Author : Gordon Day The man was dressed in ivory and on his chest for all to see was a red bolt, declaring his allegiance to the Militant Atheist order. His audience did not know it yet, but he wou…

Author : Duncan Shields The black non-stick plastic of the cop’s fist presses my fat lips up against my teeth until they split. The drugs from the gas are slowing all this down and adding the col…

Author : Bob Newbell The low rumbling sound in my starship goes up in both pitch and volume. Even through the Koliada’s graviton fields and inertia attenuators, I can feel the vessel shudderi…

Author : Leanne A. Styles The Guardian: I watch with sadness as Anna tugs her brush through her damp hair, yanking unsympathetically when she hits a tangle. She never used to be so angry and uncari…

Author : Jules Jensen The world is dangerous. “Yes, I know this.” No, you don’t. People will kill you for water, for food, for anything you have that is even slightly better than what they have. Th…

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer Old Avon looks up: “That’s going to cost you.” He always says that. Doesn’t matter if you pick up a piece of twine or a gold ring, his opening lines are fixed. I gr…

Author : Sarah Mendonca “Luke.” Slumped in the alley, the woman repeated the name like a prayer, mostly forgotten long ago. No, that wasn’t it. “Jason.” Passersby ignored her: just another failed r…

Author : Jules Jensen I stopped and sighed, and then crossed my arms. This wasn’t a normal game animation, but there was no one out this far, so I didn’t have to pretend. A field of short gra…

Author : Suzanne Borchers The hot breeze whispered through the sparse vegetation around their home. Heat waves rose choking Sybil’s lungs with the acrid fumes. She knelt on bruised painful knees in…

Subject 643-M, age eight, sits cross-legged on the floor. Before him, a wide array of screens flicker rapidly, some with pictures, some words, some numbers. Thick tubes connect from the ceiling to …

Author : Bob Newbell “Captain Ree’Eer’Ak reporting as ordered,” said the alien who, from a human perspective, might have been described as some nightmarish character from a …

Author : Kate Runnels Saree had been sentenced to five hours on the alien planet where her crime had been committed. Where on any human controlled planet or sector, what she had done would not even…

Author : S. Clough aka Hrekka She bent the corners of the cards up off the table, as if checking their values. She didn’t even see them – her focus was on Mayweather across the table. S…

Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer Darwin was wrong. The Burgarii Collective is living proof of that. Watching the massive arcologies floating above the old city is surreal – mountains literally…

The thousand babies slept in the high, dry grass as late summer breezes caressed their cradles. Local farmers, paid by the government not to grow food, had abandoned the field and left their farm e…

Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer The recruiter says that you are a dumbass. He tells you he wouldn’t put you in the infantry for the eighteen worlds, because you would get someone shot. Later…

Author : Owen Vince We suited up to see it, the last star. We donned thick helmets and heavy gear and passed from the airlocks into emptiness. Some would not come, could not face the terrible sadne…

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Mareck’s Sensei had spent countless hours sitting in front of his bonsai tree, studying it, almost communing with it, and occasionally making an almost impe…

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer I hate old servers. Not ‘old’ like they peddle on the upgrade-your-old-one-now streams, but genuinely aged kit still running despite all odds. There’s a lot of it o…

Author : Rollin T. Gentry Ever since the drone dropped Arnold off on the balcony, his language had been atrocious. He continually dropped the F-bomb, the D-bomb, and the S-bomb, not to mention both…

Author : Tyler Hawkins As the first warm, reassuring rays of the sun peek into the habitat, they begin to creep across a blinking computer terminal, as they’ve done countless times before. Th…

Author : Sean Wilkins On a star-laden beach near a rocky shore, wrinkled hands held, step in step toward a monolithic solar-tower. Mason felt the rounded edge of the tower, remembering the years, a…

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Chase peeled off her evening attire slowly, the fabric offering some resistance in the numerous places it was still actively staunching blood flow. The garments d…

Author : David Henson I was working in the lab late one night. My assistant Igorbot had left, but there was nothing for me to go home to since Loretta had moved out. Left alone, I’d poured my…

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer Swerve left and dive over a fence, roll once and spring through a gap in a wall, landing in what used to be a lounge, my face inches from a dead someone’s dia…

Author : Jedd Cole This kind of epilogue ends with a beginning, just as Homo sapiens began with an ending in the dark garden of forevers past. They believe it is AD 2476. They march through empty s…

Author : Travis Gregg The brightness was overwhelming at first and it took several minutes for his eyes to adjust. The dirt was warm under his bare feet, and the smell, the smell was like something…

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer The fist that passes over my noggin ain’t much smaller than my skull. The knuckles are ridged with bony plates. I see them facts register with the moke who wa…

Author : Samuel Stapleton Classified Hearing AF:145-34a C3 Interviewer: Charles Witcomb “If you could go back commander, would you alter your decision?” “No.” “I’m going to note for the record that…

Author : George R. Shirer The alien wore a red flower in her hair. It was vibrant against her pale hair. “What do you think of her?” asked Jon. “I don’t know.” Jon gave me an incredulous look. “Wha…