by Clint Wilson | Jan 15, 2014 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
None of us would have signed up for this had we known of course. There were now sixteen ships left in the convoy. Sixteen left from the original forty that had set out from Earth all those years ago. I had been a much younger man then. This was evident, partially from the graying on my temples, but mostly from the deep worry lines on my face.
I clicked off the light and exited the privy. There in the common area of our PSS1770 Luxury Bus sat my wife and our three children, all now in their twenties. Stuffed in alongside them were the six members of the Kim family. To their left were our most recently rescued refugees, Jim Bronson and his wife Peggy. We had no more room. All of the other ships were full too.
The warp bubble that we all shared had become compromised long ago and continued to shrink in random fluxes and undulations. There were always at least six ships flying point and scanning for sudden surges or flares in the bubble’s interior, as dark space continued to creep into our shrinking cocoon. We now traveled in strict close formation.
The first to go, way back, only six years into our journey, had been an old PSS1500 with the Rodriguez family aboard. At the time we weren’t expecting it so there was no rescue effort mounted. After the five hapless spacefarers had perished we quickly ascertained what was happening. There were still more casualties as time ensued, but we managed to save many by using escape pods and crawl tubes, airlock to airlock, to transport those in peril. But as mentioned previously, all of the remaining ships were now full.
We didn’t need to wait long to see what would happen next. A flare of dark space was detected, and it was determined that sections of the ceiling, or twelve-o-clock, of our convoy’s warp bubble had suddenly dropped down at least half a kilometer. The Choy family, flying high-noon-point suddenly found the rear bulkhead of their converted ore freighter being consumed by dark space.
Commander Harding’s voice came over the comm. She sounded near frantic. “Move away from the event surface, keep moving forward Choy family! Stay away from the aft section! We are sending help!”
Immediately an argument ensued over the comm. Who would go? Everyone was full. There was a scream from the Choys’ ship. “Center bulkhead breached! There is a shimmering wall of blackness eating our ship. My daughter Lilly fell in! Oh god, she’s gone… please help us!”
Suddenly the Esmeralda, owned by the Freemans, sprang into action. Two of the cruiser’s escape pods were launched at the quickly disappearing freighter. Meanwhile, the advancing wall swallowed another Choy family member. Finally the remaining five were brought to safety aboard the Esmeralda in time to watch the rest of their home completely disappear into nothingness.
But to what avail? Now the Esmeralda was badly overcrowded. Discussions raged over the comm. We were at capacity. The next victims would have to be left to perish. But how could we do that to our own? We were still over three long years from our destination, and there was no escape.
This preprogrammed travel environment had been created and launched from the Jovian dark matter processor back home. It would only begin to dissipate and let us back into regular space once we reached our destination.
Together our ships continued to huddle in tight formation as we all awaited the next casualty.
by Desmond Hussey | Jan 13, 2014 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer
“I assure you, Mr. and Mrs. White, the procedure is quiet painless.” I steeple my fingers together and settle deeper into my chair, smiling with cunning charm at the elderly couple sitting across from me, their doubt and fear clearly at odds with their fragile hopes.
“How does it work?” the husband ventures tentatively.
“The technicalities are far too droll, rife with complexities and esoteric jargon which would only burden your understanding, Mr. White. All you need know is that upon the pronouncement of biological death, before the onset of true brain death, our expert team of doctor’s and technicians will effortlessly translate your consciousness into the Heaven of your choosing.” I gesture to an illuminated wall decorated with myriad icons and symbols of all the world’s faiths.
“As you can see, we cater to all religious denominations here at Heaven’sGate. Whether it’s the Timeless Bliss of Nirvana, the Immaculate Gardens of Jannah, or the Eternal Glory of Jehovah’s Kingdom in Heaven that you seek, we have specially crafted virtual realities guaranteed to satisfy any and all of your desires for an afterlife. And if you’re atheist,” I chuckle, “we have a Build-your-own Paradise Package.”
Husband and wife share a furtive, hope-filled glance as Mr. White squeezes his wife’s arthritic hand.
“Will we… be together… when I…?” Tears rim Mrs. White’s rheumy eyes.
“Absolutely! By choosing our Family Package you can join your loved one upon the moment of your death and be reunited for eternity.”
“What happens to my… the body of the deceased?” Mr. White’s question is followed quickly by his wife’s own query, “May I visit the grave?”
“To answer your question first, Mr. White, for the purposes of sanitation and economy of space, upon completion of the funeral services our policy is to cremate the body. However, to address your concerns, Mrs. White, we do provide – for a nominal fee, of course – a Virtual Visitation with your dearly departed.”
“Virtual visitation?” The dubious question creeps from both couple’s lips.
“One of our many services.” My broad, sympathetic smile embraces them. “We at Heaven’sGate believe in life after death. How could we not? And we’ve made it possible to commune with those who have gone to the Great Hereafter in person at one of our many facilities worldwide, or in the convenience of your own home, with an on-line Séance. Our Medium Package allows direct communication with the consciousness of the deceased, anytime, anywhere. Doesn’t this sound wonderful?”
