by submission | Jul 20, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The Shallivak landing craft detached itself from its mothership and began its descent into Earth’s atmosphere. Turrox, Subjugator of the Jor’demm Empire, Conqueror of the Rinnt Confederation, Destroyer of the Hegemony of the Hyojexxi Star System, Absolute Monarch of the Shallivak, and owner of a dozen other titles watched the Earth through the windows of the vessel.
“This world will be the crown jewel of the Shallivak Imperium,” said Turrox to no one in particular.
“It is a great prize,” noted Turrox’s chief military adviser, Forlen.
“Forlen,” said Turrox turning to his companion, a veteran of a score of successful campaigns and conquests, “I’m going to handle these humans as I did the Waroon Dynasty on Dremla VII.”
“Ah,” replied Forlen. “I remember it well, Majesty. Under the pretense of establishing a trade agreement, you met publicly with the Supreme Dynast. And then, with your legendary speed and agility, you slew him before his horrified subjects. The Waroon put up almost no resistance to our forces after witnessing Your Majesty’s unanswerable fierceness.”
“And so it will be with these primitive Earthers,” said Turrox.
The vehicle made its approach to the designated landing site, a place the humans called Edwards Air Force Base. Turrox, Forlen, and several other Shallivak donned their encounter suits, entered the ship’s airlock, and waited. At last, the outer hatch opened and a motorized gangway extended itself. Two guards descended and took their positions on either side of the ramp. When they saw the human delegation in the distance, the guards exchanged concerned glances. A few moments later, Turrox and Forlen walked down the ramp. Forlen gasped.
Finally, the Shallivak monarch and his entourage stood before the humans. Or, rather, they stood beneath them. Turrox looked up at the American diplomat who rose over him like a skyscraper. The tallest Shallivak who ever lived might have stood even with the top of the Earth creature’s shoes. Forlen looked back anxiously at the landing craft, fearful that one of the humans might pick it up and walk off with it.
Turrox, Victor of the Battle of Vendicor Prime, Subduer of the Chelminar Alliance, Vanquisher of the Pudraki Dominion, said to the towering Earthling with a meek and nervous voice, “Would a five percent customs duty on imports be acceptable?”
by submission | Jul 19, 2012 | Story |
Author : Darrin Drader
I remember giving her one last kiss as I prepared to step into the elevator that led to the nine-stage rocket.
“Please, don’t do this,” she said. “I love you.”
I remembered laying out in the lawn looking up into the stars of the night sky as a child. I had grown up on a farm, away from the light of the cities. I could see the clusters of stars, and I had always felt drawn to them. So many times I had put myself at this moment in time, getting ready to launch.
“This is what I was born to do,” I said simply. And with that, I had turned and left her, and the planet, forever.
I’d signed up for exploration, but that was before we learned of the others. When their signals reached us, it became clear that they were jealous, petty, greedy, and worst of all, warlike. The idea of welcoming them into galactic society was repugnant. They exploited everything they touched, including each other.
The first five stages of the rocket propelled it out of the atmosphere. Once in space, the next three had sent it moving ever faster toward the edge of the solar system at relativistic speeds. This portion of the journey lasted the longest, and it was the loneliest. I couldn’t help but question whether I’d made the right decision to volunteer to die.
“They’re getting close,” the General had told me. “Despite social, religious, and political forces working against them, they’ve finally unlocked all of the science. It won’t be long now… It’s a hell of a thing to volunteer for, but we’ll remember you. I promise.”
Three weeks of remembering her, our love, and our life that would never be. Three weeks, cut off from the planet because they’d said it would be easiest for everyone if the only communication was an automated confirmation of success or failure.
The faster than light engines had kicked in once the ship had made it far enough away from any of the planets to cause damage to them. This portion of the journey lasted only minutes. Entire solar systems sailed by in the blink of an eye.
They could have sent an unmanned missile to do the job; however, such missiles weren’t able to guide the warhead in manually if the enemy managed to hack the main computer; and this species was far too dangerous to allow even a chance of survival. Given that communication moved at the speed of light, and the kill order was given decades ahead of when this species would likely achieve faster than light travel, it was entirely possible that they were already building their ships. Once our existence had been detected, it would be all over.
The engine cut out inside the orbit of the single moon. The enemy had referred to it as “Earth.” However, what awaited me was not what I expected. Instead of blue oceans and green continents, I saw only brown craters. Even the oceans had boiled away.
