Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
JANUARY 2023 SCIENCE FICTION MICROSTORY CONTEST (Stories only)
date
newest »
newest »
THE CHAMPIONUnder the searing white/violet light of Merope, the immense arena reverberated with the roaring cheers of the spectators.
Sebastian’s heart skipped a beat as one of the aerial contestants narrowly dodged the traybosk’s razor-sharp claws, the man twirling gracefully on his anti-grav field as he slipped under the grasp of the immense alien predator.
Looking down from the hovering observation platform above the arena, Sebastian took note of that contestant. “A brilliant maneuver. What is that man’s name?”
“Alexander Li of Merope IV, Excellency,” one of his aides answered.
Sebastian winced as the traybosk killed another contestant, one of the pale blue beast’s four thrashing serpentine maws catching the man in mid-air as he circled around for another attack, crushing him in its fanged jaws. Cheers and wild cries of disappointment rippled through the crowd below. Sebastian smacked his lips in disgust as he accepted a cocktail from a slave girl. How these frontier colonists love these blood sports, he mused. Savages. But, the games served their purpose in keeping the minds of these brutes focused on something other than rebellion against the Pleiades Empire, as the Autarch had predicted.
More wild ‘boos’ as a contestant disintegrated, flying into the shimmering containment field in avoiding the traybosk’s thrashing tail spines. Sebastian shook his head as he savored the liquor on his tongue. Sebastian reflexively stood up, knocking over a silver tray of nuts and fruits and clapping and cheering as Alexander Li, in a masterfully skillful and daring vertical dive, slipped between the snapping maws of the traybosk and skewered the beast through its one vulnerable spot…the neural nexus between its two brains. The crowd went wild.
#
Sebastian smiled as Alexander Li alighted on the roof of the observation platform, retainers removing his plasluminum armor, bloodied spear and anti-gravity belt. Sebastian looked over the many healed-over scars running across the finely muscled, sun-toned body of the frontier commoner. Li dropped to one knee, bowing his close-cropped head as Sebastian approached him, flanked by his aides and guards.
#
The three suns of Atlas shone bright over the silver domes and spires of the imperial palace as the Autarch descended to the spaceport on his anti-grav platform, surrounded by his retinue and soldiers. Sebastian knelt along with the other nobles as the old man approached, his ornate robes flowing around him.
“So, this is our conquering hero,” the Autarch said as Alexander Li knelt before him. “You are a credit to your colony and to the empire!” the Autarch said as he placed the gold medallion of honor around Li’s neck.
Sebastian snickered. The poor, apish brute had no idea how he was being used. He’d lose his life as one of countless squad leaders selected from among the best warriors in the empire. Squads now dying by the droves in a hundred systems. But more than that, he’d inspire countless others of his kind to follow his example.
“Arise, my champion,” the Autarch said.
Li smiled as he stood, towering over the Autarch. “Freedom!” he shouted as he snapped the old man’s neck.
Sebastian’s blood turned to ice as the guards opened fire.
#
Alexander awoke on a soft divan in a luxuriant suite, a bay window looking out over the magnificent towers of a futuristic city. A wall chronometer told him it was 2,000 years later.
“Welcome back, love,” the soft voice of a woman said as she caressed him. He looked in wonder at his now small, slender hands and felt the long tresses of silky hair falling upon his once-broad shoulders. He saw himself…herself… in a full-length mirror. A lovely young woman, with another stroking her soft shoulders. “You like?” the beauty beside her asked.
He…She nodded, running her small hands over the contours of her new body. “It’s been over 600 years since I’ve occupied a female body. It’s quite refreshing.” She turned to her lover, kissing her soft lips and running her fingers over the face of her latest incarnation.
The woman smiled. “I take it you like me better like this than as a traybosk?”
“I’d like you in any form. I hated killing you.”
“I guess we’re even for that time I got you crucified in ancient Judea. 8,000 years now? How time flies.”
“So, did it work this time?”
