by featured writer | Nov 14, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, featured writer
“I wrestle with it every minute of every day. However please let the record show that every precaution was considered when it came to keeping it humane. No one ever knew for even an instant what hit them. One second we were a planet overrun by thirteen billion parasitic beings, all of whom were in immediate danger of mass extinction via overcrowding and disease. And then the next second they all went peacefully away, and we were suddenly a very healthy and robust selection of the top five hundred million people considered essential enough to keep around.”
“This court has already recognized the previous global crisis and is thankful to be among the surviving carriers of our specie’s precious DNA. But what we really want to hear from you is, how was it actually done?”
“Ah, that is the genius of it… it was the Captain Trips antivirus that carried the doom bringers in the first place. The world was so scared of the super flu that they clambered over top of one another violently to get to the abundantly distributed free bottles of Red Five.”
“Yes, yes, and the Red Five contained microscopic machines… nanobots you call them?”
“Yes your honor. They still exist in all our bodies, everyone who drank the antiviral medicine, which was pretty much everybody on the face of the planet. But don’t worry, the machines are now in permanent sleep mode, their command program destroyed, they are nothing but electro-microscopic bits of gold and silicone floating amongst your blood cells.”
The chief justice tugged at his collar uncomfortably at this, as if though imagining the countless microscopic intruders coursing through his body, the same ones that had instantly severed billions of brain stems with their deadly lasers, and then had oh so quickly dissolved their victims gruesomely albeit efficiently into morbid puddles meant to evaporate or wash away in the rain. Not losing his scowl he said, “And you just gave the order then? The command or whatever? To kill most of the human race?”
“If I hadn’t none of us would be having this discussion right now, or any discussion for that matter. You see your honor we were at a critical level, in fact we would have already gone ahead with the plan over a year earlier but we still lacked the computing power.”
“The computing power to kill?”
“Actually the computing power to segregate who was and who wasn’t to be deleted. Once we had the comprehensive genome map in our system we could divide those to be sacrificed from those of us like you and I, the ones who were meant to carry on.”
He leaned back in his chair, contemplating, tapping his fingers together. Then finally, “Might I ask why it was you who personally? pushed-the-button so to speak?”
My answer was simple and direct. “Because it was my idea in the first place.”
In another half hour I walked out of the building flanked by my own armed guards, I sidestepped a spot where the courthouse steps were discolored a pinkish hue, a one meter circle with a wispy bit of hair at its center. I was free to go wherever I wanted, the man who euthanized over a dozen billion people with a single keystroke. But I prefer to think of myself as the man who saved the world.
by submission | Nov 13, 2011 | Story |
Author : Andrew Bale
“Five minutes, General.”
“Thank you, Gunner.”
Anywhere else in the fleet she would be an impossible escort. Her dull-black skinsuit was topped with a spiked leather jacket, her hair gelled into liberty spikes, her face painted like a skull. She still showed her rank and rate, but the only name was the one tattooed on her forehead. Her child perhaps, a lover, a sibling. All that mattered was that anyone she killed would be able to see why she was doing it.
He followed her down to the assault bay, to the raised platform at the edge of the deck. His command was waiting for him, ten thousand variations of the Gunner, uniformity thrown aside in favor of anything that would scare the enemy, or give voice and strength to the rage they all held inside. All had names tattooed on their forehead and elsewhere, even him — ten years of war, a hundred names, a hundred strikes to his soul etched in his skin. These were his brothers. Time to get them ready.
“You know why we’re here. PUD’s, all of us — Psychologically Unfit for Duty. Pulled from the line because we could not follow the rules of command, of war. Because none of us could see past our need to immediately kill as many of the fuckers as we possibly could. We didn’t want to leave — they made us. Today we’re back. Today is our day.”
“HOO!” The sound rang through the chamber.
“A few minutes ago, you all felt a bang, felt the ship veer onto a new heading. That bang was simulating a malfunction, and since we have not taken any fire it appears the bastards think we are out of control and falling into atmosphere to burn up. In another minute or so a big chunk will do just that, but this lander, this big stealthy armored rock, will drop right down in the middle of their field command. While the main strike force sets the beachhead in Switzerland, we will occupy and destroy as much of their command as possible. We will today kill as many of the fuckers as we possibly can.”
“HOO!”
“We’re coming in hard, no jets until absolutely necessary, so even with the dampers this is going to be a hard ride. We hit hard, the shocks raise the ship, and this deck is left on the ground. The gunners take out the hard targets from above…”
He paused to nod at his escort.
“…while we go after the soft targets below. We have no meaningful intel on their actual deployment. There is no plan, other than mayhem, destruction, and death. Give it to them.”
“HOO!”
