by submission | Nov 20, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The spaceship’s aerodyne engines groaned as the vessel entered the upper atmosphere of Venus. Even after 90 years of terraforming, the air on Venus was still thick and hot. The ship banked to divert around an immense atmosphere processor. The machine was as big as a skyscraper and was held aloft by cables running up to gigantic vacuum balloons. The processor’s fusion reactor kept powerful ultraviolet lasers working around the clock to photodissociate the air’s carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon. There were tens of thousands of such behemoths sailing through the skies of Venus.
“The air is 200°C and 30 bar,” said Fenrin as the Sleipnir descended roughly through the turbulent atmosphere. Fenrin kept his hands on the controls even though the ship’s computer was piloting the vessel. It made little sense. No human being could successfully manually navigate a ship to the surface of Venus. Not in one piece anyway.
“That’s why we have environment suits,” replied Tarrol. The aging but serviceable robot’s use of “we” was not a figure of speech. He, too, would need to don an environment suit.
“I’m still not sure about this,” said Fenrin. “The cost of refitting the Sleipnir to withstand Venus’ atmosphere, the cost of the environment suits, the cost in fuel coming out here.”
“Things will work out,” said Tarrol. “What’s down there is worth a lot of money.”
“Then why doesn’t the current owner of the item sell it to the Academic Consortium and cut us out of the deal?”
“Because the current owner is a roustabout machine. He doesn’t have an advanced metaprocessor. An excess of abstract thought would be a liability for someone working on Venus. The robot that found the item is a tunneler. All he does is dig into the crust so enormous cables can be run underground.”
“For what purpose?”
“Venus has virtually no magnetic field. Not enough convection in the liquid outer core of the planet to generate a field that can protect against cosmic radiation. So they’re having to construct huge underground coils to create a field. Giant thermocouples running deep into the planet will eventually power it. It was while digging that the robot got into the chamber that housed the object.”
“And he has no idea of its potential value?”
“No. All he understands is his job. I told him I could sell the item and get him more advanced disc cutters so he could tunnel faster.”
The Sleipnir landed and Fenrin and Tarrol disembarked and met their contact. The robot was the size of a house and it had no name, only a number: TR717. Tarrol and TR717 silently negotiated via radio for a few seconds. Then, the large tunneling machine turned the item over to the pair. They climbed back into their ship and lifted off.
After they were back in space, Fenrin examined the object with gloved hands.
“We probably shouldn’t handle it too much,” advised Tarrol. “It’s around two billion years old and likely fragile.”
Fenrin nodded and put the metallic ball back into a receptacle. He tried to mentally reconcile the sphere’s blue global ocean with the seas with which he was acquainted. He attempted to recognize a continent or a coastline from the strange land masses depicted in brown on the object’s surface. At last, he decided he could do neither.
“Proof of an ancient civilization on Venus and a picture of Earth’s surface around the advent of photosynthesis,” Fenrin said to Tarrol. “I say we ask the Consortium for an even trillion and negotiate from there.”
by submission | Nov 16, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
“Everyone remembers their first time—the feel, shudder, anticipation, sweat and wonder if you would die in the middle of penetration.” Emanuel Mumford stared into Stacy Croft’s face, watching for twitches or blush.
“What was yours, Captain?” She moved closer, ensuring live audiences would miss nothing.
“It was a blue giant we can’t see from Earth. That’s not important, but watching fusion balls freeze in globular time warps, like blue goldfish suspended in a bowl…exhilarating.” Mumford held his hands out in a circle for emphasis.
“And core entry? The danger is always there, so you’ve told us. Didn’t we lose a ship ten years ago?” Emanuel’s neck reddened. His face paled.
“I’d just transferred from Atlantis. She was my first assignment. We didn’t have the experience then to detect nova predecessors. There were no Q-wave monitors. Three hundred brave men, women and children lost.” He paused and then turned hard into the camera. “But I’m here to tell you all tonight, all of you on Earth…we, the Collectors, love our system, our planets, and our home world. We worship our Sol. It is our God of nourishment and survival. Returning live plasma to Her center through interspatial transfer elevators has kept Her alive for millions of years, long after the rogue dwarf star threatened to rip Sol apart in the First Empire.”
“Glory be to the First Empire,” Stacy urged, looking back to the audience.
“Glory be,” Emanuel repeated.
“And the plasma tube you showed us yesterday…it’s so much like a snake or some giant parasite reaching into the heart of a star. Do you imagine the star feels pain?”
“Hardly,” Emanuel replied, smiling. “It has no more feeling than your camera or a piece of space junk. Our own Sol is not conscious, but that we make it so in our love for its light and power. No, I sense no remorse when the plasma vacuum begins transporting the raw materials back home.”
