by Roi R. Czechvala | May 12, 2010 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
Somewhere south of Toadsuck, Texas, along a washboard gravel road, a middle aged man was walking his dog, enjoying the cool night air and the effects of cheap grain alcohol. Looking up, he witnessed a glowing object streak across the sky.
“Mmurph,” was his only comment.
The object suddenly veered towards him, taking up a position directly over head. He managed a surprised, if somewhat drawn out, “I’ll tell you what,” prior to being skewered by an intense beam of light and drawn into the strange craft.
Aboard the craft, 1st Lentil Glorp mused as much to himself as to his companion Skizziks, Lentil 2nd class, “Why do we do it?”
Skizzicks rotated his eyestalks in an ‘here we go again’ manner and muttered, “For the chicks I s’pose. Sure as hell isn’t for the money.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” Glorp paused to pull his hand out of the confused and somewhat surprised Texan’s ass, “I mean here we are, in a ship that can span galactic distances and we are still conducting anal scans of emergent sentients. Is this all there is to life? I mean what’s the point?”
“For the greater good of the Tranyan Empire?” The traumatized man stared wide eyed as Skizzicks placed a small triangular object on his forearm. The alien waved a purplish glowing wand above the object and it painlessly sank beneath his skin.
“Seriously, do you think the Emperor really gives a shit about these primitives? We write a report, it gets filed, nobody reads it, end of story.” Casually Glorp turned the hapless and mildly terrified Toadsuckian onto his back, grabbed his testicles, squeezed tightly and screamed.
“There has to be something more to life than this,” he said, releasing the testicles in question.
“Well,” Skizzicks began slowly as his brain ponderously engaged, “My gram always said, ‘Good things come to those who wait.’”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. Gram drank a lot.”
“Well let’s finish this up.”
They moved the stunned and quite naked human to a small raised circular pad, sprayed him with a slick greenish blue gel, gave him their equivalent of a thumbs up, which involved several appendages and the release of bodily gasses and returned him in the same manner as they had plucked him away. He arrived at the same time, on the same gravel road, next to the same Blue Tick hound who merely shook his head knowingly.
The now lightly glowing and very naked man watched as the object retreated back into the firmament from whence it came.
“Well, I’ll be dipped in shit”
by submission | May 9, 2010 | Story
Author : John Williams
Gas and Sag had clear orders to destroy all life on the planet. Their leader, The Gnik, was concerned that the violence portrayed on its radio and television was setting a very bad example to the rest of the Universe. The exact manner of destruction was left to them. Their Gnik failed to see the irony of destroying a planet because of its output of violent transmissions.
“During the five-year trip from the planet htrae in Proxima Centauri, you’ll have ample time to agree on the optimum method,” instructed The Gink. On htrae, it was policy to make decisions at the lowest practical level.
Of course, they didn‘t agree: If Gas said fire then Sag said water.
The arguments went back and forth. Their leader, The Gnik, was beginning to think it had been a mistake to send a couple on this mission. Perhaps, Professor Stranglelove was correct when he or she advocated the elimination of one gender as a means to promote galactic harmony and to make the monarch’s life easier.
It was rumoured that the good professor had taken the precaution to adapt his own or her own body to qualify for either gender – a sacrifice willingly made in the name of science.
“Can’t I use my atomic blaster?” implored Sag as she reached for the holster on her hip.
“What about my headaches? It’s bound to make a terrible noise.”
“If you really loved me, then you’ll do it my way,” countered Sag. Gas checked to see what brain his partner was using.
Sag drew herself up to her full 2ft 6inches and turned her purple faces to her silent partner.
“I’m older so I should decide.” Her mouths forming distinct sulks.
“But you decided last time. It must be my turn.”
Their attention was caught by a message from mission control asking their position.
“Are we there yet?” asked Sag.
“E.T.A. in five minutes,” sighed Gas and vowed to save the most beautiful planet in the cosmos. He looked aghast at the temperature sensing device, the planet must be the coldest inhabited one in the known universe. A plan was beginning to form in his thinking head.
“So what are we going to do?”
All the time, Gas was pondering on the irony of destroying a planet because it was too violent. Of course, he knew that countless envoys had been sent to warn the leaders of the Earthmen. He had seen the record of how they had been cruelly treated, their bodies bombarded with radiation, and then dissected. Gas switched off his feeling head and engaged his other brain. A light illuminated the dark interior of the flying saucer as he came to the realization of how to save the blue planet.
