by Julian Miles | Feb 5, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The workshop echoes like a rendition of what the forges of the damned sound like. Amongst noises so loud they seem to have presences of their own, little figures scuttle in rituals of maintenance. Our gods are demanding and we have to comply, otherwise the threatened apocalypse will roll across the land.
In reality, the apocalypse arrived eight-four years ago. It came from the stars in ships of heart-rending beauty to turn our cities into canvasses of horror. They still argue about how many died in the initial attack versus how many died because shock rendered them unable to escape.
“Red!” My screaming order makes the apprentice jump, before he hands me the pot.
When the alien ships disgorged war-machines fifty feet high, with defences that rendered all but the crudest weaponry useless, we nearly became extinct. Then we built bigger war machines. Some went for the giant robot approach, but the sheer impracticality of that design – limbs come off too easily – cost us more resources.
In the end, the venerable war-wagon returned. Using the Victorian ethos of just scaling things up until they were effective, we ended up with the biggest all-terrain vehicles ever made.
Six thirty-foot wheels, steel-treaded, underpin an eighty-foot frame that mounts twin twelve-inch guns. We use an armour-penetrating dense shell around a high-explosive round because their defences render energy and external effects useless. Solid shot penetrates. Explosions inside their defences seem to work.
“Dryer!” He’s ready for me this time.
Our war-wagons are constructed from whatever we can find. The reactors that power them are high-output and internal shielding is minimal to allow more armour. The crew provisions are likewise minimal. Very few crew members endure more than eighteen months or survive longer than two years, even if the battles do not kill them. But by duty rotation, they serve until they die. They will not quit, because they are the last line.
I lift the dryer away. Wagon forty-four has just got its one hundredth poppy. We do not have time or space to bury our dead, even if we are lucky enough to have anything to inter. So the wagons have become rolling memorials. It suits us. No monument that stands alone under grey skies, visited infrequently. Our epitaphs roll out to fight the same enemy the men and women they commemorate died fighting against. Our oriental crews loved it immediately and everyone else has taken the belief to their hearts.
As walls shake and radiation burns, as shatterbeams and slicers howl against your armour, as primitive fear fills our rolling, man-made caverns, knowing you have the spirits of every fallen crewmember with you is the salvation of your sanity.
Victory will come, of that we are sure. Not one of us will see the second anniversary of it. We have already stated that there should be no memorial beyond the war-wagons. Let them rust where they stand on that final day. We will need no edifices, for we will be the ones who you feel beside you when you walk battlefields restored to be meadows or towns.
by submission | Feb 4, 2014 | Story |
Author : Owen Vince
We suited up to see it, the last star. We donned thick helmets and heavy gear and passed from the airlocks into emptiness. Some would not come, could not face the terrible sadness, or else shunned the last light – a light that has only ever traveled dead, to us, and now it too was failing.
When it became sure that this would be the last star to cough out its light, Enni7A009, the remnants of humanity, living for so long now in ancient, mammoth vessels in our artificial phosphorescence, turned our course to the star. Out of hope, out of grudging respect ; attending the funeral of the last of a generation. Or maybe out of some died in the wool stubbornness, a refusal to accept the heat death of the universe, the refusal to accept that we were the last damned dregs of life.
At first we saw it in charts and deep images of space ; a magnified pinprick of light that traveled from the now dead, now silent star. But that was not enough. We watched ancient videos of the too-hot sun, of riders in white costumes sweating beneath its glare. But that, too, was not enough. I have never lived beyond the confines of this, our ship – what use is it to stalk the scarred, dark atmospheres of dead worlds, to glare into the shrugged sculpts of dead, collapsed stars who have given up their last? So we live in light, an artificial light ; we walk and bathe and bask in virtual realities. Our ships do not evidence a shred of their own reality; no iron grilles or bars or struts, but ancient forest glades and streams and delicate wooden pagodas.
But the sun isn’t real. Like so many of us, I keep a scrapbook – a journal, I suppose – of images of the sun, of reminders and remainders. Postcards of beach huts and woolen swimming clothes; a bright, green land with a great sun hung above it, wearing shades, wearing a smile. Clippings from a catalog of sun glasses and thin, summer shirts.
But soon, these too will be memories ; they will be signs with no signal, without reference. The next generation will ask what the “sun” means, and where it can be found in the endless night ; we will point to the source of its last flicker. And that will be all.
