by submission | Oct 25, 2015 | Story |
Author : Zach Williams
Alex felt his eyes blink open before he realized he was awake. The window peering into the speckled darkness outside was the first sight that greeted him as consciousness reasserted control over his mind. He yawned and stretched out his arms as he glanced around his small room. The Spartan living space had not changed at all since he’d fallen asleep. Control lights blinked their various states of activity and repair. The white walls continued to keep the vacuum outside at bay. Alex supposed he might as well get things over with.
He reached down and untethered himself from the black bungee cord hooked to the wall, allowing his body to drift unimpeded. Alex reached out to the cold metal handhold and nudged himself over to the only door in the room. Both thick slabs of metal were closed in a hermetical seal. He reached out towards the blinking controls on the left hand side that would open it.
…Nah, not just yet. Alex pulled his hand away and spun himself back around. With the ease of years of practice, he stopped his spin by reaching out and grabbing the handhold, then gently pushed along the right hand wall towards the window. He smiled as he recalled some of his early misadventures with zero gravity. It had been so easy to forget how long his limbs were and how much power even a small push could have.
When he reached the window, Alex grabbed onto the handrail that surrounded it and gazed out into the silence. Lots of people said that space was empty, just a blank void. They were wrong, though. Space was filled with silence. Even the minor amount of tinnitus softly ringing in Alex’s ears seemed like an ungodly racket in the absolute quiet. Movement out of the corner of his right eye caught his attention and he turned his head.
An intestinal mass of wires and shrapnel floated through the void, spinning and dancing around each other in a silent ballet against a backdrop of twinkling blackness. How long had it been since the disabled satellite had miraculously knocked his room off of the space station? Apparently not long enough for his air to run out.
Alex used more of his dwindling air supply to heave a sigh. The window was facing away from the earth. If he wanted one last view, he’d have to go outside after all.
by submission | Oct 22, 2015 | Story |
Author : Ray Burke
Maybe he was broken. It would certainly explain a lot. He always felt lost, hurt, angry even. It never mattered how many were around him, who he talked to, even when sleeping with them in the throes of romance. He just felt alone, detached, like none of it was real. He felt like he had woken from a dream, a dream where he could fly and go wherever he wanted yet on waking he was stuck, like he’d been clipped. He wondered at times do tamed birds that have been clipped look at their reflections and remember flying? Did it sadden them they couldn’t anymore? Were they tortured by this knowledge?
Always he felt a hunger to belong, he wanted to be with someone to escape, to feel that connection, that love, that interdependance. It all felt wrong to him, it was like a hollow life, a hollow world. He realized at an early age he felt different to everyone, no one seemed to be aware of the gap, the seperation. He was five when the world broke and the curtain dropped draining the magical shine from life.
Sitting watching people brought him some comfort though he never knew why exactly. To imagine their lives, to see their complexity from afar. He could sympathise, he had great empathy for them, going about their lives unaware, ignorance is bliss. That always made him smile. It explained perfectly why he was never comfortable. They all seemed so happy, the daily routine, family life, personal problems, relationships. He just couldn’t understand it all. Couldn’t they see they were wasting their lives? The nine to five rat race. Fritting away their energy, their talents and dreams, to make someone else’s life more comfortable.
He smiled as he felt him coming. The world seemed to slow down just for him, like their time was important, he could always smell his aftershave before he ever saw him. It was the one surprise he looked forward to in this seemingly endless term of detachment, the one thing that felt real. A hand squeezed his shoulder, “Good afternoon Kyo, how’re you today?” The cheeriness and optimism was almost infectious. Always he asked how he was doing, if he was ok. No one else seemed to care about him. He had only known Brian these last few years but he felt in him something that made all the pain recede, he felt something real, someone there behind the face.
***
Walking in Brian looked over the control room. He’d managed to slowly whittle his staff down to remain undetected. The main readout in his office still flashing red in warning beside the timer running on twenty six months and thirteen days. Everything seemed normal despite the error report compiling daily. Interface dilation was still on track hovering at seventeen hundred percent, response times were optimal, data exchange seemed to never deteriorate. He hadn’t dared shut the program down when the critical error occurred. Could he really have happened upon a virgin AI? Removing his lab coat he sat in the interface chair and reclined, adjusting the headset as he inserted the recording chip coded; Kryptic Estrangement Observation Program.
