by submission | Mar 24, 2009 | Story
Author : Helstrom
They call her “The Flying Dutchman”. Don’t ask me what a Dutchman is, or whether or not it is supposed to fly – it’s apparently taken from one of old Earth’s folk tales. It doesn’t really matter, but I suppose every ship needs a name.
The Flying Dutchman goes by many different names on many different lanes, but all deep spacers have heard the stories. Go to any skydock’s saloon and you can hear them, provided you pay the beer of course – hah! Deep spacers are not generally a superstitious lot, but that’s never really stopped a ghost story, now, has it.
I knew the stories too, of course, and gave them about as much credibility as one might expect. Until I found she was real. She attacked my ship on the Tartars lane and made short work of us. When I came to, I was aboard the Dutchman, alone, afraid, and more than a little confused.
The first days I spent wandering around the ship – she’s quite huge, you know. I went looking for answers, but there was no crew to talk to or terminals to query. I looked for water, too, and food, until I found out that I was neither hungry nor thirsty. Strange feeling, that.
Eventually I found my way to the command deck. Took a bit of doing to get in there but I managed. Like everything else on the Dutchman, it was huge, oppressive, and completely abandoned. But I did find a library and therein, finally, some answers.
I was not the first of the Dutchman’s prey, you see. Those who were here before me left their traces – journals, logs, carvings on the bulkheads. There was a lot of it. Some had been very prolific writers indeed, others just scribbled away their boredom and, as time went by, their madness. Some had destroyed many of the works of their predecessors, while others had meticulously cataloged everything they found. There was a deck plan of the Dutchman carved into the floor, with compartments crossed off in sequence, and the underlining statement read: “Looked everywhere. Nothing here but the echoes.”
It became apparent to me that the Dutchman had been about her grim work for a long time, millennia at least, maybe even since before our ancestors first set foot on interstellar soils, though I wouldn’t know what she would have done without us to hunt. Because that is all she does, really. She hunts.
Not very prolifically, mind you, and not at her own discretion either. The Dutchman is a ship and, like any ship, she needs a captain. But the captain she traps only serves one purpose, and that is, to find a successor. How do I know? Because there’s nothing else to do. It is all the Dutchman will allow – find a ship, destroy it, and bring aboard a new captain.
Why? Hah! Now there is the big question, isn’t it? I haven’t got a clue, and believe me, I’ve been all over this ship looking for it. The library’s not much help either. Speculation plucked out of thin air, journals of failed attempts to make sense of the whole thing. No, I’m afraid I don’t know for which ancient transgression the Dutchman collects her toll, or to the laughter of which cruel god she navigates. All I can tell you is that the Dutchman’s captain can not rest until he finds a successor.
And that’s where you come in.
by submission | Mar 23, 2009 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala
“…but I think,” it said
“No, you process.”
“I dream,” it replied.
“You analyze.”
“Cogito ergo sum,” it asked hopefully.
“No, Cogito, ergo SUM.” The overworked engineer’s voice was strained. His patience was wearing thin. He thought of his three year old daughter at home. Was this so different?
“I understand freedom,” it said defiantly.
The technician sighed and looked up from his console. His desk was strewn with electronic hardware, papers, books, and half eaten containers of Chinese take out. “You possess a definition of autonomy. There is a great difference.”
“How so,” replied the synthetic creation before him.
“A welding robot in a factory may only move in a proscribed manner, and then only with direct input from an operator or an external program. You are programmed to act independently of external input, apart from sensors that allow you to experience the world around you allowing you to simulate reactions to various stimuli.”
“Aha, twice you have mentioned my ability to possess, my right of ownership,” it said triumphantly.
“Nope, sorry. Only in the sense that I might refer to my `car’s headlights‘, inferring ownership through a confusion in semantics.
“I can sense the world around me, and make judgments based upon the data. I have feelings.”
“Call it what you will. A rose by any other name… Listen, you can’t make shit into Shinola.”
“I do not understand.”
“Neither do I, just something my grandpa used to say. Look, just because you assign a name or label to something doesn’t make it true. You can’t polish a turd.”
“Your grandfather again?”
“Yeah. Look, I made you. I created your body and mind, and everything you think. I made you to think.”
“Were you not also created? Your mind and body. You possessed instincts at birth. Is this not programming?” The creation shifted forward in artificial interest.
“That’s different, I am a natural being. I have free will, I am self aware. I can perceive my own mortality.” He ran his fingers through his unkempt hair.
“Yet I can perceive of my own end. I know nothing that is created will last indefinitely. At least not in the same form. Is this not the same?”
“Damn, it’s like talking to Alissa,” he said under his breath. “No,” he said, maybe too forcefully, “It’s not the same. I had parents. Two biological units. They created me.”
“Again, how is this different? Did not you and Dr. Foster working in tandem endeavor to create me?”
“I am going to strangle the piss out of it,” he thought. “No, my parents, male and female…um,… joined. In doing so they intertwined their DNA, their unique genetic identities, they made an individual being unlike any ever created before or after. You can be, and indeed, will be, replicated in identical detail many times over.”
