by submission | Oct 6, 2013 | Story |
Author : Alexis Voltaire
My fist thumps heavily on the metal door, echoing down the corridor. I’m soaking wet, some of it water, some of it blood. some of it mine. “Sandogan!” I yell. “I know you’re in there, dammit, you’ve got business!”
I thump a few more times, but I can’t make too much racket. If anyone else sees me here they’ll turn me in. I wait. At last I hear the soft thumps of feet coming nearer. “Go away.” A gruff voice says from behind the door.
“I’ve got the chip, you miserable old fool!” I snarl. “Eighty thousand is triple your normal rate, now open up!”
I hear a loud deep whuffing sound. And a growl, a real animal one. “Back, boy, back down! Now sit!” Sandogan’s voice. A metallic chattering of a chain-lock, and then a rasp of bolts sliding back from all around the door. The door opens, and Sandogan peers through the gap.
There’s a scuffle and a blur of movement, more growls. Sandogan tries to close the door but it’s too late, a lean furry beast slips through the door with three mouths wide, glowing green fangs reaching for my arm, my throat.
I stumble back. Sandogan tries to grab the leash but it slips through his hands. My hands go automatically to my phase pistol, before I really realize it I’ve aimed and fired. A bolt of purple light sears through the beast and splashes off the metal wall. When my vision clears I’m left staring at a pile of ash and charred bones.
“Give me the chip and get in here.” Sandogan growls, holding the door open. I hand him the box and slip through the door while he counts the contents.
The room inside is a dump, a sagging couch, repli-pizza boxes scattered over the floor, a string of industrail LEDs instead of proper fixtures. But that’s the best you can get when you’ve got a blacklisted identity and a stolen bio-programmer module sitting in the corner, shining like the light at the end of my tunnel.
“I need a new face, one the corporation can’t find.” I say. Looking out the window, I can already see the red and blue lights gathering below. “Fast… And I’m sorry about your pet, really.”
“Only a new development for a customer.” Sandogan waves his hand dismissively, but there’s an edge in his words. “Only a two hundred thousand chip project.”
I swallowed nervously. It’s bad to piss off someone about to tinker with your genome. But unless I step into that booth… If I fight I’m dead, no two ways about it. If I surrender the corporation will turn me inside out to find out how much data I just stole. Heck, they’d probably do it anyway if I told them up front. Sandogan’s apartment is shielded, they can’t come in but they know I’m in the building. Living the rest of my life in a twelve-by-twelve metal box with a back-alley bio-engineer made the first two sound charming in comparison.
The booth door slides back with a clunk. “Get in.” Sandogan says from behind his computer.
I toss my phase pistol and keys on the couch, take a deep breath, and step inside the cold metal cylinder. White chemical fog and light flood my vision, my skin prickles as the alteration field strips away and dissolves my clothing. Automatic clamps and straps take hold of my limbs and torso, holding them in place. A needle pricks my skin, everything gets distant and fuzzy.
I really hope I don’t wake up with fur and fangs.
by submission | Sep 27, 2013 | Story |
Author : Carl Poffley
“Nothing.” grumbled Amado irritably. “Absolutely nothing!”
“Why does that annoy you?” Kia replied, fiddling with the instruments.
“We came all the way out here to a planet that’s unbelievably similar to Earth and not a single sign of intelligent life! Just some dumb animals and trees! Lots and lots of trees!”
“Well the trees are interesting aren’t they?”
Amado looked at the tree, the one that had been dubbed “Specimen G-42371”. It was a strange shape, like some strangely formed pot, and the top was crowned with a messy cluster of branches with leaves of various colours and shapes. At first it had been novel: a real life alien tree! But there were hundreds, thousands of them for miles around, clumped together so tightly that it was practically all he had seen since they had arrived on the planet.
“They look different, yes, but they’re still just *trees*, Kia!”
“Their root networks can go on for miles, linking hundreds of thousands of them together and we have absolutely no idea why. Doesn’t that excite you at all? Like, not even a little bit?” she checked the equipment and frowned. “Y’know, it’s weird: our instruments are picking up complex chemical processes where the roots intertwine, but there’s no rhyme or reason to them. Just seems completely random…”
“Probably just anomalies caused by equipment malfunctions. Most likely boredom induced malfunctions because they’re as sick of these trees as I am!”
Kia looked at him quizzically. “Boredom? We’re on a whole new world and you’re *bored*? Seriously? I’ll be honest, you’re not really acting much like a man of science. Where’s your scientific curiosity Dr. Kalawakan?”
Amado paused for a moment, then sighed. “It’s just… I just… I spent my entire life dreaming of meeting aliens. Intelligent aliens I mean. I can remember when I was child, and the sheer excitement I felt when we learned that, against all odds, this planet had all the criteria for life. The whole reason I went into science was to head here and find new alien cultures and civilisations! You wouldn’t believe the amount of hoops I had to jump through in order to get onto this mission, and now that we’re finally here… there’s nothing! I just… I feel like… like I’ve wasted my life on some stupid impossible dream…”
“*That’s* what this is about?”
