by submission | Nov 13, 2010 | Story
Author : Jacqueline Rochow
Jones surveyed the carnage. Under the blood splatters lacing the bed and carpet, the young woman’s limbs were splayed at unnatural angles, her head twisted nearly backwards and her throat crushed. Bites had been taken out of her collarbone, and the bruising suggested that one of her breasts had been crushed rather severely while she was still alive. Her ribs were caved in on one side.
“The victim?” Jones asked.
“In the bathroom.”
Jones skirted around the supervising officer with a quick flash of his badge and found the boy crouches on the floor, eyes red, deep scratches up his arms. Whether the girl or he himself had made them, Jones wasn’t sure. He looked about nineteen.
“Peter?” Jones said softly. “I’m Tim Jones.”
“Are you here to arrest me?”
“No.” Jones crouched on the floor next to him. “I’m here to talk to you. What happened?”
“I met her at a party. Amy. We were drinking and having fun, and…” he started to sob.
“It’s ok, Peter. Was this party last night?”
The boy nodded. Jones handed him some toilet paper to blow his nose.
“Then what happened?”
“I walked her home. We got back here, and… and she invited me into her room, but… but I changed my mind.”
“And then?”
“And then I don’t know what happened.” Peter’s sobs became louder and turned into wails. Jones put an arm around his shoulders and waited patiently for him to calm down again.
“It’s ok if you don’t remember the details. Just tell me everything she did, ok? You came in the front door. Did she lead, or did you?”
“Sh… she did.”
“And then?”
“She asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. I said yes. She put the kettle on.”
“Good… what next?”
“She took my hands and led me into her room. Started taking her shirt off. We kissed a bit.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “She put her hand down my pants, and then I said I wanted to slow down. She took her bra off, and then she put some perfume on.”
“Perfume?”
“Yeah. And then…” Peter swallowed and shook his head. Subconsciously, Jones brushed the deep scars on his own arm where the leather restraints had bitten into his flesh all those years ago. Becoming a counsellor for Pherax victims required being exposed to it. He’d never forget that hunger and desperation as he fought to cross the room to the female officer on the other side… health, his own arms, the fact that she would shoot him in the head if he actually succeeded in breaking free and running for her, had all been irrelevant at that moment.
“Where did she put the bottle of perfume?”
“Uh… her dresser. Second drawer, I think.”
Jones stuck his head around the bathroom door and attracted the attention of a police officer. “Pherax, second drawer of the dresser. Get a hazmat team on it. Don’t let anyone else touch it or we risk having a violent orgy on our hands.” He went back to Peter. “Peter, listen to me. This isn’t your fault. That perfume is a special chemical, it changes the way you think. It makes men want to have sex with her, and for some men, it makes them violent. What happened… that wasn’t you. That wasn’t something you could control.”
Peter nodded, but Jones could see the memories of violently tearing apart and raping a woman reflected in the boy’s eyes, and he knew that Peter didn’t believe him for a moment.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Nov 12, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
I began my journey out beyond the orbit of Mars and just before Jupiter. I was just hanging around. You know, just doing whatever. Occasionally I’d bump into one of my friends, but we’d quickly go our separate ways. That was just the way things were, kind of casual. BUMP, “Hey, what’s up,” we might say.
So, there I was, just minding my own business when, with out so much as a “by your leave,” a comet ripped by and yanked me out of my happy little home and sent me hurtling towards Sol.
“Is this to be the end of Rocky,” I asked myself, “to be gobbled up in the Fiery Depths of Sol Herself?” Alas, I was in for a far worse fate. It would be better to end my days as Glowing Plasma than to suffer the slings and arrows that destiny had in store. I was heading inward towards the blue planet. It likes to be called “Earth”, but we in the Belt simply refer to it as “Corky”.
I felt as if I were going to split open as I entered the upper atmosphere and caught air. I must have been a beautiful sight, tearing through the atmosphere trailing a white hot glowing tail for miles across the early morning sky. Well, that’s one for me. At least I made a spectacular entrance, blazing across oceans, soaring above mountains and prairies and reflected majestically from lakes and rivers.
That all came to a screeching halt when, BANG, I slammed unceremoniously into the ground. Except…horror of horrors it wasn’t gentle, pleasant, comforting rock, this was ice.
“Why, oh why cruel fates have you abandoned me here?”
I was morose for many millennia, buried there in my frozen tomb. Then I noticed something, something wonderful. Something that had escaped me previously as the change was so subtle. I was moving. Okay, maybe not with the blistering speed I had entered at, but at least I was getting somewhere. Somewhere, anywhere beat the hell out of here.