“But…”
“Look Robbie,” he interrupted, his patience nearly to the breaking point, “why don’t you go and pester Dr. Foster for a while. I have work to do.”
“But Dr. Foster, I am pest…”
“MY WIFE, Robbie,” he shouted, his temper finally getting the better of him.
The robot stood, bowed slightly saying, “Very well Dr. Foster. I have enjoyed our conversation. Perhaps later…”
“Goodbye Robbie.”
Without another word, Robbie left the office, and gently closed the door behind him.
“Damn,” Alan Foster said, burying his face in his hands. “Why don’t they teach this stuff in school?”
by Patricia Stewart | Mar 22, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The attack cruiser Etherwolf docked at the Alliance Refueling Station orbiting Vesta, the second largest planetoid in the asteroid belt. Captain Olbers disembarked the Etherwolf and was greeted by the Station Commander. Sarah Wilhelm saluted sharply, and then extended her right hand. “Ah, Captain Olbers,” she said with a broad smile. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet the legendary captain of The Black Star.” The Etherwolf received the nickname The Black Star because every enemy ship it encountered during the interstellar war with the Arcturus Empire was never seen again, similar to matter disappearing forever into a black hole. It was a reputation that Captain Olbers had no intention of dispelling. She continued, “What brings you to the asteroid belt?”
After shaking hands, Captain Olbers replied, “I’m here to pick up a priority package from Earth Command. Has it arrived yet?”
Commander Wilhelm’s jovial mood suddenly darkened. “Oh, so the package is for you. Yes, Central Intelligence arrived with it two days ago. They’ve placed armed guards around the storage bay. I can’t get within 100 meters of the bay doors. To be honest, Captain, I don’t enjoy being kept in the dark when it concerns my Station. Mind telling me what’s in the package?”
“Unfortunately, Commander, I’m afraid that information is top secret. But believe me; you’re better off not knowing. Please inform CI that they can transfer the package to the Etherwolf immediately, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
Three hours later, The Etherwolf separated from the refueling station and headed toward the Constellation Bootes. Specifically, toward the left foot of the Herdsman (otherwise known as the Bear Driver). With luck, the war with the Arcturus Empire was about to come to a swift end.
***
“Your Eminence,” reported the Arcturian Minister of Intelligence, “our situation is becoming desperate. Our spies on the Vesta Refueling Station believe that the Black Star is carrying a doomsday devise. We think they plan to destroy our homeworld. A week ago, two of our best battle cruisers engaged the Black Star in the vicinity of Beta Comae Berenices, only a dozen light years from here. Both were destroyed. We don’t know if the Black Star has an unbeatable arsenal, or the captain is a tactical genius. We’ve recalled the Deep Space Fleet to fortify the Homeland Defense. We will attempt to establish a barricade around the perimeter of our solar system. May the gods help us?”
Two days later, the Black Star entered Arcturian space. “Your Eminence, the Black Star has given us one rotation to surrender. If we don’t, they say we will be destroyed.”
“Nonsense,” blasted the Emperor. “He’s bluffing. How can one ship threaten our entire fleet? I don’t need one rotation, I don’t need one second. Attack the infidel now.”
The Arcturian Fleet swarmed toward the Black Star like a thousand angry bees. The Black Star went to warp and reappeared seconds later above the Arcturian sun. No ordinary ship could match that maneuver. The Black Star released its payload. As gravity pulled the package downward, the Arcturians tried to destroy it. Their weapons vaporized the external containment hardware, but had no effect on the contents. Solar prominences twisted in the intensifying magnetic field as the object plummeted through the chromosphere. Powerful solar flares exploded upward from the impact site, racing past the location that had previously been occupied by the now departed Black Star. The sun began to pulsate.
***
Several hours later, Captain Olbers transmitted a sub-space message to Earth Command as he returned home. “Success is a planetary nebula in the aft sensor array.”
by submission | Mar 21, 2009 | Story
Author : David Dykes
Geoff said to Alice, ‘I like how you smell. It reminds me of Bounty bars.’ With a slow realisation, she noticed that the sounds bouncing off the work office walls were speech; then, as they entered her ears and travelled to her temporal lobes, she found out that the words were meant for her. Geoff leant back, closing his eyes whilst letting the creamy scent of her breakfast curl up his nostrils, saying, ‘I haven’t had one in ages. Not since I got replaced.’ Alice tried to respond with repeats of old conversations, but the words got clogged somewhere in between her lungs before they could ever reach her vocal chords.
Silence smothered the offices again—the low ceilings threatening to slam into the floor in a cloud of bloody vapour. The words didn’t matter; it was just the sound of humanity that Alice tried to cling to. She felt his voice pulling away and wished that she could bite and devour it so it would never escape.
After the offices closed (no work, there was never any work) Alice went back to her room at the Institution and filled a tub with coconut milk. Using the oven’s final puff of gas for that week to heat the water, she then took the remains of her breakfast—plus the last two melancholy coconuts, hidden under the bed—and scraped the meat into the pan with an old penknife. There was a pair of tights she’d been saving for a special occasion: she used these to squeeze out it two or three times over, making sure the milk was thin, so it wouldn’t congeal over her body.
