Stretch your brain
"I thought you said the place looked abandoned," said George. "It did." "You didn't notice the hundred-yard floating alien orb?!" "Keep your voice down!" Hannah whispered. "I'm more worried about the sentry." They peeked through the wind-blasted branches of some kind of desert shrub from the lip of the valley. Ahead was a cracked and… Continue reading Turncoat
Gravity bombs sent ripples ripping through the battlefield, decimating friend and foe alike. Zoe pressed forward, unwavering and ever ready. Her battle armor's powered joints did most of the running for her, but it would stop if she faltered in her courage. The shallow hydrocarbon stream defaced beneath her boot tread boiled from the ambient… Continue reading A Shot in the Dark
Breaking every promise he'd made to himself, Grant found himself once again in the shining, shifting heart of the Temple of Seamless Iteration. The golden panels lining the long enclosure fluttered in their waving way, gracefully forming now a vaulted ceiling and then a dome of nested arches, always moving uniformly, symmetrically, and silently like… Continue reading Temple of Seamless Iteration
Shivam awoke to strange constellations. Red stars that didn’t glimmer, looking not so far above the tops of the Western white pines. Then he felt a tremble in the earth like an orchestral brass section playing dissonant chords in infrasound somewhere just out of sight within the dark forest. There was a Behemoth ship overhead.… Continue reading Helping Hand
"Seen one Tetra, seen 'em all. What'd I tell you?" "More than I asked for," said Pia. "I hired a pilot, not a color commentator. Stay the course." The impossible bulk of a Predecessor Tetra loomed before them, a lightyear to a side and as smooth and as black as any human tool could measure.… Continue reading Mapping the Tetra
The object flashed by the Earth so fast that we didn't even have time to photograph it. We didn't even know what it was, but its path was perpendicular to the ecliptic, or nearly so. A piece of it broke off—or was ejected with purpose, depending on your own inclination—and made landfall. It was called… Continue reading Terra Nullius
The Second Cold War was colder than the first, the stakes higher, the players more numerous. But it picked up in the most memorable arena of the First: the Moon. NASA and JAXA maintained a joint science outpost in the Avogadro crater on the far side, and it was from there that Comet Calvillo-Ōtsuka-Folts was… Continue reading The Solovyova Object
It was a gray day—overcast but bright, and the brightness amplified by a patchwork of melting snow. Cold puddles formed in the mud like tidepools along the shore of some vast alkaline ocean, still and lifeless. Karsaca remained vigilant, her finger at the ready, and tried not to think about the dryness of her eyes… Continue reading Bait
"Bull shit," said Myke with his distinctive edge-world drawl. "I got ten coin and a brand new jacket that says you ain't got the guts." He held his hand to his eyes and squinted as the clouds passed and the twin suns beamed warmly on the three boys standing in the short silvery grasses. "You ain't… Continue reading Resplendent Roulette
Roman's heart raced. This was it. The culmination of three years of painstaking nonstop work. Truly nonstop; he'd found it easier to live in the lab for the last several months—years? Surely it was only months—venturing out less and less frequently. His fellow lab assistants shared his zeal, but no one could compare to Dr.… Continue reading Ex Astris
Warmup Pages 