by submission | Jun 29, 2012 | Story |
Author : Andrew Bale
Bezoragamaradat stared at the gleaming stacks before him, and again questioned the educational preparation of junior officers.
“I do not understand, sir – something must have gone wrong!”
Understatement. Even such a simple task as this…
“Worajak – how many fuel pods can the reactor hoppers hold?”
“256, sir.”
“And how many are here?”
The anxious young officer surveyed the pyramidal piles of small yellow spheres, perfectly sized and shaped for immediate use in the ship’s total conversion reactor.
“Perhaps 1024 to 2048, sir?”
“Not by half. And how many bricks can we hold in storage?”
“16,384, sir, including all four bays.”
“And?”
The senior reactor officer gestured towards the hoard arrayed before them. The reactor needed spheres for efficient operation, but storage favored rectangular prisms. The younger officer counted carefully, checked his math before replying.
“262,144, sir. I am sorry sir.”
“On that we both agree. Wojarak, the reactor likes elementally pure fuel, and the quartermaster likes fuel that is dense, nonreactive, and stable. Do you think that a machine that autonomously converts this…”
Bezoragamaradat picked up a double handful of the local rock, soil, and vegetation, and let it trickle out between the fingers of his left hands.
“… into perfect fuel is cheap? Or disposable?”
“No sir, of course not sir!”
“Then can you tell me where my processor is, or how you intend to pay for its replacement?”
The young officer abruptly focused on the computer strapped to one wrist.
“Sir, the processor is … I’m sorry it should be … “
The sharp intake of breath told him that Wojarak had finally spotted the mistake that should have been obvious on arrival.
“There was a glitch in converting the process file, I should have caught it when I ran it back – “
“Which you clearly didn’t.”
“Yes, sir. Everything after the error was shifted one place.”
“Obviously. So we have sixteen times the needed fuel, and the processor parked itself where, exactly?”
“On the other side of the planet, sir. 76.334 north, 493.581 west.”
“Excellent! While I would love to see you retrieve it, we do not have the time. Load what we need, I am sure the natives will find use for the rest. When you are finished, meet me in the Captain’s cabin so we can discuss … well, your future in this company.”
“Yes, sir.”
On the other side of the planet…
Phocus stared at the thing in wonder and fear – what was it, and why had the Gods sent it? It clearly hungered, for it ate the very field before him, but the manner of creature could not be determined, so stout and concealing was its fabulous armor. It was in attitude and size much like one of the vacuous cows he tended, oblivious to all but its food, but the sounds that echoed out from within were reminiscent of the fowl by the river, and no cow he had ever heard of could lay an egg such as that which lay before him.
The creature was too large to conceal, too stubborn to move, too valuable to cede to the whim of a King who would surely hear of it before too long. There was not enough time to wait for more eggs. Its armor would likely turn away bronze, but even such armor must succumb to the weight of a tree such as those surrounding the field, and those trees would succumb to the axe. The golden innards and a swift flight would make him a King himself on some far shore. Now quickly, to work!
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 28, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Rosa jumped, spilling her latte as the man dropped heavily into the seat across from her, long hair mussed, his face a shadow in the halo cast by the late afternoon sun at his back.
“Lovely place this, yes?” His accent almost familiar.
“The café? Yes, it’s nice, but I was…” He cut her off abruptly.
“No, no, I mean yes, the establishment is fine, but the world, the world is a lovely one.” He paused, pulling on his long chin with the spider-like fingers of one pale hand. “Reminds me a bit of another, the name of which escapes me.”
“Another world? Listen, I’m sorry, but I’m not interested…” Again he spoke over her.
“Of course you’re interested, who isn’t really?” He spread his hands flat on the table and cocked his head to one side. “How’d you fancy a trip to another planet. Don’t worry, I’ve done this dozens of times.”
Rosa smiled placatingly, “My mother always told me never to accept rides from strangers.”
He grinned. “Jhesehetza, stranger than some, but no stranger than most,” he kept his head turned, a strange visage half in sun, half in shadow, “you can call me Jhes.” She couldn’t help but laugh.
“Ok, ok, so I’d love a trip to another planet,” she cradled her coffee in both hands and sipped, “as you say, who wouldn’t?”
“Wonderful, wonderful.”
