Stories

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer The correctional facility did not work for me. I left the building with the need to make up for lost time. I waited exactly one day and sixteen hours before I …

Author : Jason Frank “Space is… so vast, so empty, so cold… anyone who has experienced it must desire confinement, fullness, warmth…” The Greatest Lover of Space (TGLo…

The girl was only on at night, like all of the girls on Bleeker. Her hair was a different color every couple of weeks, because it was so easy to change, but her eyes were always the same. They dres…

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer “We are in so much drek.” “Did I not say that you were to be nice to him?” “Nice? Emmett, he had his cyberpaw so far up my skirt I thought he was a gynaecologist!” …

Author : Jim Wisniewski They say the wind carries the souls of the dead, forever blowing to remind us of things past. At least, that’s what the kasht say, but then our worlds usually have les…

Author : Chad Bolling They looked like large slugs with reptilian skin and no shell. Besides their lack of defense mechanisms, the species had many more obvious traits that made it easier for preda…

Author : Viktor Kuprin After the battle of Attalus III was lost, we retreated with the Tsoor flotilla. Wreckage streamed off the alien ships as we made the mind-wrenching transition into S-space. I…

“It’s a family business.” The shopkeeper trembled, his telltale American face-lights blinking. “My daughter and my wife make the simulations themselves. Very good, high resolution, but they…

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer I woke up with pain in my head and a shrieking in my ears. All I could hear was this horrible sound ringing around in my head. It was like car tires and screec…

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Terry abandoned the powerbike at the bridge a few hundred meters before the checkpoint, running it off the road, down the embankment and parking tight against the…

Author : Kirstie Olley My name is Leila and I used to be the queen bee at school. If I curled my hair, all the girls curled their hair. If I cut one side short and left the other long, everyone did…

Author : Henry Peter Gribbin In the far corner of a basement laundry room of an apartment building a portal to another dimension was located. One of the tenants, a young redhead with bright green e…

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer “Jesus jumpin’ Christ,” ejaculated Cpl. Davidson before he died. Though clad in nearly impervious plasteele body armour, his head was clean…

Author : Burke Lerch Alan always visited the same diner on the same date, at the same time. 7:43 P.M. Ten minutes after he first ordered the patty melt and fries, and one minute before he stood up …

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer It’s been ten years since the Humanis Confederacy swept the Roekuld from the Spiral Arm in a rebellion that no-one thought mankind capable of. In six months w…

Author : Richard Halcomb Life Itself… The electrostatic bubble crackled to life around the travellers; two scientists, a politician and a pair of media photographers. Dr. Tim Bilcks, Team Leader of…

Author : Rob Burton Within the holiest temple, buried deep within the cathedral, Arch-Bishop Emmanuel Berret struck the Bios Chime above the altar of power. The bell released its singular soft tone…

Author : Ben Friedman I remember your gom jabbar. He was a squeaky clean critter, always huddling skittishly by his water bowl, furiously scrubbing his tiny paws then drying them off with wood shav…

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer They met at Darlington’s; exchanged glances, bought each other drinks and before the lights came up and the bar spilled out they were in the back of a taxi …

Author : Gray Blix Late afternoon in Drake Park. In the red-orange light of the setting sun, he walks down the path towards the footbridge and pauses. Should he cross the river or turn and walk alo…

Author : Craig Finlay It seemed fine, to place it there. You were on the weekly trip to the greenhouse with Mom and Dad and Stella holding your hand the whole way as you skipped 10 meters at a time…

Author : J.P. Quinn Arron sat on an outcrop of rock. He’d stopped to watch the sunset. He knew he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. It was the shift from copper to blue. That extended interl…

Author : Jake Christie “Places!” shouted Lunar Exploration Unit #4837-E. “Places, everybody!” The other research machines trudged, trundled, and rolled across the dust. The …

Author : Philip Berry We had been on Tenlek III half a year before Yolande struck through. The thin metalloid crust gave way to the sharp end of her hammer, and momentum carried it, her arm, and he…

Author : Geoffrey Cashmore Regret. That was new. My life had been built into a shape where regret had no place. I only had one purpose – my entire existence leading up to it – and it wa…

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer They watched him through a one way mirror. He sat in a corner of the room in a pool of his own excrement, legs pulled up to his chest, arms tightly wrapped a…

Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer He was sitting in his chair exactly where I’d left him six hours ago, looking out the window of the impeccably reconstructed early 16th Century workshop. His p…

After a night of drinking, following the uncontrolled sleep of total blackness, there comes for humans a level of morning sobriety that is so clear it is painful. The white light of morning truth s…

Author : Suzanne Borchers “Ivan, what the hell is that!” Roger pointed at the creature roosting on the rafter. “It’s a chicken, of course.” Ivan reached up and smoothed one of its orange feathers. …

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer I’m with the XIA. The Xenomorph Intelligence Agency. I’m undercover. This is a soft war; more of an intelligence-gathering mission to discover weak points and …