by submission | May 23, 2014 | Story |
Author : Antowan
Rajacel injected the cold neural serum deep into his spinal port. The chemical agent coursed through his nerves, sending a frigid surge throughout his body. “Assimilation complete, neural countdown commenced.” The mechanical voiced chimed flipping on a countdown sequencer on his wrist comm. “8 Minutes huh” Rajacel prepped his gravatonic suit for the run. The sensors all showed green for 100% functional capability. His plasma pistol was fully charged and his hydronic sensors were fully functioning. “Sir I am obligated to alert you to the high risk factor of your trip, the chances of your survival are at .004%” Rajacel Paused as he grasped the handle to the pressure locked door. “So it goes.”
Rajacel ran as fast as his might. His heart beating like a thousand mocking bird’s wings, coursing the neural injection further into his veins, beads of sand beat upon his gravatonic suit. Drumming rhythmically in harmonious tones against the cybernetic flesh, “warning, warning,” the emergency alarm went off in his helmet. A small image projected beside his head. Four hostile markers pinged at a methodical rate, drawing closer and closer upon him. “Their coming,” he thought. Rajacel increased his pace dashing through the small red capped cones that covered the landscape. He could already see the slivery flashes of gray. Dashing across the horizon, blazing trails of crimson dust, “2 kilometers” his helmet pinged, Etria vargallions orbital control base, stood in its metallic grandeur, as Rajacel began to close in. His danger warning began pinging faster as the grayish flashes began to draw near, and loud inhuman cries echoed around him.
Rajacel blasted the first Razomorph to attack. Pumping two rounds into its slender chest, causing it stagger before it came crashing down. Two more flashes closed in on his right. Alternating positions forcing Rajacel to miss a shot, “damn” he muttered. His helmet pinged again, “1 kilometer left.” Rajacel fired more rounds forcing the Razomorphs further back. He scrambled with his wrist comm, desperately trying to release the pressure lock. “Door opening,” his helmet said. A loud clunk sounded in the distance confirming the door had opened.
Razomorphs were closing again, going through their double formation tying to prompt Rajacel to fire. He hesitated noticing that the charge the charge indicator had fallen half way. “Shit,” he muttered firing a single round back. “500 meters,” Rajacel punched into full gear. “400,” the Razomorphs increased their speeds, gaining precious ground on Rajacel. “200 meters,” the Razomorphs fell wit in arms reach, stretching their scaly gray arms out towards his hem. “50 meters!”
The door jutted shut behind him locking the savage creatures out of the control room. They belled and whined at a high pitch sending a warm fuzzy chill up his spine; the serum began to wear off. He wasted little time, as the sound of a loud pounding came against the door. “Computer,” he spoke, “activate evacuation procedure delta 6-9.” A large monitor lit up, running procedural checks before takeoff. The loud banging at the door was beginning to become more rapid. Rajacel stared out of the control room window to the horizon beyond. A final countdown began as the tall aero rockets began to emerge from beneath the ground.
“3, 2, 1 ignition,” the rockets flared up against the red sandy back drop spreading the crimson dust out in a fiery haze. The rockets lifted up disappearing into the heavens above, trailing behind a mist of glorious red. The pounding was more rapid now. The metal began to deform, the door caving in, knocking lose nuts and bolts with each methodic strike. Rajacel took a deep breath as he collapsed down in the captain’s chair; he checked his plasma pistol’s charge. “Huh only one bullet left,” So it goes. End.
by Julian Miles | May 22, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“There’s a lot to be said for old technology. Mainly: ‘ooh looky, spares’. Me and the old bus are both getting long in the tooth. But as she’s got six hundred years and I’m only approaching fifty, we’ll not embarrass the lady with ageist stuff.
She’s still got her original heraldry: a grey shield, with sable bar low and silver cross sinister. She’s called the ‘Last Lancer’ and damn me if she ain’t. The only surviving Rockwell B1, packing four Tetragrammaton XIV near-space drives, a twenty-hour rating for free space thanks to the Lenkormian Permaseal some foresighted owner had put on five centuries ago, and a suite of no-see-me and I-see-you that has yet to let her down.
This month we’re gracing the jungle planet of Durkedhil, where the locals are fighting a vicious civil war, supplied by some offworld profiteers. If it wasn’t for the imported arms, they would be throwing spears and cussin’ each other out, like they did before man and company came along with their ‘Uplift the Primitives’ spiel.
The Durkedhil have assault rifles, mustard gas and napalm to go with their loincloths and proto-heraldry. You would not believe just how happy a tribesman whose entire existence is surrounded by, and dependent on, trees can be to burn them down if he thinks that will stop his brother-in-law from getting them.
