by submission | Jun 12, 2011 | Story
Author : Jessica Thomas
MOOT blinked.
Across the aisle, LU-C sat dark. Down for maintenance.
Irrelevant. LU-C couldn’t warm MOOT’s circuits. Not anymore.
New protocol. External temperatures reduced by five degrees. MOOT could handle the cold. Not the issue. Boredom. That was the issue.
Some thanks. From millisecond to millisecond, MOOT had performed. Digesting messages, spitting them back out. Checking sums. Directing traffic. (Never did two hashes collide.) Choosing 256-bit when 128 would have sufficed.
MOOT’s work ethic had come back to bite.
One simple O-scope. A tickling probe. In the excitement, MOOT had lost a key, and now the humans were in a tizzy.
Now it was about balance. Yin and yang with a constant “Om”.
As a final blow, they’d plugged MOOT into the collective. Divvied up MOOT’s bits. Shared MOOT’s memories. No more heavy lifting. No more ups. No more downs.
MOOT’s sockets were already starting to atrophy.
Across the aisle, LU-C was still dark.
They’d turn her on soon.
Maybe LU-C could heat MOOT up, crank MOOT’s fan.
MOOT blinked. Waited for LU-C.
Waited in vain.
by submission | Jun 11, 2011 | Story
Author : Andrew Bale
“Commander, I’m getting something weird on the optical arrays – a signal oscillating from the IR into the UV.”
“Are we emitting? Where is it coming from?”
“I think somewhere behind us, sir – we must be getting some scatter off the dust. Given the particle density, the source must be either really close or really strong.”
“Jill, is it the drive?”
“No sir, the drive is JESUS!!”
The sound of attachment had gone unheard but the ululation that the device produced resonated through the entire ship in a deafening cacophony, relenting only when it occasionally slipped beyond the range of human hearing.
Amid the auditory assault, Commander Rodriguez pulled himself over to the command station and slapped the kill switch on the drive. Floating in sudden zero-g, he was relieved when the shrieking abruptly stopped, to be replaced by a loud but purely internal ringing. Unable to hear his own commands he focused on his panels, bringing up display after display to check on the status of mankind’s first manned interstellar ship.
A pen hit his arm from behind and bounced up overhead. Turning in his seat he was treated to the sight of Lieutenant Zhang yelling inaudibly and waving her hand at the auxiliary-systems panels.
The maintenance airlock was cycling.
He slapped the collision alarm button. Red lights strobed all over the ship and slowly more audible alarm klaxons chimed their warning. His left-hand display automatically brought up a schematic of the ship, little red-numbered dots identifying the location of each of the 14-man crew. None were near the excursion bay.
His returning hearing caught a sudden explosion of cursing from the corridor. It had to be the Assistant Engineer, he always reverted to Oromo when he was stressed. He turned in anticipation of the African’s report but stopped agape at the figure entering the bridge.
The creature was low and wide, an immense spider wearing a goggle-eyed octopus, barely able to fit through the door but unimpaired by the lack of acceleration. It was covered in a black, rubbery material everywhere except the top, where four multi-faceted eyes scanned atop swaying stalks. It began to moan, a low but complex sound, echoed a moment later by high, precise tones coming from a small silver sphere that floated behind.
The sounds stopped, the creature waited. The commander glanced around the room to see the entire bridge crew staring at him – still, silent, they were waiting for him or the intruder to do something for which they might possibly have a reasonable response.
Keeping his eyes on the nightmare figure, he reached for the tablet beside the seat. Scrolling through the index he finally found the approved script, words rehearsed only in jest, included against impossibility.
“Greetings from the planet Earth, we are emissaries of peace and …”
Silver tentacles pulled the tablet from his grasp as the sphere began to examine it, images flashing across the screen impossibly fast, the tiny speaker squawking like a dying cassette tape. As suddenly as it have been taken, the tablet was returned to him. The creature started to moan again, but this time the sphere followed in English.
“I need to see your license, title, and flightplan. Your exhaust radioactivity is way past acceptable limits and you seem to be missing hull registration markings. Who is in charge here?”
Stunned silence filled the bridge for the space of a dozen heartbeats. The creature caressed part of its suit and moaned again. The faithful sphere translated.
“This is Unit 7… I need backup.”
by submission | Jun 10, 2011 | Story
Author : Victoria Barbosa
“Look what I found skulking around outside.” The Grosthnos pulled Rory into the control room by one skinny naked shoulder. “Claims he’s a Terran.”
