by featured writer | Apr 22, 2013 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell, Featured Writer
“Ensign, report!” yelled the captain over the ring of klaxons and the groans of metal fatigue that filled the bridge of his starship.
The young officer didn’t respond. His eyestalks were fixed on the kaleidoscope of stars streaking past on the forward viewscreen.
“ENSIGN!”
The slug-like being seated in front of the ship’s navigation panel jumped as if he’d been physically struck. “Sorry, sir!” The ensign tapped on a control with one of his tentacles. “We’re down to 1773c, Captain. Engineering reports we can’t decelerate any quicker or the ship will come apart.”
We’re still traveling five times faster than the ship was designed to go, thought the captain as the creaking of the vessel’s shuddering superstructure went up in pitch.
“Hull breach on deck five, section two!” said a crewman seated at a console starboard aft. “Venting atmosphere. Emergency bulkheads have sealed off the section. That area was empty at the time of the breach.”
“Acknowledged,” replied the captain. He thought of the four crew members whose lives were lost in the explosion in the engine room. In the unlikely event his ship actually made it back home, what would he tell their families?
“Down to 600c,” said the ensign.
“Captain to engineering, how long until we can re-enter normal space?”
The haggard image of the chief engineer appeared on a small screen next to the captain’s left tentacle. The damaged quantum impulsion drive was flooding the engine room with radiation. Even if the ship survived, the remaining engineering crew almost certainly wouldn’t.
“Captain,” said the chief engineer in a tired voice, “we’ll need to come out of quantum impulse near a moderately sized gravity well. A small to medium planet, ideally.” The engineer paused and took two wheezing breaths. “The structural reinforcement grid is barely holding the ship together as it is. There’s less turbulence re-entering normal space near something with a bit of mass.”
“Alright, I’ll wait for your word,” said the captain.
“Sir,” said the chief engineer, “would you be so kind as to tell my wife and children–”
“You’re going to tell them you’re a hero because you saved this ship!” the captain interjected.
The chief engineer knew the captain had said that for the benefit of the bridge crew. He knew he was done for and knew that the captain knew it, too. “Yes, sir,” he said and his image faded from the screen.
The captain sat and waited. He heard someone muttering from port aft. He turned one eyestalk in that direction and saw his communication officer fumbling with a small, crystal solicitation dodecahedron with the digits of his left tentacle as he whispered a prayer for deliverance.
“We’re at 25c and dropping!” said the ensign with an inflection of optimism. The squeal of structural fatigue was getting quieter.
“Engineering to bridge. Uploading real space re-entry coordinates to the conn. Going to try to come out close to a planet in a nearby solar system. Hang on. It’s gonna be rough ride.”
The ensign at the conn positioned his tentacle over a flashing blue button.
“We’re going to make it,” said the captain as the strange but beautiful blue and white planet rapidly filled the viewscreen. “We’re going to make it.”
The ship emerged into real space a moment too soon and slammed into the planet at relativistic speed. It hit with the force of an asteroid. The ship’s impact crater wouldn’t be discovered by the planet’s inhabitants for 65 million years.
by submission | Apr 11, 2013 | Story
Author : Townsend Wright
“Now, who can tell me what antimatter does?” said professor Argent as he tightened the rope around his waist.
We were all a bit disturbed by the professor's request to go stand out by the empty old building and tie ourselves to a tree, so he was forced to repeat himself. Someone cried out “Powers the Enterprise?” One of those idiots who signed up for physics class for a nap.
A smarter student said “It causes a nuclear explosion.”
“Correct,” Malke proudly said, scratching his bald head. “But why?” This was a small, round faced man whom everyone knew quite well was insane, despite being an absolute genius.
I, rolling my eyes at my classmates' silence, pointed out “When antimatter and regular matter come in contact, they cancel each other out, converting both into pure energy, hence the nuclear explosion.”
“Very good, mr. Jones. Now I've invented something using antimatter. A kind of destructive device. No, no, don't worry, I'm not going to nuke the school. Well, I don't think I am. In any case that's not what the device is for.”
“What are you talking about?” asked the rude girl standing beside me.
“I call it the paradox bomb. It distributes antimatter throughout an area to annihilate all matter there.
“Where in God's name would you get that much antimatter?” I exclaimed, my knowledge of the man's declining sanity now reinforced.
“Wouldn't have to. The device produces the antimatter.”
“Still, that would take a massive amount of energy. Where would that come from?”
The old man smiled. “Ask the other question on your mind, mr. Jones.”
I was confused. “What—Why isn't there a nuclear explosion?”
“There you go! I also would have accepted 'why is it called a paradox bomb?' The thing is, the answers are the same. Once the antimatter is distributed, the resulting energy release is channeled back in time and is used by the machine to produce the very same antimatter.”
“Using something to destroy itself,” someone cried from behind me.
“Like the candle feeds the flame.”