“There must be some star systems that are advanced enough to resist. Can you discuss that?”
The Captain paused, considering his oath regarding classified information. He had been briefed. “Yes, there have been some cases of resistance. When the residents finally realize we are not destroying their source, but rather just taking a small part, they usually accept and leave us alone. After all, we learned about this technology from those who first came to Sol, before the rogue dwarf arrived. They gave us this ability in exchange for our Sol’s offering, in case we would ever need to restore our beloved.”
She pressed, “But haven’t there been encounters that were violent?”
“Stacy, I’ve come here tonight to explain that we are seeking new crews and new defense force volunteers to join our space families. That means risking much for our home system, but it is our highest calling. That may mean defending our ships and our purpose. We will always seek the peaceful path, but we will not have our path broken.”
“Captain, one of our viewers has asked me to have the name of your ship explained. Can you help?”
“Yes. Once a Captain has served five years, he or she can rename their vessel. I chose Nosferatu because I love the ancient myth of the vampire; however, in our case, we do not harm the one from whom we feed. We bring life to the one we love. Blessed be our Sol.”
by Julian Miles | Nov 11, 2015 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Gareth watched the runnels streaking the grey steel from where condensation formed in the shadows above. The annoyed tone emerging from the hubbub that was causing the condensation attracted his attention.
“Major Gareth James. You seem to be more amused than when we started. You do realise this is a court martial with lethal tariff?”
The speaker, Brigadier Rostoph, was the hero of Purlestine Eight. Saviour of Statham Station. Liberator of the Edelfuz Reaches. He was, Gareth admitted, the warrior he aspired to be.
“Brigadier, I am aware of the weight brought to bear. What I am having trouble with is the enormous waste of time that has occurred in assembling this fiasco.”
For a brief moment, Gareth thought the Brigadier was going to achieve spontaneous human combustion. Then he saw the famed tactical intelligence kick in. Gareth smiled as Rostoph took a few minutes to scroll the charges and evidence, eyes narrowing in concentration.
He looked up: “I see that, in essence, you are accused of gross insubordination, and stealing three Assault-class Ultracruisers.”
“Yessir.”
“I fail to see a single defence entry. Your superior has given chapter, verse and diagram on your alleged crimes, along with reams of supporting material that, from my standpoint, merely states you have rudely insisted on fighting a war with complete disregard for submitting the correct paperwork. So why don’t you tell those gathered here your reasons for stealing a trio of smart warships, then promptly sending them deep into enemy-held space – where they will undoubtedly be captured and repurposed to cause us grief?”
Gareth swallowed. Time to stand or fall.
“They will not be captured, sir. I added full autodestruct cut-outs on all anti-tamper routines, and removed any failsafes that could allow a zero-check bypass. If the Blurd try anything except interdiction, the vessels will cheerfully turn into G-class fusion bombs and detonate.”
Rostoph smiled: “Which still begs the question ‘why send them?’”
“The Blurd are paranoid, sir. Despite their technological superiority, they prolong this war by being insanely over-cautious. It’s the only reason we’ve been able to gain ground, by exploiting that. But they are getting better at dealing with our ruses. Now this sector is filling with an enormous fleet. You’ve seen the intel, sir. This is their ‘Invasion Earth’ staging point.”
Rostoph wagged a finger at Gareth: “Nice summary. Question remains unanswered.”
“I sent three stealth ships with variable profile hulls, so they can look like Blurd ships of any similar size. Those ships will make a nuisance of themselves, be difficult to detect, then self-destruct at the slightest capture or subversion attempt. After that, Blurd paranoia will render them unable to resist shooting first and checking later. Especially with so many ships – ships unknown to each other, crewed by the many races that comprise the Blurd – gathering in one place, with more arriving all the time.”
“So this was all for an expensive gamble?”
“Please refer to the launch images, sir. The key feature of my plan is better seen than told.”
Rostoph scanned images of the three launches. Slowly, a huge grin spread across his face. He looked up: “This trial is over. You, Major James, are a bloody menace. I can use that. Follow me.”
Rostoph and James exited. The commandant rushed to Rostoph’s console. Three images were highlighted. Each showed the ship’s insignia, etched in reflective grey upon the matte-black hulls. They all featured the Blurd ‘trademark’: a large visicode. The commander’s brow furrowed. What on Earth? The numbers were ‘01’, ‘02’, and ‘04’.
by submission | Nov 8, 2015 | Story |
Author : Lester L Weil
We were twenty years into the journey to our new planet. The ship required very little maintenance and all of us slept in our pods. The computer detected that one of the pods had malfunctioned, an unheard of occurrence. Protocol was that as Captain, I was to be awaken in the event of any problem to assess the situation. I woke to find a very confused young boy wandering the pod area. I put him to my pod and activated it and notified the computer to update the pod assignments.