“They are not like us. They are clinical. Detached. To them, this is a business, our oppression their right. They can handle the Fleet, the Army. They can’t handle us.”
“HOO!”
“Our own people called us flawed, called us broken. When we planned this mission, they called us ‘The Legion of the Dead’. They knew us better than they thought. We are dead. And we are legion.”
“HOO!”
“We will kill a hundred of them for each name we bear, and we will break their spirits so that the Living can break their backs!”
“HOO!”
“No mercy. No surrender. Only RAGE! From each of us, they have taken something. From them, we take EVERYTHING!”
“HOO! HOO! HOO!”
The General stepped down, walked to the number ‘1’ blazoned at the edge of the deck. Ten thousand knelt down as one, grasped the handholds, and waited.
It was going to be a good day.
by submission | Nov 12, 2011 | Story |
Author : M. A. Goldin
“Anything?”
“Bacteria, some multi-celled organisms, but nothing complex. Nothing sentient.”
Captain Dalmar nodded, and the technician’s projected image blinked out. She stood alone on the bank of a river. It rushed, boisterous, from the mountains behind her and off into a rolling plain, the water twinkling with the light of two small moons. The night was fresh and cool, but nothing hunted, or crawled, or flew. No tree broke the horizon, no grass rustled in the breeze. No soul had ever been touched by this vista.
Another planet nearly identical to Earth — gravity, atmosphere, temperature, soil composition — another dead rock with nobody home. For Dalmar, this was number 165. For humanity, this was dead world number 10,380.
The comm on her wrist beeped. “Go.”
The face of her XO hovered in the air over her arm, lines of concern bunched up between his eyes. “Everything okay, Dalmar?”
She sighed. “I read a lot of space fiction as a kid. The really old stuff, if I could find it. Spacefarers were always meeting other species and fighting, or trading, or getting into crazy politics. Joining a bigger, I don’t know, family.”
Temujin smiled. “My favorites were the ones where we’d find ancient artifacts from an earlier civilization. They’d leave behind markers carved with their story, or transportation devices, and the humans would rush along trying to learn what happened to them.”
“Yeah, I liked those, too. It was a lot better than this…”
“This nothing?”
“Yeah.”
Dalmar looked away, listening for a sound on the wind. All she heard was emptiness.
“Ever wonder if we’re that ancient species, Temujin? Sometimes I’m afraid there’s no one to find. Maybe we’re the first ones out here. Maybe humanity is destined to grow old and bitter while we wait for the Universe to catch up to us. Maybe we’re wasting our time.”
She glanced at the Lieutenant Commander’s face. She saw something like horror pass across his features. Then he cleared his throat and composed himself. “Yes, well. I wouldn’t say that too loud, Captain. I called to inform you the final geothermal pillar is in place. The imaging sensors will be powering up shortly.”
“The map? The archive?”
“Already in place. If anything moves nearby, we should get images. If it’s sentient, the archive will explain how to find us.”
“Great. I’m heading back to the shuttle now. Be ready to jump to the next candidate when I reach the ship.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 11, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Stuart lost his footing scrambling over the shattered garden wall and fell, hard. As he struggled to his feet, his head still ringing from the tumble his pursuer caught him up and knocked him back down harder still.
“You frickin bastard,” Stuart spat blood and dust, rolling away from a second blow as the infantryman swung the butt-end of his rifle down, narrowly missing him. Managing to get some traction in the rubble, he sat up as best he could and shuffled backwards, the seat of his pants dragging in the dirt, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase until his shoulders met the outer wall of the car shed, and there he stopped.
The soldier stayed still, its seven plus feet of arms and legs bent at obtuse angles as it crouched low to the ground, watching, waiting.
There was a throaty gargling noise, with a tinny mechanical voice following in broken English a few moments out of sync.
“Show other soldier units.” The tall figure leaned forward, shuffling its feet and free hand to keep balance, still leaning the butt end of its rifle in the dirt. “Show other soldier units to surrender.”
Stuart grinned, teeth red through a split and already swelling lower lip.
“You know, you’re really overestimating your chances here mate.” He watched as the creature cocked its head to one side, waiting no doubt for the translator to approximate Stuart’s language into something it could understand. “You seem wholly unaware of how much we like living on this rock, and we’re not going to just let you waltz in here and take it.”
The soldier advanced, raising its weapon first into a firing position, then above its head to bring it butt-end first down hard between Stuart’s legs: He narrowly avoiding the impact by yanking his knees up just in time. The soldier pulled its arms and weapon out of reach, perilously counterbalanced on its backwards bending knee joints to bring its face so close to Stuart as to make him nearly vomit.
“Prisoner shows soldier units or prisoner terminates.”
