by submission | Oct 18, 2015 | Story |
Author : D.H. Arnold
Okay, don’t panic, you’re not dead yet, get a grip, dammit, DON’T PANIC!
God, how I hate that cliché in movies where someone in ZedGee space pauses to note the beauty and wonder of the planet above which they float. God, I hate those movies, I hate this, why the hell am I dying like this, are you out there, help!
Don’t panic! Focus!
Okay, you’re not bleeding, everything seems to be working, fat lot of good it does me at twenty two klicks above the planet. You’ve got a fallsuit on, you had time enough after the integrity klaxons went of to get one on. You’ve got at least 30 minutes of life support, maybe more if you Don’t Panic!
Life support is nominal; charge steady at 97%. Time to start working on saving your life, here. Check the radio and ansible locator output.
Perfect – 3% charge. That’s it, I’m dead.
My orbit shouldn’t decay for a while. I might get lucky, get spotted by rescue transports from the station or those on the way up.
Or not… what the hell?
Dear God – the whole thing is collapsing – breaking apart, shattering into.. so many pieces…
Skytowers CAN’T collapse, they’re engineered to withstand anything short of… deliberate…
Someone blew up the Tower.
No, no, that’s crazy, why would anyone blow up a Skytower? Who would deliberately kill…
What the? That was the Anchor Station! No! No! No!
Close your eyes. Get a grip. Don’t Panic.
This isn’t the way this was supposed to end. Join the Vend, see the galaxy, find ways to help sentient races flourish without slaughtering and desecrating everything around us. That’s what the Vend IS!
How does one minute feel like an hour? Please, someone…
The lower portions of the Tower are getting dragged into the denser parts of the atmosphere and eventually onto the planet. Different materials give off different colors as the friction of reentry and the plasma of the radiation belts tear the molecular structures of the tower to their component atoms. Mostly orange, yellow and red, but the occasional purple and green and blue flare then vanish, giving variety to the death throes of over 7 million people and their home. If this was a meteor shower, it would be beautiful.
The death of millions shouldn’t be pretty.
Don’t panic, don’t vomit, just… don’t!
Well, there’re the first flares of planet-based rescue ships. Not holding my breath for those, too much dodging as they’re re-computing lift loads and flight paths to avoid station debris bigger than they are while maximizing thrust upwards. They might be evac-lifts, though. That much debris planetside will have horrible consequences if they were ready for it; this might be it for Parabus V for a good long time.
More flashes of light but above – debris colliding with ships, other debris, electrical systems breaching and electrons running for cover. Face it, kid, you’re done. Rescuing anyone in this much debris isn’t going to happen with the few shuttles and transports in the sector. You’re one of maybe 2 million left alive and in free-fall – the three million in Anchor have to be dead, anyone below 19 klicks is already flying to meet the ground. Lucky you, Goldilocks.
Funny.. you realize you’re done, and now you’re not panicking anymore.
For the record, God, this sucks.
See you soon. I hope. Save a place at the table.
I feel warm.
I hope I’m beautiful when I burn.
by submission | Oct 17, 2015 | Story |
Author : Tino Didriksen
The crying boy slunk down by the obelisk. “Everyone says you listen at these stones”, he whispered, “so if you really do exist, please take me away from here.”
To his surprise, the aliens whispered back, “why do you wish to fly amongst the stars, young one?”
“I tripped over my own shoelaces and everyone laughed at me, even my best friend Pete”, he sobbed. “You’re supposed to take people away who really want it, right? Well, I really want to go into space, away from everyone!”
“Those who can hear us, we allow that choice”, said the aliens, “but you are not yet able to make an informed decision. Remember us quietly, and come back when you are ready. Now go, your parents are getting worried.”
The young man hesitantly touched his hand to the obelisk. “Are you still here, or were you a figment of my imagination?”, he asked.
“We are still here. We are always here.”, the aliens replied. “You have come of age. Are you here with purpose in your heart?”
“Yes, but not for going with you just yet”, he sighed. “I got accepted to the finest university in the region, and started to wonder if a particular childhood fantasy really was one. No, I will first make my mark on the world, then return to dance amongst the stars.”
