by submission | Dec 28, 2008 | Story
Author : Lander Ver Hoef
We get the window seat, Molly! Isn’t that neat? We’ll be able to see everything. Have you ever been to space before, Molly? Me neither. I wonder what it’ll be like. I hope I don’t get Z-sick.
No, Molly, I don’t know what that machine out there does. Maybe it works on the ships? See that big shining thing right over there? That’s a ship just like ours! Yes, it’s pretty, isn’t it? So white, and the lights against the dark night are so bright.
That’s the Captain talking, Molly. He’s telling us that we’re going to be taking off now. Don’t be scared, I’ll take care of you. Just be sure to stay near me and don’t float away in ZG!
Here we go! We’ve started moving, Molly. You can’t see the ocean way down there, since it’s dark out, but it’s there, don’t worry. You can’t see it either, but Daddy says that there’s a track that we’re being pulled along. Maybe it’s like Jimmy’s slingshot. It really hurts when he hits me with rocks from it! And he says mean things about you, Molly. He says you’re just a doll and that I’m a sissy for keeping you. He’s just a bully though. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t ever listen to him. I’ll keep you forever!
This is a lot stronger than Jimmy’s slingshot though! Now I feel sorry for the rocks too. I wonder if they feel as squished as I do? Are you all right, Molly? Are you getting squished too? It’ll be okay though, since Daddy said that this doesn’t last long.
See, that wasn’t long at all! Ooh, look out the window, Molly. There’s a continent! Look at all those lights! I wonder where that is?
Eep! Oh, don’t worry, Molly. That bang was just the rocket motor starting. Daddy warned us about that, remember? He said that it was perfectly normal and that we shouldn’t be scared. Are you scared, Molly? Me too, a little bit. But don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe up here.
Wow! So this is what ZG is like. Come back here, Molly! Don’t go floating away like that, now. I can’t take care of you if you run away like that!
Oh, ew. I think that someone a few rows back just threw up. Isn’t that nasty, Molly? Strange, too. I don’t feel at all sick. Hee hee, even Mommy looks sick, and she never throws up. I hope she doesn’t now. That would be nasty.
Look out of the window, Molly. There’s a pretty light around the edge of Earth. It’s dawn! I didn’t know they got sunrises here in space, did you? Here, I’ll hold you up to the window so you can see. You’re so pretty, Molly, with the sunlight glinting off your eyes. What an adventure we’re going to have! Are you excited, Molly? I am!
by Patricia Stewart | Dec 25, 2008 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
During their first month on Mars, the two-man and two-woman crew made the most significant discovery in the history of mankind. While exploring the Grover Caves in the Scandia Tholi Mountains, they discovered irrefutable evidence of indigenous, but now extinct, intelligent life. The Caves turned out to be a complex underground city that had contained at least a million beings. Radiometric dating revealed that a civilized Martian society had flourished for thousands of centuries, but ultimately perished more than a billion years ago. Scientists concluded that as Mars’ metallic core solidified, the magnetic field disappeared, and the solar wind slowly, but relentlessly, blew the atmosphere into space, forcing the Martians underground. It was theorized that eventually their numbers dwindled, and their society became unsustainable. There was no archeological evidence that the Martians ultimately adapted, or that they had the technology to escape. Apparently, the Martians died along with their planet.
***
Dakota Dalton was driving the two-man Transportation Vehicle from the excavation site back to the base camp. Its treads kicked up two parallel red rooster tails as it trekked through the fine Martian dust. “Did you know today is Christmas?”
“I hope you’re not expecting a present,” replied Tom Barrymore. “The Mall is 100 million miles away. Besides, we’re in the middle of the Martian summer.”
“It’s summertime in Argentina too, and they’re celebrating Christmas. Com’on Tom, get in the spirit. We have so much to be thankful for. Look at that,” he said as he pointed to a bright blue-white point of light above the eastern horizon. “How can you look at the Earth and not feel…” Suddenly, the vehicle began to shake violently as the ground began to collapse beneath them. They tumbled a hundred feet into a subterranean cavern, landing upside down. Dakota found himself helplessly pinned under a heavy shipping crate. His probing fingers felt the sharp edges of his fractured right femur protruding through his coveralls. Tom was lying a few feet away. His neck was bent backward at a grotesque angle. Dakota could hear a hissing sound as air escaped from the pressurized vehicle.
A voice came from the radio. “This is Lowell Base,” said Jill Ignatuk, the mission commander. “We’re receiving an automated distress signal. Is everything okay? Hello? Dakota, Tom? Damn. If you can here me, we have your coordinates. We’ll be there in 90 minutes. Hang on.”
