Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
JUNE 2024 SCIENCE FICTION MICROSTORY CONTEST (Stories Only)
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THE INVADERSKyle Travers roared in anguish as the troop carrier exploded, hurling him through the air. His head slowly clearing, he clenched his teeth, pressing his hands over his ears, the hellish roar of the alien attack ships filling the sky over occupied New York.
He staggered through the rubble, coughing in the dust, the flames of the downed rebel troop carrier washing over him. More of his friends dead, all for defending their homes. Their world! The shadows of the alien hover fortresses passed over him in the shrouded midday sunlight. Damned alien devils! He looked up at the hovering ships, tears of hatred in his eyes. He’d make them pay!
He choked in rage as he came across the dead bodies of more resistance fighters. He picked up a captured alien photon blaster and strapped on a magna harness. Activating the magna thrust, he lifted vertically, sheltering behind the gutted remains of what had been the Empire State Building. The air shimmered, vibration slamming his chest as the alien ships carried on the relentless photonic bombardment of the devastated city below. Curse them! They didn’t give a damn how many innocent humans they killed as long as they could have a go at burning out as many rebel strongholds as they could.
His blood burned as he thought of those inhuman devils…establishing colonies on our world, leeching off our planet’s resources, enslaving our people in their cold, mechanical world. Those who resisted were expected to starve behind forcefield barriers in the filthy ghettos they called reservations. They called us savages for fighting back, did they? He’d show them what freedom fighters looked like!
Emerging directly below a passing attack ship, he fired the photon blaster at full power, rupturing one of the ship’s fuel pods. He swung upward towards the bridge module as the fuel bays exploded. As the emergency hatches blew off, he saw them. Rising up out of the ship…he winced at the ugly sight of them. Dark greyish-green skin, writhing tentacles and pseudopods, clicking mandibles and those three shining violet liquid eyes. Roaring in hatred, he fired on them from above, killing as many of them as he could before they could activate their magna thrusters. Their vile inhuman shrieking was like music to his ears. “Die, you scum! Die!!”
He screamed, paralyzed by nerve-shredding stun beams as more of them closed in around him on magna sleds, converging and seizing him. He screamed in rage, unable to move and wanting to kill them…to tear out their hideous triple-eyes with his bare hands. To pay them back for their cruelty. He vainly tried to struggle as they attached some of their evil technology to this head, an excruciating humming noise rattling through his skull. “Damn you! Damn you!” As he screamed, his vision blurred, their clattering, monstrous faces morphing before his eyes….into human faces. Their incomprehensible alien gibbering slowly coalesced into human speech.
“Tech Specialist Kyle Travers…you are ordered to stand down!” The face of his commanding officer Colonel Richards came into sharp focus just as Kyle blacked out.
#
“How is he?” Colonel Richards asked the doctor in the field hospital. Travers lay unconscious in his hospital bed, a restraining field surrounding him.
“We’ve neutralized the alien nano-swarm infection,” Dr. Peterson said. “His brain functions have returned to normal. Along with his perception of reality.”
“Good,” Richards said with relief, looking down at Travers’ face, even now twitching in restless sleep. “He’s a good man. A decorated soldier. It’ll be good to have him back on the front line again.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Dr. Peterson said, entering a few notes into his hand comp. “Of the other soldiers we’ve cured, 80 percent have refused to return to active duty. Of those, 20 percent have joined the rebel underground.”
Richards repressed a shudder as he rode with Peterson in the aero shuttle from the hospital hover platform down into the occupied native city, the double red suns high in the noon sky, the three moons visible over the ruins. “Doc…explain to me how this alien nano-tech works.”
“Well…once they infect the cerebral cortex, the nannites collectively function as a telepathic receiver, enabling the victim to feel what the natives are feeling. The nannite collective A.I. translates the native emotions into human-comprehensible concepts.”
“Is there nothing you can do?”
Peterson shrugged, the Terran attack ships bombing the ruined city behind him. “I can kill the messenger, Colonel. But the truth lives on.”
Mod
"What do you see?"
"It's a ball."
The other two nodded.
"Okay, so we can all agree there is a ball on the table. Now let me know what color it is."
"Duh, it's blue."
"You're kidding right? It's green."
The third looked at them cross and circled the ball before stating, "I see yellow."
"The fact is that it is all three colors, but each of you process frequencies of light in ordered priority of what your mind is trying to see to differentiate it from its background."
The viewer of blue faced what was a yellow wall beyond the table. She turned around to see a blue wall behind her. It was a much deeper blue than the ball and when she turned to confirm, the ball seemed green, until the yellow of the background wall washed away the color in her mind until only the blue remained again.
"Wow, that was weird."