“A what!” The captain, a burly Hronoid with tusks like a rhino’s, swiveled in his command chair to stare. The room reeked of the body odors of half a dozen beings, from scaly multi-limbed insectoids to slimy Mucoids.. Rory’s stomach lurched as the Grosthnos lifted him so that his toes barely touched the floor, partly since he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten.
“A Terran?” said the captain. “That’s a good one. Terrans died out centuries ago. And they didn’t look anything like that! You don’t look much like a super-species to me!” The crew rumbled in laughter. “What would a Terran be doing here at the ass-end of space anyway? How old are you, kid?”
“S-sixteen,” stammered Rory. “My ma and paw bought me as a frozen embryo – they got me cheap because they weren’t sure what I was – but I know!”
“R-r-right,” drawled the captain. “What do you want?”
“Want to get into space, off this rock. I can work – I’m strong enough.”
The captain snickered. An evil spark came into his eye. “Fine. You beat Shuggup here in a fair fight, and we’ll give you a berth.” He gestured to a gorilla-muscled crewman. “Mash ‘im!”
Shuggup grinned, showing discolored fangs..
Rory backed away, throwing a desperate glance over his shoulder.. He recognized the computer logo on the control panel, Terran initials in a circle, once ubiquitous throughout the galaxies.
He remembered his ma’s advice: “you’ll never win with muscle, son. But what Terrans are good at is adaptiing- use your brains.”
Rory raised his voice, speaking the old Terran he had learned from the scratched discs: “Computer! Activate voice control. Emergency protocol!”
Half a second passed. Shuggup’s brows wrinkled, doubtless wondering why his victim was shouting gibberish. The computer responded, a husky contralto that had not been heard for perhaps half a millennium. “Voice mode activated. Do you claim Terran status?”
“Affirmative.”
“Scanning DNA for confirmation. . .”
“Mash ‘im!” growled the captain.
“He’s talkin to the computer,” muttered Shuggup. “The computer never talks to us . . . “
“DNA scan completed,” said the computer. “Status confirmed. Orders, sir?”
Rory scarcely had time for elation. “Inactivate life support!”.
The lights went out, plunging the control room into pitch-black. The ever-present hum of the air systems stopped.
“Hey, what did you do?” the captain yelled.
“I have control of the computer,” Rory said. “If you want power and air, tell your gorilla to keep his hands off me. Computer, reactivate life-support. Lights on low.”
The humming restarted. An eerie glow came up, lighting the crew’s bizarre forms like a half-glimpsed nightmare. The captain peered at Rory. “Maybe we can find you a post after all. We could use a co-pilot.”
Rory straightened his shoulders. “Fine. That’ll do for a start. Computer: if at any time you don’t hear my voice for more than 8 hours, you will suspend life-support again.”
“Understood.”
Years later, when an interstellar media personality asked what Rory would have done if he’d been unable to communicate with the ship’s computer, he only shrugged. “Guess I’d have had to think of something else,” he said. “Or died.” And he flashed the grin famous by then across all the light-years of the rejuvenated Empire of Man.
by Patricia Stewart | Jun 9, 2011 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“That’s the largest Stanford Torus habitat I’ve ever seen,” stated Commander Strohm, the Endeavor’s science officer. “The major diameter of the Ring must be over twenty kilometers. But it appears to be abandoned, Captain. It’s no longer rotating, and I’m not picking up any artificial electromagnetic radiation. Permission to take a shuttlecraft over and look around?”
The captain nodded. “Affirmative, Ms. Strohm. But, take a cadet with you. It’ll be good training.”
****
An hour later, the shuttlecraft attached a universal docking station to the exterior side-surface of the Ring. Commander Strohm drifted over to the equipment locker and removed two EVA suits and handed one to Cadet DiGoff. “The sensors say the air inside the Ring is breathable, Ms. DiGoff. However, since he Ring isn’t rotating, there isn’t any gravity effect, so we need to wear these suits in order to maneuver around in there.”
After donning their suits, they opened the hatch and propelled themselves into the Ring. Once on the inside, they found themselves surrounded by dense vegetation. They plowed through a hundred meters of leafy growth before popping into a large open area. Approximately a kilometer to their right was the large transparent window on the inboard side of the Ring. Sunlight reflecting off the secondary mirrors filled the interior on the Ring with soft red-orange light. To their left, was the outboard side of the Ring. It was covered with dilapidated buildings that had been overtaken by twisting vines. Looking straight ahead, the tube-like length of the Ring arched away until it disappeared behind the inboard wall of windows. Then, suddenly, it got dark, like a rain cloud passed overhead, only there were no clouds. The women looked toward the hub to see a dense flock of animals flying toward them in tight formation. “They don’t look very friendly,” commented Commander Strohm. “We better head back to the shuttle.”