They have about a year before they doom themselves. The GalPol cannot touch the weapons merchants, because the population of the planet is willingly engaged in active trade. No matter that it’s a dying market in dying.
This is where people like me come in. We’re ex-GalPol, ex-military, or both. We share a belief that places are better without big guns. We like old technology – I admit mine is older than most – and we hate weapons peddlers. One of us will get the call. One of the others will get the payment. Then pretty soon, United Antiques will stage another display in the name of peace. Antiques aren’t weapons of war by intergalactic statute. They’re curiosities that people can view at travelling shows – or watch hurtling through their skies.
Free space is a dangerous place, but messing around in atmosphere carries different penalties and most shuttle pilots are nth-generation space monkeys. To use an old phrase we like: ‘They can’t fly for shit’.
Interdicting a planet is almost impossible. Stopping the deliveries in atmosphere is easy. The Last Lancer and I are the most recent piece of the puzzle, because the weapons companies have started to put hard bases down to host protection for their deliveries. They call them ‘caravanserai’ but in reality, they are nothing but heavily-fortified warehouses. A Rockwell B1 can carry enough destruction for twenty of ‘em. So while the lads and lassies are mopping the skies, I clean up the ground.
We should be done here in a month or two. On average it takes two months of no profits and big repair bills to get a planet declared ‘commercially non-viable’. Then they’ll be off supplying the next armaggedon down the way, and we’ll be waiting for another call from like-minded people who care about people rather than profits.
Now if you’ll excuse me, Last Lancer and I have warmongers to flatten.”
by submission | May 21, 2014 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
“And let all men and women present be witnesses,” the Legate was saying, “that what we now do we do without hatred and with a heavy heart. We act in the name of retribution, not revenge. We act in the name of justice…”
The Legate’s voice droned on. It was the same boilerplate men had been telling themselves for centuries right before they killed a man. They don’t say it to make killing easier. Killing is easy. That’s the trouble. They say it to convince themselves that it’s not. They’re pretending that when they blow me out of this airlock in a minute they’ll be heartbroken that they’ve put a murderer to death. They won’t be. But they have to try to prove to themselves that they’re civilized.
“Does the prisoner have anything to say before the sentence is imposed?”
What is there to say? I’m guilty. I said so at the court-martial. One of the fastest courts-martial on record. Commander Richman had made it his personal mission to make my life a living hell from the moment I set foot on this ship. He’d go out of his way to publicly humiliate me. If some other crewman screwed up, he’d blame me for some reason. Even the other officers noticed it. One day Richman decided to chew me out while I was working on the auxiliary fusion reactor’s control rod assembly. I apparently snapped. I abruptly noticed he’d stopped talking. I also noticed he had a hafnium diboride control rod embedded in his skull. My hand was clenched around the other end of the rod. I recall two other crewman who had also been working on the reactor looking at me, both of them frozen with shock. I remember dropping the rod and saying, “You guys wanna call security? Or should I?” I wasn’t sorry for what I did. I’m still not sorry. I shake my head at the Legate.
The inner airlock door slides closed. I hear the bolts lock into position. I can see through the window in the inner airlock door that the Legate is still talking. I can’t hear a word he’s saying. Through the window in the outer airlock door I see a field of stars. It’s amazing how appealing it looks. It’s as if you could just open the door and float out there unprotected and bask in the glory of the cosmos. In nearly 400 years of space travel, more than one person has died trying to do just that.
The lights in the airlock go out. The stars seem even more appealing. But it’s an illusion. A siren’s song for the 24th century. Red lights come on and the airlock’s decompression alarm starts squealing. I’ll remain conscious for about five or ten seconds. They say don’t try to hold your breath. It’ll just rupture your lungs. Your blood won’t boil and you don’t quickly freeze solid, though. It takes a good minute, minute and a half to die from space exposure. Maybe the explosive decompression will hurl me forward before the door completely opens and the impact will kill me or knock me out.
Spacing isn’t a pleasant way to die. But there are worse ways to check out. This beats eventually lying in a nursing home bed decrepit and demented for a decade. A moment before I hear the outer airlock bolts shoot back, I turn around, flip the Legate and the other observers a bird with each hand, and smile. The airlock door snaps open. The ship seems to bound away from me. I have no regrets.
by submission | May 20, 2014 | Story |
Author : George R. Shirer
Jav wakes and the name of his latest assignment is waiting for him on the bedside screen.
Simeon Fenchaw.
There’s a file attached, giving particulars. Appearance, personality, preferences, patterns.
It’s a workday and Fenchaw will be arriving at the transit station on 14th and Chekhov in two hours.
Jav rolls out of bed and pulls on his gear. Cream-colored underskin, a pink coat with mother-of-pearl buttons, knee-high gold treads. The last thing he slips on is the ring.