She nodded. “The revolution happened and the democratic galactic federation was born.”
Alexander…Alexandra?...reflected. For nearly 12,000 years, they’d studied and shepherded these humans. A violent species, but a beautiful one.
Mod
©2023 by Jot Russell
The Delaware flowed below the edge of the roadside. Ahead was the carved gap in the mountain range that led them into Pennsylvania. John looked at the fuel level of his '67 Vet to see he could make it across and back on the small, compressed container of octaazacubane. From the exhaust, inert hydrogen added what is already the majority of the atmospheric compound.
He wife, Paige, asked, "Are we going to make it back?"
"How did I know you were about to ask that?"
"Well, mind-reading is something that happens after being together 20 years. But you didn't answer the question."
He motioned his hand toward the gauge.
She squinted her eyes at the instrument. "Look, I can't always read your mind, nor can I see accurately that at this angle. Are we gonna make or should I call an uber?"
"We're fine on fuel, but I'm surprised that's your main concern."
"What are you saying to me?"
"What I'm saying is that we are riding with a fuel container of the most non-nuclear explosive substance known to man."
"You want explosive? I'll show you the most explosive thing to man; it's women!"
"That might be true."
"So, what do you mean, explosive? Isn't gasoline explosive?"
"You ever hear of C-4?"
"Yeah, when you force me to Die Hard for the hundredth time."
"Right, well, C-4 primarily gets its explosive energy when its separated hydrogen molecules fuse into the triple-bonded H2."
"Yeah, so?"
"Octaazacubane, or H8, is not so stable and very difficult to make, but I figured it out."
"So you have said."
He glanced over at her with a disgusted look. "Look, what I'm saying is that I have means to develop a clean fuel source and with this new delivery system that injects a tiny amount within each compression cycle of this engine, I have the proof of concept."
"Proof? We haven't made it back yet."
"I just saved the freakin planet, and you're worried about breaking down in the mountains."
"Well, the last time you broke us down, you acted like it was inspiration point or something. You got my hair all messed up in the back of your car."
"You're worried about your hair? For one thing, we're riding in a convertible and the second thing, there is no back seat! Dang, why did I ever marry you?"
"Cause you love me."
"Yeah, don't ask me why, but yeah, I do."
ParkwayDriving a scenic road upstate in the autumn in that dead time between one and three in the afternoon, nothing existed but the snaking black asphalt, low level mountains and trees painted crimson and gold. Coming round a bend, I didn’t expect a flash of light glinting off a car down in a gully. And my brain had a hard time processing what the glimpse revealed: that the vehicle was a 1957 Chevy Bel-Air four door in two tone Sierra Gold and White. But the narrow parkway had no shoulder, so I got off at the next exit for the state park, and I notified the authorities of a possible accident scene.
Laughing, Festus the ranger said, “Congratulations, you have just seen famous the ghost car. Nothing to worry about, honey.”
I was both annoyed and intrigued, a dangerous combination. I wanted to slap his face for the derision aimed at me, but I was also interested in the story, because I believed him. How many 1957 Chevys were left, I wondered. Probability favored the ranger’s story. So I asked, “They have clippings at the library? I assume someone took a dive a long time back?”
Festus nodded. He sent me off with directions to the town and lodging information.
Later, at the bed and breakfast, I digested the facts. Local boy went hurtling off the road back in 1967, but the car and the body were not found until a year later. Once the scene was finally cleared, the phantom car started to appear at odd and brief intervals, but never the boy. Judging from the clippings, there was no obvious pattern to the spectral intrusion on reality. I flopped back on the bed. Three witnesses were still around. This could make good story content for digital click bait, I thought. I was in.
Next day, the innkeeper provided addresses. Laura was elderly, but clearly recalled seeing the car in the gully, as she almost veered off the road herself. “It was startling, but it also made me think of my brother, Bill. He had one of those Chevys, but his was a two door. Same color though. What a car!” Mike and Ed had similar stories. They never owned such a car, but a friend or a relative had, and it forever left an impression. But in all three cases, the legendary Chevy of memory was either not a four door sedan or the wrong color.
