by submission | Oct 2, 2009 | Story
Author : Sharoda
I’ve been out on the porch watching the sky; I’m out here pretty much all the time since I had to medicate Sharon. The sky is beautiful now, day and night, filled with shooting stars and colors that you just don’t normally see.
Sharon was fretting and praying and frantic and begging and erratic to the point that I had no choice. I was so afraid she was going to hurt herself. Yeah, I know how stupid that sounds but I have to be a little optimistic, if only for her sake.
Grabbing a beer from the cooler I see Lucy next door standing on her porch, looking up at the sky. I clink a fresh bottle on mine and she turns and comes over. She takes the offered beer as she sits on my porch steps, leans back and looks up.
“How’s Sharon?” she asks. Lucy’s a nurse, she gave me the tranquilizers.
“The same.” I answer. “How’s Chet?” She started her husband on the same pills the day before she helped me with Sharon. Chet was, well, he was always a bit high strung.
She looks at her shoes and then over at me. She shrugs and mumbles “Same” and pulls at her beer.
“I was gonna broil some steaks.” I say. I’m so proud of myself for the generator. I got it back just before Y2K. I felt stupid as hell then, now, both our houses have electricity while just about everywhere else doesn’t.
“No thanks,” she says putting her beer down unfinished. “I have some things to do and I have to…take care of Chet”. She sounds tired.
“OK”, I finish my beer. “I’ll see you later”.
“Goodbye”, she says and walks back to her house. She stops to look at the sky and then goes inside.
I go into the house and start dinner, all the while wondering what Lucy meant by “Goodbye”. Was she gonna take Chet and leave like all the others? Where the hell would she go? Everyone else scattered like rats leaving a sinking ship, like it mattered. Maybe she was going to try to be with family; this would be the time.
We didn’t have any kids, neither did Chet and Lucy. It had always grated on Lucy but Sharon never minded; now, I guess it was a blessing. I guess you could say…
There was the sudden thunderclap of a gunshot.
“Oh shit! Oh shit! No!” I hear myself yelling as I run out the door, “CHET! LUCY!”
I hear the sound of the second gunshot before I get half way across their yard. I can’t bring myself to go into the house.
Back in my kitchen I finish dinner.
“Everything OK?” Sharon mumbles.
“Ya honey, everything’s fine.” After dinner I put her back on the couch and turn on her favorite movie again. I go out on the porch and have another beer.
I try to remember exactly what they said on TV. If the mission failed, we’d have an incredible lightshow a few days before the end. The effect of all the crap falling into the atmosphere ahead of the asteroid and the way the sunlight reflects all around and through it; a multi-colored light show day and night.
Well, the mission to blow up the asteroid did fail. Some BS about trajectory and core density and megaton yield and blah, blah, blah…they missed. And now we’re all dead. And there’s no TV or radio or phones to even say when.
Now I just sit on my porch with a beer, looking up and waiting.
The sky is beautiful, I’ll give them that.
by featured writer | Oct 1, 2009 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Featured Writer
In the cavernous interior of the ships main docking bay, three coffin like tanks came to life. Inside each, the senior officers of The Crimson Lady were resuscitated. The tank lids retracted and a thin mist spilled to the floor, swirling among the thousand other sarcophagi that littered the hanger. In each was a member of the 1st/110th 28th Infantry Division (m).
Slowly, the men began to stir. Finally released from the frozen half life of cryostasis, Division Commander Sergei Orlof, his XO Lieutenant Colonel John Derbyshire and division CSM Paul Walker painfully stepped from their tanks for the first time in nearly eighteen months.
Rubbing the knots out of his calves, Sergeant Major Walker checked the comlink tattooed on his left wrist. “What the hell? We’ve been in orbit for almost thirty six hours. Why weren’t we defrosted earlier?”
General Orlof sat down heavily on the edge of his tank, and worked the kinks out of his massive shoulders. “Well, it doesn’t look like anybody’s been taking pot shots at us. Better get to the bridge and find out just what the hell is going on.”
The bridge of the carrier was worn from countless battles but remained spotless. Dust doesn’t settle in micro-g. The exec plopped down in his chair, and fishing a lead from the base of his skull, plugged into his console. He sat motionless, a blank look on his face as he absorbed a year and a half of encrypted messages from the Confederation council.
After what seemed hours, but in reality was something less than thirty seconds, the executive officer turned to face the men and delivered the message.
“Your not going to believe this. Apparently peace has broken out.”
“What,” Orlof bellowed, “are you sure about that?”
