by submission | Mar 23, 2016 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
I rub my eyes. I’ve been staring at a computer screen for hours but my allotted telescope time will soon come to an end. It’ll be easier in the coming years when there are more telescopes available. Astronomy has finally become a properly-funded field of study. I turn my attention back to the screen but it’s no use. I’m tired and my mind keeps wandering back to a decade ago.
“That can’t be right,” I’d told a colleague over the phone ten years earlier.
“It’s confirmed,” she’d replied. “The Great Canary Telescope in Spain, Hobby-Eberly, the LBT — they’re all seeing the same thing.”
The “thing” in question was an object for which the word “spaceship” was pathetically inadequate. It was a lattice structure so big its ends touched the orbits of Venus and Mars. The sheer mass of the thing should have disrupted the orbital mechanics of the solar system but didn’t. Mankind reacted with a predictable combination of wonder and fear. Four days later, emissaries from the giant vessel arrived.
“Is there any obvious pattern?” I had asked my team regarding the audio and radio transmissions originating from the…what? Ambassadors? Robot probes? We’re still not even sure what the things were. The few samples of material we have don’t really fit into our categorization scheme of biology or machine. As for their appearance, one blogger’s description — “A giant cyborg octopus” — has yet to be improved upon.
“It’s not a sequence of prime numbers. Doesn’t look like anything related to the hydrogen line. Don’t think it’s any human language,” a fellow astronomer had said. To this day, despite exhaustive efforts at finding some meaning, we have no idea what the aliens said to us.
After a couple of hours of analyzing the repeating message we had received, the first shooting happened. Someone in Aleppo, Syria opened fire with an AK-47 on one of the aliens. There soon followed similar incidents in Chicago and Nigeria. Most of the estimated 2,000 aliens simultaneous rose silently back up into space. A few remained and traveled to assist their three wounded comrades in their ascensions. The enigmatic message ceased abruptly.
One of my friends had unleashed an expletive-laden tirade at no one in particular regarding Man’s barbarity. For the next 18 months, the human race waited to see what the reaction of the aliens would be. The great lattice-ship hovered ominously over the solar system. One day, a second impossibly large vehicle arrived. And then another. And another. The alien fleet soon numbered 11 vessels. Both the northern and southern skies seemed covered in mesh. Ten days later, the ships seemed to vanish. But the skies they left behind were unrecognizable.
I look at the bright whirlpool on my computer screen: the Milky Way galaxy, now well over a million light-years in the distance. They only teleported the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon to the intergalactic void between the Milky Way and Andromeda. Even the company of the other worlds of the solar system has been denied us. We always assumed the day would come when Man explored and colonized the solar system and then, confident but unsatisfied, would strike out for the stars. Now, we are marooned in a cosmic desert. The odd and distant brown dwarf aside, we are prisoners in a starless void.
by submission | Mar 22, 2016 | Story |
Author : Roger Dale Trexler
The ship touched down on the barren planet. Tabitha Sandor piloted it alone, because the thing in her belly had killed everyone on the ship. It made her destroy the ship. There was no way for her to go home.
She looked down at the ever-growing lump of her belly. She knew that her sole purpose was to give birth to the thing that grew inside her.
Slowly, she reached down and stroked her stomach.
Yes, It thought. I am here.
She pulled her hand away, startled. She knew that the alien thing growing inside her could read her mind—knew, in fact, that it controlled her mind. It had made her get in the escape pod, made her eject the pod and drop to the war ravaged planet.
She stood and walked to the nearest port and looked out. The ground was flat and scorched black everywhere she looked. She wondered what sort of bomb could do such a thing.
A bomb more powerful than your kind have ever seen, the thing in her stomach replied.
A sharp pain coursed through her and she gasped. She staggered backward, grabbing a handrail.
Soon, It told her.
She returned to the pilot’s chair and sat. “What will happen to me?” She asked.
You’ll give birth, the thing replied. Just like human women have been doing since the dawn of mankind.
“Will I die?” she asked.
No, the thing replied. I need you.
You need me?
She wondered.
Another sharp pain ran through her and she doubled over, her hands going to her stomach. Through her clothing, she could feel the thing moving.
I should kill it, she thought. I can’t trust it.
You can trust me, Mommy, the thing told her. I love you.
Another volley of pain coursed through her.
I’ll be here soon, It told her. I’ll be here and we can be together.
As if to prove that, she felt a warm wetness between her legs.
Her water had broken.
I’m afraid, she thought.
Don’t be. It’ll be all right.
A contraction ripped through her and her scream filled the escape pod. She looked about her for something to stab into her stomach, but there was nothing within her reach that would end her misery. Whether by design or sheer dumb luck, the thing in her stomach was protected from her.
Another contraction brought another scream.
You need to lie down, the thing told her. It’ll make it easier.
She wanted to protest, but the fight had gone out of her. She undid her safety harness and staggered out of her seat. She lay down on the platform between her and the escape hatch.
The pain dissipated.