I had found my hook. My father had a 1957 Chevy exactly like the one in the accident. It was supposed to be my car, but when I was twelve, he bought a 1967 Valiant. The slant six car was a good one, but no classic. My cousin got the 1957 Chevy and wrecked it. I assumed it was junked long ago, but I always believed the fantasy that it was waiting for me, out there, somewhere.
Next day, I got my back country permit and hiked toward the location. I found nothing but chittering squirrels, squawking crows and patient hawks.
I set up camp, hoping the temperature would stay above freezing. I drank in the faint glow of the Milky Way and the sharp sparkle of the Pleiades. Considering the tale I would weave, I trekked to a spot to relieve my bladder. My foot hit something metallic. I tipped my head lamp, then picked up a small piece of metal, the Sierra Gold coating still present. Success! The relic! But the lamp reflected something else. I gathered the tiny key chain with a metal seahorse, and froze.
It couldn’t be. Decades ago, on a trip to the New York Aquarium, my prize was this key chain, a gift from my father. But I had lost it on a Saturday, on a day we had ridden in the 1957 Chevy. Had it been there all along? Had it also ridden with my cousin, and then, the boy?
The air around me began to hum at a long, low frequency. Suddenly, the 1957 Chevy appeared, solid and rimmed with electric blue light.
Science had shown that magnetic portals existed from the Sun to Earth. But could one create a vortex in Time and Dimension as some postulated? Was I a Key that had opened this Doorway because I had ridden in that 1957 Chevy, knew its every contour, and had spilled my blood and vomit upon its seats as a child?
Could I get inside?
Oh, the story!
Wordperfect count: 747
Bringing home the ‘chosCopyright 2023 by Paula Friedman
“Then they’re home! We’ve brought them all home!”
I was laughing, Gingi was chortling, Evan nearly giggling, and the Archos and Delaychos survivors were wreathed in the ‘chos equivalents of beatific smiles. And all along the couch, below the darkling, star-spung gleam of the long glestening porthole, these several thousand survivors from the ‘chos and ‘de’chos systems and we five hundred Healers attending them breathed long breaths at ease, sipped our Rrin, and lay quietly back.
Another Mercy Run. We had made it, and back again. I patted Arcy’ s arm and felt his upper curler wrap my hand in softness.
“Yep, got there to them AND made it back," he whispered, "not even got fired upon, this time." Again the soft curl of his feeler. "Thus, they live,” he murmured, gaze wandering the ‘chos and ‘de’chos lying across the couch-pads, “and will likely live long now.”
Except, of course, those who had died. The fifteen hundred souls of ‘de’chos on G’tanya’s moon, blown out from their habitat before there’d been any chance to even start to mediate between ‘de’chos and ‘chos’mg Speakturners. And the 354 D’nains who did not (dared not? would not?) place the Listenings onto their antennae and decipher how the ‘chos’s needs meshed with—not against—their own needs, and who thus refused to cease, though all had asked, their warring even after we had talked the ‘chos, the ‘de’chos, and even the vagabond “ant-peoples” out from shout-hate-war into Listening. Into "Listening, Hearing, and finally Understanding," as the Hormona first-texts say, "ingesting the decoctions." A bit of microchem and A.I.-genetics, that is, very simply enabling what we in the Healing Service come to know—each species has a name for it!—the empathy that brings full peace.
“I hate that we had to block those D’nains down, Arcy,” I admitted. His feeler stroked my palms. “They’ll come out of it, Lady. And that dose—hah, what they’ve learned from that 'buzz,' oh yesl--never, never will they imagine invading another speciies’ space again.” He smiled--a bit too widely, but remember, his brother had been among the denizens ousted from Remara by a settlement of D’nains, back in the old days.
