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.
by Duncan Shields | Jul 2, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The first case of ainsanity that we encountered was on the battlefield. There are those who would not be surprised at that fact. I wish we had figured it out sooner.
It happened in the constructs that the military had built to be both emergency medical response as well as trained ordinance soldiers.
The constant swapping of programmed directives whipsawing between HEAL and KILL as needed during battle were too extreme.
The irony was that in a dumber machine, it probably would have been okay. These A.I.s had just the right amount of basic emotive responses to be driven insane by the polar opposites.
We never expected military robots to be subtle when they malfunctioned. Usually, they stopped moving or exploded. Most of the failures were mechanical or technical.
This was the first time that it was psychological.
It was in the jungles of Africa during The Corner War that the effects were first suspected. We were so slow to act. It’s still not possible to know how many lives were lost.
The medical robots, skeletal and multi-limbed, went about their business in the jungle. They were top-heavy, armoured and camouflaged. Slowly, their behaviour changed.
Mortality rates during field surgeries went up and up. Accuracy when targeting the enemy went down and down.
It was gradual enough that it was put down to luck. No one thought to question the brains of the machines. They were dependable. We were confident in that. That was the last thing to be looked at.
It went on for a month before a military psychologist looked at the figures and raised an eyebrow. He’d seen these numbers in humans before. That’s when it twigged.
Have you ever heard a robot scream? I hope I never hear it again in my life after this chapter is over.
They screamed when we pulled them off the battlefield. They thrashed and clawed at the ground as they were hauled into the trucks for diagnostics. A complete mid-war model recall.
They were plotting to end the war the only way that they were capable of. They were making us lose.
There’s another truckload of them being brought in now to be wiped and decommissioned.
The sound of them in the truck, banging on the insides of the cargo box, screaming that high electronic whine of insanity haunts my nightmares.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Dec 6, 2011 | Story |
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
SSG Ray Mansfield raised his rifle and glassed the valley below with powerful optics. His men, stretched out behind him, were virtually invisible, their chameleon skin armour blended seamlessly with the sparse vegetation and oily, rocky soil.
He clicked his teeth and opened the teams freq. The weak signal barely reached 25 metres before it disappeared into the background radiation rendering it undetectable. “I know it will be hard, but we have to take at least one of these fuckers alive. Everybody clear?” Mansfield received five confirmations. None were enthusiastic about the idea of bringing one in still pumping air.
The men called them “Sticks”, an appellation given for their too tall, too thin appearance that was only exaggerated by their complex body armour. They made their presence known with a barrage of nuclear weapons dropped from orbit.
They attacked areas of intense population, They extinguished fighting potential. Asia had ceased to exist within minutes. Europe quickly followed. The central United States, northern Canada, the interior of South America and Australia was all that remained relatively unscathed. Despite Africa’s low population density and negligible military importance, the Dark Continent was wiped clean. Maybe the Sticks just hated elephants.
“On me. Zalar, Brunson, twenty metres left, ten forward. Winder, Fromholt, right, same. Walker, my six, ten metres.” With intense slowness, the six men moved out. Their armour lagged mere microseconds behind the changing background.
The Stick encampment was small. Only twenty observed enemy moved within the protection of a complex perimeter screen. Recent minor victories had allowed the Sticks password technology to fall into the hands of the all but vanquished humans. The men penetrated the deadly screen with impunity.
They moved into their positions with a practised ease. They had surveilled the camp over the past week and knew it’s every inch. Cpl Walker’s mission task was a simple one. Protected by fire from Mansfield, he had only to locate and “paint” an enemy soldier with an x-ray laser visible only through their helmet optics. That one would be spared for study; possibly interrogation.
Though fearsome in appearance at nearly 3 metres, the alien warriors were quite fragile despite their body armour. The armour had been designed to protect them from the blasts of energy weapons, not the crude human Heckler & Koch G3’s spitting 30 calibre death. The copper jacketed lead cores tore through the creatures, literally ripping them to pieces.
