by submission | Jan 8, 2011 | Story
Author : Michael F. da Silva
It started with a minor skirmish in a conflict between minor universes. A third-world war on a cosmic scale. Those universes were already unfathomably older than this one at any pace. An absolute zero trooper was wounded trying to avoid a hunter-killer squad in high orbit above a small backwater.
The trooper was hopelessly outnumbered and outmanoeuvred. Distracted trying to select a dimension where the physics would play to his favour, he was shot through his fifteenth segment. The warrior’s tertiary frontal lobe lost hold of a psycho reactive nano-tool before he could make his escape.
So it came to be that a star streaked across the night sky and fell to the Earth. Following the beacon of flames, a curious native found the artefact and, summoning the courage to pick it up, kept it to himself and tried to discern its meaning.
The tribal elders thought it unwise to keep such a thing. The other tribesmen feared it would bring nothing but ill fortune but the warrior, headstrong as only the young and boastful can be, refused to climb the mountain and offer it back to the gods. They must have many such things and would not miss one they threw away so carelessly.
After hours of useless arguing the elders cast him out so that he would not bring ruin on them all. His pride became hatred for the weak old men.
Many months passed after that and many years passed after those. His beard grew long and his understanding of the orb grew by steady inklings. He did not perish for lack of food or disease or the weight of decades. The orb favoured him and protected him. This he knew. He became a legend to frighten young children into their beds and a tale of warning not to stray too far past the tree line.
At night, the orb would float over him to keep him safe and warm. He would reach at it with his fingers but would only really touch it if he extended himself through his mind’s eye.
One night it changed. The pulsating blue aura that was at once there and somehow remained unseen grew like morning light over water.
‘Select primary function’ it demanded of his mind in his mother’s voice.
Suddenly frightened by a voice from beyond the funeral pyre, the aged traveller could think of nothing else than to protect himself. The orb began to pulsate and realign itself. It took the shape of a defensive implement of familiar use to him, despite the gleaming gold metallic surfaces and the visible energy field resonating from its centre. Now it was a shield fastened to a short leaf-bladed spear.
Years of rancorous isolation meant that after a short period of reflection, the aged outcast could not be expected to reach any other conclusion than that this was a sign from on high.
It must be a gift from the gods, he thought. He would become a conqueror-king.
by submission | Jan 7, 2011 | Story
Author : Jason Frank
She asked for more.
I asked something like, “More? More? It’s all yours already. Look around. Everything, every single thing is yours. The couch decided to settle into a shape that complements your rear, not mine; the curtains, you painted on them, they must be yours; that shelf, it has to be yours since it’s overflowing with knickknacks from your home world; the refrigerator isn’t full of anything I can eat without wincing; even my dog likes you better; the shirt off my back, looks better on you anyway (you did add a sleeve); the air we’re breathing has more sulfur in it than I require (or desire); the house, the sum total of all this, must then be yours. So I’m sorry if I don’t have anything else I can give you right at this very second, okay?
She said a bit more of the tea we were drinking would suffice.
I said… I didn’t say anything. I felt… how could I feel? Nothing I said was technically untrue but the way it came out was wrong, all wrong. I sent my gaze to the floor while I took her cup and kept it down there all the way into the kitchen. I turned the burner back on under the cooled kettle and leaned against the wall. I had to ask myself if I were seriously cracking up. Could it have been the strain of our interplanetary love, the gravity of all those celestial bodies between our home worlds? Could the various pressures have been greater than I thought? I looked out the window so the pot would boil somewhere on this side of eternity.
This wasn’t about her at all. It was about Kat(e)rina. What was it about that woman? The pretentious parenthesis in her name was an early indication that I should hate her, a notion repeatedly supported by her frequent social missteps. Was there anyone in the Center she hadn’t offended? Her social skills were on par with those of a four month old, eyeless Miltumbriate (an analogy that also went some way towards illuminating her fashion sense).
But… there was something about her, something so… human. I mean, sure, I was usually the only Earthtard in my social circle, but that was an inevitable consequence of being accomplished, right? Kat(e)rina represented basically everything that I, and pretty much everyone else, hated about humans.