“Hey-hey, Arcy-love,” I said. Not even thinking—not about any of it No triumph in my eyes, no ‘victory’ in our hearts. Just the quiet. And sadness for our losses—rather, despairing horror at those pointless wartime’s deaths, and a recurrent sense of futility, wanting to leap from this port-room couch and flee all memory of hostile warriors, grab Arcy and race with him out from that emptiness, and to . . .
. . . . to be right here right now with him, having done exactly what we'd done. This voyage, and the hundred others in these recent Sol-years. No “victories,” but simply this tranquil silence, this quiet content—watching the blue planet's arc come into clear focus below as we descend—this knowledge that we've done what we were meant to do, that our voyage once more has brought awareness, healing to our fellow beings, aborted a war, saved sentients’--thousands of sentients’--lives in this time.
The port opens; planetary air enfolds us. “Exactly all we can mean, Arcy,” I gasp, as we both smile.
[556 words]
"The Providers"by J.F. Williams
They had come in great, black, shiny ships that looked like bundles of obsidian rods arranged haphazardly. Across the globe they had landed and news cameras filmed as the gigantic crafts, each the size of a skyscraper, carefully descended, then hovered a few meters above the ground, usually in some open field or city park, disgorging piles of black pods, like giant avocados, each the size of a small car. They were perfectly shaped though obviously organic, their blackish green skins rough and etched with vein-like swellings. I remember watching one ship hover at the Ogunquit softball park and saw people walk glassy-eyed toward the pods, which opened along the edge revealing an empty interior lined with a bright red, velvety membrane. I watched in horror as they entered the pods, which closed around them. Others followed, beating the horny pod-skin with fists and shouting, "Let me in!"
That was the nightmare from which our perfect world had been born. Hours later, the pods would reopen, their former inhabitants jumping out and stretching after a sleep robbed of dreams. In a few months, people across the world began keeping pods in their bedrooms and retiring to them each night, emerging from those scarlet maws each morning, happy and well-rested, having had no dreams, ready to greet the day, which was spent in play and relaxation, as the Providers had reorganized human society so that all labor, both physical and mental, was performed by machines engineered by the early pod-nappers who, once awakened, would build strange engines and dynamos that perform all the work of sustaining the population without pollution or energy loss. These "donkees", as we called them, were somehow transferred the knowledge to build the machines, but they never understood how they worked.
After a few more months, the domination of the Providers was complete: a world without disease or drudgery, where well-fed, healthy people played on rolling grass lawns in the shadow of great glass towers. Those who preferred a more traditional cityscape would see brick and mortar, wood and concrete, and iron, as the Providers had developed augmented realities so that their Players, as we called those who accepted the Providers' beneficent rule, and sleeping arrangements, could see the world as they suited. That was practically every human on earth, as far as we could tell, except us.
Camilla and I had been neighbors, but not friendly ones. She had been a nutty conspiracy theorist, festooning her lawn with all kinds of bitter signage. Just before the Providers arrived, that all stopped. "Like a cloud was lifted," she said. We no longer argued politics, which eventually became purely ceremonial anyway. We agreed, however, we would never enter a pod and have the sleep without dreams. "I even like nightmares," Camilla told me.
We had made our way to Olmstedville, the last refuge of the non-players. Eight hundred or so people there functioned in the old ways, farming, fixing things, trading, with little time for leisure. We were all pretty committed to eschewing the pods, a pile of which were dumped in a grassy field at the edge of town, and we had to be vigilant as the pods lured the occasional villager, whom we doused with cold water and turned around.
Camilla and I came up with a plan. The pods are always shut except when a human draws near. Only then they open and draw the human in. "What if," said Camilla, "one of us got close enough for the pod's entrancement and the other jumps ahead and throws something, maybe a squirrel, into the pod, and douses the entranced one. Would that wreck up their system?"
We gave it a try. Camilla approached one of the pods and she went all glassy-eyed and smiley. Just as the pod opened, I jumped ahead of her and opened a jar, releasing a bumblebee into the red maw, which closed shut abruptly. I got the bucket and doused Camilla.
