Roaring on a mighty flame stack, the rocket ship Conquest descended through the atmosphere to the surface of planet Alpha-1. Bulbous-bodied, tri-finned, and gleaming, the interstellar colony ship was breath-taking — which was part of the Big Idea. Camera drones… Continue Reading
The fuel truck technician gave me hell for cutting him short and demanded that I report the change in my lift-off weight, “or else!” I wasn’t gonna report a damned thing. I had hauling to do, money to make and,… Continue Reading
The cab jockey gives me a look from the screen. “Sorry, pal” he says, but he doesn’t look sorry. Halfway between sod-all interest and vindictive amusement, more like. “Cab’s detected puke,” he goes on, while I gurn pained injustice. It… Continue Reading
The old captain turned the urn in weathered hands. Two witnesses stood by. I was one of them; a friend of the captain, a fellow fisherman in the past, though I did not know the deceased well. He twisted the… Continue Reading
Gil hit the reset button and crossed his fingers. The bumblebee gyrated to the near-frantic music, arcing graceful curves and patterns inside the glass enclosure. Abruptly, the bee braked to a hover, and plummeted to the enclosure floor. After a… Continue Reading
Marla has new rivets in her and she isn’t sure why. Something itches inside — something like an electric bug. Her eyes are closed. She is afraid to open them. Behind them, visions flicker. The Earth floats below her. It… Continue Reading
The world would end at 6:09 p.m., but Meg’s final batch of chocolate chip cookies would be done in three minutes. She had kept the dough in the fridge all night, chilling it to perfection, and began to bake before… Continue Reading
“So what do we do now?” she asked after they had been sitting silently in front of the TV for a long time, trying to process what they had just heard. On the screen, the president’s speech kept running in… Continue Reading
Koggie, the 10,034th descendant of the original bio-engineered cat-dog prototype, sat on an ornate garden bench in the upstairs arboretum of the autonomous house and yawned as she watched the robs scurrying about like a plague of mice on their… Continue Reading
All around Foster are ash trees slipped through by a cold and unexpected wind that has hit Washington and turned the State Department grounds prematurely orange with a litter of ash leaves. The old building looms above the tree line… Continue Reading