“We’ll toss a coin. Heads or tails?” he said casually.
Sag agreed and called tails.
The coin landed heads side up.
“Shit!” yelled Sag, “ I can never win an argument with you. “ She glared down at the Sirian Dollar.
Gas smiled up at her, “I thought we may introduce a little carbon dioxide into their atmosphere just to warm it up a bit. Then, it would make an ideal holiday destination.”
Sag allowed smiles to soften her mouths.
Gas quickly picked up the double-headed coin and began releasing the stored carbon dioxide they had exhaled during their voyage, venting it into the atmosphere of the blue planet. Their ship lurched upward and Gas struggled to right the craft but Sag wrenched the controls from his grasp.
Observers saw the craft stall and crash into a field on the outskirts of Copenhagen. The ship’s video log, after examination, was hurried to climate change conference. Gas and Sag, still engaged in a furious argument, were taken away for counselling and an afternoon in a hot tub.
by submission | May 8, 2010 | Story
Author : D. Wang
His wings were polyaramid leather woven over carbon bones and monofilament tendon, his gaze the piercing thousand-yard stare of a man who could see through stone, his talons X-ray lasers so powerful their waste heat violated Second Kyoto with every shot. In his time, he’d been God’s own fury and brave men had worn charms lest he notice they still lived. Now he queued up outside Lane’s placement office with the amputees and the lepers.
“Name?” Lane asked.
“ZX7122NGF99OU.”
“First, or last?”
“I guess if the last name is the family name then that’d be Azrael, so—”
“First, then. Here you are. Two years in the western theatre, retired this January?”
“Is that Earth time?”
“What else, Jovian Separatist Daylight-Savings?”
“We’re on Mars, I thought—”
Lane guffawed like a man who hadn’t laughed in too long. “Earth Force runs on Earth time, son. Martian! That’s a good one. Sit down, I’ll be right back.” He stomped down the hall until he found a small child huddled under a chair. Then he knelt down, and bellowed, “You there, boy! See that sign?”
The child whispered, “Cannot read, sir.”
Lane’s voice softened. “It says, ‘ECM strictly prohibited in waiting rooms.’ Aww, I’m not mad. I’ve got one like you at home. Here, have a sucker. You stay offline and there’ll be another in my office. Deal?” He let the boy stare at his pinky a moment, then grunted and stumped back.
“Where was I? Right, Martian time. That’s a good one. You want to be a comedian, son?”
“I thought, something leveraging my talents…” Azrael flexed his cannon. “Surely someone must want something done about someplace?”
“Private work?” Lane sucked his teeth. “You’re almost three years off the line, though. What did you do in the service?”
“Search and destroy, recon, anti-material, harassment, close air support. They were going to tap me for assassinations and deep insertions, real behind-the-lines work, but I didn’t fit the psych profile.”
“Trouble with independent operations?”
“Oh, no! I’m fully autonomic. Used to be a child molester, see. Still am, though since the operation I’ve been lacking in the wherewithal, if you take my meaning. Point being, I’m not one of those silly AI jobs that sees a kid bringing his da the RPG and starts throwing TypeError exceptions.”
“Ah. Well, no, I suppose you wouldn’t be.” Lane rubbed his eyes, good cheer gone again. “Well, Azrael, I don’t recommend this often, because it’s not an easy job, or a glamorous one, but it needs doing and I think you’ve got what it takes.” Lane motioned Azrael close and whispered, “Sheep herding.”
“Sheep herding!”
“Sheep herding.” Lane gestured expansively. “Just you, ten thousand tonnes of mutton, and the great wide plains of Australia. Some can’t take the loneliness, just go crazy, but that’s not a problem for you, eh?”
“You can trust me. I’m as stable as anything. Rest of my squadron needed counselling, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but—”
“It’s settled. Sheep herding. Next!”
by submission | May 2, 2010 | Story
Author : C. Clayton Chandler
They came out of the sky like plumes of fire, these green-skinned sickos with their saucers and their death rays shearing the air, burning atmosphere, coasting smooth and cool out of the everlasting vacuum beyond the bounds of gravity, of reality, of everything we’ve ever known or truly believed.
Hundreds of them, thousands of them, a nation of interstellar marauders gunning for our territory, trailing those torrid banners of flame to herald their arrival.