He pinched his fingers in the space above the center of their table, then drew out a spinning universe of lines, stars and planets a shoulder’s width wide. Rosa gaped. Spinning the model in the air with his hands, and sliding it from side to side he paused at a flashing point in space that Rosa recognized as Earth orbiting around its sun. He reached into the model and touched Earth, dragging a line with his finger as he retracted his hand, then began shuffling the model again all the while keeping his one finger raised in the air with a blinking line snaking away into the model.
Jhes licked a free finger and held it up in the air for a moment. “Eighty twenty, nitrogen oxygen or thereabouts.” He kept spinning the model, suddenly stopping and jerking it back. “There we go, right there.”
Jhes reached across the table and grabbed Rosa’s arm, then stabbed his upheld finger into the model again, dragging the line to the dot he’d located. There was a blinding flash of light, and a moment later Rosa felt Jhes let go of her. It took a moment to realize she’d closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the cafe had disappeared. The table, two chairs, she and the strange man sat in the middle of a meadow, long blue grass undulating in wave-like ripples around them as a deep red sun dipped below the horizon far off in the distance.
Rosa opened and closed her mouth several times soundlessly, then realizing her coffee was still clutched in her hands, put it down and stood up slowly, turning to look at the strangeness that surrounded her on all sides.
“Beautiful, isn’t it. We should walk somewhere, see if there’s anyone about.” Jhes seemed entirely at ease, though his excitement was palpable.
“We, how…” she stammered, “I can’t stay here, long at least, I’ll need to go home and…” Once more, her sentence was waved away.
“Only forward, never back. There’s not enough fuel left there for a second jump.”
“Fuel,” Rosa followed him around the table and into the grass as he struck off, “what kind of fuel?”
“Core fuel, there’s only enough mass in any planet’s core for a single jump, once it’s used up, well, nothing. Not like we can pull the planet up to the depot and fill ‘er up now, can we.” He dragged his long pale finger tips through the grasstops as he walked, as though wading through a lake.
“Core mass, you mean you use that up for travel?” Rosa stopped, realization sinking in as the sun dipped finally below the horizon, leaving her in almost complete blackness.
“Hm, yes, well, seen them once and all that.” In the darkness Jhes began to fluoresce, and Rosa couldn’t help but wonder where that energy was coming from.
by Julian Miles | Jun 27, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The morning breeze is so refreshing here in the heights overlooking the Gordet Pass. We had to stop the Persimma getting through to the Femberul plainsland and this is the choke point. It was going to take old-fashioned grit to hold the line, so we were given the task along with divisions heavy on tradition. Made us smile, mercenaries and old guard having to work together.
I started in the battling business in my teens. Where I grew up, it was take ship with mercs, turn to crime or become a cyberpeon. So I took the coin and went to war.
My first battle was Smarkandie. I shat myself as the nine-metre natives in their spiked armour charged. As someone once said: “Sometimes the only reasonable response to abject terror is a bowel movement.” After that, I carried spare underwear with my ammunition.
I got my first command at Upshallon. Made a complete hash of it and a lot of good men died. Hesitation is fatal. Unfortunately it was only fatal for everyone else.
After that I got myself a Blenkinsop Multi-Load Autogun and a shit-hot loader by the name of Tay. In between fucking each other senseless for sixteen good years, we killed everything the galaxy threw at us and made several fortunes. We pissed them all away in style.
On Aloysius II, Tay made sure the bastard who disembowelled her with a vibroblade died headless. I survived that bloodbath despite trying very hard not to after she went.
I became the rarest of warriors: a veteran mercenary. Got to the point where the kids I was fighting alongside hadn’t even heard of the places I’d fought my early battles on.
Iskaflune is a beautiful planet. The thought that I could happily settle here surprised me. Just get a place out by one of the tundra lakes and live quietly off the monies I’d stacked up since Tay went. Lost my appetite for partying when she went, as well as my reason to be.
I’d even started negotiating with the locals over settling down, with a consultancy to their military lined up. Then came the news that the Persimma were making a last ditch assault and we were off to Gordet.
They came hard and fast, pretty banners flapping over hardcore soldiers with no choice but to win. Their atrocity record guaranteed them no survival if they failed. So they came like their future depended on it because it did.
Three days of screaming hell running on drugs with names I couldn’t pronounce that made me feel like I was nineteen again. The fact that the chemical interactions gave us all erections was hilarious for the first few hours. Then they just became another bit of us that was bruised and sore.
