Author: sjan

prompt: Write a story about someone who must fit their entire life in a single suitcase.

available at Reedsy

Time shuddered to a stop, slipped back a few seconds, then started back up. At first, there was a woman in the center of the room clutching a suitcase against her chest, then two of her, interposed on top of and within each other, then none. She left only a hole in the air behind, that filled with a bang and the rustle of papers swept up by the air that rushed to fill the sudden vacuum.

Her arrival was quieter, a soft whoosh as the pressure in the room where she materialized increased a bit. Her heavy, orange, cable-knit sweater and cap, blue jeans, boots, and heavily used suitcase clashed with the sterile environment in which she found herself.

A light breeze from the air handlers nudged the light brown curls of hair that stuck out from beneath the knit cap. Awareness returned to amber eyes edged with crow’s feet in a face the color of dark honey. She relaxed her grip on the suitcase, setting it down as color returned to knuckles that had gone white.

“Welcome home, Christa.” The tenor voice that came through the speaker near the door was mellifluous, though lacking any emotive quality. “We are ensuring that no dangerous pathogens have come with you. You may notice a slight astringent smell. That is an antiseptic, completely harmless.”

“Uh, ok.” Christa looked for a camera near the speaker but didn’t see one. “Hi?” The smell of the antiseptic was so faint as to be unnoticed, had it not been mentioned.

The voice came back over the speaker. “All clear.”

The door opened and a woman in a loose-fitting jumpsuit walked in. Deep brown eyes shone above a bright smile in a pale face with cool undertones. “Are you feeling altogether well?” she asked.

“It was a little weird at first, but I think I’m okay now.”

“Fantastic! I’m Adria, and the voice you heard earlier was Clyde.” Adria stepped closer to Christa.

“Is Clyde an AI?”

Adria laughed. “No, he’s just…different.”

Christa nodded. “Ah. Neurodivergent.”

Adria pursed her lips. “Um, that’s possible. Not sure, though. Can I grab your bag?”

“I’ve got it.” Christa picked up the suitcase, careful to not hold the whole weight with the handle. “It’s falling apart.”

“We can get you a new one. If you prefer, however, I’m sure Clyde could help you repair that one. Some things are precious. I understand.” Adria gestured to the door. “Shall we? I’ll show you to your room.”

The room was furnished the same as the room she’d just left. The desk looked like wood, but didn’t have the same warmth, the mattress on the bed was firmer than the lumpy one she’d left behind, the blankets softer and lighter.

In the closet hung more than half a dozen jumpsuits like the one Adria wore. Christa removed her boots and found the carpet to be softer and more inviting than what she’d left behind.

“We tried to recreate your room to the best of our abilities. If you want to change anything, feel free. If you need anything just let us know.” Adria gestured toward a door on the opposite side of the room. “There’s a washroom and shower through there. Get some rest, and when you feel up to it, put on a uniform and join us in the galley. Just follow the signs in the hallway.”

Christa showered, discovered underclothes in the drawers of the desk, the same place she’d kept them in her original room, and put on one of the soft jumpsuits. She felt a wave of déjà vu in the fit of it.

The woman in the mirror was familiar, if older than she felt. Besides the crow’s feet around her eyes, the absence of the knit cap left the grey around her temples visible, and the beginnings of permanent wrinkles on her forehead.

She sighed and turned to leave when a knock came at her door. “It’s open, come in,” she said.

A small man with deep brown skin, close-cropped, curly, black hair, and striking green eyes entered. “Hello, Christa,” he said in the dulcet, but emotionless tenor she’d heard earlier.

On a second look, she noticed that part of his head was covered with a metal plate that had some sort of port in the middle. “Oh, hi. You must be Clyde?”

“Yes, I am Clyde,” he said. “It is pleasant to make your acquaintance. I have heard much about you, with the larger proportion being positive.”

“That’s uh, good? I guess.”

“It is a positive position for us to be in,” Clyde said. “This would normally be Adria’s duty, but she is busy with other things. Can you show me what you brought with you and tell me about your life before your other memories cloud the details?”

“Other memories?” she asked.

“I should not have mentioned that,” he said. “Please show me what you brought with you.”

Christa opened the suitcase then paused. She pointed at the cable-knit sweater and matching cap. “Those are the last things my mother knitted before she passed.” She chuckled even as tears filled her eyes.

