Special Cargo

The pilot made Lula feel extremely uncomfortable. The pilot likely felt nothing at all for his part. Him? Was the pilot a man? Not in the philosophical man-or-machine sense, but biologically. She'd assumed he was a man based on his bulk and the breadth of his shoulders, but she supposed those were not meaningful indicators.… Continue reading Special Cargo

Last Days on Chalkydri

The sky was red, brighter at the horizon, and streaked with the trails of charged particles. It made Jaro think of a blood orange. He was hungry. No fresh fruit around though; just pallets and pallets of MREs. He grabbed one off the top—calf's liver dumplings, ugh—and tossed it back. On second thought, he wasn't… Continue reading Last Days on Chalkydri

Learning to Run

Humanity was born on Earth, and the Sol system was where they learned to crawl. And crawl they did, to Mars, and to Mercury, and to Titan. They got so comfortable with crawling that they eventually crawled all the way to the Centauri Coast—Alpha Two, orbiting Rigel Kentaurus—on a three-kilometer generation ship that somehow managed… Continue reading Learning to Run

Deadflower Refinery

"Isn't this just something?" she asked with enthusiasm. She clasped her hands together in front of her heart. Her eyes sparkled in that excited way of hers and I nearly ceded, but caught myself. One of these days those eyes would get me to blindly agree to something foolhardy. Maybe today. But not yet. I… Continue reading Deadflower Refinery