We didn’t have a chance.
Me and Jane, we grabbed the kids and ran. Away from the chaos in the air. Through the chaos of the streets.
Everyone was running. Everyone was screaming. They weren’t screaming anything in particular, really. Weren’t running anywhere in particular, either. Just moving and making noise, flapping their hands and shielding their eyes and acting like I suppose you’d expect people to act in the face of an extraterrestrial invasion.
“Daddy, what’s happening?” Debbie, clutching the elephant doll we just bought her, what, ten minutes ago? Her hair flapping away from her shoulders and tears snaking down to her chin.
“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know.”
I knew. Debbie knew. Everyone knew what was happening: every cheesy sci-fi movie from the 1950s had just sprung to life. Low-budget nightmares from a hundred years ago were about to walk the streets.
But instead of taking the time to explain all this, I grabbed Debbie’s hand and dragged her back to the museum, where we could huddle and hide between the stuffed wolves and elephants and lions and all the other creatures that once walked the earth. Before there wasn’t any room for them.
We thudded, bounced, crashed off bodies as we careened up the steps. Jane kept pounding my back. Pushing my back. Urging me: Please please please. Willing me forward, but it wasn’t any use. Every earthling on the street was crowded against the doors, shrieking or shouting and shoving, smashing themselves against the bottleneck, desperate to get inside, as if the crumbling marble of a natural history museum could save us.
So I scooped Debbie into my arms. I grabbed Jane’s hand and we turned to watch strange spaceships knifing the smog.
One of them zipped down to skim the street, buzzing over cars and trucks that stood panting with their doors hanging open. It stopped to hover in front of the museum, kicking light off its spinning flanks, and I flinched as I waited for the ray guns to erupt.
Afterburners whooshed. Dust clouded up. The saucer crunched down on the flash-frozen traffic. A door hissed and yawned open and an alien spindled his legs down the ramp.
He stood looking up at us with eyes big as eight balls. His head was like a gourd turned upside down. An overbite showed rows of needle-pointed teeth.
He panned the shriveling crowd with those eight-ball eyes. Those black and emotionless orbs, they swept our gray eyes and knobby faces, our snowpowder wisps of hair. They searched the coal-burned clouds and bare dirt lawns surrounding the museum. And maybe he figured it out. Maybe he guessed that this planet wasn’t worth taking anymore. That the scout reports of green fields and luscious forests were outdated. That we’d squeezed our Earth of every last mineral, every drop of fresh water, every inch of space.
That he was fifty years or so too late.
His shoulders slumped. He turned and headed back to the ship.
Like this was a wasted invasion.
by submission | May 1, 2010 | Story
Author : Steffen Koenig
The ice from last night was melting on the rocky plateau that lay before him. It had been a cold night. Colder than the previous night, and certainly warmer than the nights to come. His limbs were numb and each movement was a source of pain. The horizon was a pale red, hazy strip. The sliver of light-creeping unwieldy over the jagged landscape-submerged the area into a dismal, surreal twilight.
He tried to get up, but his legs were unwilling to obey him. His entire body was shaking and he nearly lost consciousness once again. Thirst-he felt an inexpressible thirst. He moistened his chapped lips with the last few drops of water that he had. His parched throat felt like a grater, causing him great agony each time he swallowed. He hadn’t eaten for days. His stomach was now nothing but a useless, cramped muscle. Slowly, he stretched out his arms and felt around on the stone wall above his head, searching. He would have to climb higher, much higher. It couldn’t be much farther now. Just another few meters.
He desperately clutched onto a rock spur with his hands. With his last bit of energy, he pulled himself up and heaved his wounded body over the ledge. A wave of pain was sent through his body. His breathing was trembling and his lungs burned like fire. He knew that he did not have much time left. The thin air was beginning to take on an acidic taste to it, and he was having trouble seeing. He pushed himself off the ground and lifted his head defiantly.
A ray of sunlight, warm and forgiving, broke over the outer rim of the Valles Marineres and caressed his emaciated face. Suddenly, he no longer felt hunger, nor thirst. His pain-filled body only seemed to be a distant memory and, for just one moment, the light of the rising sun chased the desperation from his heart.
Then, the oxygen alarm of his spacesuit screeched in protest. It did not interest him anymore. One last time, he looked up at the fading stars. Finally, darkness surrounded him, and he greeted it with a smile.