The other two walked around the table to get a look with a different background. "Oh" and "Cool" were their response.
"So that is just one example of how the brain uses perspective to control what it sees. This is not unlike how bias controls what information is utilized or discarded. So, now let's run a different experiment. Tell me what you think about Trump?"
"He was the worst president ever and the most dangerous man on the planet!"
"What?! He was the best president and the savior of our nation."
The first glared at the pro-trumper in disgust.
"And you?"
"He's a dishonest and corrupt businessman, but as a president, the country was stronger than now."
"Okay, that's about what I would expect. One is a never-trumper, the second an only-trumper and the third a bit more independent. Now, drink this and then take a seat."
"What is it?"
"It's a mild drug designed to block specific chemical reactions within your brain. It's fully safe and the effects will last only an hour."
"Okay, I remember something about that in the agreement."
The host agreed, "That's correct."
"If it's safe, why don't you drink it?" said the anti-trumper.
The host smiled. "I have, but will drink with you if it makes you feel better." He took out another shot cup and poured in the cocktail. He raised it up and said, "To the truth."
The three looked at each other, picked up their cups and held them up. "Truth."
After five minutes, he asked them to stand back up. First, he looked at the only-trumper and asked, "Would you consider Trump to be an honest man?"
"No, he's a crook...holy shit, did I just say that?"
The never-trumper laughed at him.
"And you, do you think Biden is doing a better job?"
"Hell no...I mean...no, I guess not."
The host looked at the independent. "You think the country would be stronger with Trump back in the Whitehouse?"
"I think the country would be stronger with another candidate, maybe even Kennedy, but what choice do I have?"
"Maybe none, but if you were to vote today, could you vote for Trump?"
"Not after January 6th, no."
"You two?"
"I am still an anti-trumper...but maybe I should take another look at Kennedy."
The only-trumper nodded. "I got tell you, I know nothing about him and what policies he's pushing. Guess I should take a look as well."
"Well, vote as you choose, as the effects will wear off quickly, as mentioned. But the memory of this experiment will remain, of course. It may cause you to think twice before your bias tries to make a choice for you. Thanks for you time and here is the fifty dollars we promised each of you for taking part in the experiment. Have a nice day."
Puzzled, each accepted the money with a “thank you,” and left.
The Other Side of the WhirledWhat's better than a Ring World? A Spring World, of course!
Our flawless world winds round our sun in an ever-expanding helix, thirty times the size of your standard, puny little ring world. There's every climate and radiation zone you could possibly wish for. Simply pick your ideal radius from the sun, and plant some roots. It's perfect!
It goes almost without saying: a perfect world needs a perfect governing system. Here on the Spring World we have not just one, but two.
At this very moment, it is Red Team election season. A perfect system needs testing, after all. And the best way to ensure that our steadfast institutions hold is to elect the worst possible candidates, and see what they can break if they really try their hardest!
Have no fear: in two standard years, we will hold Blue Team elections, and find the ideal candidates to fix any residual matters from this cycle. These are almost always minor.
Our governing system has survived for thousands of these cycles, and with each succeeding round our institutions grow ever more robust, and the faith of our quadrillions of contented citizens in their perfect administration waxes eternally.
Undercover ExistenceThe giants had been benign, even benevolent, if only by accident, supplying food and shelter for them unknowingly. But, more recently, the newly migrated giants were malevolent, hunting them to extinction. If any of them are discovered it is certain death for all of them.
And they had been spotted.
“General! Colonies one, two and four have been wiped out. They are using some form of nerve agent. From the looks of it, it was only seconds before they were incapacitated and less than a minute before death. There were no survivors. Colony 3 is under attack and evacuation is underway.”
“Major, go assist with the exodus. We’ll gather on the south side of the structure and relocate. Have them plan for at least two days journey.”
“Yes, Sir!”
Inside the Enclosure, they were subject to the whims of the Giants. Out there, while crossing open territory they would subject to many other hazards. Water and ice fell from the sky. There were various vicious predators, including one the General would not forget. He would often recount the tale as a warning to others:
“I felt a blow to my back, a strange warming sensation and then I was unable to move. It was like the nerve agents used by the giants but it was not fatal nor diditI deprive me of consciousness. I felt a strange pressure on my head and then inside my head. The warm sensation was replaced by euphoria and I waited for it to finish me off.
My attacker suddenly disappeared. It may have been snatched by a larger creature or found a more inviting victim.
I lay there for four days and nights. The euphoria lasted for two before the terror set in. I was out in the open and unable to do more than breathe. It was pure luck that I was not discovered by yet another predator before I was finally able to seek cover under some leaves.
From that vantage point, I saw another attack and understood.