Then I set about trying to correct the malfunction. With help of the computer, I discovered that the core mechanism was irrevocably broken, and without a replacement the pod was beyond repair. Almost all parts that needed replacing could be fabricated in our shop, but the pod core wasn’t one of them. There were no extra pods; there was not the space on the ship for ‘extras’.
So there would be no hyper-sleep for me. I would have to stay in real time. I would captain my ship while the rest slept in their pods, waiting to wake to a new world. They would be young and ready to start afresh. I would be an old man, irrelevant after the voyage has ended.
But I’ll be ok I told myself. I’ve always preferred living alone and the quiet days and years in space will give me plenty of time to read and play the piano, although the computer simulation is a poor substitute for my old Steinway.
So I read, thousands of books about everything. I studied history using the computer’s vast library and wrote treatises on various historical events. And what could be more useless on a new planet than an old man: esoteric earth histories. I composed not very good piano music. I wrote a novel and a book on philosophy. I played untold games of chess against the computer.
I got to know most of the passengers by name, and also their life histories by reading their files. I think of the pod rooms as my ‘neighborhoods’. The sleepers are my neighbors and I sometimes have imaginary conversations with them.
And so the years flowed by and another birthday came around. If I subtract the ‘pod’ years I am 86 today. If things go right I will spend my 87th on planet SR6973, our destination.
On this morning’s walk through the pod rooms—It’s odd that even after all these years of artificial lights I still think in terms of day and night, morning and evening. I linger in the section with families, looking at the children and again wonder what their young minds were thinking when starting this voyage. What wild and strange imaginings of their future world?
But enough of this. Today I wake the crew and we prepare for the final descent to our new home. I go to the crew’s section and start making preparations. My X/O is the first to wake. As he shook the cobwebs from his mind, he looked at me in wonder.
“Captain?—Jesus. Is that you? What the hell happened?”
“Time—Just time.”
by submission | Nov 7, 2015 | Story |
Author : Connor Harbison
No name. Names were to distinguish one from another. Now there was only one. Only him. The vastness of space seemed to swallow him up. From his asteroid perch he could spot a few other bodies. No planets. Not anymore, at least.
He cast a mournful eye towards the center. Nothing showed in the visible spectrum, but he could see the palpitations in gravity. The hole was there, just where he’d left it eons ago.
He remembered when the abilities first manifested. There was no explanation; one day he was ordinary, the next extraordinary. First there were accusations of steroids. Then he did things that no steroid, or any drug known to man, could do. Flying. Redistribution of mass and energy. The scientists called him the closest thing to God. The religious people didn’t like that.
He drifted cooly towards the heart of the system, letting the natural gravity well do its work. Or rather, artificial. It was man made, after all. Even if it was made by the last man.
Wars had broken out, but all he had wanted was to be left alone. His country had convinced him to fight on their side. The horrors he committed still flashed in his memory. Flesh melted from bone, bodies incinerated in an instant. Before that he had no idea what he could do.
With a twitch of his fingers he atomized an incoming asteroid. Had it impacted before the Earth disappeared it would have caused an extinction event to rival the dinosaurs. Maybe that would have been cleaner, he contemplated.
His first act of rebellion had been minuscule. His military handlers gave him a target; a small town thought to be harboring enemy operatives. He refused. They got angry, and he vaporized them.
The black hole neared with increasing speed. He calmly compared it to floating along in the rivers and creeks of his youth. Instead of water it was gravity now.
From that altercation it escalated. Ground troops were called in and quickly dispatched. Armor tried to stop him, but they were no match. Airstrikes demolished the house, but he was unscathed. Finally, the high command authorized a nuclear strike, which only served to kill everyone he had ever cared about. That was the final straw.
He came to a stop. He could see the gravity ripple before him, pouring over the event horizon. He had the power to stop himself here, but once the horizon was crossed there was no going back.
As the radioactive dust had cleared from the nuclear strike he rose into the sky. He kept rising, through the atmosphere and into space. He pointed himself towards the sun and minutes later he was in the heart of the star. From there it was a simple thing to overwhelm the core and collapse the star into a black hole. He had watched from afar as the inner solar system was sucked in. Earth’s demise barely registered on his emotionless face.
That was ages ago. He could not number the time that had passed. He had thought and rethought his actions. It took millennia, but he found remorse. Condemning a whole planet to death, for the actions of a few. He was no better than the men who had condemned the town.
He looked again at the event horizon. One step and it would soon be over. The black singularity would pull him in and crush his atoms into oblivion. He had survived countless hardships, much more than the human body was meant to endure. He contemplated a moment, then took the step.
