by submission | Sep 10, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson
They ate. They ate everything they could. It was as simple as that. If a solar system contained even one planet with significant life forms in abundance, they came. They landed and they ate, every tiny scrap of organic material in their terrible paths.
Giant gray machines ravaged the landscape. Trees and fauna stood no chance as they were mulched at will… and the beings that ran, crawled, swam and slithered faired no better as machines eventually caught up to all of them. Each and every living organism was pureed into food for the Gluttons. This was the name mankind had given them, once the fact of their approach had been revealed via the galactic network of communicating species.
To actually transverse between star systems physically as opposed to communicating by light-language was nearly unheard of, except for parasitic beings such as the Gluttons, who existed only for conquest and further gluttony. A species so devoted to their ways that they sacrificed generations of their already long-lived individuals to transverse the gaps of nothingness over centuries, with no other purpose than to find more food.
Mankind learned of their approach with nary a decade to spare. Earth would be on her own now as any chance of communicating with another intelligent species for assistance as to how to deal with the invaders was long past. Earth’s leaders gathered. Together they analyzed the information package that had been sent in light-language from one helpful alien race some fifty-five light years distant.
This was our only hope, a life preserver tossed to us just in time to, “head ‘em off at the pass” so to speak.
In the end it was a tiny probe, a mere three meters across that sailed out on the solar wind to meet the approaching horde. In truth the Gluttons never gave it any mind, a useless weather satellite to be tossed aside with indifference, they let it cruise by without concern.
As it spread its tiny cargo amongst the fleet of marauders its self-destruct clock began to count down… and by the time the little probe exploded into oblivion the nano-bots had already breached several hulls, and were now burrowing into whale sized gray beings with rough rocky skin. Each tiny android had a series of compounds aboard, so small some elements contained but a scant few molecules. Once inside their hosts, they began to experiment… until the chink in the armor had been discovered. A message was sent back to Earth as the invaders slowed and fell into orbit around their blue prize.
When the first wave landed they met what they expected, the resident intelligent race surrounding their landing party with what looked to be primitive war devices. Unconcerned they launched their armored mulching machines into action.
The first trees began to die as the grey goliaths raped the land. The Gluttons followed close behind, gorging themselves on the organic exhaust of their leviathan food processors. Forest animals and lake fish began to add to the invaders’ menu when suddenly…
The humans unleashed, directly into the intakes of the machines, a boiling spray of the most glorious shimmering sunshine. And as the spewing feeding snouts began to exhaust the deadly element into the hungry mouths of the approaching aliens, they started to die by the thousands.
Who could have guessed that the Gluttons’ one and only yet deadly allergen would be one of the solar system’s rarest elements? Luckily for mankind we had now had the ability to turn lead into gold for more than a century.
by submission | Sep 9, 2011 | Story |
Author : Douglas Kissack
Every day I am losing more of my sight. Every night, the edge of the moon blurs a little more. I can no longer see the stars. In its way, this slow drift into obscurity comforts me. It reminds me of my mortality.
The city streams by several thousand feet below as the zeppelin glides through still night. Rock and metal flow together, a light-specked river, as above a cold wind snaps through the zeppelin’s mainsail. I lean over the railing, straining to make out individual buildings, and try my best to ignore the scraping of talons against the elevator wing. There is a thunk as Aryan lands on the deck.
The HARPY joins me at the rail, c-fiber wings retracting silently into his back. For a few minutes we stand and say nothing. I can hear his eye shutters irising as he tries to infer my line of sight.
“I don’t understand,” he says at last, rotating his head toward me. “Every night you come out here. What do you expect to see?”
“Nothing,” I reply, trying to keep everything out of my voice. My hand rises, almost unconsciously, to feel the silver cross that rests beneath my shirt. Aryan knows about it. I know it irritates him, but he sees no harm in me keeping it.
“Your body is failing. We offer you treatment.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You would let yourself die?”
“Death is natural,” I say, smiling.
In the ensuing silence I can feel him contemplating forcing the surgery upon me. But he knows that I would escape it afterwards. At least that much humanity tends to remain after the procedure. “I see,” he says. “Why do you wear that cross?”
“Who are you?” I ask, ignoring the question he has asked me a hundred times and more. “I mean, who were you before?”
For a moment, I think he is going to respond. Perhaps this time I have caught him off guard. Perhaps, somewhere within that network of wires and nano-tech, he has a vague recollection of his past. “I don’t remember,” Aryan finally says. “It is not important.”