My four hands quickly worked the controls to disarm the missile, change the trajectory, and abort the impact. These idiots had destroyed themselves; my sacrifice was unnecessary. I didn’t have to die! I could return to her.
The planet’s gravity captured the vessel and I fell into orbit.
That was when I remembered that this was a one way mission. The faster-than-light engine was spent. They’d said it would be easiest for everyone if the only communication was an automated confirmation of success or failure…
by Julian Miles | Jul 18, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
How does hell run? If it’s moving as fast as your legs can carry you without thought for obstacles or turns, then I’m doing it. Bruised from hitting lamp posts, walls and other things that help you turn at full pelt. I’m bleeding and half-blind but so far I’m ahead of it.
It? Sorry, I have no other words to apply. We led this scientific field for years, having used the one thing our competitors did not: we looked back at the Victorian inventors and went through their work with a granularity never before applied. We used our research grants not for the latest technical advances, but to pry long unseen manuscripts from private collectors.
[ Please excuse the pauses in updating this blog, but the concentration needed to hurdle or scramble around things means I have to resync my headwear after each lapse. ]
We found a notebook written by Tesla, something thought to be non-existent. In there, we found the missing pieces of his wireless electrical field work, along with some vague notes regarding his decision to abandon it due to ‘unexpected phenomena’.
So we got busy and pretty soon had the bugs ironed out, or so we thought. In a world where access to webinfra was key to getting anywhere, having the power to run your latest device is essential. Mobile gadgets have been on the bleeding edge of battery technology for years. Our little (re)discovery meant that you could use them all, anywhere where a Colorado Field was operating. We named it after a Tesla test site, yet never noticed that he ensured all tests after the first were always staged far from population centres.
So after a couple of demonstrations, we had investors and media attention. That led to the usual safety and licensing rigmarole, but we had enough funds in discrete places by then to sidestep the slow grind of authority in the accepted ways. Sunderland offered us the best incentives and had an established technology base. It only took a year to establish broadcast towers, several of them built inside the old box frame electrical pylons, giving us plentiful power and established security perimeters at minimal outlay.
Media attention was focussed on this innovation, so we scheduled the startup for just after dusk on a Friday evening. People could party all night and update the world and their less fortunate friends in the newly battery-free city of Sunderland as enhanced reality projections lit the streets.
The bulbs flashed and the cameras panned as the Minister for Energy pocketed his expenses, made a speech and flicked the switch. The lightshow was everything we had predicted. The hum faded to silence as predicted. Then the screaming started.
Tesla’s phenomena had been transient and caused nausea with rashes on prolonged exposure. We amped the field up by a thousand percent and distributed it over ten thousand acres populated by a quarter of a million people. The phenomena we manifested were full blown entities, composed of charged particles and attracted detritus around a core that originates from somewhere I have no idea of. Some reports put the initial manifestations around graveyards, which makes me think of non-scientific explanations that terrify me despite my scepticism.
If you’re still seeing feeds from Sunderland, trust me when I say it’s worse than it looks.
I insisted on the control room having a manual kill-switch. That room is three blocks away and I am sure the phenomena are aware, somehow.
Signing off as I need to concentrate on running like hell.
by Clint Wilson | Jul 17, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
The chancellor stood at the front of the room and cleared his throat. The grand science delegation from all corners of the planet gathered before him and awaited his words.
“Despite all our efforts at rectifying the situation The Almighty System has given its answer. You all know what this means.” And they most certainly did. Despite everything they had tried, scientifically, socially and otherwise they had been unable to rectify the race’s need to murder one another.
They had evolved to the point of self-sufficiency. Their technology was fantastic, automating everything and leaving nothing for any person to ever want for. They were fed, clothed and cared for far beyond their needs. Yet something had gone wrong in their evolutionary growth. They were still essentially savages.
The crowd remained silent as the chancellor read the judgment aloud. “It is hereby decreed by The Almighty System that all citizens of the world shall immediately begin the process, as laid out in the general operations manual, for de-evolution and hopeful eventual reinstatement.”
They might have been savages at their core, but they were obedient savages, following subliminal hypnotic suggestions implanted at an early age.
The scientists shook each other’s hands and then made their way single file, out to the lobby to a row of medical booths. There were similar ones all over the planet. A skinned knee could be sterilized and bandaged, or heart surgery could be performed by laser. They were part of The Almighty System’s original plan for complete automated care for the race. Now unfortunately they had all been reconfigured.
One by one the scientists stepped inside, while other citizens all over the world, having just received the judgment, also stepped into their own neighborhood booths. And all over the earth all the people were lobotomized.