So we stood on the hard shoulder of our vessel, grouped or alone, our heads and faces turned to that distant volume of space. And the light, it wobbled. And it died.
And everything then was darkness, just as it had been once before.
by submission | Feb 3, 2014 | Story |
Author : Roger Dale Trexler
He sucked in a deep breath as the airlock opened. It was a force of habit. He had always been afraid of spacewalks. Too many things could go wrong, and you’re dead, he thought.
So why did he join the Space Corp?
The answer was easy: money. The unemployment was at ninety-three percent on Earth. The only jobs were out in space.
A voice came over the intercom in his helmet. “Are you outside yet?” Courtney asked. Courtney and he had been lovers on Earth, and they joined the Corp together. But, they were separated for a couple years. Courtney became a communications officer, and he a simple computer tech. He repaired minor servo systems and, when necessary, satellite equipment.
“Yeah.” He stepped to the open airlock. “I’m outside.”
He stared out into the vastness of space and, for a second, he thought he just might be the loneliest creature in the universe.
He drew in a deep breath again. The bottled oxygen was thick and stale.
“You’ve got to hurry, John!” Courtney said. “Please hurry!”
“I’m heading out now,” he said.
His accentuated the thrust in his backpack with his left thumb and drifted weightlessly out of the space station.
Once again, he took a breath.
He looked at the damage the meteor shower had done. The communication array and a small part of the hydroponics lab were damaged. The losses there were minimal. But, the communications array was shattered, and Cooper had gone out to repair it.
Cooper. Courtney’s new lover. She hadn’t even had the decency to tell him over subspace. It was only through sheer providence that John Kisat had found himself in the presence of his former lover. A simple refueling stop on the way to Ganymede to repair a deep space transponder brought them back together.
He had gotten the shock of his life when he opened the hatch to his one-man shuttle and seen Courtney’s face.
Courtney had gasped.
But, there was no tender reunion, no “I’ve missed you so.” Instead, Cooper had stepped around the corner and said sternly, “better lock it down tight, honey….there’s a meteor shower headed our way.”
Courtney looked at John, then at Cooper. “Ok,” she said.
The meteors pelted the station like a violent hailstorm. Courtney and Cooper huddled together while John sat across the room from them. Courtney never made eye contact with him. When the storm was over, she did a system analysis and informed her new lover that the communications array was damaged.
“Well,” he said, “I’ll go for a walk and fix it.”
That had been an hour ago,. Kisat listened to his former woman and her new lover talk as he went to fix the problem. They spoke so lovingly to each other.
Then, his comm went dead.
Courtney was frantic. “John! You’ve got to help!”
“Just for you,” he said.
He doned a spacesuit.
As he slipped in beside Cooper’s spacesuited form, he turned. There, almost perfectly placed in the center of his helmet, was a dime-sized hole.
The meteor shower hadn’t been completely over.
He looked at her lover’s face. The vacuum of space really was an ugly thing. Courtney would be upset anyway, he thought. It was better to spare her the agony. She was, after all, someone he loved. So, very carefully, he released the tether that held Cooper to the station and, ever so gently, gave him a push off into space.
He waved goodbye as his replacement slipped into the void of space.
Then, he turned back to the station.
by submission | Feb 2, 2014 | Story |
Author : Javen J.
“Bring her down.”
On command, a barrage of fusion bursts flew out the side of the federal heavy-orbiter, through the silence of space, and into the PV Song Bird. Each burst blazed like a miniature solar flare. Captain Roger Benet watched the bombardment through the orbiter’s crystalline bridge wall. He stared through his own reflection and watched his order eviscerate the Song Bird. He avoided his reflection, and his eyes. Roger Benet surveyed the destruction with his father’s hazel stare.
“Vaporize the debris. No loose ends.”
“Aye-aye Captain.”
* * *
Five minutes before the destruction of the Song Bird, Jenna’s image came alive above the graphics interface. Her breathy, gasping voice flooded the bridge. “Roger? ROGER!?”
“Darling, I’m here.”
“Roger! Oh god, Roger, they think I took something- they deactivated the engines- I didn’t take anything- I don’t know what to do- What should I do?” She sobbed uncontrollably. “I-I need help Roger. I . . . what do I do. Tell them I didn’t take anything. Help me Roger!” She wept furiously.
“Darling, I need you to check yourself . . .” Captain Benet stepped closer to his wife’s image. “Check for any blemishes or breaks in your skin. Whoever did this could have planted it in your body. Are you itchy or rash-ing anywhere? Do you have any unusual discoloration or-”
“NO! Roger FedFleet’s message said this already. They must have hid it in the ship- let me look through the ship- it . . .”
