by Roi R. Czechvala | Nov 2, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
The five member crew of the ISS watched in rapt horror as 425 miles below them miniature stars blossomed upon the Earth’s surface.
This can’t be happening. It’s not real, Dr. Irena Mikhailovich whispered. Her tears failed to stream down her delicate cheek. Instead they separated with every blink of her eyes and floated before her.
Captain Roger Launius, USAF, hovered beside her watching the events unfold. There goes D.C.. New York just bought it. Well, how about that? Looks like we’re landing at Edwards. Nope, spoke too soon.
How can you be so damn cavalier? She said, turning on him angrily. Our world is destroying itself and we’re helpless to do anything about it.
He shrugged. First of all, the world is not destroying itself. Humanity is. Terra will be just fine. She’s seen far worse than this. Secondly, what can we do? They’ve bigger things on their minds. They’ve forgotten about us. Right ‘Moto?
Yoshi Moromoto pulled the comlink from behind his right ear and replied. Looks that way boss. There’s a lot of chatter down there, but so far none of it’s aimed at us.
Launius sighed. The problem is, what are we going to do? It doesn’t look like Australia has been hit. Maybe we could set down at Amberly.
The normally reticent medical officer, Carmen Espinoza, spoke softly. Do we really want to go back?
What?
Seriously, what’s there to go back to? A global dark age? No thank you.
She’s got a point, Cap. Besides, even if Amberly is available. It’s impossible to land that crate without ground guidance. We can’t even raise the Aussies let alone get landing guidance from them, said Marcus Flannery, the crew’s resident physicist.
What about the ACRV. It’s pre-programmed to return. No ground crew needed.
Firstly, the automated crew return vehicle only holds three. Do you want to pick who goes back and who stays? Secondly, it’s programmed to land in the middle of the Siberian steppes. It’s winter down there. Do you want to be stuck out there with no ride back to Baikonur? Captain Launius replied flatly.
We could use it to push the station. All eyes turned to Dr. Mikhailovich. What? Why are you looking at me like that? What are our choices? Crash the shuttle in Australia? Freeze to death in Siberia while two remain behind to starve, or stay and starve right here? If we fire the ACRV we could move into a degrading orbit and… well… it would be quick.
We may have another option. ‘Moto said looking turning away from the plasma display. I have something on radar closing fast. He checked his screen again, confused. Judging by the trajectory, it boosted from out here, in orbit. We should be able to see it in just a matter of moments.
The five astronauts raced for the cupola to catch a glimpse of the incoming object.
They haven’t forgotten us, Carmen squealed, as the object came into view.
Realization sunk in. No, they haven’t forgotten us. They never planned to forget us, Captain Launius replied.
The weapon detonated, embracing the International Space Station and her crew in the warmth of thermonuclear fire.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Oct 20, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
I couldn’t bear to look at the young punks sitting at the bar. A smartass kid about 21, 22 thinks he knows how the world works, and two pretty, but brainless devotchkas hanging on his every word as if it were a golden nugget of wisdom.
They don’t know shit.
“You don’t know SHIT,” I yelled at them. They gave me a disdainful look and dismissed me as a nut job.
I’ve seen it all. Battle cruisers blasting unarmed hospital ships to pieces. The sick, lame and lazy, still in their beds spilling out of the ruptured hull to suffocate in the vacuum of space.
I was on Europa when a grief crazed sergeant sentenced a virtually unarmed colony of Asiatics to a slow death by asphyxiation when he blew their Tesla Field generator.
Nobody cares, nobody gives a damn.
Nobody noticed as Joey Preston, formerly 2nd Lt. Joseph L. Preston, 3/125th, 1st Infantry Division, took a large swig of his beer, lowered his head and fell unconscious to the grimy steel floor.
John Carsten, grimaced as he jabbed the needle into his arm and thrust the plunger home. The rictus of pain was quickly replaced by the winsome smile of euphoria as he loosed the belt on his arm and allowed the blessed fluid to burn away his nightmares.
The nightmares of the impenetrable jungles of Venus. The combat was so close it often came down to hand to hand battle. A gook impaled his thigh with a screwdriver.
He reacted immediately, slashing at the dinks body with his K-Bar. The slope fell atop him, covering him with his slimy entrails and their filthy stinking contents of raw shit. He gagged and vomited. He was on his back choking on his own ejecta, triggering a second wave of nausea.
There was nobody in the cramped, filthy apartment to remove the needle from the arm of retired Gunnery Sergeant John Carsten, nor to call the medics as he drifted into a coma from which he would never wake. Above his body, thumb tacked to the wall, was a crimson banner emblazoned with a golden Eagle, Globe and Anchor.
In a secluded wooded lot, not far from Dog River, Saskatchewan, stood a makeshift lean-to “fort”, composed of logs, branches, bits of sheet metal, and whatever detritus could be lashed together to form a hide-out for young boys.