But even as Jill was talking, Dakota could hear the pitch of her voice change as the air in the transport became thinner and thinner. He wouldn’t last 90 minutes. Hell, he probably wouldn’t last 90 seconds. As the oxygen content dropped below critical levels, his vision began to fade as he was losing consciousness. There were flashes of light, blurry ghostlike images, then blackness.
When Dakota woke up at the Lowell Base infirmary he saw the commander’s smiling face looking down at him. Tom was standing next to her. “Commander,” Dakota asked, “how did you get to us so fast? I thought we were dead?”
“It took us over two hours to reach you two at the bottom of that hole. When we opened the airlock, you were laying side by side next to the hatch. There was blood on your uniform, but you didn’t have any wounds. When we got you both back to base, we took x-rays. Apparently, you had sustained a compound leg fracture, and Tom’s neck had been broken. How did you set your own leg, and treat Tom’s broken vertebrae?”
“It wasn’t me, Commander,” Dakota replied. “I have trouble putting on a Band-Aid.”
by submission | Dec 23, 2008 | Story
Author : Ari Brill
The galaxy is a dangerous and cutthroat place, with no room for the weak. So we have always known; intrinsic in the cruel laws of nature, all organisms must fight, or die. Knowing this, we were not unprepared. With the invention of hyperdrive came the invention of the hyper-torpedo, and with the invention of artificial gravity came the invention of the Gravitic Pulverizer. Not to say war was obligatory, of course. For instance, no one suggested attacking the Calee Empire upon first contact.
On the other hand, perhaps the Human Gravitic Pulverizer, capable of ripping apart a medium-sized star cruiser, was kept in line less by peaceful intentions than by the Calee Solar Annihilator, capable of ripping apart a medium-sized star.
Realizing this, we progressed rapidly in every facet of development befitting a newly minted interstellar empire. The Solar Annihilator rots in the Calee’s museums now, incapable of matching our most inferior weapons. We made contact with hundreds of species, and subjugated scores. The Grand Fleets of the Human Armada clashed with the hulking dreadnaughts of the Orthulla, never defeated in four thousand years, and emerged victorious. Trillions of humans swarm out from our fertile worlds, and see sights undreamed of only centuries ago. But one was so strange, so foreign, so impossible, that we at first thought we had made a mistake. One species, the Arpasi, had no space fleets, no weapons, no defensive platforms of any kind. They had never fought a single foreign war in the memory of even the longest-lived race. In short, they were totally pacifistic.
Surely, the traders who reported this back must have been mistaken. Such tall tales should not be believed by reasonable men. We asked the Calee, now reconciled and our greatest trading partners, if it were true. It was. “The Arpasi…yes, of course. They are a friendly species.” Unable to understand, we sent a secret delegation to the Hive-Home of the Krashni, to inquire of this matter to the Lords of the arachnid legions. The chitters we received in reply indicated only the same: the Arpasi are a friendly species. The subtle and complex wing-dances of the avian Zirkbo relayed a similar message, as did the deep rumbles of the Oowaan, the bitter transmissions of the ancient Orthulla, and the mocking chortles of the Hyakeks. In each of the highest councils of the myriad races of this galaxy, we received only one reply: the Arpasi are a friendly species. Reflecting on our own aggressive actions and the example of the peaceful and prosperous Arpasi, the Supreme Congress of Earth made a decision.
The Arpasi homeworld would make an excellent addition to the Empire of Humanity. It only took two days for a Grand Fleet to reach the planet. As per standard procedure, after failing to obtain an immediate surrender they glassed a continent and waited. The occupation commenced soon after. The Arpasi were rich, and the sack did not end for months. Unusually, the massacres only lasted several days.
That invasion occurred last year.
Today, the remnants of our once-glorious Grand Fleets flee in terror. Bashed and broken, they search for safe port but find none, for our planets are burned and shattered corpses. The alien vessels, black as death, have not reached Earth yet but they will soon.
Only now do we understand what we were told. The Arpasi are a friendly species.
And they have very, very powerful friends.
by submission | Dec 18, 2008 | Story
Author : Gavin Raine
It is with some consternation that I realize I am having difficulty in ordering my thoughts. Perhaps this is the onset of confusion one must expect, as the air supply becomes exhausted. I must make haste to write my account:
Only a few hours have passed since I was enjoying a bottle of port and a cigar with my good friend Dr Stanley. Stanley was pontificating on my work. “I know that I can’t match your grasp of mathematics, or the physical sciences,” he said, “but I still maintain that this whole notion of time travel is preposterous. If it were possible, then why haven’t we been visited by travellers from the future?”