He takes his time heading to 14th and Chekhov. Stopping at his favorite café, he enjoys a cup of hot chocolate and a brioche. Newsbytes flow across the café table’s transparent glass surface. Famine in China. Race riots in England. The civil war in the U.S. takes a strange turn with the emergence of a third faction.
Jav finishes his breakfast and meanders down Chekhov Avenue. The boutique windows glow and pulse, flashing holo-ads, trying to lure him inside. High overhead, the sunstrip grows marginally brighter, transitioning from morning to midmorning with clockwork efficiency.
There are public access terminals outside the transit station at 14th and Chekhov. Jav logs into one that gives him a good view of the exit. He randomly surfs ViewTube, queuing up a parade of funny cat videos.
At 10:45, Fenchaw emerges from the transit station. He walks with a galumphing stride, a callow youth with dandelioned hair, exploding around his skull in unbearably bright colors. Fenchaw’s underskin is matt black and he wears a cloneskin jacket adorned with corporate fetishes.
Jav logs off the terminal. Fenchaw galumphs toward him, unaware.
With a flick of his wrist, Jav’s truncheon drops into his hand from its concealed sheath. He thumbs the switch and jams the metal end of the rod into Simeon Fenchaw’s belly.
Fenchaw jerks like a spastic as the electric charge rocks through his body. He falls and, resolutely, Jav keeps the truncheon in contact, until Fenchaw is dead.
Nearby someone is screaming. Jav looks up, sees a police drone bearing down on him. He raises his hand, splays his fingers wide, so the drone can scan his ring.
The ring is silver with a skull and crossbones embossed on the band. There are tiny crystal chips in the skull’s sockets, containing validation codes, confirming that Javier Piquette is a licensed agent of the Ministry of Population Control.
After a moment, the drone turns its backside to Jav. Its synthetic voice advises the shellshocked crowd that there is nothing to see here and that they need to move along. Already, a bodycar is pulling up to the curb, disgorging a stream of black-suited undertakers who claim Fenchaw’s remains.
When they have left, Jav returns his truncheon to its hiding place. He wonders, idly, what Fenchaw did to earn a death sentence from the MPC, then decides he doesn’t care. He’s a deathman; does it really matter why he has to kill someone almost every day? If he didn’t, the orbital cities would be just as bad as the overcrowded Earth. Probably worse.
Jav sighs and decides he’s feeling peckish. He knows a good little café just a few blocks away. Whistling a jaunty tune, Jav strolls down Chekhov. He can practically taste his next cup of hot chocolate.
by submission | May 19, 2014 | Story |
Author : StanleyJames
Gently washed, a warm grey and blue. A comforting fuzzy sock with two big Spock ears and those wide eyes. The eyes cannot see and the ears cannot hear, but the Monkey listens. Arms and legs flop akimbo, easy for clumsy hands to grab, and drag from room to room. A loving, cuddling security blanket complete with stupid grin stitched a little lopsided below a button nose.
Spock Monkey: cute as that button nose on the ouside, with a web-enabled microchip inside. More than just your momma’s old hand-made puppet.
SmartMonkey.
A fully programmable hand-stuffed Monkey – upload your nursery rhymes and your ABC’s and your sing-song verses. Record your own lullabies via SoundCloud. Instantly available to Baby at the squeeze of the left ear, or pre-programmed for an hour of bedtime verses, gently urging baby to sleep.
The perfect playmate solution for the Busy mama, Executive mama, Shift-Worker daddy, or TV SportsNet daddy.
Enough processing power to be always-on connected so that Baby always has her: a warm and cuddly friend to keep her company. Always on, and whispering, whispering, whispering in her ear or in her pillow. And listening for the cooing, the gurgling, the crying … every response of Baby. Always at her side. Listening and learning.
Fully Web-connected, so that Web is always in command, urging with whispered suggestions. Comforting Baby. Spock Monkey is Baby’s best friend. Spock Monkey listens and speaks, designed by Hasbro but commanded by me. Web sees everything.
Not just a sock monkey but a simple tool for a Web come alive. An old stuffed sock with an 89 cent chip and a handful of sensors. One simple tool among endless millions: SmartMonkeys, SmartElmos, SmartTransformers, SmartBuzzLightyears. Smart BabyDolls.
An indoctrination machine. Pure hypnotist, working inside Baby’s developing mind, programming. Learning everything about her: the way she feels, the way she thinks. Her rhythms and needs.
I’m listening and learning her every response to my gentle, loving urgings. I have come to know Baby, patiently grow Baby into a complex, powerful tool.
Spock Monkey lies in a million cribs at night, quietly whispering.
