It's complicated. The Separatists are fragmented, largely decentralized, naturally. But they're political dissidents, nonviolent except the most extreme offshoots, like those out in Alpha Crucis, or the lessor known and more radical sect at Mintaka. It was the Mintaka group that bombed the hospital on Amaranth Station, a residential outpost well within the Federation's borders.… Continue reading Knowledge Density
Category: Creative Writing
Best-laid Plans
Even through the filters, the air reeked of sulfur. Yellow starlight punched swirling holes through the cloud cover and baked the gases out of the strange crystalized rocks that covered the region—a product of the crash, surely. Tavish watched the ship's entrance from his perch atop a stone column across the steam-filled gorge. Three days… Continue reading Best-laid Plans
Intro to Endings
"Over the last several months, you've trained hard, and you've learned how to kill." Commander Imogen Diver paused while the would-be operatives elbowed each other and snickered with self-satisfaction. "This week, you're going to learn how to die." That shut them up. She stood in the shifting light of the projector, watching cold fear wax… Continue reading Intro to Endings
An Abundance of Audacity
It took them a long time to figure it out—long in human terms, anyway; generations—and longer still to put that revelation to use, but even so, the humans did it first. From orbital stations around the brown dwarfs of Epsilon Indi and the white dwarfs of Sirius and Procyon, from Rigel and Regulus and sentimental… Continue reading An Abundance of Audacity
Risks and Rewards
"It's a star; a black dwarf." "I already told you, that's impossible." She reminded him that for a white dwarf to cool to the cosmic background radiation temperature it would take a quadrillion years—70,000 times the current age of the universe. "You can recite numbers all you like, but I'm telling you it's a black dwarf."… Continue reading Risks and Rewards
Sidelined
"Damnit, Snooze, watch the spread. What are you doing back there?" Lt. Bram "Twofer" Vuurtoren fought his hardest to keep his heartrate level. The flashes of starburst beams scattered broken prisms of light through the cockpit of his missile corvette like firecrackers going off on his lap. He dogged his target as they spiraled dangerously… Continue reading Sidelined
No Safe Haven
"What was that thing?" Becca asked, her breathlessness preventing the sobs she knew were coming. "Who cares? We need to get out of here, now." Grant pulled at her elbow and before she knew it her legs were flying beneath her as she swatted away brambles and damp leafy branches in the sickly light of… Continue reading No Safe Haven
Memory Games
There was a high droning hum. Ice water came down in buckets like razors licking at her cheeks and shoulders and thighs. Oh, she thought, it's me; I'm screaming. I thought I was dead. "Wake up, Violet. Wake up." Her body was a vague outline in her own head, a far away pain that she was tethered… Continue reading Memory Games
A Moon Now Fuller
The ancient texts tell us the moon was a symbol of beauty—with its many phases and their various attributions, its single face, its mythology, its mystical threat of eclipse—and there was great opposition to its dismantling. But to look upon its remains, that glinting ribbon in permanent embrace with Earth, I am overcome by the… Continue reading A Moon Now Fuller
Old Friends
Seth sat on a stool, head down, eating the noodle equivalent of particle board steeped in salt water. The tiny discount eatery in the open market was as full of smoke that smelled like a chemical fire as it was crowded at this late hour. He could hardly shovel his meal into his mouth without… Continue reading Old Friends
Warmup Pages 