“Hey Rath, what you doing?” A red haired girl in simple dress bounded over the fence. Rath was swinging a wooden sword around as if he was fighting a gaggle of ghosts. “I’m practicing.” He huffed. “For what?” She started rummaging through the sack she had been carrying. “For when I become a knight!” He proclaimed, as he’d done a thousand times before. “Only nobles get to be knights Rath, ah there it is.” She…
He looked around the apartment taking in the insanity of it all dried blood covered almost every surface, the walls, even the ceiling, the bodies of the family were hanged from hooks in the wall. Naked and gutted from the looks of, a man, a woman and two children. The forensics tech was knelling down collecting samples. He walked over to the bodies and looked closer, covering his face with his handkerchief to supress the…
“Shit!” Hooper slammed his headset down on the console. “What is it?” Tanaka asked as she looked up. “Storms coming in fast, we’re gonna be on lockdown here for the next twenty hours.” “Shit. I had a date with Charlie.” Tanaka sat down. Hooper snorted. The doors to the command room slid open with a mechanical grinding. A man with long hair and a beard wearing coveralls and a baseball cap. “What’s got you two…
“It’s madness! What fool would accept such an insane and outrageous plan!” The representative of the Common Collective for Tranquility and Self railed. Agreements from others around the vast chamber nodded. “Please representative, we understand that the project is indeed bold, but life would not materially change in the short term and in the long term the species will be greatly rewarded.” The representative of the Tran Stellar Solar Union of the Free Thinkers responded.…
As with most serfs he’d lived in the commune all his life his parents worked a croft provided to them by the lord, and they were expected to give most of what they harvested to that lord on a seasonal basis. The next homestead was half a mile inland with a family in the exact same situation. Once the lords men left they would have just enough to barter with neighbours with and to subsist…
He was sat leafing through a pile of documents and notes and cross referencing them with the elderly change management system on the computer. “What are you up to?” Asked Dave hurriedly. “I’m trying to get a picture of how we got here.” Sam answered not looking at Dave. “What do you mean?” Dave looked concerned. Sam stopped, looked at Dave and paused a moment. “I’m cross referencing what I see in the system with…
“She’s got one hell of a tilt on her.” Lyn reported. “Get it stabilised.” The Captain ordered. “Aye, sending out thrust drones to stabilise the hulk.” The giant thrusters at the front of the salvage ship were lit up providing a constant deceleration. In space, the vessel looked like a long dark grey box with dozens of running lights. The drone launch tubes at the front fired out four black boxes each one lighting a…
“So, what are we looking at?” Dexter asked. A few heads and senior crewmembers were collected in the small ready room. “Initial data indicates that it’s an inner system freight transport. Ship registry indicates it’s the “Crying Bar Hawk” a Stanner class built for trips between the habitats. Registered with Starliner until five years ago when it was sold for scrap.” “So how’d it get out here? Something like that could only make the trip…
“Deep space hates you, it wants you dead with every element of its empty being, it’ll freeze you, it’ll make your blood boil, it’ll pop your eyes, it’ll irradiate you, it’s smash you into pieces, it’ll drive you mad. Deep space hates you.” Those were the words of my old man, when I have a moment to reflect I can’t really fault his words, while the giant orbital structures that over 99.99% recuring of the…
Sam was leaning back in his chair staring at the wall trying to figure out where life went wrong as Mike harrumphed again in the corner and Dave looked across with a timid grin. They’d got back from a meeting a half hour ago and Mike had been quietly stewing ever since, Sam slowly rotating left to right in his chair. Now they’d worked together for some time and Sam was renowned for his poor…