligence resides deep in the Earth's interior. The liquid outer core seems the most likely location for some sort of life to exist. As to what sort of life could exist in a 9000 °F nickel-iron fluid, even wild speculation seems woefully inadequate. Did the depths of Earth somehow become home to one of the sphere aliens at some point in the past? Or is there an indigenous, extremophile civilization 2,500 miles below our feet? Could the Earth itself be in some sense a self-aware being? We have no answers.
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by featured writer | Apr 30, 2013 | Story
Author : Bob Newbell, Featured Writer
“Welcome to our asteroid belt,” said the Congolese captain of the AFS Seretse Khama.
Your asteroid belt, thought Dragoslav Ibrahimovi?. Yet the captain of the BAS Peter the Liberator had to admit that his African Federation counterpart had a point. A legal point, to be precise. Sensor sweeps showed that every asteroid of any appreciable size in the area had its own unique transponder signal. Being the first to land a vessel, even a small automated radio transmitter, on an asteroid gave the government in question a legal claim to the property. The African Federation produced, launched, and landed transponder drones by the hundreds of thousands annually. Legally, nearly the entire asteroid belt was their property.
“Just passing through, Captain,” Ibrahimovi? replied over the comlink. The Peter the Liberator moved on across the belt into the outer solar system. Balkan Alliance territory.
One month later, while performing a gravity-assist maneuver around Jupiter, the commander of the Sasselov Station on Callisto contacted Ibrahimovi?.
“We've downloaded your manifest. It says your ship is full of supplies and heading for Neptune. But our sensors say your hold is almost totally empty. And you're the sixth empty supply ship to come through here in the last four months. Looks more like you're bringing something back, not hauling supplies out. What's out there?” asked the commander.
“Just helium-3 processing stations,” Ibrahimovi? replied.
“Did you find something that will put us out in front of the African Federation? Something better than a bunch of rocks floating in space? No more of that being a distant second to the world's only superpower stuff?”
“I'll inform Bucharest your station sensors are malfunctioning,” said Ibrahimovi?. “I suggest you have a good explanation for why you didn't report the problem four months ago.”
Ibrahimovi? cut the comlink.
The Peter the Liberator sailed out into space for many more months, performed an aerobraking and course correction around Neptune, and finally after a long, slow powered deceleration, settled into orbit around Charon, the largest Moon of Pluto. Twelve hours later a shuttle carrying Dr. Aris Kosionidis rose from the surface of Charon and docked with the Peter the Liberator.
“We've got it mostly unburied now,” said Kosionidis to Ibrahimovi?. “We know it was a ship, not a robotic probe. We were able to get inside and we found the remains of the crew.”
“Do you know where it came from?” asked Ibrahimovi?.
“We have no idea. We do know it crashed into Charon around 16 million years ago.”
Ibrahimovi? let that sink in.
“We also know,” Kosionidis continued, “that we can't even guess yet about what half the technology on that ship is for. And the half we can identify is as far in advance of 2299 as we are from the time of the pharaohs.
“We could study it for a hundred years and still not figure it out,” said Ibrahimovi?.
“That might not be necessary. The ship has been trying to talk to us,” said Kosionidis.
“What?!”
“Verbally. Whatever powers it is still functioning at a very low level. Apparently it's been listening to us talk inside the pressure dome we erected around it. At first it just repeated back what we said but in the last four days it's been trying to converse. We're hopeful eventually it can tell us about its origins and explain its technology.”
“Better than a bunch of rocks floating in space,” Ibrahimovi? muttered with a smile.
“Captain?” said Kosionidis.
But Ibrahimovi? didn't answer. His mind was elsewhere. Keep your asteroid belt, he thought. Welcome to our galaxy.
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by submission | Jan 18, 2013 | Story |
Author : Daniel M. Bensen
“Ta zemya.” The lookout cried from the crow’s-nest like a muezzin. “Ta zemya~a! Kapitane, eto ya~a.”
Hristo Galabov gripped the plastic gunwale of his ship and squinted over the heaving Atlantic. “Ta zemya,” the sailor said. Land. The last time, Hristo had leapt with joy at that cry. Now he only closed his eyes and gave a brief prayer to Ta Melarva Miriya. “Thank you. Thank you, Mother of God, for bringing us home. Some of us.”
Hristo stared out at the ocean until even he could see Africa bulking green and fertile on the horizon.
“Kapitane, you seem troubled.”
That was the voice of father Mehmet, with his beard and klobuk and crucifix.
“I am troubled, ebre,” said Hristo.
The priest stood beside him. “You are thinking about what to tell them in Gibraltar Palace.”
“I am thinking about what not to tell them.” Hristo rubbed his thumb against the place where his right pointer finger had been.
“Of course you must tell them the truth, ebane.”
“What truth? That we rediscovered Lost America? Or that it is more Lost than we ever guessed?”
“There are many ways to be Lost, and only one way to be Saved.”