“You well know that my theories will not allow travel backward in time,” said I. “The inevitability of paradox precludes any such journey. Time is an arrow that we all travel along at the rate defined by the clock, and my apparatus merely accelerates that progress.”
“So when can we see a demonstration?” said Stanley. “You completed your machine today, did you not?”
“Why not now?” said I, and I wobbled through into my laboratory, with the good doctor following closely.
I confess, the alcohol made me foolish and impetuous, but even in my most sober moments, I had not anticipated the fate that awaited me.
I placed myself in the saddle of the time machine and took the control rod in my hand. “Meet me here at exactly this time tomorrow night”, I exclaimed and, with a salute, I inched the rod forward.
There was a confusing blur of motion, after which I found myself looking at the stars. I was perplexed, but when I looked down to see the curve of the Earth, far below, my puzzlement turned to panic. It took some time before I calmed down enough to realize what had happened.
Throughout all of my theorizing and calculation, the one factor I had failed to take into account was the motion of the planets. While I travelled through the dimension of time, the Earth had continued onward in the other three physical dimensions. It had simply left me behind. Outside of my time dilation field, there was only the vacuum of space.
After a while, I advanced the control rod forward again, taking my machine a full year into the future. However, I could only watch in frustration as the Earth swung past, out of my reach. Perhaps I am drifting, or the solar system itself is moving, but it seems I have lost all hope of ever reaching home again.
My machine is moving through time at its maximum velocity now, and all I can do is hope that I intersect with some form of planetary surface, though I fear that the odds are against me. I am hundreds of years in the future already and it is becoming difficult to write in my notebook. All around me, the light sources are growing dimmer.
by Patricia Stewart | Dec 17, 2008 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Cephei A and Cephei B are eclipsing binary stars that are located approximately 3,000 light years from Earth. Cephei A is a supergiant that is currently the second largest star in the Milky Way Galaxy. It is so large that if it replaced Earth’s sun, its chromosphere would extend almost to the orbit of Saturn. Cephei B is no pipsqueak either. It is over ten times as massive as our sun, and over 100,000 times as luminous. Both stars have extremely elongated orbits that cause them to practically touch each other every twenty years as they whip around their celestial center of mass. During the close approach, the overpowering gravity wells of these two massive supergiants forms a localized space-time distortion between them. This previously unknown phenomenon is called a temporal vortex.
Twenty years earlier, during the previous close approach, Francisco Fontaneda discovered that the temporal vortex was not just a portal through time, as predicted by other scientists, but was actually the astrophysical equivalent to Ponce de León’s “Fountain of Youth.” His analysis of the Quantum-mechanical entanglement data collected during the brief formation of the vortex revealed that if a body passed through the vortex at the instant of closest approach, the body’s physiology would change by twenty years. In other words, it wouldn’t physically travel back in time, but it would emerge on the other side of the vortex 20 years younger. To his chagrin, this hypothesis was greeted with skepticism and ridicule by the scientific community. Unfortunately, his chance at vindication had to wait for the next transit, which wouldn’t occur for another twenty years.
***
Francisco Fontaneda sat in his spaceship meticulously going down the pre-flight checklist one item at a time. Fontaneda had spent the last ten years building his ship from scratch, making sure to only use parts that were at least twenty years old. He wanted to make certain that if his ship got younger too, the parts would have existed twenty years earlier; otherwise they might simply vanish. He was even wearing a thirty year old flightsuit. After all, he didn’t want the press to photograph him climbing out of his ship completely naked. Of course, that wouldn’t have been too bad, since he’d be a trim thirty year old, rather than his current flabby half century.
At the designated time, he fired his aft thrusters. The ship climbed above the A-B plane of the two supergiants, and began its slow parabolic plunge toward the coordinates where the 100 meter wide vortex would appear at the instant of closest approach. His timing was perfect. A swirling whirlpool of light and degenerate matter began to form a few hundred kilometers in front of the ship as he accelerated downward. Fontaneda held his breath as he entered, then exited, the temporal vortex. Momentarily blinded by the intense brightness, he fumbled for his communications equipment to contact his support ship. “Calling the SS Bimini. This is Fontaneda. Do you read me? Did I make it?” He tried to focus on the monitor as his vision slowly returned.
“Roger that, Fontaneda,” said the captain of the Bimini. “Direct hit. How do you fee…? Whoa. What the hell happened to you? Your face…”
Fontaneda saw the captain’s broad smile morph into a grimace. “What’s the matter, Peter?” asked Fontaneda. “Haven’t you seen a handsome young man before?” He pulled out the mirror he had stowed in his flight bag. “Oh shit,” he said, as he looked at the reflection of the horrified seventy year old man staring back at him.
