Author : Bob Newbell I remember the day things started disappearing. I was driving into work listening to the news on the satellite radio. Astronomers had observed that a galaxy called MACS0647-JD could no longer be detected. It was one of the most distant objects known, over 13 billion light-years away. A cloud of dust […]

Author : Robbie Kowalski “Hey Marv, have you ever wondered where all the shit goes once you flush the toilet?” “I don’t know Joe.” Marv said unenthusiastically as he tried to figure out a crossword puzzle. “Man all that added weight to ship definitely adds up over a period of time. Couple of thousand people […]

Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer “Hello, Mum.” She stands in the doorway, arms crossed, deciding whether she has the guts to enter. The intervening silence is broken by the repetitive hiss-thunk of my artificial lungs and the various beeps and clicks of the life support equipment esthetically cluttering my immaculate bedroom. She makes up […]

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer The bricks are antique but the ferropoxy used as mortar is a giveaway, after you scrape the film of cement coloured paint mixed with sand off. “This is the place. Gird your loins, kids. Jig is on in three, two, one – strike!” The doors are blackened oak. Their […]

Author : Rachelle Shepherd We stopped at the Drug Market for clone-cloves, street illegal copies of Indonesian spice and porn-shop perfume. They were thick rolls of black steel with bands of gold in a no-nonsense plastic wrap pack. Even their cellophane slip was less than legal litter, a fine of 50 credits and community service […]

Author : Dakota Brown “We are born out of darkness,” she told herself begrudgingly. “Certainly it holds no true power.” Around her, the frightened masses had gathered (after, of course, a stretch of panicked footfalls and curses towards the heavens). They found each other in the confusion, linking arms and muttering their fears. The generators […]

Author : Rodger Parr If you have ever awoken in the morning to find yourself with the body of a human and the head of an insect then you must surely empathise if not at least sympathise with me. For it was with this strange dilemma that I awoke to one Sunday morning. At first […]

Author : Willis Weatherford The piercing rays of a fiery star filtered through thickly opaque clouds to light Gerder’s face with a rosy hue: his first dawn on NovaTerra. As he peered through the narrow hatch of Probe Alpha 7, allowing his eyes to adjust to the relative brightness, a few motes of dust floated […]

Author : Jenna Bilbrey A breeze rustled through the corn field, drying the sweat from the day’s planting. The sky twinkled brighter than the Fourth of July. A shooting star rocketed past. I wished for my girl to come back from the city. Another, brighter light flashed. Two in one night was a good omen. […]

Author : Sean Kavanagh The 3rd Planet-Formation Cadre sounded like an impressive title, but Dhan – like the others in his team – knew all it meant was that they were civil servants. Civil servants who got to fly about the galaxy seeding life on far flung barren planets, but all for mid-grade pay. For […]

Author : Britny Musson I was singing in my sleep again. “And then there was none, and then there was all.” My throat is dry but the words still manage to croak out. Something is different, today. My sleep is being compromised, my mood is shuddering under the weight of my transition. I try to […]

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer He scanned the desolate horizon through ancient hollow eyes from beneath the brim of a very weathered top hat. All around him was the smoldering ruin that had once been the world of man. Endless heaps of scorched garbage and piles of twisted and rotting corpses were set against […]

Author : Denis Bell Morbid fear, for God’s sake. Driving home from the shrink, Hugh turned on the car radio in an attempt to blot out the thoughts churning in his head. The radio was tuned to WPB. It was Science Monday and they were discussing Hugh’s least favorite subject in the whole world, that […]

Author : Stivi Cooke They didn’t think about that… In all the plans, all the awesome designs, the mind blowing concepts, all the calculations, the deals, the engineering and finally the launch… they forgot that part… As humanity reached out to the planets and the asteroids, landed and started to colonize the Moon (china), Mars […]

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer One world. Seven hundred and ninety-two people. Less than a hundred berths on the ship out. It’s a recipe for bloody mayhem and that’s how they want it. Only the most committed make it to upship. We did basic training for five weeks before being shipped out here in […]

Author : Stefan Aeschbacher The ancient city had been buried for over five thousand years. The digbots were digging at this spot for two hours, fifteen minutes and thirty-five seconds. They were making good progress. So far they had found three plates and a container of unknown purpose. Due to the ideal conditions at this […]

Author : Andrew D. Murrell I awoke. I could still feel the remnants of foreign thoughts gently receding from my consciousness. Then I felt today’s check deposit into my account, twenty one thousand dollars. Minimum wage jobs just don’t pay like they used to do they? I waited to feel the disconnect signal and then […]

Author : Sean P Chatterton ‘How long has she been dead?’ ‘We don’t know.’ ‘How come?’ ‘Katherine Danderfield was a plugged in person. She had autresponders for her email, bots to update her social network status and MyFace Blog. Her web presence had auto updates scheduled. No one was aware of her death because her […]

Author : Bob Newbell The Landreb fleet didn’t travel across space. It simply appeared suddenly and without warning in low Earth orbit. One of the fifty starships fired an energy beam that obliterated an uninhabited islet in the Dodecanese Island chain mere moments after the vessels appeared in orbit. Less than a minute later, the […]

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer The worst thing about their weapons was the silence. They flickered like a strobe light but anyone caught in that beam had a layer of meat burned off for every flash. They melted like snowmen in a microwave but snowmen didn’t have bones or blood. And they didn’t scream […]

Author : Aiza Mohd Today is our last day on Earth. This morning, I beheld the sun rising over the Arctic. From all the way down in our dwelling, it felt like it was worlds away. Behind me I saw Naamin. She’d discovered her brother, who’d died in the night, while I pretended to sleep. […]

Author : Aiza Mohd Haan has found a cup of noodles from the future. ‘Mfg. 09 Jul 2036,’ reads the bottom of the cup. The year is 2013. Haan is a penniless college student with an unbalanced diet, too much time, few friends and a cup of ramen from the future. All five of these […]

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer Eddy and Rico performed the mundane task of sifting through tailings. It was standard procedure. All the valuable ore had been extracted from the captured asteroids, but the leftover rubble might still contain significant matter; so it was all to be gone through carefully. It was easy enough to […]

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer In a city this size, a dozen or so beaming errors a year were acceptable. In each gigantic waystation structure, the building blocks of life were kept in vats and tubs. There were huge enclosed swimming pools filled with chromosomes and proteins and cell juice. Vast, layered skin farms […]

Author : James McGrath “I know you’ve all heard it, but you have to hear it again…” We’d heard the guide’s speech six times, so Kirstin and I stood at the back joking around as usual. He’d recite the dangers of leaving the tunnel, how we’d be guarded and eventually he’d tell of our destination. […]