Author : Thomas Keene Every metal surface inside the cabin sang, and the readouts flickered. A steady, pure note that Charles called “the Banshee”. Evan clenched the crew telemetry readout so hard that waves of color flowed across the display. He was the only crew member with a heartbeat. “‘Brown dwarf’ my ass.” Evan looked […]

Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer I needed to disappear. Fast. I never wanted a criminal life. It’s not like I killed anybody, or stole the nation’s pension plans, unlike some governments which shall go unmentioned. No. It was much more banal than that. I reneged on my student loans. Now I’m a wanted man. […]

Author : Glen Luke Flanagan “These monstrosities are a threat to national security, to morality as we know it, and to our very sense of self.” Senator Ethan Calhoun punctuated the last statement by pounding his fist onto the podium. The fiery Texan was the face of the anti-cloning movement in America, and he delivered […]

Author : Kellie Warren We never thought we would be the ones. We weren’t smart enough. To discover new worlds, new planes of existence, new life. You had to be intelligent for that. Some might have been arrogant enough to call themselves intelligent but they were only fools. The Thinkers thought another would find us […]

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer The white Silracan clicked its chest-legs together and reared back in what was the human equivalent of a bored sigh. Between it and the hologram of the Earth forces commander lay a chess board made of light. Admiral Grimwald gazed sternly at the board, concern creasing his angry brow. […]

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer “Brigitte! Slow down!” I thought I loved Adrian. I really did. I even fooled myself for the first year of our Outer Reaches tour. Then on Certys I had to stop him turning the planet into a game reserve so he could quietly harvest the luxurious pelts of the […]

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer Billy-Jim Crenshaw was snoozing in his swamp shack when the explosion shook him fast awake. “What th’…?” He scrambled to his feet and, throwing the crooked door open, stumbled out onto the back porch. There, upon a small hillock that had been recently occupied by Billy-Jim’s dilapidated outhouse, sat […]

Author : Trent Isaac The man wrestled a pile of rods, plates, wires, lights, and fingers through the door and let it crash in a heap. “Or there’s this one,” the man said as he swabbed his bald head with a towel. Brennan scratched his arm through the frayed hole in his sweater as he […]

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer It was a beautiful day for a ship launch. These are the things I remember: I remember the sun shining down out of a blue sky that arced from horizon to horizon over the beach with only a scattering of clouds above the water. I was perched on the […]

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 […]

An Anklet Broken by Chaitanya Murali   There is a man I am meant to love. He is the son of a sea-merchant, wealthy and well-connected. A friend of Karikalan, the Chola King. And this man is my husband and a wastrel. A sin it is for me to say these words, think these thoughts, […]

The Greenhouse Bargain by Tanya Aydelott He sent my mother’s ghost to deliver the terms of the bargain. I accepted; there was no choice. When I asked what to expect, she said, Ten good years. The Whipstitch Man had visited me twice, once to take my sister and once to collect my mother. The second time, […]

Scales By M. Stevenson The boy stands at the edge of the forest, bare toes digging into the cold loam. Mist curls between the trees like the breath of a living thing. As if the woods are alive. Monsters live in this forest, so it’s said. Demons of scales and teeth and fur, creatures that […]

Biographical Notes to “A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-planes” by Benjamin Rosenbaum by Benjamin Rosenbaum It is true that I had not accepted Prem Ramasson’s offer of employment — indeed, that he had not seemed to find it necessary to actually ask. It is true also that I am a man of […]