The middle-aged man hammered his fists on the obelisk. “Take me away from this blasted place”, he muttered. “The greedy bastards stole my invention, my chance to reach the stars in my own time, and locked me out of the program. I can’t take this corrupt world any longer. Let me walk amongst the stars…”
“We will do so if you are certain”, said the aliens, “but are you truly ready to depart, or are you blinded by anger? Do you count your children, your wife, in the corruption? Do you wish to disappear and let them forever wonder where you went?”
“I…”, the man stammered, “I, no…no, of course not. But it was within reach! A few more years, and the skip drive would have launched us out of this system”. He sighed heavily. “You are right, I will not abandon my family. Farewell, for now.”
The old man leaned heavily against the obelisk. “It is time”, he stated, “and you won’t talk me out of it today.”
“Our offer stands”, came the always steady voice of the aliens. “If you are of one mind, we will whisk you away to be amongst the stars.”
“Yeah yeah, I am of my own singular sound mind”, he scoffed. “I am old. My children are grown with families of their own, my wife long passed away, oh and I have several incurable age related ailments. If there was ever a time to fly away, this is it.”
“You will vanish”, the aliens warned, “and nobody will know where you went. Any hints of our involvement will be erased. Do you agree to our terms?”
“Agreed.”
On the dresser in the old man’s bedroom, a lamp shorted and caught fire. The automated suppression malfunctioned, causing only the airtight door to close, but leaving the window open. The man’s carefully hidden journal vaporized into the night in a superheated blaze, along with everything else in the room.
by submission | Oct 13, 2015 | Story |
Author : Brad Crawford
{BLINK}
There it went again. This time he noted the time and severity of the event. For the last two days or so, Dr. Samuel Coughlin, world-renowned physicist had experienced a strange phase in/phase out effect. It started with a gradual feeling as though he was insubstantial, ethereal if you will, and the sensation progressed to where he momentarily lost his vision, but then suddenly he was fine again. Afterwards, it was though nothing had happened, and he was still actively participating in what he had been doing before. An odd “blink”, that was the only way he was able to describe it to friends and associates. To try and make sense of the madness, his wife kept watch over him during one such event. She said that he briefly flickered, then his eyes went completely dark, as though blind for a couple of seconds. But she could discern no other ill effects from the blink. The miracle in all of this was that so far he had not experienced the blink during a time when cognitive processes were critical to his survival, such as during his daily commute.
Nine seconds; this last time was the most noticeable, and the longest incident of something not being quite right since the infernal blinking began. It was impossible to predict when it might happen again, or even if it would at all. Sam just knew that everything had an origin, and a trigger. Something that caused its beginning, and something to initiate all subsequent occurrences. All he remembered was that he had been researching time travel in his laboratory the day before it started. It started as a plain, ordinary day and remained so up until his final machine check. He had thoroughly checked and debugged each line of code, routinely investigated the wiring, verified the stability of his fusion generator, realigned the time refractors, and then there was a tremendous boom followed by a power surge. Wait a minute…..{BLINK}
As they pried open the bunker door melted shut during the intergalactic wars, Affar-JalTin mused, “makes you wonder how long the computer has been rebooting this rudimentary time machine. It would have been constructed shortly before the hostilities started, and it’s a shame that whoever built it never got to see if it actually worked.” Underneath a thin layer of dust, the dim readout still showed the last setting was to travel 56 hours in the past. Menka Jehn shook his head, “So glad they sent us to find items like this. There’s no telling what kind of havoc this thing might play in the wrong hands. You know, It’s sad, and little creepy; almost as if you can still see a faint, shadowy image making final adjustments. Come on, let’s deactivate this thing and go home…”
{BLINK}
by submission | Oct 11, 2015 | Story |
Author : C. James Darrow
There was a time when man set his eyes on the stars beyond our own. Yet as the centuries passed man still found himself stuck on the world upon which he began. Through our own advancements we eventually found ourselves setting foot onto the Moon and Mars. But it was our satellites which reached far beyond those boundaries, to which no living man ever would.
A time dawned when man’s chaotic history culminated to a single point which became our tragic end. Not from our own self-destruction, but rather obliteration from the one thing which had given us life—the Sun. The dying star became a spectacle of light as it engulfed our home and the other inner planets we had come to know so well. However it was this fate which we recognized long before its occurrence. In one last attempt to survive the eons, and to preserve a history we so cherished, we erected one last monument to ourselves.