“I hated orange, but she always wanted me to wear it. ‘It looks so good on you,’ she’d say. Anyway, I wore them every time I visited her in the hospital. Now, I wear it to remember her smile.”

Clyde nodded. “What else?”

She lifted out a dog-eared paperback. “My favorite book. I’ve read it thirty or more times.” She carefully unwrapped a padding of pillow-filling, in which rested a porcelain figurine which she set in place of pride on the desk.

“This was a gift from my grandmother on my tenth birthday. She’d gotten it new when she was ten.”

After that came a photo album with a worn spine. “130 years of photos of my family in there.” Beneath that was a charger and a tablet. “It’s probably not going to last the rest of my life, but there are three hundred books and four thousand songs in here.”

The unpacking continued, a collar from a long-gone, furry friend, a stuffed toy from infancy, a knitted scarf in alpaca, a favorite sleep shirt, her diplomas, and dozens of trinkets from fifty-eight years of life, condensed into a single suitcase.

When she finished emptying the suitcase and putting everything in its place, she said, “It all seems so trivial. Even this suitcase, which my mother used when she first moved out of my grandmother’s house.”

“Nothing is trivial when it comes to your pre-agency life.” Clyde’s eyes closed for a moment then opened wide. “Adria is waiting for us in the galley. It is time for your induction into the Temporal Anomaly Agency, which will be your physical re-vitalization, memory unlocking, and agency training memory upload.”

Christa took a deep breath and blew it out. “Okay, let’s do this.”

As they walked to the galley, Clyde asked, “Why did you accept the invitation to join the agency?”

Christa shrugged. “I’m the last of my family and was unable to have kids. I’ve got a doctorate in Physics that got me jobs from flipping burgers to doing data analysis for a Wall Street firm to make rich people richer, with no hope for retirement. My life never went anywhere important.”

“That is a logical assessment.”

She stopped and looked at Clyde. “Wait. What was it you were talking about ‘other memories’ earlier?”

“You were first approached about joining the agency one year after earning your doctorate and agreed then. That meeting, and the subsequent meetings and check-ups were blocked from your memory in order to not impact the rest of your life. We find that most who agree once when they are young, are still accepting decades later.”

“And if I hadn’t agreed?”

Clyde looked at her. “That is unknown. All we know is that you were listed as missing two days after you were transported to this time and never found. Perhaps you would have gone on to live under an alias somewhere else, or perhaps you would have been abducted and killed and your body never found.”

“That’s a little dark, Clyde.” Christa chuckled in spite of it and resumed walking to the galley with him.

“It is simply a logical conclusion for a person who went missing in in the vicinity of three known serial killers who were active at that same time.”

“Known serial killers?” she asked.

“One was suspected at the time you left, one was not known until months later, and the third only came to light six years later.” Despite the subject, his voice maintained the same fluid tone and flat affect.

“Were you always like this?” she asked.

“Like what?”

“So…unemotional.”

“I am unaware of whether I was or not,” he said, “but since my injury on an assignment in 1543, I have lost the urge to sing.”

“I’m sorry, that sounds awful.” Christa patted his shoulder.

“It’s just as well,” Adria said as they entered the galley. “I got tired of hearing the same songs over and over.” She handed Christa a drink.

“Oh? How many songs do you know? Three? Five?” Christa asked before drinking the cool, sweet beverage.

“972,” Clyde answered.

“That’s….” Christa shook her head. “How long have you two been doing this?”

“711 years, our relative time,” Clyde answered.

“You’re over 700 years old?!”

“That is just the time we have worked together. Prior to that, I was with another team for 309 relative years,” Clyde said. “I am unsure of my actual age, but I have rejuvenated fifty-one times.”

“Seventy-four for me,” Adria said. “I stopped counting years around the twentieth rejuve. If you’re curious, that drink is your rejuvenation dose. Over the next few hours, it’ll feel like a fever, then you’re in for a couple rough days. After that, you’ll look and feel like you’re in your early twenties again.”

 “How far in the future are we?” Christa asked.

“Oh, we’re not. We’re in the current, the now. The point where at which we are unable to travel forward any faster than just waiting for tomorrow.” Adria grinned. “But if you’re wondering what the year would be in your calendar, it’s 4319, if I remember correctly.”