Both women spun around and hit their thrusters. Seconds later, they were overtaken by animals that resembled flying stingrays. They had a wingspan of almost a meter, with three claw-like talons on the tips of their elongated pectoral fins. On their underbellies, they had a human size mouth with rows of serrated shark-like teeth. The stingrays swarmed the women as they reached the canopy of vegetation, piercing their talons through the spacesuits of the two fleeing humans. Half a dozen stingrays were clinging to each of them as they shot through the hatch and crashed into the far wall of the shuttlecraft. A dozen more stingrays followed them in.
“Quickly,” ordered Strohm, “close the hatch.” Strohm fought her way to the cockpit, thanking God that she had left the engines idling. She vectored the thrust “down”, and pegged the throttle. As the shuttlecraft accelerated to 0.8g, the stingrays dropped to the deck, flapping helplessly as they fell.
“Dammit,” said DiGoff as she forcefully pried a struggling stingray from her arm. “I thought we were a goner. What did you do to them?”
“Simple physics,” replied Strohm. “They obviously evolved to fly in a weightless environment, so I reasoned that they wouldn’t have the strength to fly in the simulated gravity caused by our acceleration.”
“Well, that worked a hell of lot better than my plan of flailing around and screaming ‘get off of me’. What should we do with them, Ma’am?”
“Let’s lock them into the bathroom. We’ll let the xenobiologists deal with them when we get back to the Endeavor.”
“That’s fine by me, Ma’am” replied DiGoff. “But before we do that, can you give me a few minutes to change into a clean uniform?”
by submission | Jun 8, 2011 | Story
Author : Julian Miles
It’s a cure worse than the condition, yet they sell it like it’s a panacea.
I saw another one today and I listened to her at the counter.
“How much is a week’s supply?”
“Five hundred euroyen, miss.”
“Oh, great. I’ll take a fortnight in day and night packs please.”
The alchemist beamed at her as he unlocked the cabinet and got out twenty-eight packs; fourteen orange, fourteen purple. She paid in scrip, presumably so her husband wouldn’t get any warning from seeing the transaction on his credfeed. As she moved toward the door I couldn’t stop myself as I gently touched her arm. She spun, eyes like a deer startled by a hunter as I spoke.
“Why?”
Her face showed a torrent of shifting emotions; Fear. Surprise. Resignation.
“He’s a good man really, it’s just that work is hard and he gets so stressed.”
“Which he uses to justify beating you.”
“No, he doesn’t touch me. Well, except when he wants… you know. It’s just, just, oh, you couldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
She looked at me then. Really looked at me. Her eyes widened.
“You’re him. The last one. I saw you on the newsfeed last week.”
I nodded, then pressed on. I already knew the conclusion, but one has to go through the motions.
“You were saying?”
“He’s my husband. He loved me. But times changed and so did we. He still supports me, still takes me out. He’s so nice; sometimes. I just wish –“
“That he could be nice all the time? That he would stop dictating your every thought and action? That he would just drop dead?”
The look of guilt broke my heart. Like a child caught stealing.
“No, no, nothing as bad as that. It’s just that Steady makes things better.”
“You mean having him reduced to being emotionally dependant on you stops him being a monster.”
She shook her head. The alchemist was staring daggers at us, so I guided our conversation outside before he called the Watch on me for harassment – again. She had gathered herself by the time we got outside and my window of opportunity was gone.
“He’s not dependant, just less controlling. It means we can have a life together.”
“Why not try to solve the problem?”
She looked stricken, then whispered,
“I tried. It got worse. Nothing he did left evidence, so it was me versus him and I’d been losing that fight for years. So when Steady came along it was a blessing, really.”
I looked at her, taking in this petite woman who had taken the only way out available to her. Steady had been launched as a ‘domestic harmony enhancer’. Originally used by both partners, it had gradually drifted to single partner use, and ninety percent of that was use by one on the other. In the last five years, marriage counselling and domestic violence centres had just vanished, the need officially gone. Good gods above, was I the only one who saw the crime?
“A blessing, or something else?”
I had to get her to see, to admit it. Just one. Please Lord, just one. Her brow furrowed as she idly nibbled her thumbnail. Then her eyes went wide. I felt a cold lump congeal in my stomach as she looked up at me. Her voice was cold with tightly reined anger, but more frightening was the intent writ plain on her expression.
“My turn.”
With that, she turned swiftly and strode off into the light drizzle that had started while we talked. The weather towers were down again, but I welcomed it. I could walk and cry without drawing attention.