The vault was constructed from solid gold, a magnificent cube the size of a small home. It was sent to, and placed on Europa with a hope that any future travelers may find the last remnants of our forgotten empires. Inside it we placed thousands of books and millions of photos; a collection of documented life throughout the evolution of man and his home.
It was there it sat, for millennia to come, resting atop the frozen moon; shimmering in the light of the colossal red Sun. Though it was that light, however weak, that allowed the world to slowly warm. The melt itself took thousands of years alone and the layers of ice began pooling together, creating vast oceans. Soon the vault’s weight became too much and it broke through the thinning ice, sinking far below the surface, and so vanished every last trace of us.
Though it was something else that soon found its way to the surface. Black eel-like fish, for the first time ever had been granted a view beyond their once encapsulated icy realm. It was when they first reached the surface that they stared into the heavens with uncomprehending eyes. Soon they began to lunge from the icy waters, propelling themselves into the thin atmosphere that had slowly been forming above. The red Sun, though providing only a fraction of the heat it once had, was more than enough for the emerging species. It was here they continued to jump into the air, over and over for countless years to come, striving to reach the stars for themselves.
by submission | Oct 10, 2015 | Story |
Author : John K. Webb
This was not South Carolinian white sand beach. He’d instructed Jacobson—the spherical little Dispensation Drone with its twitching antennae and the prying, bulging crystalline eye—to direct them to a nearby exoplanet with a white sand beach. Corporal Weyer had nicknamed Jacobson “Jacobson” one day prior because he’d found it amusing; apparently, this minor betrayal was the drone’s version of a comeback.
“You are not satisfied with Exoplanet-Arlington-XC57C? My scanners indicate that your blood pressure has risen to one-twenty-seven over eighty-two, which while being within normal parameters—“
“I’m sure you find this funny,” said Corporal Weyer, folding the pre-deployed polycarbonate surfboard under his armpit.
“Exoplanet-Arlington-XC57C is the closest approximation to what you described, sir.”
“The sand is black andesite, you can barely call it sand—“
“Blood pressure has increased to one-thirty-five over eighty-six—“
“—and you think it’s funny, don’t you?”
The drone fluttered in circles around his head, humming a tuneless song in its tinny voice that served as response, and with that they began walking down shore, Weyer’s footsteps disappearing almost instantaneously in the hot, rubbery black “sand.” Then, looking on the horizon, he noticed something.
“I haven’t seen one wave, Jacobson.”
It was true: the planet’s ocean, large enough to swallow all of Earth’s landmass, stretched as an infinite sea of mint colored glass, the light green color owing to sprawling colonies of undisturbed deep-sea algae that’d originally been confused with methane gas emissions, from the orbital imaging.
“The planet’s wave articulation—“
“My only day off and you take me to a planet with no waves?”
“—occurs once every three hours. The next wave is due in fifteen minutes.”
“Care to tell me my blood pressure?” Said Corporal Weyer, stepping into the water. It felt like a river bottom, layered moss-slick stones that if not for his boots would have been quite painful to walk on.
“Blood pressure is—“
“Shut up, I was joking.”
“May I remind you that the re-appropriation of TEDI material for the purposes of constructing a surfboard is a gross misuse of company material?”
“You just did.”
They went about a hundred yards out before Weyer activated his surfboard, the object no larger than a briefcase unfolding into a twelve foot long solid piece of polyurethane. The Corporal lay flat on his belly, the board unmoving atop the featureless expanse of alien ocean. Like antarctic whiteout: a shimmering flat Nothing. Jacobson hovered overhead, providing a measure of shade, scanning with that great, bulging eye.
“No lifeforms detected,” it said helpfully.
Weyer grunted.
Charleston was his home—at least, it had been, before he’d entered the Deep Sleep and drifted several million miles away. For the first time in his career he allowed himself to wonder if the city still even physically existed, or like every other memory simply lived on in collation and correlation: water is water, beach is beach, whatever the chemical components. Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless.
“You know what paradise is, Jacobson?”
“An existential conceptualization—“
“This is it, this is paradise. Nothing but ocean and beach, oldest thing there is.”
A bump appeared on the horizon, what the orbital images showed as a solid wall of water rising hundreds of feet high, straddling the planet, the result of unstable tectonic activity. The wave was finally coming.
“I take it all back. This is perfect. Jacobson, thank you.”
The drone hummed merrily, “I wouldn’t trick you.”