“It’s the most important thing there is,” I respond. “It’s why you will never understand.”
Something changes about him. Aryan shifts his weight from talon to talon, then, without warning, throws himself over the railing. I watch moonlight spark from his body as he plummets towards the earth. He fades from sight before I can see him protract his wings. Maybe this time he won’t bother.
Below, the city streams by. Through this final journey, I have kept track of the latitudes and longitudes. Somewhere ahead of us is the Dead Sea. Below the ruins of Jerusalem lie, sinking slowly beneath waves of metal.
by Patricia Stewart | Sep 8, 2011 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Agent Dalton looked down at the dead alien, a swirling ribbon of smoke drifting upward from the hole his phaser had blasted into its chest. Once again, he was certain, an autopsy would validate that he had killed another shape shifting Haudvir, and not a human being. It was risky killing the alien outright, but his proven success rate had granted him exempt status; the authorization to use deadly force without repercussions, provided the autopsy confirmed the deceased was an alien. Dalton had executed fifty suspects so far, and all of them proved to be Haudvir. This one would be fifty-one.
* * *
“Agent Dalton,” bellowed Senator Balordo, “are you refusing to tell the Anti-Infiltration Committee how you are able to differentiate these aliens from humans? This is a matter of Global security. We need to ferret out these alien scumbags before they destroy the very foundations of our Empire.”
“I understand the consequences, Senator,” replied Dalton, “but my method is not something that I can transfer to another agent. Therefore, I prefer to keep it a secret, so the Haudvir cannot develop countermeasures.”
“Need I remind you Agent Dalton that these are top secret hearings? The Haudvir will not discover what is said inside this chamber.”
“With all due respect, Senator, one of you could be a Haudvir. And since the medical establishment does not have a non-lethal technique to identify a Haudvir, I cannot take the chance. Unless, of course, you are all willing to undergo an autopsy?” A chorus of indignant outbursts erupted from the panel members, but Dalton ignored them with a half smile. “I thought so,” he said as he unofficially excused himself from the hearing, and defiantly walked out the double doors at the rear of the Senate Chamber.
Once in the main hall, two lieutenants in the Secret Service intercepted him. They carried no visible weapons, but Dalton knew they were armed, and meant business. The larger of the two extended an upheld palm and planted it firmly in the center of Dalton”s chest. “Not so fast, Agent Dalton. The Emperor insists on a personal audience.” The shorter man led the way to a waiting armored hovercraft, with the larger one bringing up the rear. After a twenty minute ride, and a ten minute brusque walk, Dalton found himself in the Emperor”s Private Library, with the Emperor himself sitting behind a large mahogany desk.
Against all protocol, Dalton decided on a preemptive strike. “Your Imperial Majesty,” he stated, “I’m afraid that I cannot divulge my methods even to you, especially in the presence of your guards. Either one of them could be a Haudvir shape shifter.”
“I can assure you, Agent Dalton, that my guards have been well vetted. But, if it releases your tongue, they are dismissed.” Neither guard made an audible protest, and despite misgivings, they obeyed the Emperor’s wishes. After they left, the Emperor stood and approached Dalton, stopping only inches away. “I am not an impotent Senator, Mister Dalton. I get what I want, when I want it. And I want it now. You will tell me how you can identify the Haudvir, and I will decide what to do with that information. Ahhh, I see that your eyes well with fear. Good. Now, tell me what I want to know.”
The Emperor suddenly dropped to his knees, a ceramic knife bisecting his heart. He fell over backward; his eyes still open as he hit the floor. Agent Dalton brought a handkerchief toward his face and sneezed. “I suppose I can tell you now, I’m allergic to Haudvir.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Sep 7, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Voychek stood at the edge of the crater, heavy boots slowly sinking into the dusty surface as he surveyed the damaged instrumentation balloon below. He could feel the wind whip frozen particles the size of grain pellets in torrents around him, the staccato beating against his suit muffled by the hardened exterior.
His suit was virtually impenetrable. The balloon, however, hadn’t done nearly as well.
Grunting, he half walked, half skied down the gradual slope of the crater wall, stopping when he reached the equipment pod. The meter plus wide spherical canister appeared to have clipped a sheer face as it fell, the top having been sliced off neatly, coming to rest a dozen metres away from the rest of the container and its battered contents.
Further still lay the harness that had attached the balloon to the equipment pack, now limp in the dust, the risers and lines splayed out, the burners torn off and the silver expanse of fabric fluttering limply in the solar wind, its skirt and lower panels shredded like so much swiss cheese.