“Yes sir, the orders are straight from the Supreme Council. We are to stand down, and return to Earth. The Asiatic Alliance has sued for peace. The war is over. That would explain why weren’t attacked when we entered orbit. What should I tell them,” the young colonel asked.
The general looked over at the Divisional Command Sergeant Major. The two regarded each other coldly. They had been friends from the first, the CSM merely a buck sergeant placed in charge of the general’s barracks, and the general still a green officer cadet. Both nodded their heads in unison.
The General flipped open a small panel set in the arm of his command chair, and flipped a red toggle.
Below on Europa, above the Tesla Dome of the Asiatic Alliance colony of Thera, the vast face of Jupiter dominated the view. Children played in the parks, and the colonists went about their daily rituals lost in their thoughts.
If one of the colonists happened to be looking at just the right spot in the sky, they might have noticed an almost imperceptible pinprick of light detach itself from a larger yet still tiny point.
Slowly the speck grew, until it blossomed just above the dome, a breathtakingly beautiful flower that bathed the colony in the brilliance of thermonuclear fire.
With a grin the general turned to his XO. “Tell them; `Please repeat last message.’”
by Patricia Stewart | Sep 30, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Dominating the center of “The War Room” was a large horseshoe-shaped mahogany conference table. At the head of the table sat the President of The United Earth, and his Joint Chiefs of Staff. Along the two sides of the conference table sat the Cabinet Members, Ministers, and Regional Governors. A large holographic 3-D map of the “Local Galactic Region” filled the space within the horseshoe. Glowing red spheres about five centimeters in diameter represented Sol, and the systems controlled by Earth Gov. The star systems controlled by the Eridani were glowing blue. Currently, there were thirty-seven red spheres creating a thin crescent that nearly encapsulated the eleven closely packed blue spheres.
Also within the horseshoe stood Fleet Admiral Fritz Haber. He purposefully walked through the hologram of the Centari System, and stopped within arm’s reach of Sol. He gave a sweeping gesture with his right hand toward the small cluster of blue orbs a few dozen meters behind him. “Mr. President,” he projected in a baritone voice that radiated both power and confidence, “the Eridani have retreated into a small defensive shell, and our noose is tightening.” He balled his extended hand into a fist. “It is time, Mr. President, to use the hyperspace transporter, and end this war quickly and decisively.”
“We’ve had this discussion before, Admiral,” responded President Rutherford with more than an edge of agitation in his voice. “The hyperspace transporter is a cowardly form of warfare, which does not commend itself to me or Earth Gov. We will win this war using conventional weaponry.”
“With all due respect,” protested Admiral Haber, “that will likely cost us billions of lives. The Eridani will not give up easily.”
“Perhaps,” conceded the President. “But transporting bombs directly onto the bridge of enemy starships, or into Eridani factories, is unethical. Need I remind you of Earth’s pre-stellar barbarism? Poison gas, biological warfare, and nuclear weapons were used against defenses soldiers and civilians. This new hyperspace transporter can penetrate all known mass and electromagnetic barriers. At lease there are countermeasures for conventional transporters. We must engage the enemy in a fair fight. If we use this new hyperspace technology, history will not look favorably upon us.”
“History is written by the victors, Mr. President. Besides, it would be naive for us to assume that the Eridani aren’t also developing this technology. Fortunately, we beat them to it, which gives us a brief strategic advantage. I emphatically recommend that we use it with impunity now, and deal with the consequences after the Eridani are crushed. Then, if a Galactic Convention wants to outlaw its use, so be it.”
“No, Admiral. I will not authorize the killing of defenseless beings.”
Admiral Haber realized that he needed to change tactics. It was clear that he was not going to win this argument, so he decided to attempt a compromise. “Understood, Mr. President. But, sir, can I at least offer a counterproposal? What if we only use the weapon once? Would that be acceptable? Perhaps we can kill the snake by cutting off its head. My tacticians say that with proper trilateralation, they can place a bomb under Emperor Sune-ku’s bed. Without Command and Control, the Eridani resistance may crumble. We could still achieve a quick victory.”
Just them, a metallic object about half a meter across appeared at the admiral’s feet. It had the Eridani phrase “Ezel on-ze k’ussen” printed in bold letters around the circumference. Seconds later, The War Room, and its occupants, were vaporized in an antimatter explosion.
by Duncan Shields | Sep 29, 2009 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
She left me for a space trucker. I wasn’t even mad. Hell, I understood.
The thing about space truckers is that they drive space trucks. They go from place to place. They come in to port, drop some stuff off and then, and this is the important part, they leave.