I continued to move slowly, inexorably south for several more millennia. It was so dreadfully boring; I counted to infinity…twice. That’s when a miracle occurred. It began to get warm. Slowly my icy cocoon melted away and there She was, Sol, Shining down upon me; bigger and brighter than ever. I nestled among my stony friends, and wept with joy.
Over time, a stream rushed over me, again covering me with soil. For many hundreds of years I was once again cut off from the Shining Face of Mother Sol. However, with the ebb and flow of centuries and the shifting of the ground around me, I once more entered into the Glorious Light. I was surrounded by all manner of things; stones and pebbles that would be my friends and all sorts of living things that crept under and over me and flew through the air as I once had.
One day, while basking in the wondrous Warmth of Her Light, a creature larger than I had ever encountered before, whom I shall call a “cow’ for lack of a better word, gently nuzzled me with its nose. It was warm and soft, and I thought we’d be great friends until she turned and soiled me.
Thus is my fate. I travelled interstellar space, plunged through the atmosphere of this puny little backwater, bringing Light and Glory with me, only to end up in this Sol forsaken pasture with a cow pissing on me daily.
Sol, I hope You’re getting a big laugh out of this.
Bitch.
by Patricia Stewart | Nov 11, 2010 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Lieutenant McDonald floated in his EVA suit and directed the external repair efforts. The maintbots were currently welding a splice-plate over a large breach in the hull. From his vantage point, McDonald could see a dozen similar holes along the length of the EFS Champion. It had been a fierce battle, he reflected, but the old girl prevailed. Ten thousand meters aft of the Champion, floated the lifeless remains of the Y’Kuscht. A direct hit to their reactor core had sent her crew to the Toreelian Promised Land. McDonald was glad he had helped them achieve their aspiration of dying in battle. “McDonald to the bridge. I estimate that it will take eight hours to complete the repairs to the hull.”
“Acknowledged,” responded the captain. “Try to shave a few hours off of that, Mr. McDonald. I don’t want to stay at this location any longer than we have too.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
******
Although the environmental system was operating at maximum capacity, the engine room was still thick with white smoke. The dead had been moved to a makeshift morgue in the cargo hold, and the injured had been taken to sickbay. Those that could still stand were grouped in a semi-circle around Chief Engineer Hopkins, waiting for direction. “Okay, men,” she said, “we’re in the middle of a war zone, and the propulsion system is off-line. We can’t count on being rescued. We need to get out of here on our own. As I see it, for the first time in the history of Earth Force, we’re going to have to repair a Niven Modulator outside of spacedock. I know it’s impossible, but we’re going to do it anyway. I want to hear ideas; I don’t care how dumb you think it might be.”
“Chief,” offered a young cadet, “we could access the modulator if we cut away the nacelle casing and jettisoned the injector coils. We have spare coils, but when we break the seals, they’ll leak trivalent boron. That stuff is extremely corrosive and toxic.”
“If we time it right,” suggested a senior engineer, “we can blow the nacelle casing and coil attachment fittings at the same time. The loss of pressure will suck the coils and trivalent boron into space. We’ll need to wear EVA suits during the repair, but I think the kid’s plan may work.”
“That’s the attitude,” boasted the Chief. “Jones, you go to the shuttle bay and grab a dozen EVA suits. Petters, go to the armory and sign out some C-6 explosive. Watkins, pull up the schematics on the viewer. Let’s get to work.”
*****
The captain paced the bridge trying to come up with contingency plans as the ship underwent repairs. He knew that there was no sense rehashing his battle decisions at this point; there’d be time for that once they reached safety. For now, he needed to get his crippled ship back to Earth controlled space. Since the Toreelians don’t take prisoners, this wasn’t a good place to be dead in the ether.
“Captain,” announced the tactical officer, “long range scanners are picking up three ships approaching at warp 5.”
“Friend or foe?”
“I can’t tell at this range. I’ll know for sure in about an hour.”
“For now, we’ll have to assume they’re bogies. Except for Chief Hopkins, have the command staff meet me in the main conference room in five minutes. If we can’t escape, then we’ll fight as best we can. And by God, if we can’t win, we’ll take as many of the slimy bastards with us as we can.”
by submission | Nov 10, 2010 | Story
Author : N. Thomas Parshall
I have brought the ship into orbit above Destiny. Forty-eight of my eighty-one years have been spent maintaining the systems and checking the life-pods of the passengers. Now we are here and I can rejoin my reborn body and be a part of a community again.
Destiny may even be a better home for humanity than Earth. My new home.
I awaken my body from it’s life-pod, and download back into it. I take a week to readjust to being in a meat suit, then move on to on site exploration.
I leave the ship AI in charge while I take the Lander down to find the perfect colony spot. I have chosen dozens of possible while in the System, and must now choose the best to land the ship at. Once landed the ship will never fly again.