“Calm down. Darling, you don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I NEED TO-”
“Jenna!” Roger’s inflection became stern and imposing, “You need to CALM . . . DOWN!” He did not speak with a husband’s understanding, but with the utilitarian timbre of a starship captain. Jenna immediately stopped crying. “Jenna, a sample of an . . . unusual genetic-weapon was stolen. Song Bird can’t house it . . . but you can. You will notice some kind of change. Check yourself again.”
Her wide eyes were bloodshot and begging. “Darling I checked myself a dozen times.” Her anxiety grew. “I don’t have it! Please tell them Roger.”
“I will Darling. I’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you. Roger . . . I love you.”
Roger smiled at her, and said as a husband, “I love you too.” His wife’s image disappeared just as quickly as his smile. Captain Benet perched himself in front of the crystalline wall with the hard and cold demeanor of a gargoyle. He gazed for only a moment.
“Bring her down.”
* * *
The cooing of the energy recycling system filled Captain Benet’s quarters. He left the bridge without formally relieving himself, but Lt. Commander Reltan Johanes had followed silent orders before. Captain Benet sat and saw the Song Bird’s demise, in the grain of his desk.
After the orbiter’s fusion chambers were cold, Roger Benet walked to the lavatory. He placed his hands in the sink and cool water ran over them. He pooled the water and splashed his face. The liquid soaked his collar and misplaced his tears. He focused on the mirror. He looked at himself. His irises were smoldering gray. Father.
by submission | Feb 1, 2014 | Story |
Author : Glen Luke Flanagan
“I’m sorry,” the shopkeeper told him. “I can’t hire you. We can’t accommodate your condition.”
George nodded sadly. He was used to this kind of response. As the last Windmill-Man, he was an oddity, a curiosity – but not a productive member of society. His people had once built a thriving culture, but now they were gone. He didn’t know when or why they left, only that he had been left behind.
He turned sideways to make room for the wooden blades on his back, and slipped through the door. Everywhere he went, he got the same response.
“You’d distract our customers.”
“You wouldn’t be able to do the job.”
“Your windmill would be a health hazard to the other workers.”
As he wandered the streets dejected, George chanced upon a shop window displaying old-fashioned wooden toys and delicate porcelain dolls. Drawn by memories of a simpler time, he entered. Seated at a bench, carefully hammering together parts of a wooden toy like the ones in the window, sat a rosy-cheeked old toymaker.
“Hello, hello! Come in!” He turned to greet George with a smile. “Are you looking for a toy?”
“I’m looking for a job, actually.” George dared not sound too hopeful. “Might you be needing anyone around the shop?”
The man studied him thoughtfully. His eyes were old, and seemed to see far beyond the here and now, into a person’s life story. Finally, he set his hammer on the table, and spoke.
“Yes,” he said, quietly. “Yes, I think I could find a place for you here.”
George had steeled himself for another rejection, so it took a moment for the words to process. When he understood, his eyes got a little misty, and his windmill gave an excited little spin.
“Can I start today?” he asked. The man smiled and nodded.
George was happy at the shop, happier than he had been in a long while. He found that he was quite good at making toys, and he found that his toys made children smile. The toymaker became a good friend; kind, perceptive, and interested in George’s past. He never pried, but George seemed to want to tell him about the Windmill-People of his own accord.
One day, George found himself gazing upon a small wooden windmill. He hadn’t entirely realized what he was crafting until it was done, but now that it was, he was pleased with it. He gave the blades a spin with his finger, and his own blades whirred contentedly in response.
When the toymaker saw it, he looked thoughtful.
“The first Windmill-Man built his own windmill, didn’t he?” he asked.
“That’s what the stories say,” George explained. “Most of us were born with our windmills, but it’s said that he built his own, and those of the first families.”
The toymaker nodded, spun the windmill blades gently, and said no more about it. But the conversation had set off a spark in George’s brain. He began tinkering in his free time, building windmills of various sizes and shapes, and wooden skeletons to mount them on.
Many of the experiments ended up gathering dust in his attic. It was an imprecise process, and he had nothing to base his work on. Building a new race from scratch – or rather, rebuilding an old one – was a daunting task. But it was a labor of love, and it made him happy. And maybe, one day, he would no longer be the last Windmill-Man.