“That's ridiculous!” I exclaimed. “It's impossible! It defies every law of physics! It—” the professor held up a small device and pressed a button. A flash of white light burst from the center of the abandoned building behind him. Wind pulled us all toward the light with tremendous force, that we felt the ropes tug around our waists. When the wind died down we looked at the building, only to see nothing, just empty space and the corners of the building's foundation cut into wedges lining up with a circular hole in the ground with the old professor standing before it.
“Any more questions?”
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by featured writer | Apr 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell, Featured Writer
Captain Saylor walked on to the bridge of the Starship Endymion. The huge, panoramic windows showed innumerable stars streaking past the vessel. Saylor leaned over Lieutenant Shah’s shoulder and looked at the velocity readout on his control panel. The ship was traveling at nearly 500 times the speed of light.
“How long until we reach Epsilon Indi, Shah?” Saylor asked.
“Two hours, eleven minutes, sir,” came the reply.
Unless we run into another Cygnian ship, thought Saylor. The Endymion had recently encountered a Cygnian battlecruiser in orbit around Alpha Centauri A. The warship had threatened to bombard the cities of the Alpha Centaurians, a race of remarkably humanoid women. The Endymion had arrived just in time to defend the nearly helpless inhabitants. After forcing the Cygnian ship to fall out of orbit, Saylor and his crew had been left with little choice but to land the Endymion on Alpha Centauri A and engage the Cygnians in hand-to-hand, or rather hand-to-tentacle, combat. After a ferocious battle, the Cygnians were defeated.
Saylor smiled as he recalled the “gratitude” expressed by the women of Alpha Centauri A. “Now that’s my idea of a first contact mission,” he thought aloud.
“Sir?” asked Shah who had not distinctly heard Saylor’s words.
“Oh, nothing, Lieutenant. Just recalling our recent–”
Saylor never finished his sentence. Klaxons started ringing throughout the ship.
“Report!” commanded Saylor.
“Cygnian battlecruiser approaching dead ahead, sir!” said Shah. “Sensors show their particle canon are armed.”
“Arm our canon!” Saylor ordered. “Target their primary reactor. Be prepared to fire as soon as they get within weapons range!”
“Jeff?” came a faint voice from nowhere in particular.
“Ten seconds to weapons range!” said Shah.
“Bring us out of hyperdrive and prepare to fire in 3…2…1…”
“C’mon, Jeff, wake up.”
Suddenly, the bridge of the Endymion contracted to a small corridor. Saylor was lying on a bunk with his head nestled in a large helmet with cables coming out the top and feeding into a panel on the wall.
Saylor sighed with annoyance. “What it is?”
“Solar storm,” said Burroughs, his fellow astronaut. NASA’s proton detectors back home are lighting up like a Christmas tree. We’ve got about an hour until the hard stuff hits us. We need to get in the shelter. Don’t wanna travel eight months to get to Mars and then arrive with radiation sickness.”
Burroughs gestured with his head at the helmet-like apparatus. “Were you doin’ a good one? I was an old west gunslinger the other night.”
“Old space opera,” said Saylor. “Hot space babes, faster-than-light travel, evil aliens, that sorta thing.”
Burroughs laughed. “You’re on a spaceship and you used the Dreamcaster to imagine you’re on a spaceship?”
“A starship,” Saylor corrected. “Not a couple of canisters spinning on a tether. Filet mignon, not protein bars. Huge windows, not a couple of small portholes. No spending half the time fixing mechanical and computer problems. No cabin fever. And no solar storms.”
“It sounds a lot better than real space exploration,” said Burroughs with a smile. “But if you want to survive to get back to your implausible alien women and impossibly fast and comfortable starship, you’ll need to survive this storm. Shah and Nakamura are already in their shelter. Let’s get our end of the tether ready.”
Saylor stood up, looked around at the banal and ugly interior of his spaceship, and helped Burroughs move supplies into the tiny ship’s closet-like storm shelter.
by submission | Apr 7, 2013 | Story |
Author : David Stevenson
A yellow flashing beacon. Another package spinning through space. I reach out and snag the drag line carefully. The beacon is attached to one end of a line, at the other end is the supply crate with another flashing beacon. It’s a lot easier to catch a line than a small mass, but in this gravitational field the tides are fierce, and if I try to grab a line being spun round with a weight at either end I could lose an arm.
Maybe I’ll do that sometime; might be a quick way to go. For now I snag the line using a crude hook I keep for this purpose.
Power cells; food blocks; fresh water; filters for the suit; all the usual suspects. That’s entropy staved off for another while. I tie these supplies onto the raft of similar crates floating in space beside me. I’m much more interested in the datapod, if there’s one there.
There always is. I take the datapod, and I plug it into my suit. Some virtual reality recordings of classical music. Good. A month’s worth of current events newscasts. That’s alright, but I’m out of sync. These are from last year and I’ve already seen more recent ones. Another bunch of letters and videos from friends and family. Not sure whether to start with those or leave them until last.
