Short Stories

Serj dragged himself along the road, limping. The fog, still low before the dawn, concealed the beaten path. However, he had traversed that country trail countless times, and had no trouble finding the way....

cross-posted from: !cyberpunk...

It is three thousand light-years to the Vatican. Once, I believed that space could have no power over faith, just as I believed the heavens declared the glory of God’s handwork. Now I have seen that handiwork, and my faith is sorely troubled. I stare at the crucifix that hangs on the cabin wall above the Mark VI Computer, and...

"They're made out of meat."...

Captain Togram was using the chamberpot when the Indomitable broke out of hyperdrive. As happened all too often, nausea surged through the Roxolan officer. He raised the pot and was abruptly sick into it....

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Fallor as he lay on his back nervously fumbling through a bundle of cables underneath the console....

Once there was a learned arcanist. He knew all of sympathy and sygaldry and alchemy. He had ten dozen names tucked neatly into his head, spoke eight languages, and had exemplary penmanship. Really, the only thing that kept him from being a master was poor timing and a certain lack of social grace....

In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o’clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o 'clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would. The morning house lay empty. The clock ticked on, repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Seven-nine, breakfast time, seven-nine!...

If only we had taken our time. If we had studied them, learned about them, learned about their history we might have taken a different course and the galaxy might be different. But what were they to us who walked amongst the stars? They were so far beneath us as to be mere beasts in comparison. How could we know what was to come...

The Humans died a long time ago. Well most of them anyway. Rumored sightings happen just often enough to keep people convinced they aren’t all gone. They didn’t destroy themselves like so many predicted, actually they went out in a manner that would be extremely satisfying to most of them. See the Humans had the most...

The first time I saw U.T.S. Artemis, I was working as a sensor technician aboard a deep space station, Respite From Shadow. It floated at the intersection of more than a dozen major FTL lanes and had been one of the biggest shipping and transport hubs in the in sector. After the war broke out, it had become a field hospital, a...

The universe is a big place. Insanely big, really. We all know it, intellectually at least, if perhaps not with the same bone-deep certainty with which we know those things that we can see, touch or observe directly. The experts tell us that the universe is big, and so, like rational sophonts, we nod vigorously and say “I...

It is important to understand that the Great Confederation is not a benevolent organization. Neither is it particularly wicked. It is not built to be good, although it certainly strives to do so. It is not built to be bad, although many of its laws and policies have been twisted to perform acts of shocking cruelty. It is built...

We knew them. The humans were part of the United Planetary Coalition for hundreds of years by the time we were confronted by the Brosc. Humans were scavengers, hagglers, pirates, and all around an affront to intergalactic sentience. Even their official diplomats, military bodies, and leading minds were little better than the...

When it first drove into our base, none of us really knew what to do. Humans generally kept to their own, especially considering their tech and vehicles, so we didn’t have any experience servicing them. We didn’t mind, of course; we all saw them as horribly outdated, with ballistic guns, treads, and heavy, thick armour. Even...

When our coalition’s exploration drones found the Sol system, we knew just from initial scans that there was nothing much of note there. Most of the planets there were completely devoid of life of any kind; just a handful of barren rocks and gas giants. The only planet that was interesting was the third planet, which scans...

Every civilization that wishes to survive has to follow one rule: stay quiet....