Stuart kept talking, noting the slight retreat as the soldier struggled to understand the translated dialogue.
“My great-grandfather fought the Nazis, nasty bunch of blokes as you’d ever want to meet. He fought them so his son, my grandfather could raise a family in a free country.” The creature clicked and gurgled as Stuart spoke, though the noises didn’t translate. “My grandfather fought the Viet Cong, a bunch that made the Nazis look like pussies. He didn’t have a family then, but after, when he raised my dad, and told us grandkids stories, he’d never speak of the war, just remind us never to take what we had for granted. Always respect our freedom. His friends died for it, he’d tell us, and we owed it to them to never forget that.”
The creature shook its large flat head violently from side to side, spit flying as it clacked its heavily toothed jaw open and shut repeatedly, shuffling with apparent agitation.
Stuart pressed his luck.
“My dad used to tell me that freedom and family were the two most important things a man could have, and you think we’re going to give that up without a fight?” Stuart drew up a mouthful of blood and saliva and spat at the looming creature, causing it to jerk back away from him.
“You know what I’m going to tell my son when this is all over?” Stuart pulled his lips back into a bloody smile.
“Prisoner shows soldier son…” The grating translated dialogue was cut short as Stuart Junior, having silently flanked his opponent, unloaded both barrels of his plasma cannon through the side of the enemy’s skull, scattering blood and bone across the back yard.
“I’m going to tell him to be a little quicker with the artillery in future,” he groaned, pulling himself to his feet, “and don’t ever let your enemy monologue, that shit can get you killed.”
by submission | Nov 10, 2011 | Story |
Author : Michael Georgilis
My hand scrambled over tiles studded with shattered glass until it found my gun, clenched, lifted, swung over the bartop, and pointed between the deepest blue eyes I’d ever hunted in the entire system. The gun cocked on reflex. Her eyes twinkled.
“Per-sis-tent.”
Her hand grasped a bottle of grog rather than her pistol, which rested between her thighs. Custom-modified Consortium Militia standard issue. Extended clip. Polonium pepper rounds, as the moaning sap over a table could tell you. A dozen other mods. The amount of violation fines collected from the gun alone could buy you a very nice apartment in the Venus Nimbus District.
Celine Maddox. Hijacking. Piracy. Smuggling. Destruction of property. Littering. Reckless endangerment. Murder. ‘Possession of an illegal firearm’ now, too. Took two strong hands to carry that file. Weren’t a prettier set of legs that walked out from the Belt and into the legends of spacers in station bars everywhere. Any clod from here to Europa has himself a tale. Trouble is, it’s always her pissing on the law. And it’s pissing the wrong people off.
She glanced those ocean blues up the barrel.
“Nice piece. Replacement for your last one?”
“Quiet.”
Those whites split her lips. A black lock loosed from behind her ear. “Sorry, hon.”
Someone called for a doctor. A bottle emptied onto the floor. Glass everywhere. Another job, it’d be too much collateral. But Celine.
Well.
That’s different.
Our last meeting started on a luxury cruise yacht heading for the Mars Consortium Center. It ended with the yacht in flames, she and I racing to escape pods before it crashed into the planet surface, and seeing her wink just before we blasted off on completely different trajectories. I’ve caught rapists, cultists, murderers…you see ’em all in this racket. But it don’t matter how many bounties you haul in; there’s only one way you catch the Ore Belt Buccaneer. The hard way.
She smirked. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
I took her firearm and told her to stand. We exited through the south airlock. Alcohol, smoke, and gunpowder hung in the air. She walked in front down the catwalk to the hangers, arms raised.
“Is he paying you well?”
“You might say that.”
“How much?”
“Seventeen million.”
The bounce in her step deflated.
“Really?” She glanced back, frowning.
Forget about an apartment in Nimbus—try owning a whole district. You didn’t do what Celine did without attracting that kind of attention. And you certainly didn’t get that kind of attention without your father heading one of the top corporations in the Consortium.
It started at forty thousand for the missing daughter of Akio Maddox, CEO of Maddox Engineering. You turn on almost any engine in the system, you have them to thank. The bounty was the highest in history. Had old vets coming out for another chance at glory. But nothing came up. Everyone figured she was dead. That is, until she sacked a ME Commercial Tanker and sent the video to every police outpost this side of the Belt.
The number’s been climbing ever since.
“Daddy must want to talk with his little girl,” I sneered.
“Huh.”
When the side of her boot smashed into my face, I had just started in on the trigger. I ain’t a liar—I went down hard. In a haze I saw her pick up our guns. She smiled.
“Only seventeen million? Guess he doesn’t want me that bad.”
Before I blacked out, she snatched my keys and hopped into my ship. As the hatch closed, she looked back.
And winked.