I remember the first pod I found, and the letters it contained. All the first 50 or so pods had the same message in them. They were all sent at the same time and they had no way of knowing which one I would encounter first. I still occasionally pick up one of the first batch.
“If you’re reading this then you didn’t plunge to your doom on the neutron star.” That’s Steve’s sense of humour for you.
“We think the accident blew you into a stable orbit that’s high enough up that it won’t immediately decay.” Correct. Not high enough up that they can rescue me, of course. Any ship coming this low would be ripped apart by tidal forces.
“We can’t transmit through the radiation, but we can send these pods into the same orbit as you and you can pick them up.” Ah yes, that radiation. The radiation that would kill me if it weren’t for my suit and the medical nanochines repairing the damage.
“We have to take the ship back to Earth now, but we’re leaving a field manufacturing unit in the asteroid belt. It’s going to scavenge matter and it will keep on turning out these pods and inserting them into your orbit. We can communicate with the factory and send new data to be forwarded.” Great. I can’t even die of boredom.
I have a virtually endless supply of consumables, both for me, and the suit. The medichines will keep me alive indefinitely. My suit needs a lot of fuel to keep my orbit from decaying, but they make sure to send me plenty.
So, I have a choice. Staying here forever orbiting a neutron star wearing only a spacesuit until I die of old age, or explosive decompression and a quick death.
I’m going for the third option. I don’t know if I’ll still be in one piece, or if I’ll be ripped apart. I don’t know if I’ll be conscious, but if not then the suit will keep my feet pointing towards the star. I’m burning all my fuel, I’m going in, and I’m going to be the first man ever to stand, just for a microsecond, on the surface of a star.
by featured writer | Apr 5, 2013 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell, Featured Writer
“The corporeals have sent another machine to planet four,” said Wyvin to Lekvar. Of course, Wyvin had not really “said” anything. He, or more precisely “it,” had communicated its thoughts via short range radio frequency modulation to its companion as the two gaseous entities sailed through the atmosphere of Saturn.
Lekvar responded with a radio signal that in a human being would have been a look of astonishment coupled with a shake of the head. “It never ceases to amaze me. Devices are sometimes of solid construction, but lifeforms? The planet three aliens are as concrete as the robotic mechanism they send out into space. What would that be like, living as a small, indurated mass?”
Wyvin modulated a response: “Unable to fly or change shape, unable to expand or contract, and trapped on a tiny, dense rock world. The most confining magnetic prison would be preferable. When planet three first started broadcasting modulated radio signals a few years ago, the scientific community was perplexed how life could have arisen on such an inhospitable world. When it was discovered that the signals were generated by technology operated by non-plasmatic lifeforms, our very concept of biology had to be revised.”
Wyvin and Lekvar stopped transmitting to each other for some time. They floated together in radio silence, propelled by 1,600 kilometer per hour winds and contemplated what existence might be like for the odd, impossible, solid aliens of planet three. Finally, Lekvar signaled, “Is it true they landed a device on the Great Satellite?”
“Yes,” said Wyvin. “Our colonists were instructed not to signal the probe and not to go near it.”
“Why not make contact?” asked Lekvar. “They’re our neighbors. Shouldn’t we establish some sort of diplomatic relations like we have with the inhabitants of planet five? Shouldn’t we let them know there are tens of thousands of civilizations in the galaxy?”
“Tens of thousands of plasmatic civilizations,” said Wyvin. “Lekvar, we’ve managed to acquire and translate a lot of information from the corporeals, including their speculation on the future of their own expansion into space. They imagine a galaxy teeming with other corporeals. They’ve even made pitiful attempts to monitor the cosmos for signals from other civilizations they imagine to be like their own. You see the problem?”
“I believe I do,” responded Lekvar. “The third planet aliens are an oddity, the only documented case of non-plasmatic life in history. Is that why we’ve been forbidden from telling the other extrasolar civilizations about them?”
“Precisely,” said Wyvin. “If word got out that we have corporeal lifeforms, our solar system would be overrun. Half the scientists in the galaxy would descend on planet three. Can you imagine the experiments to which those corporeals would be subjected? That world and its inhabitants would be taken apart by every xenobiologist within 50,000 light-years to try to discover how something as paradoxical as solid life could even exist.”
“So,” said Lekvar, “we are effectively administrators of a nature preserve.”
“Effectively, yes,” replied Wyvin. “The corporeals are a unique form of life. They have as much right to exist as any plasmatic.”
“And when they expand out far enough into the solar system that they inevitably discover us or the sentients on planet five?”
“When that day comes,” Wyvin said, “we’ll have to tell them the truth. But I hope that day is long in coming. I hope they can persist in their silly, naïve worldview for a while longer. I think they’ll find the true nature of the cosmos a heavier burden than even their massy, compacted bodies.”