She looked up at the controls to the escape hatch and realized that, if she opened the hatch, the toxic atmosphere outside would kill her. She tried, but the pain came back as she reached for the handle.
I’m coming, the creature told her.
A sliver of sheer agony ran down her spine and she screamed. Madness took her for a moment and she instinctively pushed.
Several other contractions and pushes later, she felt something slither from between her legs.
The agony of childbirth was gone and she slowly gained her breath.
When she looked down, she saw it.
And she screamed.
It rose above her, tentacled and hideous. Its fangs moved and, in her mind, she heard it say: I needed you, Mommy. To give me life.
It hissed.
And to give me nourishment.
As it lunged forward she screamed for the last time.
by submission | Mar 20, 2016 | Story |
Author : Callum Wallace
“Well, this is a little awkward, but we’ll have to destroy you. Only literally, of course. Metaphysically you’ll be right as rain.”
Paul shrank back from this. “Metaphysically?”
The speaker nodded, the soft beak spreading into what could have been a smile. “You’ll continue to exist in what you would call our minds. Specifically Klegg’s.”
The grey figure to his left waved cheerfully and nodded its bulbous head.
Paul shook his. “I don’t understand. Why do you have to destroy me at all? I don’t think I like that idea.”
The spokesalien gave a shrug of his tiny shoulders. “It’s quite safe. Imagine a two dimensional line. Take that line to your dimension, the third. It only ceases to exist in the sense that it is no longer two dimensional. If you think about it, it now exists even more! As a third dimensional shape, of course.”
The third alien piped up helpfully. “A rectangular prism.” This earned him a bony elbow to skinny ribs.
Bhob continued. “Yes, thank you Lendi.” He turned back to Paul, regarding him with over-large eyes. “In this way, so too must you be destroyed, and reborn as a fourth dimensional being.”
“Like you?”
The being smiled its beaked smile again. “Yes, like us.”
He raised his arms, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, like a vicar before a sermon.
Before he could speak, however, Paul interrupted. “Excuse me sorry, one more thing. If you’re fourth dimensional, how are you here, speaking to me right now? Aren’t you, you know,” he rolled his hands nervously, “third dimensional like me?”
The lead alien made an irritated noise and lowered its elongated hands. “Well, strictly speaking, we’re not in the third dimension. We’re with you in your mind, not actually here in any sense.”
Klegg joined in. “On that note, why do you lot always make us look like this?” Paul mouthed wordlessly, prompting Klegg to indicate their frail, pale bodies.
“Make you look like this?”
Bhob nodded. “We’re in your mind. You subconsciously chose us to look like this.”
Paul shrugged. “Um… Movies?”
Klegg grunted and rolled his eyes. “Popular culture has a lot to answer for.”
Bhobb cleared his throat. “Anyway, as I was saying, we’re here, in your mind.” He tapped his head. “But before you can meet the council, we need to take you into our dimension. Klegg?”
The second alien nodded and stepped forward. “The transdimensional shift doesn’t hurt. As Bhob said, we ‘destroy you’,” he waggled his long tipped fingers like bunny ears, “and reconstitute you in our dimension. Then, you’ll be able to interact with the council and find out just why they summoned you.”
Paul blinked and took a step back. “Wait, wait, you don’t know what they want? Aren’t you higher beings? How do you not know?”
Klegg ran a thin hand over his fleshy face. “Every time!”
Bhob shook his head. “Only higher to you. Do you know what your leaders are doing all of the time? Are you aware of how your universe functions, just because you exist in it?”
Paul shook his head as Lendi stepped forward, trying to smile kindly. “We’re just the collectors. Like your bureaucrats.”
“Or bounty hunters?”
Klegg gave a short laugh. “Kind of. Right, close your eyes, hold your breath.”
The aliens closed their eyes, arms raised.
Paul, still unsure and slightly reeling, waited, thinking.
Was this real?
And if so, what could possibly await him on the other side? What would he see?
It might be wonderful.
He steeled himself, took a deep breath.
Paul blinked, and —
by submission | Mar 18, 2016 | Story |
Author : R Gene Turchin
The lumbering thing on treads wasn’t sophisticated or complicated, a 0.50 caliber machine gun mounted on tank tracks. An array of sensors rotated on top along with a pincushion of antennas.
“We can send it into neighborhoods where the bad guys are without risking our soldiers. It is controlled remotely but has some autonomy.” He scanned the military reps, reading their faces.
“What makes this different from other recon robots?” a voice asked.
“Our algorithm,” Jason answered. “Tracks incoming projectiles, calculates the reverse trajectory in a heartbeat and then returns fire.” He’d hoped one of them would ask that question. “Bad guy shoots at it. It shoots back—and doesn’t miss.” He paused for effect. “The shooter won’t have time to take the weapon away from his face.” He beamed at he crowd. They were studying it warily now.
“Is it live?” one of the military officers asked. “We have safety regs for live ammo demos.”
