Category: Science Fiction

Omaha

Wagner is sick to his stomach. His cheek is pressed up against a cold, corrugated metal floor, and everywhere around him there are others, moaning and clutching their stomachs. The entire room is pitching and heaving in great swells, over and over. He decides that he must be in the hold of a ship, a […]

Black Market Cheerios

This story first appeared in Lamplight Magazine in February 2020.   The tree in the schoolyard had been dead for as long as anybody could remember. The records said it sprouted on the ship from Earth, and in the early days of the settlement grew up strong and full. But then the terraforming went wrong, […]

The Intergalactic Currency Pit

The following message is a service of Intergalactic Global Communication Systems. Greetings, people of Earth. Everyone on your planet is receiving this message. Each of you is hearing it in your specific language. I must say, this world has quite a diverse population. Let me introduce myself. I am Gorion Alvaceta of the planet Blath. […]

Pest Control

The first signs of infestation emerged around container bay 12, where we stored uranium from the Onara 4 mines. A door panel had stopped working, and the duty engineer found chewed cables in the walls. Droppings in the cargo squad’s kitchen, next to ravaged packs of chocolate biscuits and beef jerky, were discovered soon after. […]

Flash Crash

Note: This story originally appeared in Escape Pod as Episode 683.   MAISIE was seven years old on the day she woke up and died. Blame it on the algorithms, if you wish. The survivors — and there were not many of them — certainly did. MAISIE (Modified Arbitrage Intelligence for Stocks and International Equities) was an algorithm […]

Automation, Obsolete

Warby waited for the door to unlock. The outer door thunked, then two long seconds elapsed before the inner door light illuminated, permitting him entry into the jolt shop. Was so much security necessary? Warby moved to the jolt shop counter and inserted his grasper. The credit reader beeped and the ring around the opening […]

Welcome to Relationship Town, Population 2

GERT status update: G-tube former embryo final failure rate: 100%. Restarting with H-tube embryos. Please advise. **Incoming encrypted transmission: Geocoupled Extrasolar Report Transmitter key required** **Key confirmed** Origin transmission: Affirmative. No change in colony deployment protocol. Proceed with H-tube embryo thawing, gestation, and rearing. GERT status update: H-tube former embryo final failure rate: 100%. Restarting […]

Sussurations

Soni opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. She felt the ridges of the enamel floor caressing her bare feet. The two tenths standard gravity meant that the ridges were barely caressing her feet, not inflicting painful pressure against her soles like they would if she were on Earth, but it was cold. […]

Catch and Release

For IDJ eyes only: Target secured. En route to rendezvous point on Ceres station. Estimated arrival: 0417, 15:56 by Earth reckoning. Delays or changes to be communicated immediately.  Agent Talat paused, considering whether to add any additional details to the message. She decided against it — there would be plenty of detail in the full […]

Harnessing the Sun

The Neren delegation, representatives of Leha’s own species, had been seated with their backs to the window that overlooked their ruined world, so they stared their hatred into Leha as they ate.  The desert behind them was an empty seafloor, scattered with leaning ships and the bones of the leviathans that had recently ruled the […]