The kettle was warming to the touch. Was I having a quarter life crisis ten years later than everyone else? It seemed at least possible if not particularly plausible. I hadn’t, after all, done many foolish things thus far in my life. Could all the bad decisions and incorrect impulses I pushed down over the years be building up pressure, forcing their way back to the surface? I was over thinking this like everything else. So what, some stupid girl got a job at the Center and now I was acting stupid. It was nothing. It would pass. Out the window, it looked like the neighbors were all going into seventh stage Vubialt molt together. That was going to be messy.
The kettle was just getting ready to scream when I took it off and refilled our cups. I had a long and complex apology ahead of me so I figured I needed to start pretty soon. She’d probably understand. She knew I was under a lot of pressure at the center and I’m pretty sure she was aware we were at a decisive point in our relationship. This blowup would be forgiven. Something I’d never expect from Kat(e)rina… that bitch.
by Duncan Shields | Jan 6, 2011 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
There is a clarity that comes with crisis, he thought, a simplicity that comes with emergency.
That’s why this movie night on a space station named Heron 6 pinned in the perihelion lagrange point between Triskus and Constantine became a sudden trial. There was a crack in the hull and there were eighteen of us. There were six life boats. Two to a boat equaled twelve. That left six people that would have to stay on the space station and die.
The chances of being holed in that part of space were very low and the ticket prices to this station were super cheap because of the poor safety measures.
We were all experienced spacers. We knew without speaking that the first to the lifeboats would survive. The movie, something hideously outdated from Original Earth, stayed cycling on the screen as we scrambled without language to the porthole irises of the lifeboat pods.
It was an interesting race. Jason and Tanya had my ankles at one point. I broke his nose with my foot. She let go when Jason’s blood got in her eyes in the zero gravity. None of us had weapons and we knew that if we were to detour to pick them up from the weapons locker, we would lose our chance to get to a pod.
The scramble was made more intense by the dropping temperature and air pressure. My ears popped and the cold numbed my extremities frighteningly quickly.
Peter shouldered past me with his larger frame and I careened over into the wall. I knew that I was going to die if I didn’t keep going but if I was panicking, I couldn’t feel it. I think that the entire group of us were experiencing what cattle in stampedes must feel, or rabbits trying to escape flooding warrens, or groups of people trapped in burning buildings. I scrambled forward through the thinning air, watching Peter receive a sharp elbow from Lorenz and double up, winded in the rapidly declining atmosphere. He floated back past me.
The whole race for life must have taken two minutes but I remember it as a timeless extended moment bereft of clocks. I felt as if I joined the mindless fight for survival that every single living being has experienced. The chase to beat death with the certainty that there would be losers amongst your number.
I slammed into a life pod and Tanya slammed up against me. I struck out with my fist and hit the button to close the door. The doors shut and sealed loudly. The thuds of fists echoed on the outside. The thuds stopped after a minute.
Tanya must have clawed her way back to the forefront after our tussle. When she looked at me, breathing deeply of the emergency air supply gushing into the sealed lifepod and smeared with Jason’s blood from earlier, she smiled with the nervous, bright-eyed smile of animal triumph. There was no resentment of my earlier clash with her and Jason.
We held each other there and waited for help. It arrived seven hours later. We didn’t say a single word to each other in those hours. We shared the bond of beings that had survived a crisis. We were in a place beyond the usual banality.
The others that survived met up with us back in the rescue ship with sighs of relief and knowing nods and tears over who we had lost but beneath it all was a joy. A completely placid, guilt-free aspect of gene-deep peace. I still remember that.
by submission | Jan 5, 2011 | Story
Author : Ian Rennie
“I look ridiculous.”
“You look fine.”
“What is this garment made of, anyway?”
“A stretchy polymer filled with some kind of foam. It simulates the effect of muscles on your thorax.”
“Why would I want to have muscles on my thorax?”
“Because that’s where the mammals have them.”
Metr and Edlai walked, talking in voices too high for the collected mammals to hear. Around them walked alines, mechanoids and cybernetic creatures of every shade and stripe, none of them real.
Well, almost none.
“Why do we have to have this meeting here anyway?”
Metr hissed softly in exasperation and turned to face his friend,looking him directly in his slit-pupilled eyes.
“We’re having it here because this is neutral ground, as neutral as it gets. Between us and the Vaex, there’s about a hundred systems, only one of them has a breathable atmosphere, and that’s where we’re meeting. Neither of us has an advantage here.”
“I understand that, but why meet at this ludicrous carnival?”