Almost simultaneously, William Hunter ( age 12), Billy to his friends and family, and Christopher “Chip” Pike, 11, pulled the leads of their Nintendo Gameboys from the sockets behind their right ears.
“Wow,” exclaimed Billy, “I was this loser alchy dick who fought in the Lunar Colony Wars.”
“That’s nothing,” Chip interjected with unbridled enthusiasm. “I played a drug sick dope head Marine after the Venusian invasion. I got extra points every time I hit the vein first try.”
“Damn,” Billy exclaimed admiringly.
Just then there was a knock on the rusted tin door. “That’s not the secret knock,” Billy said testily.
A second knock came. “Close enough,” said Chip and pushed open the door.
Chips little brother and constant pest Charles (Chucky, 9) eagerly barged in. “Guys, guys, look what I just got. I just downloaded it from the library. It’s the latest game… it’s almost like ancient history.
He held out a small box emblazoned with the name Hanoi Hilton III: The Ganja Express.
Their eyes were aglow as they smeared saline paste on their leads, slapped them into their cranial jacks and plugged into the wonderful mind numbing game.
by submission | Oct 17, 2010 | Story
Author : Adam
The boy had been rummaging through the Pit for hours before he hit the jackpot. A slim silver watch covered in a day’s worth of grit and stench. The boy held it up in his hands, gently brushing off the dirt with barely cleaner hands, and admiring how it shone under the flickering lights. A vague flicker of a smile passed across his oft expressionless face.
He curled a fist around it, hiding it from the peering eyes of other children, then he turned and rushed towards the exit from the Pit. He took the maintenance door out of the garbage Pit and up to the Hangar.
Up stairs, and out into the throng of strange cultures, the boy wove between the thudding and hissing machinery of mercenaries and the alluring beauty of GM whores. There was the background of vocal conversation and the constant subliminal hum of machinery and electronics. Ancient stone arches overlaid with scaffolding and plastic pipes rose far overhead. The sound of engines reached through the throng of noise; air craft full of passengers.
He slithered between a group of humanoids warbling song to one another and found himself on the far side of the human river. He barely stopped to catch his breath before racing off again towards the pawnbroker, still barely believing he had found something as valuable and personal as someone’s watch. He only guessed at the memories, secrets, and bank passwords the thin silver band could hold.
“Give me the watch.” The voice was clearly coming from something less delicate than human vocal cords. A huge chrome leg crashed down in front of the boy, forcing him to stop. He glanced up at the huge Mercenary, gleaming steel body, globular black head, the quality told him this merc was successful. It told him it bought its gear.
With a fast step, the boy was around the trunk of steel and racing across the tiles. Behind him he heard and felt the massive legs crushing tiles beneath its weight. Too fast. A thin whip wrapped around his legs and sent him skidding across the tiles. He finished his slide face down, nose clogging with blood and eyes blurred with tears.
The crushing thud of the Merc’s steps stopped just behind him. A giant’s shadow cast over the feeble boy. “The watch.” He felt rubber fingers as thick as his torso gently rap around his arm, they tightened and then turned him over. The boy flinched at the rifle barrel an inch from his eyes. He sensed the stare of nervous eyes and sensor stalks from a few nearby.
“NOW.” The Merc demanded. The boy tightened his fist in defiance. The watch was his. His find, his hard work. One of the Merc’s fingers started dividing, the rubber flesh splitting into thin strands waving gently in a non-existent breeze. Then, they moved in unison towards the boy’s fist. Strands pushed insistently against his skin, squeezing between fingers and thumb.
The boy panicked, trying to grip harder, “no, no, no!” He felt the watch slip, and then suddenly his fist was closing on vacant space. The rubber strands retreated and the Merc held up its prize. Something entered a port on its side and for a moment the Merc stood stock still. Then the something retreated and the watch disappeared into the folds of rubber. The Merc released its hold on the boy, turned and walked casually away.
Something light dropped on his chest. The boy grabbed it and held it before his blurred vision. The silver watch shone under the Hangar’s lights.
by submission | Oct 13, 2010 | Story
Author : Clint Wilson
Chestofferoff had never dealt with a Steely before; hadn’t even actually seen one in person until now. He knew they were supposed to be big, but this guy blocked out the suns! Never mind, he pushed his nervousness aside, slicked back his greasy hair with one sweaty palm and flashed a big square toothed grin under his pencil thin moustache. “So what kind of ship you looking for friend?”
The Steely’s voice reverberated off the hodge podge collection of beaten and battered fighters, freighters and cruisers that littered the dirty patch of tarmac known as “Honest Chestofferoff’s Used Space-Shipatorium.”
“Mmm, big ship. Mmm big ship for big Steely body. Mmm fast ship, mmm fast and… ac-ro-bat-ic.” The last syllable ended in an echoing click, like a ball peen hammer hitting a distant anvil.
