Stories tagged “speculative fiction”
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There and Back Again
The tension was unbearable. Seconds from now the LSH-13 mission would launch, ending mankind’s 40 year exile on this island Earth. I remember when manned spaceflight was an adventure. We had landed on the moon and had gone back. Then tragedy stru...
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Retribution
Jacob eased back on the controls and killed the engines, settling the Retribution on its decades-long voyage between here and nowhere. They were well out of Earth’s gravity well now and the Retribution had already hit the peak speed mankind had b...
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Traversal
The tiny craft’s re-emergence into real space was unremarkable in every way. No flash of light to mark the rift it tore in the black, no radio or gravity waves, and even the EM radiation typical to subspace travel was dampened so as to be indisti...
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Psychic Assault: Wave
The woman’s Break builds like a coming storm, and Derrick feels the inevitability of it. A second ticks past and the Break explodes from her mind like a terrible pressure wave, catching Derrick and the woman ahead in its undeniable energy. He scr...
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Story in a Tweet
Knife dragged. Blood trail. Rolling head, falling limbs, and screaming women and children all that mark the passing of yet another angel.
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Story In a Tweet: Wealth of Riches
Wings shorn off, feathers dispersed, and the market is rich for a day. My job here is done, until another angel comes to avenge his brother.
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Evolution
The universe died long ago, succumbed to the certain and inevitable heat death that is the fate of all universes. All fuel sources eventually ran out, all stars died, all light and energy and forms of heat eventually swallowed up by the void. The unive...
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Listen to Ava: Unnatural
Beth turned away from the screen. “Turn it off.” The security footage of Ava’s raw power was sickening. “Girl’s not natural,” Thad said. “Nothing that causes such wanton destruction on a global scale can be nat...
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Psychic Assault: Recovery
Derrick feels the barriers go up and finds himself able to breathe freely for the first time since this ordeal began. He knows without looking that the woman — Morgan, he thinks — is still alive, and so he turns his attention to the other o...
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Weaver
“How long has he been there?” The general stared dispassionately at the monitor. “Just under six hours, sir.” The technician glanced up and saw the general wince. The man on the screen before them sat center in the blast zone, l...
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What Man Hath Wrought
Humans have terrible issues with identity. From the moment of your birth and to the point of death, you desperately pursue some lasting sense of identification via religion, careers, hobbies, or anything else you fancy. Either you seek it by conformi...
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204,214 + 2
Sirius told me I should write. “It’ll be a good exercise. Someday this thing could be a veritable bible for the ones who come after us.” That’s what he said. So, here I am, writing in this little blue journal with a pen we stol...
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To Sleep Perchance to Change
Oscar looked tired. The last time I’d seen him he had been a stout bright eyed chap. Things had changed since then. He was still a large man but clearly defined muscle had replaced much of the fat. My friend yawned and then squinted at me sleepil...
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Story in a Tweet: Arbitration
Divine fire, poured from heaven, another village burns. Retribution for one of God’s fallen angels. Penalty. Sacrifice. It is not enough.