Voychek walked to the canister lid and kicked down hard on one edge, the piece bouncing up into his waiting hand as though it were a skateboard and he a free-wheeling teenager.
He chuckled, dropping the shell back into the dust and again kicking hard at its edge, flipping it up into his hand.
From the command tower, his compatriots watched in puzzlement through long glasses.
“What the hell is he doing out there?” The balding Dominic scratched his head absently.
“Who knows, who cares. Not my problem until he brings that gear back in for me to fix.” Chase turned his back on the large observation panel and walked away.
Outside, Voychek threw the sliced off section of shell face down in the dust where the harness lay, then stood on it, wedging his boots between the cross-bracing and turning the toes out to grip the panel. Bending, he picked up the harness leads and flicked them, as one might coax a horse to action by snapping its reins.
The lead lines rippled outwards, lifting the tattered fabric out of the dust only momentarily.
Voychek snapped the lines again, then pulled back hard, the tension pulling a larger section of fabric into the inhospitable atmosphere where the whipping wind snatched at it. The increased pressure filled the section, pulling it further off the ground and taking up the slack in the risers and lines with considerable force.
Voychek tensed, heels pushed hard into the plate beneath him, holding steady in the shifting surface dust. Knees bent, arms straining he coaxed the battered balloon fabric higher off the ground until it cleared the crater lip and caught the full force of the wind whipping above it.
Voychek shot forward like a rocket, instinctively turning himself and angling the board so he was being pulled along sideways. Digging in at the last possible instant, he used his forward momentum to climb the side of the crater wall diagonally, and worried for several long seconds as he shot vertically out of the crater, high above the surface, still travelling forward at great speed before gravity brought him back down hard. He tucked into a crouch to take up the impact, then bounced back up to skim across the landscape throwing great plumes of dust out behind him.
From the observation deck, Dominic lowered his long glass and smiled.
“Don’t expect Voychek back anytime soon. Looks like before he salvages any of the equipment, he’s going to salvage what’s left of his afternoon.”
As Voychek raced towards the horizon Dominic added “He might be calling for a ride.”
by featured writer | Sep 6, 2011 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Featured Writer
My personality type is one hundred percent orbital, which means I need someone to be loyal to or I cannot function beyond mere subsistence.
Problem is, like any satellite, I can only circle one thing.
First it was my brother, Eduarde. I loved, slaved, lied, cheated, betrayed and eventually killed for him. Then we joined the army and it became shockingly clear who the competent one was. From there we just made it into the newly formed Extraplanetary Marine Corps.
I’d have been lost when Ed got incinerated if I hadn’t found Sergeant Stalde. He was a walking, talking god of war. He knew everything, and had an idea of what I was. Plus he liked my ass. Worship with benefits is always better than mere worship.
Then Stalde got another gopher, an enthusiastic and competent lass called Ella. So she had an accident involving a Type 18 osteoplasmic grenade. She was a lot less competent as a multi-celled amoeba.
Stalde suspected me and reported me. That’s when I met Captain Murdine. She was everything Stalde was, and everything he wasn’t. Plus she was female, which made the benefits even better. She really got me, understood my devotion. So when Stalde slipped and fell into the drive field of our fortress, she transferred me to her staff.
She introduced me to Jurgen, who was so intense, so vivid that I nearly prematurely demised Murdine. He stopped me and told me about a mission he thought I’d be interested in. I agonised for days before he let me meet Kandi. We just sat and stared at each other for six hours. Then we proved to Jurgen just how dedicated we could be by vivisecting Murdine with a spork.
Kandi is just like me. We orbit each other. We understand this thing we have, and we understand that Jurgen has let us be together for one thing. Because people close to us seem to die a little too regularly, Jurgen explained that to be together, we had to be useful to the Great Empire.
We go to undecided star systems. We come in as settlers to their peaceful worlds that do not need the protection of the Great Empire, because they have left the old crimes behind.
We bring the old crimes back. We work apart or together as needed, producing jealousy, encouraging greed, inciting murder, brokering betrayal and fomenting wars. We also do really good imitations of serial or spree killers if needed. It usually is, sometimes many times.
When a planet finally welcomes the Great Empire with open arms, it restores law and peace to the thankful populace very quickly, because Jurgen has taken us away to another planet. He says we are unique and with our augmentations, will be together for a very long time.
Long enough to unite the galaxy under the Great Empire. Then Kandi and I can retire to somewhere where there is only us at last, the binary star of our need all we need.