“No sir, but we’d load it live for the field demo.” He relished the power. They were afraid.
A guy stood in the back of the room, in the shadows. His hair blended into the darkness as if it grew from it. Jason squinted into the darkness, momentarily distracted from his spiel. The guy had dreadlocks. How the hell did he get in here? One of those programmer types, with dark skin maybe Indian or Pakistani. They produced some hellacious programmers. The guy wasn’t paying attention anyway only fiddling with his phone. Jason would have to talk to security. No way that guy belonged here, even as a consultant.
He turned back to the crowd. “I’m going to activate the sensors and LIDAR,” he said tapping his tablet. The robot moved slightly. A small slit in the top flashed light.
“If one of you could help me with the demo,” Jason said. The guy in back was now alternately glancing between his phone and the robot. He’s trying to hack us, Jason thought.
Out loud he said, “Excuse me gentleman,” as he pushed toward the back.
“Who are you and what do you think you’re doing?” The guy was big, nothing like one of those wimpy programmers. Must be a gym rat. He smiled at Jason.
“Oh, I’m authorized to be here,” he flicked the badge up from his lanyard. “Your security and software suck, by-the-way. I hacked it, inserted a virus, more precisely, a worm. Burrowed it’s way in and fixed things.”
Jason, for once, was at a loss. He motioned to security. “This is the big leagues. You’re way out of your element.” The man’s smile never wavered.
“Doesn’t matter. I accomplished what I came here for. Your machine is useless.” The guards had him by the arms.
“My own little algorithm. Not mine really, the idea belonged to a very smart man, I figured out how to implement them–the three laws.” They were dragging him through the door.
“Not software, but embedded in the silicon latices structure on a quantum level. Can’t be removed…ever.”
Jason turned back to the customers. “Nut job. Don’t know how he got in here. Definitely going to make some security changes. Anybody understand what he was talking about?”
The general with three stars looked toward the door. “If he did what he said, then, the demo is going to get really interesting.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The three laws,” the general answered. “If he did it, everything changes.”
“What three laws?”
From the speaker on the robot, a female voice said, “A robot may not…”
by submission | Mar 17, 2016 | Story |
Author : Kate Runels
Mary Slade slipped her ship into the maze kilometers ahead of the police’s patrol craft still trailing her. Trailing since Ganymede station days ago. It was annoying to say the least.
Slade didn’t know why they had decided to trail her ship, why her, out of the dozens that had left the station at the same time, they followed, and to get rid of them was through the maze.
A small face appeared reflected in the glass of the front view. Slade knew her craft was small, but she’d never had another person in it with her. She kept her eyes on her controls as more and more asteroids surrounded them.“What are you doing up here?”
“Are they still following?”
It was odd how small the ship felt with another in it, even if the other was a young girl. “Yes. Now get yourself strapped back in, I’m heading into part of the asteroid belt called the maze.”
“But-”
“We’ll lose them. I grew up in the maze, Amy.”
“But-”
“No buts. Now strap yourself in!” Slade had no patience for idle questions, coming into the belt at speed. The patrol craft still trailing.
The reflected image disappeared. Slade never once looked directly at the girl. Her first glimpse of her on station had been enough for all the memories and the guilt to almost overwhelm her. The resemblance was uncanny. Her sister had died a long time ago and this eight year old girl looked just like her. Clone? A frozen test tube child? What kind of experiment had the government done? Slade didn’t know, but the government did that to recruits, tried to do it to Slade.
Warning alarms brought her out of that self-defeating memory as small asteroids went past.
“Light Space Craft, you are entering restricted space, heave to and-” the trailing craft finally contacted her.
Slade silenced that as well. She needed all her attention and focus for the maze. Not many pilots dared the asteroid belt outside of the proscribed and constantly cleared lanes, between the inner and outer system.
More asteroids filled the H.U.D. and the patrol ship gained on her as she fired braking thrusters and changed direction.
Soon that’s all she did while heading deeper and deeper into the maze. She’d traveled mostly in the maze, but had visited the labyrinth, but had never been to the far side and the warren.
The maze constantly changed, shifted. She had a basic idea where she was and where she wanted to go. Vaguely, she sensed the patrol craft until she no longer did.. Either crashed or turned back. It was no longer her concern. The beacon alert chimed at her. She was close to five mile asteroid.
“Five mile, Five mile.” Slade hailed the old prospecting homestead, knowing she had been spotted and most likely targeted. “This is courier ship, Slade’s Promise. Mom, Dad, I have someone you need to meet.”
She hadn’t been back since she and Alissa had left, with such optimism, filled with the knowledge they were doing the right thing. Now, her sister was dead and it had taken Slade years to track down this lead. This child.
Slade flicked off the comm and then slowed the ship and aligned it with the slight opening in the asteroid which led to the dock.
“Wow,” came from behind her.
Slade started, it had sounded so much like Alissa. “You’re safe now,” she said, as the ship settled onto the dock and the slight opening closed back up. “Welcome home.”
