by submission | Feb 7, 2015 | Story |
Author : Anthony Abruscato
The beeping told me my oxygen level was low.
“It’s like falling asleep,” said Gordon. Mars dust coated his space suit.
I clutched a picture of my wife and daughter. Gordon’s oxygen tank read nineteen percent. He palmed a photo of his own.
“Will you make it home?” I asked with fingers wrapped around my blaster.
“Million to one odds,” he said.
“But there’s still a chance?” I pressed.
“Almost nil,” he responded.
I’m sorry brother. I raised my blaster and jerked the trigger. Nothing.
Gordon pulled me in tight.
by submission | Feb 4, 2015 | Story |
Author : Roger Dale Trexler
“It’s troubling,” said Commander Smithee. “I don’t understand how the crew of the Carcosa could have disappeared. From all intelligence, Maurid 3 is a safe planet.”
“It’s outer space,” replied Captain Cox. “There’s nothing safe about it.”
Smithee nodded. “You’re right, of course….but it still doesn’t explain how the crew of the Carcosa disappeared.”
Smithee looked out the view port at Maurid 3’s landscape. “Alien, isn’t it?” he said.
“I don’t think I could ever get used to the foliage,” Cox replied.
“Yes, it is odd,” said Smithee. He looked out at the trees. The foliage was a strange, almost flesh-like color. The leaves on what could only be called “trees” were the same color, only a darker shade. Only the blue water in the distance looked familiar.
“It’s bizarre, I say.” Cox stared out at the strange new world a moment longer. Then, he turned his attention to the cylindrical spacecraft to his left. The hatch to the Carcosa was standing wide open. Whatever had happened to the crew, it had happened quickly and without forewarning. Cox nestled his plasma rifle to his chest. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake they had.
“You say this planet is uninhabited?” he asked.
Smithee nodded again. “Yes. We sent down a host of unmanned probes and they saw no sign of life. But,” he added, “something happened to the crew of the Carcosa.”
Cox turned his attention to the open hatch of the Carcosa again. It was then that he saw the long streaks of blood on the flesh-colored grass and nearby foliage. Something had killed the crew of the Carcosa. Could one of the crew have gone mad? He wondered. It seemed the only logical answer.
“Well, I guess we’re not going to get any answers standing here,” said Smithee. He reached out and took an environment suit off the hook. Maurid 3 had a breathable atmosphere—it was the reason they had sent down a survey team on the Carcosa in the first place—but both of them agreed that there might be something airborne that had overcome the other ship’s crew. It was better to be safe than sorry, so environment suits were the order of the day.
He quickly doned the suit and pulled on a helmet. He grabbed a plasma rifle, too.
“Ready?”
Cox nodded.
Smithee reached out and activated the hatch.
It opened.
They stood there as the ramp extended itself to the ground. Smithee took a step forward, but Cox caught his arm.
“Wait a minute.”
“What?” Smithee asked.
Cox pointed at the bushes nearby. “Do you see it?” he asked.
Smithee’s gaze followed the end of Cox’s finger. He looked at the bushes and, for a second, saw nothing. But, as he concentrated on the bushes harder, he saw something.
An eye.
“What the hell?”
Cox pulled him back toward the airlock. “It’s camouflaged to its environment,” he said in a whisper. He shook his head. “The human eye can see more shades of green than any other color because we needed to discern predators from the foliage….the crew of the Carcosa thought they were alone. Our probes saw nothing because their camouflage was nearly perfect….and we expected to see normal colored animals.”
“My God,” Smithee said. “Look!”
Before them, the ground and the bushes seemed to come alive. Everywhere, things were moving.
“Get inside! Quickly!” shouted Smithee…but it was too late. Out of the corner of their eyes, they saw the thing as it attacked…and one thing looked normal.
Their fangs were white.
by submission | Feb 1, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
Log Entry: Friday, August 19, 2033
I doubt anyone aboard will miss me, but how to go? No cords or a decent rope for hanging. Not a belt on the whole ship. Velcro won’t cut it with the smooth walls on the Jones. If I had a decent cook’s apron I could use the ties, but no, I have to wear my single-issue jumpsuit. If nothing else, having to wash the thirty crew members’ undies while I have to stand nude would be reason enough for suicide.