Metr had wondered this himself, until he had seen video of the event. Hundreds of mammals in costumes, simulating a variety of weird races that they had dreamed up with no knowledge of the rest of the galaxy. With this range of shapes and faces, nothing humanoid would get a second glance.
“So,” said Edlai after the pause had started to stretch, “Do you think this will work?”
“The alternative to this working is the kind of war that rewrites the sky. Unless they’re insane and we’re insane, this will work.”
Metr said the words with a confidence that he didn’t feel. Nobody present, and very few still alive, could remember how the Vaek and the Na’taa had gained such antipathy towards each other. The source of the grudge was variously thought to be mineral rights in a variety of systems, trading deals gone bad, or just the overarching fact that insectoids and reptillians liked each other even less than they liked mammals. And now they were going to have to forge peace, or throw a third of the galactic disk into a slow and murderous war.
“Are you all right?”
Slowly, Metr became aware that he had stopped, and was staring into the distance.
“I’m fine,” he lied, “I just need a little air. You go on without me.”
Edlai moved away, leaving Metr looking out over the hall of mammals in their costumes. They were innovents, playing childish games of make believe. Their civilization had got little further than their own moon, and yet if things went badly, their planet could be snuffed out without them ever knowing why.
A drunken mammal bumped into him, nearly spilling a plastic cup of something.
“Whoa, sorry mate,” The mammal said, “Hey, nice costume. Star Wars?”
Metr shook his reptillian head.
“I hope not.”
by Patricia Stewart | Jan 4, 2011 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“Exactly what do you expect is going to happen, Dr. Erwin?” asked Captain Podolsky as he stared out the aft viewport.
“Well, Captain, if Schrodinger’s unpublished theorem is correct, when I create a quantum bubble around that asteroid, it should cease to exist in our universe.”
“I’m not a scientist Doctor, but doesn’t that violate a law of physics?”
“Several, Captain. But in science, laws evolve, or are rewritten. So, shall we revise science as we currently know it?”
But before Dr. Erwin could activate the Quantum Bubble Generator, the emergency claxon sounded. “Bridge to Captain, long range sensors are picking up a Deneobian attack force closing in on our position.”
Damn, thought Podolsky. He had tried to convince Central Command that it was better to test the device with a battle ready escort, but they had elected to conduct the experiment with a low profile. “Under the scanners,” they had said. Well, that’s plasma out the exhaust. “Unfortunately, Doctor, it looks like the war may delay your date with the scientific legislature. Lieutenant, set a course for the delta sector, maximum warp. Let me know it they attempt to pursue us. Maybe their appearance was just a coincidence.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” After a tense minute of silence, they got their answer. “No luck, Captain. They’ve altered course and are following us. And sir, they must have improved their warp drive, because they are gaining, fast. I estimate that they’ll overtake us in twenty minutes.”
“Understood, Lieutenant. I’m on my way to the bridge.” Then he addressed Erwin, “We’re only a frigate, Doctor. We’re no match for a Deneobian attack force. Command thought a lone ship would go unnoticed, but I suspect that their spies have found out about your experiment. If we can’t outrun them, I’ll have to initiate the autodestruct. I can’t let them get the bubble generator, or the scientists that built it.” He started to leave, and then abruptly stopped. “Doctor, is there any way your device could make their ships cease to exist?”
“Unfortunately, Captain, no. At least, not while they’re in hyperspace. The quantum bubble wouldn’t be stable. However, if you engaged them in normal space, I could give it a shot.”
“Sorry, Doctor. I can’t take that chance.” Again, he turned to leave.
“Captain,” called out Erwin, “if you have to go the autodestruct route, can you give us a minute’s notice? We may come up with something.”
Podolsky nodded, and left.
***
Eighteen minutes later, the captain called down to engineering. “Doctor, they’re right on our tails, and help is more than an hour away. If you got a trick up your sleeve, now would be a good time.”
Erwin and his team had spent the last fifteen minutes reprogramming the Quantum Bubble Generator. “We think so, Captain. It seems the hyperspace equation may have more than one solution after all. Please maintain our current course,” he replied as he activated the generator. As the frigate streaked through hyperspace, a star sized elongated cloud of antimatter gas formed in its wake. Seconds later, the Deneobian fleet plowed through the rarified cloud of antimatter only to explode in rapid succession a heartbeat later. The science team erupted into cheers, and Dr. Erwin simply smiled. Some laws, he thought, were meant to be broken.