I spend weeks locating the perfect spot. Finally I choose.
At the Y of a river valley in the subtropics, is a place with low rolling plains covered with a lush grass. The river is lined with palm-like trees, and the soil is a rich black that my test seeds sprout in nearly overnight. The cloud to my silver lining is a predator the size of a large cat. Small cloud. I decide it’s perfect and return to the ship.
As I approach the ship, I send a signal to the AI to begin awakening the passengers. If they are awake at landing, it was decided, offloading would proceed much faster. I want to be there to over-see the downloading of selves from the transport archive, of course.
I dock the transport, and head towards my quarters when the lights go out. All sounds have stopped, which means no air is flowing, and one thousand people are breathing what we have.
Within a minute, the light and air returns.
I ask the AI what has happened, but get no response.
I rush to the small control deck. Nothing software based is working. All hard-wired systems are on-line. EM pulse. I spend hours checking systems. All gone.
I hear screaming. The passengers! I forgot I awoke them.
I rush to the hold to find 999 adult infants awakening from anesthesia. All hungry as I was when I awoke. At least I knew why. They know nothing.
Fortunately, first meal is always mush in a bulb. I find the right storage and run around sticking nipples in mouths for two hours. Quiets them right down.
I return to what manual instruments I have and look for answers. And, find them.
Destiny’s star has a neutron star binary that EM flashes the planet every 396 local days.
I hear screaming. I rush onto the pod deck only to be assaulted by the most vile odor. I know my duty, and I begin checking. Most have soiled themselves, and I do the best I can.
* * *
A year has passed, mostly with-out sleep.
I transferred the passengers to the surface, ten at a time, in the Lander. I can still fly the Lander, but it must be on manual constantly.
Only fifty-seven have died, but I have felt each as if it were my own child. Of the rest, all are sitting up, and a few are taking their first steps.
My landing site is working out better than I thought. It rains once a day, in the afternoon, and it is as warm as bathwater. Which I use it for.
A few have even begun talking.
They are the ones that call me Dada.
by submission | Nov 9, 2010 | Story
Author : Clint Wilson
It was Professor Decker’s moment of triumph, what he had worked so hard for all these years. As the media looked on he manipulated the keys on his console. At first nothing happened, but then slowly the spherical device atop the garbage heap began to open like an egg. And although completely invisible to the gathered spectators, the microscopic androids descended onto the trash pile and became immediately busy doing two things; devouring the refuse as fast as they could suck the matter into their tiny nuclear furnace bellies, and duplicating themselves at an exponential rate.
Off to the right of the fuel site was a bare patch of earth -the build site- purposely cleared and leveled for the experiment. One of the reporters gasped and pointed. Suddenly they all saw it, a definite layout was appearing there in the dirt; lines of a foundation, plumbing, electrical, all appearing seemingly out of thin air. The microdroids were definitely on the move.
And while the refuse fuel was now visibly shrinking away before their eyes, on the build site steel stud framing grew from the just recently completed foundation while windows were progressing upward into fast appearing aluminum frames. Now a large red entrance door was materializing as if by magic.
And as the flat roof of the small two-story building nearly completed itself they could all see that the former garbage heap was now no more than a smoldering black patch of earth.
Ted left his console and motioned to them all, “Come inside everyone, it’s quite safe!” The gathered mob needed no coaxing. They followed Ted Decker like he was the Messiah.
Together they explored the brand new building with its gorgeous tile work and perfectly functioning plumbing; but it didn’t take long for one of the reporters to point out something quite startling on the second floor. “Say Decker, this building sure looks like it’s only two stories tall from the outside.”
“Well that’s all it is,” replied the professor.
“Then how do you explain this?” The reporter opened wide a closet door which gave way onto an upward spiraling stairway.
In unison they all climbed cautiously into the sunlight to find a completely unplanned and unexplained third floor growing out of the roof, which was surprisingly not made of tin or tarpaper but expensive looking hardwood flooring. Together the bewildered people gathered tentatively at a northward facing window as a new ceiling closed in over their heads.
They looked out of the unplanned third story window to the gaping hole in the earth which had now opened up under the former fuel site. And the healthy ground continued to seethe and writhe as the microdroids multiplied and took fresh matter into their tiny bodies
Ted Decker exclaimed, “Oh lord something’s happening, the program was supposed to end, they’re not stopping.”
“Well, when will they stop?” asked a young wild eyed reporter as a light switch panel materialized on the freshly erected wall behind her.
Decker paused, as if grasping for words, and then finally, as the fuel hole widened and deepened even further, and as they all watched an unplanned western wing of rooms begin to stretch away from the main building, he replied with a question, “When they run out of fuel?”