It’s not the adventure the recruiter described: cleaning walls, clothing, cutting hair, and preparing meals. I can’t fly this heap, navigate, perform science experiments or make repairs. My spec sheet says duties as assigned, basic labor. I might as well be a toilet shadow…another thing I have to keep clean. Four went to Mars on the first 2029 exploration. I can’t figure why these thirty need special consideration. Why depend on me to make their travel pleasant? True, I can make a gourmet meal out of rat’s guts and straw, but for all that why treat me like a stowaway? And when we get to Bush Argo 1 I’m assigned to tend the hydroponic garden because of my green thumb. We’re only a week from landing. I can’t face that.
Why didn’t I use an air lock? They put rotating codes on the locking keypads. Only the CO and Exec have numbers. I just want out. They use me for amusement; first just short-sheeting the bed, or hiding my pillow; then, peeing in my boots or hiding shoe polish in my toothpaste. Lately the mad crapper leaves piles around the rig. I have to clean it and listen to laughter as I walk to recycling. If that wasn’t bad enough, someone is going through my stuff. I’m still missing Granny’s wedding ring. Why take that?
I’m not brave. I don’t get paid for that. I only left to get out of debt. They clear all that when you sign for a one-way. I simply can’t get up the nerve to slice myself with my butcher knives or try to find a loose wire to put in my mouth. So, I’m going to make up some special chocolates, just for me, with some of the sleep meds I slipped out of the dispensary cabinet. I’ll just go to sleep and they can take care of my mess for a change. I’ll bake the fudge bars tomorrow and cover them with a killer dose of frosting. So when you read this, know that I had a sugar high before I left this crate, so you creeps couldn’t make me your pendejo gardener on Mars.
Mom, I’m sorry. I know you expected more. I love you. See you someday.
“That’s the end of the log?” Inspector Connolly asked his associate, Spenser Willis, as he finished reading.
“That’s it, Chief.”
“The crew must have distracted Hernandez long enough to break into his room, take the chocolates and consume all of them. That seems clear. Agree?”
“Perfectly, except for the missing body.”
“Sure, we got all the crew after the John Paul Jones landed, except him. Any clues?”
“No, and there’s no suits missing. No sign of Hernandez. That’s a big one driving Space Central nuts. It’s causing a Press circus. It could set back our program a decade. We’re going to be hurting if they don’t send more ships.”
“We’ve got plenty of useless pilots and navigators, but no one to keep our gardens going or cook.”
by submission | Jan 29, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The President of the United States watched the viewscreen in the Oval Office as it displayed what appeared to be mist condensing on the lens of the camera that had recorded the video. After a few seconds, the tiny droplets started coming together and sliding to the edges of the screen in rivulets.
“That’s helium-neon rain, Madam President,” said the administrator of NASA seated next to her. After a few minutes the mist dissipated and the video showed a dark, copper-colored liquid flowing slowly around the camera. It gave the impression of the view from a submarine sailing through an ocean of maple syrup.
“That’s liquid metallic hydrogen,” said the administrator. “We’ll jump ahead because this pretty much stays the same for most of four hours.”
After he advanced the video, something started to appear in the flowing liquid. Over a span of two minutes, a few circular objects materialized. The circles multiplied and resolved themselves into dome-shaped structures. A few people in the room gasped. Lines started forming, connecting the domes together. Small oval shapes moved along the lines. A few spherical objects appeared to float above the domes, moving slowly in various directions.
“Is that what it looks like?” asked the President.
“We believe so, Madam President,” answered the administrator. “We think this image is an ‘aerial’ view of a city.”
“There’s a city on the surface of the core of Jupiter? So at Jupiter’s core conditions are Earth-like?”
“No, ma’am,” said the administrator. “The pressure inside that part of Jupiter is around 600 million gigapascals.”
“In English?”
“Normal atmospheric pressure on Earth is a little less than 15 pounds per square inch. At the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, the pressure is eight tons per square inch. The pressure inside Jupiter at that depth is on the order of 300,000 tons per square inch. That’s why the Jupiter Deep Exploration Probe was so expensive and took so long to build. Whole new technologies had to be developed to survive the conditions that deep inside a gas giant.”
“Even at the bottom of oceans on Earth,” said a Senator seated across the room, “we find life. Could life on Jupiter adapt to that pressure?”