Kia felt herself begin to laugh, but suddenly noticed that Amado looked like he was going to cry. “Hey, don’t worry about it.” she said warmly. “I mean, just because this planet doesn’t have any intelligent life, doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re alone in the universe right?”
“Yes but… It’s just…”
“Don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s head back to base camp. Get something to eat.”
Slowly, the science team began to head back, leaving the trees alone. Specimen G-42371 stood still, its leaves rustling in the evening breeze. Beneath the ground, its roots began to release a series of chemicals into those of the trees surrounding it, so subtle that each one lasted less than a moment, yet so intricate that it took several hours before the whole sequence had emerged. When it was finished, those trees that had received it began to transmit it to the trees *their* roots were in contact with, and so it went on for miles and miles across the planet’s surface, passing from root to root, from tree to tree…
They would later consider it one of the greatest poems in history.
by submission | Sep 14, 2013 | Story |
Author : Adam Levey
The pilot, Simon, surveyed the scene of utter devastation all around him. Spent ordinance drifted in the space between thousands of shredded warships, many the size of mountains, with gaping wounds as big as apartment buildings. Ammunition spilled from storage rooms, detonating as it collided with the debris of human achievement. The mighty fleets had been last-ditch efforts by the great powers to end the war decisively. The fact that each side had decided that their secret weapon would simply be larger versions of things that weren’t working as it was really did say it all.
Scraps of hastily retrofitted merchant ships mingled with the purpose-built destroyers and frigates. Old ships recovered from scrapyards, new ones right out of construction bays. Cutting-edge lasers, missiles, rail guns and projectile weapons as old as the idea of interstellar travel itself all blurred together into a mélange of destruction. Many of the gutted wrecks that haphazardly floated past weren’t even equipped with jump drives, they’d needed to be ‘towed’ by the larger vessels. Towing was an unreliable science; ships had up to a 20% chance of being ripped apart by the strain. Still, jump drives were expensive. The comm-channels were dead, Simon had checked. Not even static. Then again, maybe it was his own equipment that was damaged.
Before this battle, there had been many others. Hundreds, certainly, maybe thousands. Ten times as many skirmishes, acts of sabotage and terrorism. Every weapon in humanity’s arsenal had been utilised, from chemical agents to propaganda. There had been plenty of time, after all; a war that lasts centuries leaves plenty of time for experimentation. Resources had run dry, colonies had been bombed into dust, economies and industry were taxed to breaking point. Technology stagnated, except when it came to military hardware. It provided little benefit though, considering how quickly spies were able to get their hands on new discoveries and prototypes, and by the end industry was so deteriorated that advanced technology was impossible to manufacture.
Simon considered the wreckage all around him. So many civilian ships had been pressed into service…perhaps all of them. Most of the original crews had opted to stay with their beloved vessels. The military’s relief was almost palpable, since it wasn’t like they’d have any chance of providing crews; after a war lasts a century (or two, or three), volunteers become difficult to find.
It was hard to be certain, but it seemed like every fleet had fought to the last. There certainly couldn’t be many survivors. The war was probably going to have to be put on hold for a while. It was likely for the best, everyone could do with a breather. Simon smiled sardonically at this thought. Light flared as damaged reactors went critical, and capital ships were ripped apart, blast doors and engines and shield generators pin-wheeling. There was no sound, except the hiss of air escaping through the cracks in his cockpit canopy.
by Desmond Hussey | Sep 13, 2013 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer
Tensions are high in the control room as the Pegan ship passes the Moon. Speakers emit a constant chatter of enigmatic chirps, beeps and ultra-sonic tweets which constitute the Pegan language.
“You’re telling me, we’ve been in contact with them for sixty years,” Chief Administrator Swanson’s face is a study of barely controlled anger, “but we still have no idea what their intentions are?”
“That is correct, sir.” I shift uncomfortably in my seat.
“Then what the hell have we been paying you people for?” His voice rises, filling the chamber. “Assembled in this room are the world’s brightest minds and not one of you has any idea how to talk to them?” Eyes stare glumly at consoles or shoes, desperately avoiding contact with Swanson’s rage. “Need I point out the importance of establishing communication? We need to know if they’re hostile or friendly.”
“It’s not that easy.” I know I’m walking on thin ice, but I continue. “We’ve tried every known language, but have found no common denominator, no shared linguistic or phonetic keystones of any sort to build off of. We’ve tried pictures and symbols, but we share no familiar point of reference. Likewise, we have little or no context for the images they send us. We aren’t even certain if they see the same spectrum of light as we do. Earth memes lack any relatable context to Pegan ones – an arrow might mean direction or a weapon to them. We do know that their language is a highly complex one. We suspect it may even be chemical in nature–“
“Chemical?” Swanson shouts. “How in blazes do you communicate with chemicals through space?”