As the dilation effect wound down and the interface loaded in Brian materialized on a side street near a cafe. Was the program truly aware? Did it even know this environment wasn’t real? He could see the program avatar sitting watching people as it always did. He approached and squeezed its shoulder.
“Good afternoon Kyo, how are you today?”
by submission | Oct 19, 2015 | Story |
Author : Thomas Tilton
“Stax, hull breach!” Wattler gurneyed from portside of the Excelsior, his plastoscreens ablaze, his catheter tube streaming a current of nervous yellow piss to the ship’s water purification system.
“I need refueling!” cried Stax–telepathically, of course. The slobs had not spoken more than a word aloud to each other since the start of their eighteen-year mission.
Stax gurneyed himself under the fuel disseminator, which resembled a late-twentieth-century soft serve ice cream machine. Out of its spout poured plentiful heapings of baconnaise, the Terrans’ most prized garnish.
“Ready!” thought-spoke Stax, savory baconnaise drizzling from his gaping unhinged maw and coating his black-bearded jowls, like the spent loveseed of some intergalactic lard pig.
There were no windows on the Excelsior and of course their assailants would not be visible even if there were–not even to the trained oculi of the slobs, whose eyes were digitally enhanced and coated to ensure maximum clarity and sharpness. Space battles were very long-distance affairs.
Wattler needlessly–they were telepaths, after all–brought Stax up to speed. “They’re firing in waves. Hull integrity compromised on the aft decks. The ship’s nanobots are compensating and rebuilding.”
“Check. Reverse thrusters. Strategized target selection, fire at will and random.” Stax directed his thought-commands at both Wattler and the ship’s computer, which was wired to both pilots’ brains via access ports in the slobs’ faceholes.
A quiet, soft, feminine voice stunned them into cerebral silence. “Stop, you foolish men!”
Their plastoscreens lit up white. The entire interface appeared blank and bleached. Then she appeared. Filling the screen, a beautiful hentai maiden with a shimmering blue dress, skin like creamy baconnaise, a short button nose almost like a pimple, and improbably wide, impossibly blue eyes.
Had the slobs breathed in any conventional sense of the word, those breaths would have been taken away.
“You … you call us men,” telesaid Stax.
“We have not been called that in some time,” telesaid Wattler.
“You are men,” said the hentai maiden, “though you may have forgotten. Once you were a proud, upright race. Now you have let the Terrans weaken and destroy you.
“I am Roog. I am a demigod. This is not what I look like. I take the form of whatever my spectators desire most. Yours is a lusty, hungry desire. But has that fiery thirst ever been truly quenched? Does the baconnaise sate?
“Have you ever drunk water from a spile of the spice trees on Yorn? Or fed the taloned squirrelcats on Betazus? When is the last time you felt the wind in your hair or the rains on your beard? Tell me, can a sedentary existence on a probe in deep space ev–”
The hentai beauty’s voice muted, then her head blew up.
“Insolent slander!”
“The baconnaise sates!”
The slobs had only feigned surprise at being called “men,” and they had not actually been listening to her diatribe. While the demigod spoke, they were working silently, telepathically, with the ship’s computer to create the biomechanical cocktail necessary to expel the intruding deity.
They would report Roog’s attempt at sabotage to their Terran benefactors. Now, they both needed refueling.
by submission | Oct 18, 2015 | Story |
Author : D.H. Arnold
Okay, don’t panic, you’re not dead yet, get a grip, dammit, DON’T PANIC!
God, how I hate that cliché in movies where someone in ZedGee space pauses to note the beauty and wonder of the planet above which they float. God, I hate those movies, I hate this, why the hell am I dying like this, are you out there, help!
Don’t panic! Focus!
Okay, you’re not bleeding, everything seems to be working, fat lot of good it does me at twenty two klicks above the planet. You’ve got a fallsuit on, you had time enough after the integrity klaxons went of to get one on. You’ve got at least 30 minutes of life support, maybe more if you Don’t Panic!
Life support is nominal; charge steady at 97%. Time to start working on saving your life, here. Check the radio and ansible locator output.
Perfect – 3% charge. That’s it, I’m dead.
My orbit shouldn’t decay for a while. I might get lucky, get spotted by rescue transports from the station or those on the way up.
Or not… what the hell?
Dear God – the whole thing is collapsing – breaking apart, shattering into.. so many pieces…
Skytowers CAN’T collapse, they’re engineered to withstand anything short of… deliberate…
Someone blew up the Tower.