“Too good to be true,” Mr. White says with a hint of skepticism.
“Oh, but Harold, it would be such a comfort for me to be able to… to…” Mrs. White bursts into tears and is gently embraced by her husband.
With rehearsed sympathy, I pluck a handkerchief from a box on my desk and offer it to the weeping woman.
“Our services provide a sense of relief for the surviving family to know, for certain, that their loved ones are safe and content in the afterlife, Mr. White. We at Heaven’sGate have eliminated the terrifying existential uncertainty. No more sleepless nights wondering where we go when we die. At Heaven’s Gate, your eternal happiness is our guarantee.”
I hold the contract tablet out for Mr. White, who, consoling his sobbing wife with one arm, reaches for it with his other. He pauses before sealing the deal.
“Any Paradise I want?”
“Anything.”
“I’ll feel no pain?”
“Not even an itch.”
“You’re certain?”
“As certain as death and taxes.”
Mr. White presses his thumb print into the tablet.
I grin broadly, thinking mischievously, “There’s one born every minute.”
by submission | Jan 3, 2014 | Story |
Author : David Stevenson
“Once there was a ship, travelling through space. There was a terrible accident. The reason for this is not important. What is important is that one man got suited up in time and was able to survive the immediate aftermath of the ship’s destruction.
Of course, he now had bigger problems. The priorities of anyone lost at sea haven’t changed since antiquity; find the largest piece of wreckage, and head for the nearest landmass. The AI inside the suit looked around itself in the first few milliseconds of booting up and immediately burned the smallest amount of fuel necessary to grab onto a large piece of wreckage, and then burned another small amount of fuel to nudge its course in the direction of a convenient stellar system. The reasons for this are twofold. If rescue comes quickly then they can more easily find a survivor attached to a large object and heading for a logical destination. Should rescue come not at all, then at least you have a large lump of metals and plastics to play with, and you’re heading for a source of energy.
It should be stressed that this was not some government issue, special order, experimental suit. This was an ordinary, off-the-peg, standard issue suit which could be bought for a modest sum by anyone who wanted one. This fact will be very important later on.
There was no rescue, or, if there was, it was too late to make any difference. After a short while the suit conferred with its occupant and they went into hibernation mode.
Have you any idea how long you might drift in these circumstances before coming across a handy stellar system? It’s all been worked out. Going at those sort of speeds, pointing in a random direction, and in that part of the galaxy you’re looking at tens of millions of years. If you get lucky and end up travelling towards the nearest star, maybe just ten thousand. It took half a million years before this suit came close enough to a star to wake up and start repairing the damage of the centuries.
It took another few thousand years to loop around the star in huge cometary orbits and eventually end up in the asteroid belt, close enough to collect solar radiation, and with a plentiful supply of raw materials.
Solar panels, microwave emitters, ion drives. It’s amazing what you can do with a determined AI, emergency nano-manufactories, and a lot of time. You can build a simple spaceship, which only really needs some basic propulsion and a big heat shield, and then you can land on the nearest planet, while the hardware you left in orbit beams down power and launches manufactured goods at you.
Again, I should stress that this was a standard survival protocol, in a standard suit.
The occupant of the suit awoke to a new world. Every human need was catered for. The bio-vats had come online just before he was woken up, and the next twenty humans were due to be born, fully adult, and with personalities supplied from the vast storage capabilities of the suit’s AI.
Within a few centuries the entire planet was habitable and occupied and these new humans spread outwards once more.
Every other race who tried to conquer us announced their intentions and turned up with a huge fleet of ships. Not only did your people seize half the planets in this sector, they did it by accident. This story is the one we tell our children when they ask why we kill all humans at first sight.”
by Julian Miles | Dec 31, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
They came from heaven, or hell, or outer space, or under the sea. Earth has been invaded in every way imaginable, thanks to the imaginations of authors over the last three centuries. You would have thought, with such a rich base from which to draw inspirational tactics, that mankind would have done better when it finally happened.
“Commander! They’re reinforcing on the left flank!”
“Captain Yaeger, abandon the dugouts and trenches. Return to the bastion with everyone you have, bringing everything you can.”
They came from a long way away, arriving without warning. It was midday on a beautiful summer day. By three minutes past, most of our continents were in the shadow of spaceships of every imaginable shape and size. Their bombardment was swift, devastating and surprisingly inaccurate. They missed military bases and levelled universities. Warships were ignored while schools and libraries vanished in waves of searing energy. Hospitals were reduced to craters while missile silos stood untouched.
“Commander! They’ve brought up snipers! We’re getting murdered here!”
“Captain Durov, abandon your positions. Withdraw to the bastion with as much gear as your people can carry.”
It took us a few days to realise that they had obliterated ninety percent of humanity between the ages of four and seventeen. They had removed generations of prospective resistance fighters along with our advanced medical capabilities. The strategic analyses turned from bleak to grim.