“Uh huh,” Chestofferoff held the grin as he sized up his customer. “So you want big, fast and agile huh? Well your old pal Chestofferoff can certainly accommodate you friend.” Then with the expertise of a galactic politician he suddenly lost the smile and leaned forward, one eyebrow raised in feigned mistrust. “Say, how much exactly do you have to spend?”
The Steely wore no clothing but had a large chain mail purse strapped over one shoulder. From the bag he procured two bank pouches which he shook at the salesman. Chestofferoff’s trained ears could hear the stacks of large denomination plastic credits rattling around in there. Instantly his smile returned. He stepped up to the Steely and tried to put a hand on the huge biped’s shoulder, but had to settle instead for grabbing the back of his massive upper arm. “Right this way friend, have I got the ship for you!”
An hour later he was putting the neatly stacked credits into his safe and making ready to close up for the night when he heard a horrible screeching from above, and looked out the window just in time to see a fiery streak cross the early evening sky. This was then followed by a muffled crash that shook the entire lot. Chestofferoff hurriedly locked his safe and stepped out of the office in time to see a smoking fire ball rising into the air nearby.
He punched the night security switch on his wristband and felt a little better as the massive wrought iron gate banged shut at the lot’s entrance. But still he spoke aloud to himself, a trait easily picked up by someone with no friends, “I paid those damn Wretchassians to rebuild those stabilizers. It couldn’t be!” Then as he made his way across the lot back to his private quarters, all the while looking over his shoulder, he added, “I might not have paid them what they wanted, but I damn well paid them! Sure they argued that the things needed to be replaced, but what do I look like, the crown prince of Regalia Seven?”
Then as he unlocked the door to his quarters he was startled by another tumultuous crash. He spun around to see the lot’s front gate twisted and hurled aside, and there stood the Steely, its eyes glowing orange in the twilight, the bent control stick from the crashed Cygness 5 cruiser clutched in one massive fist.
As Chestofferoff deftly slipped into his quarters he shouted, “No refunds!” and then thought of how the thin steel door of his apartment was probably half as strong as the now mangled front gate.
He could hear the clunking footsteps of the angry Steely drawing near.
by submission | Oct 7, 2010 | Story
Author : Dennis Gray
“Where’s that gurney? Get it in here now!”
”Alright, hook her up, quickly! Forget the hand unit; let the gurney scanners do the work. Got the spinal lock in place? Good, seal it up and let’s move.”
The doctor kept shouting orders all the way to Medlab; with the Commander, Dr. Fatah and I following close behind. The Commander tried to follow the gurney into surgery but the sani-field snapped on as he reached the door, keeping out all except authorized medical personnel. As we watched through the observation window a crowd of technicians, soldiers and other personnel started to gather around us. The full force of the Commander’s tension lashed out as he span around.
“Don’t you people have jobs to do? I want answers and I want them now…”, his head snapped around to Dr. Fatah and I, a finger stabbed the air, ”…starting with you two. What the hell happened in there?”
Fatah’s reply echoed slightly in the now empty hallway, “You were there Commander. Right now, you know as much as we do.” A technician handed Fatah a terminal pad.
For years now we had been trying to create an artificial worm-hole. Dr. Fatah had demonstrated the theoretical possibility, but it took three governments to make the attempt a reality; and from the look of things we finally succeeded. Minutes ago the “switch” was thrown, the projectors powered up and an event horizon glimmered in the concrete pit we called ‘the bunker’. Military grade sensors probed their way down through the whirling darkness. Thousands of petabytes of data was collected then processed by the quantum computers into a video image on the monitors. That image was…
“Myra Benson – that’s who it is all right.” The doctor rejoined us a scant ten minutes later, “and she’s dead. Her whole body’s been affected by passing through that damn thing; massive cell damage, every organ shut right down.”
“But how can the body of a woman who died 172 years ago be here, now?”, the Commander asked no one in particular.
“Well,” Fatah scanned the telemetry on the pad, “it seems all that time-travel theory isn’t science-fiction after all. According on the data the worm-hole tunneled across time and space and did indeed open in the home of the United Nations president, 172 years ago. She apparently saw the anomaly, reached out to touch it; and, when her hand crossed the event-horizon she was pulled through and dumped out here.”
“So now what do we do?”
I thought the answer was obvious. “We send her back”, I said.
“Send her back? How?” The commander shook his head and added, “Doesn’t matter, even if we could, I am not sending back a dead UN President!”
“Look,” I explained, ”the techs are keeping the worm-whole open, locked on the same co-ordinates; we just put her in and let quantum physics do the rest. Besides, you have no choice! One hundred and seventy-two years ago Myra Benson’s aids walked into her office and found her dead body. No doors or windows compromised, no alarms triggered, nothing that gave any clue as to what happened.
“The whole planet went into mourning and as a result her campaign to dismantle the weaponized satellite network not only went ahead, it succeeded. The only unanswered question since then has been, ‘what happen?’ Who and/or what killed the most popular politician of all time?”
The Commander’s face went from worry to stark terror as he realized where I was going.
“Well, now we know; send her back.”