Then the stores closed and government services shut down everywhere. And the artificially disabled people were forced to fend for themselves. At first it was mayhem. The urgent need to stop senseless murder initially only spurred more on. Cannibalism was rampant. But eventually, as doors remained locked and supplies stayed shut off, a scant few went into the wilderness and managed to slowly learn how to live off the land.
Surprisingly, they quickly adjusted to this new life, drawing from their primordial instincts. And when they mated, the one and only old-world command they remembered and understood, was to take their offspring into the ruins of the falling down cities, where the medical booths remained open and quite operational. And there they had their young also lobotomized. And the ordered neurosurgery would continue for some dozen more generations, each new wave of descendants bringing their own young for the surgery early on in life. While all around them every other scrap of artificialism biodegraded very quickly. In another millennium there would be virtually no trace of the thriving technological wonder that was once their society.
Then finally one day, the simple people, as per their tradition, brought their younglings to the now dilapidated falling down booths… and found that they no longer functioned.
So after their developed intelligence had been effectively washed away, the first generations of these new humans cooking over their open fires and wrapped in animal skins began their long and arduous journey so that they too could one day achieve technological greatness.
But hopefully these ones would be different. Hopefully they would embrace what they built for themselves, be happy for their great fortune, and stop the senseless killing once and for all.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jul 16, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The Captain stood just inside the doorway of the hut, regarding with amusement the figure sitting in the lotus position in the middle of the room.
“It’s over Thomas, we’ve come to take you back.” The Captain scuffed his boot on the unusual surface of the floor, glass-like but with a sandy grit embedded. “You must be ready to leave all this,” he gestured at the bare walls of a similar smooth surface devoid of any window or adornment, “all this vacancy behind.”
Thomas remained seated, legs crossed, palms upwards resting on his knees. He didn’t open his eyes, and when he spoke the Captain had to strain to hear him. “It is over, it pleases me to hear you acknowledge this so readily Captain…,” he left the word hanging as a question.
“Dennison.” The answer a reflex. “We have a cruiser on the beach waiting to take us back to the carrier, and there are a number of people very anxious to speak with you there.”
Thomas stretched his arms out to either side, palms still facing up. Beside the Captain the two soldiers that accompanied him raised their weapons to the ready, but Dennison waved them off impatiently.They relaxed only slightly as he began pacing around the perimeter of the room, fascinated by the apparently seamless surface from floor through wall to ceiling overhead.
“You’ve been a very difficult man to find, and given that virtually everything about who you are and what you’ve been up to is classified at the highest level, I must say you’ve been a severe pain in my ass for far too long.” He stopped behind Thomas, still studying the shadowy shapes buried deep in the walls. “So if you don’t mind, how about you get up off your yoga mat and start moving to the exit. Yes?”
Thomas, eyes still closed, smiled. Dennison couldn’t see from his vantage point, but the expression unnerved the soldiers, fingers hovering over triggers. Thomas turned his hands, still outstretched, palms down and from each a tiny object dropped onto the floor just outside the perimeter of the mat on which he sat, and appeared to melt into the floor.
“Nano-tech,” Thomas spoke, “specifically highly adaptable smart materials.”
“What?” Dennison turned, unaware that anything had happened.
“Sir, the prisoner…” One of the soldiers started to speak, but the floor at that moment rippled outwards from the point where Thomas sat, and the three men found themselves without stable footing. One of the soldiers fired in alarm, bullets ripped into the ceiling, the material now more the consistency of ballistic gel, shells penetrating perhaps a foot before stopping completely.
Dennison stumbled and put his hands down to break his fall only to sink to his elbows in the now viscous flooring.
“What the hell?” He struggled, but only managed to sink deeper. By the door, one soldier had fallen backwards, head and shoulders embedded in the wall where he twitched feebly while the other lay with his entire right side submerged in the near liquid floor, weapon sinking slowly out of reach.
“Very specialized smart materials Captain.” Thomas folded his hands in his lap. “For my entire career I was the consumable. Now, I meditate, and engineer, and when those who seek me are unfortunate enough to find me, they, like you become the consumable. There will always be more Captains searching for answers above their pay grade.”
Gravity slowly liberated the shells buried in the ceiling, and they fell to the floor to join the three soldiers as they slowly slipped beneath the surface. In a matter of minutes the floor had returned to its solid state once more.
On the beach outside only the waves made any sound, and they too seemed reluctant to venture too far inland.
