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
Tag: Pulse Rifles
Turncoat
"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
Storming the Lighteater
The Lighteater's spherical hull loomed giant over the golden tall grasses like a burned out ember cast from the sun itself, charcoal black and distorted by an energy shell that could be confused with heat waves. Dotting the field were the scattered skeletons of trees with no leaves, even with the lateness of the season.… Continue reading Storming the Lighteater
A War Like Any Other
Zyon Genna had been away at war for more than two standard years, but the hardest part was going home. The small dropship taking him back to his farm also carried his eldest son, Alistair, and his middle son, Rome. The little cabin was weighed down by the ghost of Emerald, Rome's twin sister. Her… Continue reading A War Like Any Other
Knowing the Enemy
The ice giant Rosen is only a pale crescent in the violet sky of its largest moon. Ivodus looks up and thinks it looks like the closed eye of a sleeping god. Or a dead one. This place sets off strange and indistinct memories, more feelings than specific recollections, and he doesn't like it. It… Continue reading Knowing the Enemy
An Uneasy Alliance
The snowfall was heavy. The flakes were large enough to be feathers, like a flock of white-winged sky-spanning birds was on a migratory path just above the battered tree tops, the rhythmic pulsing of the wind further evidence of beating wings. It was a pity about the trees; trees don't even grow here. Wreckage. Hull… Continue reading An Uneasy Alliance
Keep No One Close, Especially Your Enemies
Navy Samarasinghe was the baddest assassin in all of human space. She'd been born on old Earth and managed to claw her way out of that burning cesspool, which is about the roughest start someone could get these days. It meant she was tough, smart, and plenty willing to get her hands dirty. Of course,… Continue reading Keep No One Close, Especially Your Enemies
Lifespark
The jungles of Venus II were lush and verdant, much more so even than Earth II. The exoplanets were given rather uncreative traditional names that had more to do with history and orbital alignments than habitability. But the air here was still deadly acidic to fragile human lungs, so at least that was one thing… Continue reading Lifespark
A98 in Progress
The city was bedding down for the night; the city of analysts and wrench-turners, of school children and factory workers and project managers, that is. The Night City—that parasite that succeeded in entangling itself within and around its daytime sibling without strangling it, that sunless city of teal-lighted windows scattered among the daytime's disused towers… Continue reading A98 in Progress
Alphanebulon-3 and Brian
Riggs woke first, greeted by the playful chuckling of the creek and the crisp autumn smell of rain clouds coming down from the escarpment. And by a fully armored man in a long brown cape carrying some sort of weird pulse rifle. Standing beside the man was a twelve-foot blue robot looking something like a… Continue reading Alphanebulon-3 and Brian
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