No, no, that’s crazy, why would anyone blow up a Skytower? Who would deliberately kill…
What the? That was the Anchor Station! No! No! No!
Close your eyes. Get a grip. Don’t Panic.
This isn’t the way this was supposed to end. Join the Vend, see the galaxy, find ways to help sentient races flourish without slaughtering and desecrating everything around us. That’s what the Vend IS!
How does one minute feel like an hour? Please, someone…
The lower portions of the Tower are getting dragged into the denser parts of the atmosphere and eventually onto the planet. Different materials give off different colors as the friction of reentry and the plasma of the radiation belts tear the molecular structures of the tower to their component atoms. Mostly orange, yellow and red, but the occasional purple and green and blue flare then vanish, giving variety to the death throes of over 7 million people and their home. If this was a meteor shower, it would be beautiful.
The death of millions shouldn’t be pretty.
Don’t panic, don’t vomit, just… don’t!
Well, there’re the first flares of planet-based rescue ships. Not holding my breath for those, too much dodging as they’re re-computing lift loads and flight paths to avoid station debris bigger than they are while maximizing thrust upwards. They might be evac-lifts, though. That much debris planetside will have horrible consequences if they were ready for it; this might be it for Parabus V for a good long time.
More flashes of light but above – debris colliding with ships, other debris, electrical systems breaching and electrons running for cover. Face it, kid, you’re done. Rescuing anyone in this much debris isn’t going to happen with the few shuttles and transports in the sector. You’re one of maybe 2 million left alive and in free-fall – the three million in Anchor have to be dead, anyone below 19 klicks is already flying to meet the ground. Lucky you, Goldilocks.
Funny.. you realize you’re done, and now you’re not panicking anymore.
For the record, God, this sucks.
See you soon. I hope. Save a place at the table.
I feel warm.
I hope I’m beautiful when I burn.
by submission | Oct 17, 2015 | Story |
Author : Tino Didriksen
The crying boy slunk down by the obelisk. “Everyone says you listen at these stones”, he whispered, “so if you really do exist, please take me away from here.”
To his surprise, the aliens whispered back, “why do you wish to fly amongst the stars, young one?”
“I tripped over my own shoelaces and everyone laughed at me, even my best friend Pete”, he sobbed. “You’re supposed to take people away who really want it, right? Well, I really want to go into space, away from everyone!”
“Those who can hear us, we allow that choice”, said the aliens, “but you are not yet able to make an informed decision. Remember us quietly, and come back when you are ready. Now go, your parents are getting worried.”
The young man hesitantly touched his hand to the obelisk. “Are you still here, or were you a figment of my imagination?”, he asked.
“We are still here. We are always here.”, the aliens replied. “You have come of age. Are you here with purpose in your heart?”
“Yes, but not for going with you just yet”, he sighed. “I got accepted to the finest university in the region, and started to wonder if a particular childhood fantasy really was one. No, I will first make my mark on the world, then return to dance amongst the stars.”
The middle-aged man hammered his fists on the obelisk. “Take me away from this blasted place”, he muttered. “The greedy bastards stole my invention, my chance to reach the stars in my own time, and locked me out of the program. I can’t take this corrupt world any longer. Let me walk amongst the stars…”
“We will do so if you are certain”, said the aliens, “but are you truly ready to depart, or are you blinded by anger? Do you count your children, your wife, in the corruption? Do you wish to disappear and let them forever wonder where you went?”
“I…”, the man stammered, “I, no…no, of course not. But it was within reach! A few more years, and the skip drive would have launched us out of this system”. He sighed heavily. “You are right, I will not abandon my family. Farewell, for now.”
The old man leaned heavily against the obelisk. “It is time”, he stated, “and you won’t talk me out of it today.”
“Our offer stands”, came the always steady voice of the aliens. “If you are of one mind, we will whisk you away to be amongst the stars.”
“Yeah yeah, I am of my own singular sound mind”, he scoffed. “I am old. My children are grown with families of their own, my wife long passed away, oh and I have several incurable age related ailments. If there was ever a time to fly away, this is it.”
“You will vanish”, the aliens warned, “and nobody will know where you went. Any hints of our involvement will be erased. Do you agree to our terms?”
“Agreed.”
On the dresser in the old man’s bedroom, a lamp shorted and caught fire. The automated suppression malfunctioned, causing only the airtight door to close, but leaving the window open. The man’s carefully hidden journal vaporized into the night in a superheated blaze, along with everything else in the room.