A flying creature landed lightly on his back and then stabbed downward with a long spike attached to its abdomen. Like me, he struggled for only a few seconds while the attacker hovered. After that, he was still and it resumed the attack, stabbing the spike into his brain and moving around as if feeling for something. After several long minutes, it withdrew the spike and flew away.
Unlike my encounter, this one returned.
It tore off an appendance and began drinking the victim’s blood. It then led the victim away. I tried to warn him, but I was ignored.
When I recovered enough to move, I followed the trail. I found him buried in a small cave. An empty egg case lay nearby and I could see the hatchling moving inside his still living body. One of his legs twitched and his breathing was ragged as he was consumed from the inside out, unable to escape or even move.
I fled the scene.”
He shook off the memory and focused on the evacuation. He assembled what was left of them. Less then ten percent survived, but it would have to be enough. With a proper breeding program, they would restore their numbers and thrive once again. They gained entry into their new enclosure under a gap around a pipe.
--
They got lucky, or so they thought. These giants were accompanied by smaller giants and the food consumed by the smaller giants was often left scattered about. A single piece, rejected by a smaller giant, could feed many of them for many days.
It wasn’t until days later that they learned the truth: A party scouting for food found a large cylinder with cartoonish images of them on it’s label.
“RAID” it read, “Kills flying insects, ants and roaches.”
“Begin the evacuation at once…” the General commanded.
Why weepest thou?Copyright 2024 by Paula Friedman
For what strange fruit? What strange fruit—of the vine? Of the lips? Be these love? Be truths?
So asks the Sage, turns next to the beloved. “Y thou? Tel'st. A mi. Beloved, vien a mi. So become we one.”
This is the song of another continent, a more ancient, distanced Earth. Here were home comforts yet also the peace that passeth understanding—in the twilit meadow, beneath the great oaks, in the high-spreading boughs of thin firs, in the pines, in the pines. High dry air of sere Sierra, boulders where we climbed—and questioned, “Why weepest thou?”
Questioning, always questioning.
“Such questions as yours (‘as ours’) have no answers; rather, they contain their answers,” spokest she, the Sage. “Knewest thou not?”
I bowed my head, Yes. Yes, I know. For these years of a lifetime, early since young I have known—truths that be found, be contingent, experienced, learned, can each be uncertain, be found as untrue upon this world or that—those truths we may speak of as facts, real and unreal, the counted uncounted, impossible, possibles, all your evidentiary hypotheses.
“True/false, yes!” So I exclaimed, and leaned along beside the footsteps of the one we call the Sage. “Yet Necessary Truths—as of, if not quite ‘God is good,’ yet ‘God is God’ (though not perhaps ‘God Is’), must be (or is it ‘What must be, must be?’) may never be false, for come of no experience but solely of the language, logic, mathematics which embeds them.”
Thus, can there be—dared I ask her? For her eyes, dark, darker than the night undending of the Black-Stars Arc twinning the Arc of the Corteiisi, pierced into my own, and shivered me—mi amo, mi!—lost love, rays piercing me!—Dared I ask her, Sage of our worlds, our words, our wells of depths upon derelict worlds—“May there be, somehow, truth that is necessity (as if built of logic, or as if of fact unshakeable) constructed on or off or deep in seas unbounded of . . . our Earth, our twin, our Universe dissolvent or evolvent), Truth that comes of knowledge founded in, and yet without, Word, Wisdom, World, or Being?”
“Yet--?” She, Sage, starting to smile, responded, prompting me. “And yet--? No. Child, cry ‘No!’ Or do you weep?”
I tried, lying along the green-gold grass beside her, to smile in true return, to laugh with her. Yet could not, in the horror. The horror of it—of this unformed, of this new complete un-word-able. This. This Being/Unbeing non/universe. HER concept--her vision, her substance, perhaps--and not mine.
“Why weepest thou?” The Sage, the Lady whispered. She squeezed my hands, commingled our tears. “Look in my eyes. Look through all eyes. Think in all words--yet none. Beloved, no more weepest thou.”
Yet we could not, together a moment and ever apart, in any single instant set in time (for we are two, one is not two) behold this same, think as this same, become this same and singular knowledge, inseparated love.
Mod
First round votes:
Tom Olbert => Greg
Jot Russell => **Tom
Jeremy Lichtman => Jot, Tom, Paula
Greg Krumrey => **Tom
Paula Friedman => Lichtman, Jot
Winner:
The Invaders by Tom Olbert
Mod
Jot wrote: "That's weird, I posted the congrats thread, but it's not showing now."Indeed. It is showing on my computer now (11:31am PDT).
Element: How the same thing can look fundamentally different depending on one’s point of view