“Not life as we know it,” replied the administrator. “Even matter itself behaves strangely under those conditions. The atmosphere above the city is composed of hydrogen in a supercritical state, neither liquid nor gas. And the probe registered temperatures in excess of 60,000℉. The core itself appears to be solid, which was theorized for some time. But no one imagined anything like…this.” He gestured at the frozen image on the screen.
“Could we communicate with them?” a congressman asked. “Radio, maybe?”
“Sir, we don’t know if what we’re looking at is the Jovian equivalent of New York City or the Jovian equivalent of a coral reef. It looks like a city, but it may not be. If this is a civilization, we don’t know how or even if their technology could receive any kind of signal we can send.”
“If that’s a civilization,” said the President, “we’ve already sent a signal. Even to beings so different they can live in that kind of environment, the probe would still be recognized as something obviously artificial, made by intelligent creatures, wouldn’t it?”
“There’s no way to be certain, Madam President,” said the administrator.
“Send another probe.”
“Madam President, the cost–”
“You’ll have the money.” The President smiled. “And to think that jackass I’m running against just announced he’d cut NASA’s budget if he got elected.”
by submission | Jan 23, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
“Whoa, what’s that approaching Mars, a comet breaking apart?” he said as he excitedly examined the images. He realized it would be quite a find for an amateur astronomer — another Shoemaker-Levy 9 magnitude event. But to make sure it wasn’t just hot pixels or other phantom artifacts, he returned to his backyard telescope and took another hundred exposures with a different camera and filter. Satisfied, he submitted coordinates and photos for others to confirm his discovery. But what they confirmed was that the objects streaming toward the red planet were not cometary fragments.
“They are alien spaceships, Mr. President, hundreds of them, a fleet orbiting the planet, and several already on the surface.” NASA’s Administrator offered several photos, “These were taken by our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. All the ships are outwardly identical, over a mile long and about a third of a mile wide.”
“How far are they from Mars Colony?”
“Thousands of miles. And that may be deliberate. The Colony revealed itself by trying to contact them during their approach. The aliens could have landed near it, or on it, if they’d wanted to.”
It was always a stretch to call the half-buried habitat and the dozen scientists within a “colony.” It was more like an antarctic research station, whose nine surviving staff members were hunkered down against an environment hostile to life.
“Why aren’t they responding to our attempts at communication?”
“They may not communicate by radio or any other means we’re familiar with. Or they may not want to communicate.”
“So, what do you recommend that we do?”
“Nothing. The Colony can ration supplies to last two years. I urge you to put a hold on upcoming Mars missions and ask other nations to do likewise. The aliens are far ahead of us technologically and until we have established communication we should not do anything they might misinterpret as a threat. Meanwhile, we’ll keep an eye on them from our MRO.”
And that’s exactly what the president and his counterparts worldwide did for the next astonishing 16 months. Nothing. Nothing while the aliens somehow gave Mars a magnetic field and a breathable atmosphere. Nothing while they created oceans and fresh water lakes. Nothing while prairies of grass and forests of trees sprouted and grew remarkably fast.
Mars Colony survived the planetary transformation — the aliens apparently having taken pains to protect its inhabitants — and the day finally came when humans first braved the Martian atmosphere without pressure suits and oxygen supplies. Later that day, they transplanted vegetable seedlings to an outside garden and were seen by the MRO sunbathing in the nude.
But the aliens had not traveled across the galaxy to create an eden for nine humans. Scientists had concluded that the fleet was comprised of generation ships transporting lifeforms from their home planet to another suitable for colonization. Thankfully, the planet they chose was Mars, not Earth. It was expected that their ships would soon land en masse and disembark passengers. Mars Colony erected a welcome banner and waited anxiously — only to see the fleet depart shortly thereafter.
From their new position at Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, the aliens transmitted their first message to Earth. It was to be the only one. Over every radio station, television channel, and internet website on the planet, in the six official languages of the United Nations, the following words were repeated for 24 hours:
WE HAVE PREPARED MARS TO YOUR SPECIFICATIONS. YOU WILL TRANSPORT YOURSELVES AND ANYTHING ELSE YOU REQUIRE FROM EARTH TO MARS. EXACTLY ONE YEAR FROM NOW, WE WILL BEGIN PREPARING EARTH TO OUR SPECIFICATIONS.