Hristo snorted, “by which I take it you advocate going back to that blasted land and converting the heathen?” The Americans, Hristo meant, although they did not call themselves Americans.
“What else can I advocate?” Father Mahmet stroked his beard. “The truth is always best, ebane. But if we are to help those poor souls…perhaps the Glorious Princess does not need all the facts.”
“Such as the fact that Lost America was lost for a reason.” Hristo sighed, “and the old stories were lies.”
“They were stories, ebane, not lies.”
Hristo gestured at the sea, and his shoulder throbbed. “Streets of gold. Plains of fruit. Wise metal gods and maidens transformed into stars. I wish I could still believe.”
“Then believe, for we made those stories true by our faith and good work. The myth of Lost America was the rope we used to pull ourselves out of the darkness. And those still lost in that darkness…” Father Mehmet’s scarred hand went to the place where his left ear had been, “…Even they are children of God.”
So this was how the priest had made sense of the things they’d seen, convinced himself away from suicide. Hristo had wondered. “I am afraid the Princess has better ways to spend her money than to throw it at degenerate savages on the other side of the ocean.”
“So her advisors would surely say.”
And if they did, if the Princess withdrew her support, then Hristo could turn his thoughts to his own self-murder. Pain and broken promises, past sins and future redemption.
Hope, and in its absence, death.
“What was it the witch-doctor said?” Hristo asked, remembering the cannibal with his teeth filed and the lens-less glasses before his eyes.
“Go West,” said Father Mehmet.
“Go West,” the savage had said, blood on his lips, cold wind in his hair, “Lalaland, Kingdom of the Zombie God, the Gold Mountain.”
Hristo rapped his knuckles on the plastic hull of his ship and the ghosts of his eaten fingers ached. “I know what I will tell Her Majesty.”
“Yes?”
“I will say: ‘Our mission is a success. I will ask: ‘please furnish us with ships, that we may take the benefit of our civilization, our Holy Church to the new-old shores.’ I will say that we have rediscovered America,” Hristo Galabov nodded to himself. “And it is indeed a land of opportunity.'”
by submission | Aug 24, 2012 | Story |
Author : Jules Bowman
Finally, our question was answered – no, you are not alone. We welcomed them with open arms and, strangely, very little trepidation. Beautiful creatures they were – full of poise and serenity, cloaked in delicate robes that changed designs in the most artful fashion as the light shifted into shadow and back. Androgynous and tall, our visitors carried themselves with the grace of African kudus. And when the rays of our Sun illuminated their big lavender eyes, we saw a little bit of God in them and felt nothing but placation.
Cultural exchange, that’s all they wanted. Our leaders rejoiced and hastily organized a myriad of revelries and events. As such, the children of the world danced for them, famous tenors and sopranos serenaded them, and Seven Wonders of the World were shown to them. Our visitors were in awe. The Hermitage, the Louvre, the Smithsonian… In quiet and respectful amazement they were absorbing the summary of everything our kind was proud of. Yet our music seemed to touch them the most. Their pale humanoid faces moistened with tears as they listened to Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Bach. More, they pleaded. So we showcased the musical folklore of many of our cultures. Not enough, they cried. To answer their implorations, we organized rock and heavy metal concerts, using only our best and most talented musicians. Even more concerts followed… R&B, hip hop, jazz… Not a single musical genre was left out. After some time, they started to smile. They were most obliged and wished to pay us back for our hospitality. “We shall organize a concert for YOU,” they said unequivocally. We found the idea to be most charming and agreeable.
Never in the history of human kind had we heard anything like that. They sang for us a cappella, their voices entwined in the most blissful concord. When we first heard them sing, not a single dry eye was left in the world. Our hair stood up on the napes of our necks as gooseflesh rippled across our bodies. We wept in such joy and such sorrow that at the end of their concert we all collapsed to the ground in the most beautiful state of nirvana.
We were addicted. No Earthly music could compare to the heavenly beauty of our visitors’ singing. Their voices reached resonant frequencies of our glass as windows, champagne flutes, and crystal chandeliers exploded around us. What a show! More, we cried, affected by the emotions delivered to us via alpha brain wave emissions along with the sound of their angelic voices. And they obliged. More of them came and sang in our concerto halls and stadiums. Not enough, we bemoaned and pleaded for more visitors. Their spaceships now hovered above every major metropolis, as the mothership patiently orbited the Earth. The ships became part of our sky. Nice large shadows on a hot sunny day.
We were expunged of all worries and concerns. Happiness and liberation – we all felt that. And then they stopped singing rather abruptly, with laconic promises of resuming their regularly scheduled performances really soon. We quickly became dismayed. Dopamine levels dropped, and we went into most severe levels of withdrawal. Billions of us died. But the rest of us are gazing to the sky where their ships hover, waiting for our guests to recommence singing, more eager than ever to continue the cultural exchange between our species. Never mind the conspiracy theorists clamoring that this is an invasion of planetary proportions.