"Did it work?" she asked, a little dizzy from the shock. At once we were surrounded by bees. Thousands of them, but they ignored us, droned a low buzz in unison, and flew into the welcoming pods, which had all opened. The Providers were now stealing the dreams of bees and what would be the result of that? A world made perfect for bees?
"Did we do it?" Camilla said excitedly. "Did we wreck the system?"
"I think we reset it," I replied, and gave her the high five.
(749 words)
TRAINING DAY“Good afternoon and welcome to the final day of Farnsworth’s Monster Emporium and Death-ray Dealership hiring session. My name’s Todd.
“Today is your last day in our training and we have winnowed you down from one hundred possible candidates to the top twenty. You have spent a month and survived working with some of our most popular products. In this last series of tests, we are going to review some of our most popular products to see how you would answer possible calls from clients.
“Are there any questions? Yes, number 5?”
“Excuse me sir, you used words like winnowed and survived. These were colorful choices, yes?”
“No. Not really. Of the original one hundred of you, only twenty remain. Fifty were traumatized by injuries and left emotionally or psychologically scarred. Twenty were injured and unable to continue. Five unfortunately were lost to the vagaries of the technology and yes, five were killed beyond our ability to save, which in fact made their deaths spectacular because we do have very good medical facilities. You lot are the best, the brightest and the toughest.
“Number 13?”
“Sir, I was wondering how many people made the last round of selections?”
“You don’t want the answer to that question, 13.”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“Of one hundred, 2 made it.”
“Sir, what happened to the rest?”
“This.”
“What is that?”
“That is a space-time rupture event caused by a discontinued product. The room was overlaid with a reality that has the human race replaced with wooden robots. We were unable to restore the primary reality to that local area. Only two students were able to be recovered. The rest were lost when the event horizon collapsed.
“To prevent any further such catastrophes, we will be isolating you in several working environments with the members of each of four groups chosen at random. I will work with each group separately. Our goal is of course to recruit qualified candidates but if I deem you unqualified, you will be removed from the test environment. Any other questions.”
“I do, sir. What’s to stop us from taking what we’ve seen and revealing it to your competitors? This agency is hardly the only one in the world providing such technology to super-villains at large?”
“Please activate the Mobius Light™, focused on number 12. Number 12, Antwerp.
“Can anyone tell me what just happened? Where is Number 12? The Mobius Light™ is deep within your catalog and most of you may not have gotten that far. Number 1?”
“The Mobius Light™, created by a time-traveling warlord, Dr. Mobius, who died in a conflict with the Crimson Avenger (the first one) is a one way, limited time travel device, sir. It is used to move a person to a point before they become aware of a particular event. Mastermind villains use it as a means of erasing the minds of detectives and other investigative types preventing them from becoming aware of the Mastermind in the first place. By the time they catch up to the clues which reveals the Mastermind, he is gone, like a ghost.”
“Why doesn’t a villain use this device to conquer the world, Number 1?”
“Because sir, you are sent into the past but on a different continuum. You replace your temporal doppelganger and continue on there as if you never answered the advertisement. In the Mobius reality, there are no super-villains or superheroes. You live out your life as your more quiet and dull self. Hence few super-villains are willing to use it on themselves or their arch-nemesis.”
“Very good Number 1, you have earned your ranking among this group. Number 12, and indeed anyone who applied for this job has been returned to an approximation of their previous life.
“We have improved the Mobius Light™ somewhat since the last catalog update and we don’t sell the upgrade. Our failed potential employees have been returned to their lives, in this timeline, unaware of having applied for this job. Anyone applying for this job will have been implanted with an aversion to our company, its products and metahumans, in general.
“What it means for you is this: If you don’t die, you’ll be sent to the past and we shall never have met. Good luck.”
Routed through internal email:
Farnsworth’s Monster Emporium and Death-ray Dealership is happy to announce the hire of three new employees for the sales and technical support division. Please congratulate Number 1, Number 5 and Number 11 to our happy family.