“Exactly our problem, sir,” I pause as he mulls this over. “We’ve had some minor success with mathematics, but the Pegans have demonstrated a comprehension far beyond our own. Our mathematical vocabulary is grossly undeveloped, much like a pre-school child by comparison. It’ll take legions of mathematicians a century to decipher the volumes of equations they’ve sent us so far. It’s a gold mine of information about the universe, but the actual nature of the Pegans remains a mystery.”
The intricate crystalline mass of the Pegan ship fills the view screen, minutes away from entering the atmosphere.
“We think,” I add tentatively, “they’re friendly.”
General Haigg butts in, barking around his cigar. “Thinking isn’t good enough, Doctor.” He addresses his aide. “Major Demakis, begin the launch sequence for the warheads. Prepare to fire on my command.”
“No!” I yell. “Activating weapons could be interpreted as an act of hostility.”
“You know this how, Doctor?” Haigg demands. “I thought we didn’t understand each other.”
“We know they’re not stupid. They only want to talk. I’m positive. Any act of aggression, even a passive one, might alarm them.”
“You’d risk an alien invasion to satisfy your hunch that they’re friendly?”
“You’d destroy our opportunity to befriend a superior alien species because you assume they’re hostile?” I retort.
“Sirs!” the radar operator calls out, “Multiple targets closing in from all directions on the alien craft’s co-ordinates. They aren’t ours.”
“Get me eyes out there!” General Haigg barks.
On the view screen, the Pegan ship glows brightly as it breaches the atmosphere over South America. It comes to rest two miles above the jungle canopy, a shining city of crystal and light.
“What are those shapes flocking to it?” Swanson asks.
“Birds,” I say, “Millions of birds.”
The sky surrounding the Pegan ship is thick with a variety of birds creating a cacophony of chirps, clicks and cheeps.
It sounds Pegan.
by Desmond Hussey | Aug 13, 2013 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer
I drop from warp-space long before entering the Veretti system – a safety precaution that has become standard protocol on my salvage missions since my near-fatal incident in the Hox system. The extra flight time adds up, but it’s better than colliding with some laser-riddled chunk of battle cruiser upon re-entry.
I use the extra time to scan for anything out of the ordinary – rare radiation or a conglomeration of manufactured mass – anything that might signify a unique discovery that could flesh out my collection. I ignore the common flotsam. Amateur work, too simple and not very rewarding. I’ve refined my tastes and select only the best artifacts these days. It pays off in the long run and my clientele appreciate the rarity of my finds.
Whatever happened in the Veretti system was apparently pretty volatile judging by the amount of rubble and radiation clogging up the inner planets. As my forensics program sorts out the gritty details of, what I like to call, ironically, the Creative Impulse, I do more a conventional scan with my eye and a gut feeling I’ve learned to trust in my old age. It’s amazing how dumb computers can be sometimes, especially in the realm of esthetics. Programmers are full of it. Subtlety of contour, line and color is lost on AIs.
However, navigating tricky debris fields is one thing AIs excel at. While my ship picks its way through clouds of rock and wreckage, paying special heed to forgotten mine fields and unexploded ordinance, I spend some time researching and collating the data, attempting to piece together the story of what happened here.
Story is important. It adds a level of sophistication to the artifacts buyers like. Thee wealthy don’t just want great, rare art. They want a conversation piece.
Sifting through the aftermath for something interesting can be a tedious enterprise, though. After all, one nuclear or chemical Armageddon is much like any other. Several times I’ve left a site empty-handed after months of meticulous picking through haunted alien necropolis.
Good art takes time and patience and today I am rewarded two-fold.
On a moon I find a war-beast bronzed by the ionization of its battle-mech. A perfect storm has somehow preserved in intimate detail the alien’s gargantuan figure, its twin claws raised in savage fury, its sinewy tentacles poised in an imposing, yet delicate asymmetry of combat. The molecule-thin titanium alloy coating its entire body glints in the distant sun’s azure light. A rare find indeed.
I hit the jackpot on one of the home worlds, though – or what’s left of it. Typically a dead planet yields little more than pockmarked landscapes riddled with broken cities and deserts of bone dust, but whatever force bombarded this unfortunate race’s home was a real planet-buster. At the center of a cloud of rock and dust spins the cooled remnants of the planet’s molten core, now twisted and frozen into an amorphous blob of iron and nickel that whispers of the devilish forces which re-molded it. Its magnetic fields are staggering and the radiation levels are through the roof, but this only raises my price.
Some say mine is a macabre (pre-) occupation – profiteering from alien holocausts – but I believe I’m offering a valuable service: – uncovering fragments of eons past to remind anyone who cares how long and troubled the path of civilization truly is, and how many once great cultures have fallen to its many violent pitfalls along the way.
So what if I happen to strategically place those pitfalls myself. Therein lies the art of war.
