Early Christmas morning aboard the Masters’ starship, and once again there was no Santa Claus. I stared at the stars streaming past on the display window. There was a quiet knock on our apartment’s door, a little rap-a-tap-tap given with… Continue Reading
Antideuterium tablets flashed as they tumbled from Yuri’s shovel into the Theresa’s furnace. Exhausted, he staggered to the water bucket. Water poured down his chest and splashed to the floor, curling into steam around his boots. On a viewscreen he… Continue Reading
The void of space. Dark. Empty. Lit only by the pinpricks of starlight as I floated in the vast emptiness. Alone. Oxygen running out, blaring blood-red on my heads-up display. Time to die… The animal in us can’t conceive of… Continue Reading
I wake in darkness, adrift in space. Circuits fire with animal instinct. I reach for the others, but where a vast Consciousness once clamored I find only an echoing void. I am the last, alone. My only memories are those… Continue Reading
Retrieval: Time = 00.00 Just checked out a doozer of an AI unit the Scavenger crew brought in. Yeah? Specs? Carbon-based so obviously non-sentient, high-end multi-receptor architecture, a CPU that monitors damage and — interesting — limited self-repair capacity. Candidate… Continue Reading
Kapteyn is dead. No, that’s not right. He’s thinking, therefore not dead. His body is lost. He floats, smaller than an atom. No. That’s not right either. He’s confused. The sensation isn’t entirely unpleasant. He processes. His thoughts are slow.… Continue Reading
Docking at the space station, Dex Branson momentarily forgot about the two-ton shark in the science bay. He was dreaming about cosmonaut Martina Voluskova, “with whom I shall soon rendezvous,” he chortled, eyeing his case of smuggled vodka. Later, with… Continue Reading
Ever try to shake a bad habit? “Son of a gun,” I said to Donovan the other day, for maybe the millionth time. “No wonder you can’t keep a partner.” He laughed, as he always does, and I laughed too.… 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
At first it was just an animal trace, barely discernible to the naked eye. But soon it turned into a dirt trail, a country road, a superhighway and a stellar warp-lane. Ian Bailey, a Nundle Koala from north of Sydney,… Continue Reading