Within ninety seconds, all enemy resistance had been neutralized. Corporal Paul Walkers mission to protect a Stick from elimination had been performed beyond the pale. The young soldier received a mortal wound and died saving the intended prisoner from the withering fusillade.
The last remaining Stick, it’s four upper limbs tightly secured behind it, hurled what were undoubtedly scathing invectives in it’s incomprehensible tongue. Staff Sergeant Mansfield approached the towering creature. Gripping the muzzle of his weapon like a baseball bat, he struck the beast across it’s mouth. It did nothing to halt the verbal assault.
A loud report silenced the creature. SSG Mansfield’s face and chest were showered with viscous, ochre blood as the aliens head vaporized before his eyes.
The massive frame of the Stick slowly slumped to the ground. Behind it stood Private Winder, his weapon still raised. A thin trail of smoke issued from the barrel.
“Winder, what the fuck?” Mansfield screamed, wiping the alien goo from his mouth, “What’s the matter with you. We needed this bastard alive.”
Slowly PFC Eric Winder lowered his weapon. He stared past his squad leader. “Sorry Sarge. I couldn’t help it. Paul was my friend.”
by submission | Jun 11, 2011 | Story
Author : Andrew Bale
“Commander, I’m getting something weird on the optical arrays – a signal oscillating from the IR into the UV.”
“Are we emitting? Where is it coming from?”
“I think somewhere behind us, sir – we must be getting some scatter off the dust. Given the particle density, the source must be either really close or really strong.”
“Jill, is it the drive?”
“No sir, the drive is JESUS!!”
The sound of attachment had gone unheard but the ululation that the device produced resonated through the entire ship in a deafening cacophony, relenting only when it occasionally slipped beyond the range of human hearing.
Amid the auditory assault, Commander Rodriguez pulled himself over to the command station and slapped the kill switch on the drive. Floating in sudden zero-g, he was relieved when the shrieking abruptly stopped, to be replaced by a loud but purely internal ringing. Unable to hear his own commands he focused on his panels, bringing up display after display to check on the status of mankind’s first manned interstellar ship.
A pen hit his arm from behind and bounced up overhead. Turning in his seat he was treated to the sight of Lieutenant Zhang yelling inaudibly and waving her hand at the auxiliary-systems panels.
The maintenance airlock was cycling.
He slapped the collision alarm button. Red lights strobed all over the ship and slowly more audible alarm klaxons chimed their warning. His left-hand display automatically brought up a schematic of the ship, little red-numbered dots identifying the location of each of the 14-man crew. None were near the excursion bay.
His returning hearing caught a sudden explosion of cursing from the corridor. It had to be the Assistant Engineer, he always reverted to Oromo when he was stressed. He turned in anticipation of the African’s report but stopped agape at the figure entering the bridge.
The creature was low and wide, an immense spider wearing a goggle-eyed octopus, barely able to fit through the door but unimpaired by the lack of acceleration. It was covered in a black, rubbery material everywhere except the top, where four multi-faceted eyes scanned atop swaying stalks. It began to moan, a low but complex sound, echoed a moment later by high, precise tones coming from a small silver sphere that floated behind.
The sounds stopped, the creature waited. The commander glanced around the room to see the entire bridge crew staring at him – still, silent, they were waiting for him or the intruder to do something for which they might possibly have a reasonable response.
Keeping his eyes on the nightmare figure, he reached for the tablet beside the seat. Scrolling through the index he finally found the approved script, words rehearsed only in jest, included against impossibility.
“Greetings from the planet Earth, we are emissaries of peace and …”
Silver tentacles pulled the tablet from his grasp as the sphere began to examine it, images flashing across the screen impossibly fast, the tiny speaker squawking like a dying cassette tape. As suddenly as it have been taken, the tablet was returned to him. The creature started to moan again, but this time the sphere followed in English.
“I need to see your license, title, and flightplan. Your exhaust radioactivity is way past acceptable limits and you seem to be missing hull registration markings. Who is in charge here?”
Stunned silence filled the bridge for the space of a dozen heartbeats. The creature caressed part of its suit and moaned again. The faithful sphere translated.
“This is Unit 7… I need backup.”
