"No fans backstage before the fight," said the manager, his jowls quivering beneath his Basset Hound eyes. He spoke directly to the arena employee, ignoring the disheveled man in the jacket. "What kind of amateur establishment are you people running here?" "Mr. Cade here has an urgent—" "I'd like to buy your fighter," said Cade.… Continue reading Before the Fight
Liberation Station
The ground rose and fell with the passing of the waves below. Dr. Keyla Sower was thankful for the treaded walking surface and her brand new and too tight work boots. If the motion weren't obstacle enough, it was raining and slick. The layered sheets of graphene and tiled technical ceramics felt sturdier than their… Continue reading Liberation Station
A Collection of Martian Antiquities
"Can I just tell you something?" The detective removed his rain-soaked wide brim hat and plunked it on top of tall shipping crate. Water pooled and soaked into the splintery pine. The crate held an ancient statue that most would consider priceless. But Viktor wasn't most: he set the price at $480 million. "I would… Continue reading A Collection of Martian Antiquities
More Cats Than I Remember
After a long period, the charge on my arrestor capacitor finally ran down to zero, flipping a mechanical relay deep in my hull over to deep-cycle power. I woke up. I think I dream, but I can't be certain. I believe that—like the humans who designed me—remembering dreams would require periodic waking, and, lacking that… Continue reading More Cats Than I Remember
The Martian Underground
The rover trip from Outpost Echo near Mars' southern polar ice cap to the Restricted Zone—colloquially described as New China—in Planum Chronium was tedious and uninteresting. It took more than eight hours, and the four astronauts aboard the driverless transport used the time to file digital reports, though the contents of the backlog would more… Continue reading The Martian Underground
Monstrous Futures Available Now
Hello everyone! If you're looking for a short story to read today, I know where you can find one. I know where you can find 29, actually: in the new anthology Dark Matter Presents: Monstrous Futures! In it, you'll find a variety of sci-fi/horror tales including Scary Canary Actuary by one D. Roe Shocky. It's available… Continue reading Monstrous Futures Available Now
A Shared Inheritance
Jay looked out at the Last Continent from the deck of the massive refugee transport, the cool wind slapping at his hair in the early morning light. He'd always heard it was a frozen land of ice and pictured pristine white peaks above sleek white plains, but instead, this. Shores of gray and brown slush… Continue reading A Shared Inheritance
Where Credit’s Due
In the darkness, water rushed over Waylon's mouth and washed down his back-tilted face. The black bath towel draped over his head was soaked and its weight pulled his neck back. Someone had a hand on his chest, so every time he tried to hold his breath they gut-punched him and he gasped reflexively, sucking… Continue reading Where Credit’s Due
Answering the Stravinsky
Space is a big place. Remarkably, unfathomably, soul-crushingly big. And all that space is essentially empty. The black vastness is not somewhere you want your ship to break down. That's why there's a mandate all ships are obligated to respond in good faith to any distress signals of space origin (once you make planetfall you're… Continue reading Answering the Stravinsky
Ghost Walk
Aero was in some kind of forest. The ground was solid stone with only loose bits of gravel surrounding the rents where the trees had broken through. They were thick, impossibly so, some so much that they first appeared to be sheer walls of wood extending beyond the clouds. A great canopy of leaves of… Continue reading Ghost Walk
Warmup Pages 