The Dragon Takes WingThe Solar Dragon was nearing perihelion. The trailing ship was gaining on them. Who they were, why they were following the Dragon were both mysteries. But their intentions were not. They have been firing guided missiles since they made contact. But the missile guidance systems were blinded by the target’s proximity to the Sun and they homed in on the larger, hotter target.
As long as the Dragon kept between the Sun and the other ship, they couldn’t get a lock. But the attacker was dropping closer to the Sun. Once the Dragon was silhouetted against the blackness of space, it would be an easy shot.
The Solar Dragon was a research vessel. It wasn’t armed, but it had shields capable deflecting the full wrath of the Sun at close range. It would be safe from any directed energy weapon or particle beam. An explosive warhead was a entirely different matter.
“Hensen, what happens if we use the Buzzard Ramjet now?” asked the Solar Dragon’s commander and chief scientist.
His engineer thought a moment before answering, “Well, the hydrogen density is much higher here than design specifications so we’d quite likely explode.” He thought moment longer and smiled. “But, if we didn’t, it would be one hell of a ride. We’d get at least 5 gees and have a spectacular plume.”
“How spectacular?”
“A bout a kilometer and half. If I tweak the magnetic constrictors, maybe two.”
The captain turned to the navigator. “Gordon, how far away are they?”
“A little under a kilometer.”
He looked over his shoulder at the engineering station,. “How soon can you…”
“It’s already on standby. If I see a big coronal mass eruption, we'd need to be somewhere else pretty quick.”
“Now would be a good time…”
--
The Dragon seemed to rise out of the chromosphere and the weapons officer smiled. He already had a lock and this time it held. He flipped open the cover and hit the button. A missile appeared on the lower edge of the screen before accelerating.
The Dragon seems to grow in size, getting larger and brighter. There a small flash of light as the missile exploded, but there was no eruption of debris. He scanned but it didn’t make any sense. The missile simply disintegrated well short of the target.
He prepared to fire again and the alarms began sounding.
“We’re too close! Get us away from the surface.”
“Our altitude hasn’t changed.”
“Hull temperatures are climbing…”
The forward weapon array melted. Followed by the engine intakes. Fire coursed around the hull, through the hull until it reached the water tanks.
A second later, the ship was an expanding ball of gas.
--
The Dragon’s crew lay pinned in their acceleration couches. Unable to move, barely able to breathe. The Dragon rode on a column of fire, passing through the layers of the Sun’s atmosphere in record time.
As the hydrogen density fell off, so did its acceleration.
Hensen was finally able to lean forward enough to close the ramjet intakes.
--
It took a lot longer to decelerate using the wispy hydrogen clouds between the Sun and Earth. Plenty of time to process all the data collected during their close brush with the Sun.
Spectral analysis held the key. The middle layer of the chromosphere was rich unobtanium. Enough to power a fleet of ships. No wonder the aliens wanted to stop them from discovering that secret.
Humans could now go to the stars. Without the aliens help or their permission.
Mod
First round votes:
Tom Olbert => ***Marianne
Jot Russell => ***Marianne
Marianne Petrino => **Paula, Greg, Jot
Paula Friedman => JF
J.F. Williams => ***Marianne, Greg, Tom, Paula, Jot
Thaddeus Howze => **Paula, Greg, JF
Greg Krumrey => Thaddeus
Finalists:
Parkway by Marianne Petrino
Bringing home the ‘chos by Paula Friedman
Second round votes:
Tom Olbert => ****Marianne
Jot Russell => ****Marianne
Marianne Petrino => **Paula, Greg, Jot
Paula Friedman => JF; ****Marianne
J.F. Williams => ****Marianne, Greg, Tom, Paula, Jot
Thaddeus Howze => **Paula, Greg, JF
Greg Krumrey => Thaddeus
Winner:
Parkway by Marianne Petrino
Theme: well-deserved victory or success
Element: a ride