At the end we were down to knives and clubs. We struggled in the twilight that this place calls night, slipping on the blood and entrails of the fallen. Those last few hours were the worst battle I have ever fought. Gutter biochemicals and acid competed with improvised warhammers and serrated blades. But we held.
The early dawn light is purple, making gentle pools of shadow from the gaping wounds in the ground and the bodies about me. My credit share for this will be huge. I smile and cough blood, making my autogun mount tilt as I’m slumped against it. All the fortunes in the universe are nothing to the love of one good woman.
And even she could not give me one more moment of life.
by Clint Wilson | Jun 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
Falkland brushed past the patrons in the smoky bar. He had not visited such a place as this in decades. But he heard that they were back, and he had to see for himself.
Glancing around one last time he advanced on the booth. He looked down at the payment slot and was not surprised to see that it still accepted sticks. He stretched his long unused monetary storage capsule out to the end of its coiled cord and touched it to the slot. Immediately the booth flashed to life and a tutorial started to play.
In the hologram a jaunty blonde fellow in a shiny green suit stepped forth in mirror-polished shoes, while a bland but upbeat orchestral arrangement droned in the background.
“Welcome back citizen! Now before we begin, please allow me to orate a brief history on fortune telling, for your benefit.”
Falkland looked for a “skip” or “close” icon but there were none. Oh well, he figured. I guess for a hundred bucks you had to listen to a little preamble.
The hologram went on, “The beginning of the mapping of mankind’s forward progression really dates back to the early computerized categorization of personal information. From files as simple as home addresses and telecommunication access numbers, to more complex examples containing behavioral habits and psychological patterns, information gathering evolved quickly.
“But then once personal handheld com devices and, soon after, cyber-integrates became commonplace, it was easy for the web to follow the majority of society in its every move. And as mankind became more and more integrated with the web it became possible to track nearly every thought had by every human everywhere at all times… and as the web became faster and more powerful still, it began to run more and more complex simulations. And before long it was accurately predicting almost every single instance that would ever take place amongst humankind.”
Falkland knew the rest of the story. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as the holo went on to summarize about how fortune telling had eventually almost wiped out the human race. (A much longer tale, and thankfully not one that the little CGI character was about to make him endure) And of how the global elders had only just recently begun to allow “limited” forecasting under strict regulation. The parameters were stiffly regimented. No specifics were to be given, only vagueness. But at least there was one failsafe. The machine could not lie. Falkland knew that whatever the booth told him would be true.
So as he waited patiently for some high tech tendril of the web to calculate everything the entire network knew about him in a few seconds, he eyed the fortune slot. No matter what it said, no matter how vague, he knew it would be true. That was the one thing he could count on.
Suddenly a plastic card rattled out of the slot and hung there by its corner as if though supported only by the apex of fate itself.
Falkland glanced around nervously one last time and then plucked the card from its slot. Whatever it said, no matter how bizarre, he could be assured that it was absolutely accurate. He flipped it over and read, “The fate of the world lies in your hands.”
by Duncan Shields | Jun 25, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Infinite branching universes exist. What a drag.
The first time I went back in time to change the story of my life, I was really happy. I knew that I’d be able to go back in time, tell my younger self to make better decisions, and then my own life would be awesome once I got back to the temporal hangar.
Nothing. I went back, talked to the younger me, and he enthusiastically pledged to do what I told him to do. When I came back to the temporal hangar, I walked out of the time bay with the same memories I’d always had. My life was completely unchanged.
Now, how would I know that? That was the question. Maybe my life had changed for the better but I had just retained the same feeling of unease and sadness that I’ve always had, no matter the timeline.
Nope. I checked my diary from the timesafe. The list of changes I was supposed to make are there plain as day. Those changes haven’t been made.
I was angry.
I went back in time again. I set the dials for ten years later than the first time I went back to spy on my younger self.
I’m here now in a café across the street from him. He’s handsome, healthy, and happy. His lovely wife is buckling their sleeping child into the car seat of their brand new car.
It’s not me. It’s not my life. This universe is branched off from our own as a result of the changes he made based on my advice.
This was a worry. The theories about time travel predicted that this might happen.
When I go back to my time, I’ll have my same stupid life. I can’t imagine anything more depressing.
I feel jealous of my younger self benefiting from my advice but I can’t really be that angry. I mean, at least one of us is having a better timestream.
I pack up my stuff, pay for my coffee and head for the pickup co-ordinates in a basement half a block away.
What a drag.