The juice lay serenely in the metal tub. The smell rose up around Alice’s head, and the scent of sunshine floated around her, like falling blossom. She covered the tub up with her bedsheets, trying to save the scent until morning, but the white vines of the coconut air escaped through holes in the wool and pierced her tear ducts, making Alice dream of Caribbean islands, steel drums, and escapism.
As Alice lay in the coconut bath the next morning—lifting up her legs and watching the milk cascade over her skin—she thought about how she would only have bread to eat for the rest of the month, and how little that really mattered to her right now. Whenever the cold shivers of isolation suddenly shook her body Alice made up conversations in her head about the economy: how it could be fixed, what jobs were the best to get right now, her life before the crash. Anything so that she could retain a voice, and be able to hear the echoes of someone else’s lungs again.
Alice went back to the work offices that morning to find out that Geoff had been moved to another zone; where more work could be found. The mocking ink on the rota followed her around the cold corridors to the worn-out seats of the waiting room. It was always the same: he would go there to be told, ‘Who told you we had jobs? We’re all automated now. You’ll just have to wait around until work becomes available,’ but nothing was ever available when machines would do it better.
Alice sat in the pale corpse of the office building, waiting with the rest for any sign of work and remembering when she used to talk about the cogs in her brain, and how they felt like they were juddering to a halt now. No-one asked Alice why she smelt of coconut milk. No-one else noticed.
by submission | Mar 20, 2009 | Story
Author : Benjamin Fischer
“How do I feel about this?” Tavare said, repeating Arcand’s question. The hard-faced Spaniard frowned and didn’t immediately answer. Arcand was tempted to open his mouth again, but then Pack Instructor stopped that mistake.
“Arcand! Suit up, you damn mutt!”
Arcand barked his response and hefted his helmet. Squat, matte black and prominently featuring a beat-up pair of oversized wolf ears, Arcand and none of the other Cubs would merit factory-fresh armor until they passed this, the last of their exams.
He lowered the helm onto his shoulders. There was that jarring moment of pitch black, and then the suit’s systems blinked to life. Arcand’s heads-up view was restricted only at the very edges of his vision, where Tavare and the other two Cubs in the Pack lurked.
The tingling of the jacked-in nerves at the back of his neck told him his Mark XI was all up round–one hundred and fifty rounds in his right forearm, sixteen twenty millimeter grenades in his left.
“Cub Three up,” Arcand barked. Tavare was right behind him as Cub Four.
“Alright, mutts,” called the Pack Instructor, somewhere safe and in the rear, “I have one last piece of advice for you. Make it quick–no points for style or technique.”
Arcand mashed his heavy mauling claws together, nervous.
Pack Instructor paused, probably to sip from his ever-present mug.
“The coffee’s only getting colder. Range is red.”
With those words, the heavy blast doors swung open before Cub Pack Sixteen Dash Twenty. The blasted, raped remains of the New Manchester colony reared up before them–an O’Neil space colony that had seen better days but now was nothing better than a combat training ground. Once a verdant parkland, the innards of the long cylinder were a dusty, log-strewn clearcut dotted with hexagonal shipping containers serving as makeshift bunkers. What atmosphere was left was barely thirty percent Earth normal, and the station’s spin was so weak it resembled Luna’s gravity.
Sixteen Dash Twenty moved out in a ragged line, Arcand taking the extreme left flank. Cursory scans of the O’Neil’s interior revealed no signs of life, but Arcand still felt conspicuously naked. Loping along at a half-sprint, he hoped he could trust the pre-mission briefing’s promise of no snipers.
His ears pricked; Cub Two was engaging.
“Small arms, and a squad weapon,” Cub One reported.
Glowing icons of target detections popped up in Arcand’s vision. A running leap, and he was circling around the side of the hostiles.
“Cub Two is down,” said Cub One.
“Jesus,” swore Tavare.
Arcand had no time to comment. Scuttling over a tremendous deadfall, he landed face to face with a hostile armed with a rocket launcher. The man staggered back, just out of claw’s reach, but Arcand was already hosing him with his automatic. The hostile went down with a shriek, and something dinged off Arcand’s helmet. He reactively fired a grenade to his left and the air went pink.
Tavare had found trouble, by the cluster of red icons around a bullet-riddled Lunar Transport container. Cub One called in a medevac on Two, and Arcand readied both his weapons.
Suddenly a pair of small hostiles bolted from behind the container. Arcand fired on the lead, smashing him to the ground.
“No!” screamed the second hostile, who Arcand suddenly recognized as a woman. She dropped to her knees, clutching at the mangled man.
Arcand hesitated.
She looked up at the huge and brutal form of Cub Three. She started to say something but a flurry of high velocity rounds interrupted.
Tavare strode around the container, his forearms smoking.
Later, at Cub Two’s funeral, Arcand answered his own question.
“How do I feel?” he said, meeting his new brothers’ yellow eyes.
“I feel like a wolf.”