I liked it here. She didn’t. I thought that marrying her might change that. She was eighteen when we married. I was thirty-one. She was my second wife.
Susan grew up here. Ever since her fourteenth birthday, she couldn’t face a single day without illicit drugs to make her feel like it wasn’t so bad. Her doses were increasing. Her late-night searches for anything to distract her from her existence were becoming more frequent.
This rock isn’t a very big place. There are only six bars.
I’d heard stories about her late-night carousing with other men. I put it down to being young. Given time, she’d adjust. I forgave her. It’s not like her behavior was unusual. Anyone in their teens here tended to go a little insane for a while.
Anyone can watch the screens and see that there’s a whole connected universe out there with excitement and input. For teenagers, it’s the biggest tease there is.
For us folks over thirty, it’s a little reassuring to know that we’re safe from all that noise down here in the rock, away from the noisy universe.
Here, we have the rock, each other, and a perpetual night sky. If I were to wear an outsuit and walk around the entire asteroid, I’d be back home in a month. It’s not a big place.
Mining runs in my family. I honestly don’t know what else I would do.
Susan was the soft body that took the edge off of my constant world of grease, dust, and machinery.
Turns out she was doing more than just carousing in the bars with other men. She was, like a lot of the girls and boys here, looking to trade sex for transportation and get the hell away from here. The prettiest ones succeeded.
It’s a shame. It seems like our second highest export besides the ore is beautiful teenagers.
I’ll always remember Susan.
by Stephen R. Smith | Sep 28, 2009 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Nathan hated fighting with Claire. It was inevitable; they’d been awake and otherwise alone with the ship, tending to its needs, granting their minds a temporary reprieve from the long sleep. If you spent a few months alone with only your partner hurtling through deep space, you’d find things to disagree on too.
He never meant to argue, she was just so pig-headed sometimes. Before he knew it a rolled eye and sharp comment became a tennis match of barked recriminations and rebuttals, and the inevitable storming off to opposite ends of the ship.
He watched her from his perch in the observation deck as she moved among the rows of plants in the greenery below. The outer hull plates were transparent now, the ship having rolled towards a star similar enough to Sol, so close as to provide light, yet distant enough not to scorch the delicate plant-life. He studied her as she stripped to the waist and soaked up the sun’s rays herself.
It was his captivation with the sheer beauty of her that afforded him the best possible view as a cluster of meteoroid’s lacerated the hull, tearing through the weakened greenery hull-plates like hot knives through fresh snow.
Nathan screamed at Claire’s upturned panicked face before the defense systems hardened the hull, opaquing his view and hers.
Nathan ran. He barely heard the warning messages describing the breach, and the steps being taken to contain it. He threw himself headfirst down the vertical shaft towards the core channel, grabbing the lower rungs of the ladder as he exited and with jarring force flipping himself to land feet first on the floor below. Sprinting to the greenery doors, he found them sealed tight.
He could only watch through the window of the door, pounding with flattened palms until his hands stung while mechanical spiders attached plate and injected alloy to repair the damaged hull inside.
On the ground, scant metres from where he stood helpless, a maintenance droid methodically held and sliced the scaffolding and shattered structure that had Claire pinned to the deck. Carefully removed pieces were set aside as it busied itself with freeing her. While it carved, a surgical droid scanned, glued and stitched the broken pieces of her body as they became accessible, it’s hands flitting in and around the cutters and clenched claws of the much heavier machine towering over it.
By the time the atmosphere was stabilized, and the doors opened, Nathans hands were numb and Claire was fully exposed on the floor. Her body was a latticework of suture lines and micropore patches, and while her chest raised and lowered, he could see the labour of her breathing. The surgeon stood still, its chest a billboard of vitals, its work done save for the occasional jolting of Claire’s heart back to motion. Nathan could see she was struggling, the muscle repaired but the shock to her system too great.
“You can’t leave me here, you can’t leave this all to me.” His voice caught in his throat, tears rising unbidden.
“You can’t quit, I need your help, I can’t do this by myself.” There was a too long moment of silence until the surgeon reminded her heart to keep beating.
Nathan felt his anger rising. “This is just like you, storming away from anything that seems too hard.” He found himself yelling without meaning to.
In his mind he saw Claire at their last argument, balled up fists and the fire of purpose in her eyes.
Nathan dropped to his knees, gently placed his cheek against hers and whispered, “I don’t want to live without you. I love you. Please don’t go.”
His tears fell warm against her skin, the only sound the now steady beating of her heart.