The raids to take infants and babies were something the analysts didn’t predict. Caught by surprise, our hopes for the future were whisked away. It was a devastating blow. Suicides peaked during the subsequent week.
“Commander! Looks like they’re massing for something!”
“Captain Sung, abandon your positions. Retire to the bastion with your troops and as much gear as they can manage.”
Then the invasion started. They used no area-effect weapons. They came without mercy, solely for the surviving humans. Professor Grey of Roehampton produced and circulated a document after the first week that may as well have been humanity’s epitaph. I remember the final paragraph so well:
‘Our stolen children will be vassals, without history
or knowledge. Our civilisation may form part of the
mythology that they tell each other around the cooking
fires of their simple culture. Apart from that, the
works of man will be forgotten.’
They stalk through this world, killing everyone who remains. You can see how careful they are with the environment, and how uncaring they are of anything created by us.
“Commander. Everyone is here.”
I turn from the bar and drop my cigarette end into the empty shot glass. The last of the Lagavulin is inside me. The Captains of every group are here: the finest, and the last, soldiers in the world.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Eight months ago they came to take our planet. It swiftly became inevitable. We have been fighting desperate battles and saving nothing. So, I propose an all-out attack. Simply because my dear, departed grandfather would be gutted if his bonny lad didn’t go out moving forward with a whiskey inside him, a smoke between his lips and a blazing automatic in his hand. Who’s with me?”
They looked at each other.
Captain Brewster stepped forward: “My dad always said that when it all goes to Hell, you want a Tommy at your side. While everyone else is getting weepy, he’ll be the one having a brew, checking his weapon and lighting a smoke, before asking when we’re going to stop pussyfooting about and get stuck in.”
There were nods and grins. Hands started to rise.
Pour me a shot, grandpa. I’ll be there soon.
by submission | Dec 27, 2013 | Story |
Author : Ian Hill
The thin machination stood at the asteroid station’s balcony, leaning over the guardrail to peer off into the depths of space with her multi-faceted eyes. The two red points of light were a mere formality, vestigial figments from her creators intended to set those human elements at ease. At her prime she was a staggering feat of engineering, a true coppery milestone in the history of industry. Now though, she was reduced to a malfunctioning tower of metal plates covered in grimy hexagonal scales and ashen infections of rust that spread like a plague over her ropey pseudo-tendons.
She slowly twitched a finger, a fully articulated finger full of nanotubes that contained coursing rivers of torrential gel. This gel system surged over the whole machine’s frame, transmitting information and signals via a clear liquid base. It was efficient, but only when maintained by a highly trained specialist on a regular basis. The repercussions of letting one of these thinking machines run without being recalibrated and fixed was a frightening prospect. It was as if the gleaming machinations were constantly trying to break away, to crawl out of the unholy mire of human restriction.
The android turned away from the glorious void and walked through a series of heavy vault-like doors, her movements calculated and deliberate. She strode through the cramped facility, brushing past down hanging wires that showered glistening sparks onto the grated metal decking below. The station was pitch black, but she didn’t mind. Light was a concept for the weak, those reliant on a single pivotal sense that could be canceled on a mere whim.
As she moved deeper into the asteroid the noises became clearer. There was ragged breathing intermingled with the occasional plea for help, a nonsensical and fleeting gesture that didn’t even register with the android. She had a duty, no amount of begging could end it. What’s a lost machine to do without its makers?
She paused in front of a door and stood patiently as the pressurized hatch slid into the partially melted wall. The room beyond the threshold was a featureless circular area that gently sloped down to form a sort of inverted conical ground. By this point the pleas were intensifying, reaching through terror as they became more and more animalistic.
The machine stopped in front of the chained down being. She crouched, her metal joints creaking slightly, trying to tear through the built up corrosion. The man could hear a soft buzzing coming from within her head as she inspected the prisoner closely. He wanted to lash out and fight, but he was powerless. The operations had sapped his strength.
“Please, I don’t want to be here.” he moaned, his voice thin and shaky.
Something clicked from within the android’s head.
“Just, just help.” the prisoner continued deliriously. “I need- I need to leave. I don’t want this.”
She ignored the words and continued to stare blankly at the man as he rattled off complaint after complaint, groaning on and on about the wide tear in his stomach that was temporarily sustained by an impromptu surgery. The needle flew in, the needle flew out. The stress levels in his voice reached a pitiful peak then slowly receded back into nothingness as the prisoner lapsed into a pleasant comatose state.
The android clicked once again and stood back up to her full height. She pulled the bloody apron from her waist and draped it over the man’s bare legs in a sort of motherly way. She turned and strode out of the cell, her internal computer working furiously as it compressed the recorded pleas and sent them off in every direction. This was a signal asking for help, a wish for escape and a band of rescuers, probably Keitl, that would surely arrive within the next few days. The machine needed more components to get her family back.