“I think there’s some physics I might be missing,” Christa said. “Is that part of the agent training that gets uploaded to my brain?”

“We figured out a couple hundred years ago that complex topics like that don’t work well for neural uploading,” Adria said, “but if you want to learn it, you’ll have time.”

“We learned that 184 years ago, in 2213 Post Singularity,” Clyde said, “in the Jiang and Carter study.”

“Post Singularity? As in uploading our consciousness to computers?” Christa asked.

“That, and a lot more.” Adria pointed at the glass. “Finish that up and we’ll get you caught up as much as we can before your rejuvenation kicks in.”

“I want to see it all,” Christa said, downing the rest of the drink. “Let’s get started.”

prompt: Write a story with a character or the narrator saying “I remember…”

The prompt further states:
Our official contest guidelines are still 1,000 to 3,000 words per story, but we hope to see more stories than usual embracing the concise spirit of flash fiction. Return to a time of cultural maximalism — while keeping your word count to a minimum.

word count: 1000

available at Reedsy

“I remember….” The grizzled veteran rubbed the white fur along her muzzle, tracing the path of a scar with a clawed hand missing two digits. “I was a young lieutenant then; thought I knew everything.”

“Grenan, don’t start getting maudlin now.” Next to the warrior covered in white and grey fur sat another bipedal tetrapod. The similarities ended there, however. 

Grenan stood over two meters with clawed hands that better served slashing than grasping, a muzzle that extended the size of both her mouth and nose, large, low-set ears that hung above sloped shoulders, and large, gold-rimmed eyes that were almost entirely pupil. The woman next to her, though, was one-and-a-half meters tall, brown eyes surrounded with visible, white sclera, an orthognathic rather than prognathic face, long, straight, dark brown hair with streaks of grey above golden-brown skin, and slender hands with grasping fingers capped with nails that served only as protection for the nailbed.

“Do you even listen to yourself?” Grenan gulped down her drink and signaled for a refill. “Determined to be the shining daystar always, Mei? Do I need to remind you that life is not always light and happiness?”

Mei downed her shot and rapped the empty glass against both of her prosthetic legs. “Nope, I’ve got plenty of reminders. But tonight isn’t about getting all weepy, you hear me?”

“What’s it about then?” Grenan took her refilled cup and sipped. “You call me and say rush down here to meet you at the bar and then ask if I remember when we met.”

“Well, I promised you something then, before we were so rudely interrupted by the war.” Mei chuckled at some internal joke.

“We met just in time to become siblings in arms,” the big veteran said.

“Not often a training exercise gets skipped for jumping into the shit, but god damn if I would want any other unit by my side in combat.”

Grenan sniffed on instinct and knew that Mei was hiding something she considered good. “I don’t like surprises.”

“Between your sniffer and how well you know me, it doesn’t matter what happens, it won’t be much of a surprise.” Mei picked up her chaser and took a swig of the cold beer.

Grenan looked down to where she could smell the plastics and electronics of Mei’s legs and guilt washed over her. Mei had never assigned blame, but Grenan blamed herself and had never been able to forgive herself.

Mei laid a gentle hand on the sloped shoulder of her furred friend. “Hey, Gren, it’s not your fault. Please, stop blaming yourself.”

“My brain knows,” Grenan said, “but I still feel guilty about it. If I hadn’t turned the safeties off—”

“We’d both be dead,” Mei cut her off. “You did exactly what you were meant to in the situation. If I’d been in proper uniform….”

“What? You’ve never mentioned that. But what does it have to do with anything?”

Mei let out an exaggerated sigh. “In the six years before the…,” she knocked her knuckles against her leg, “ …before this, how many times did you beat me to battle stations? In all the drills and actual emergencies, how many times?”

“Well, I… just that time.”

“Exactly.” Mei smiled. “I’d been dangling my bare feet in the hydroponics pond. I figured having my boots in hand was close enough to in uniform.

“When the alarm went off, I knew it wasn’t a drill. I shoved my wet feet into my boots and took off for stations. Just before the hull was breached, I stepped on my loose shoelace and face planted. I was just lucky that all my important bits were on the safe side of the blast door when it dropped.”

“Mei, it wasn’t your fault, it was—”

“A stupid accident caused by me not being in proper uniform in an unsafe area.” Mei smiled. “I’m over it, and I’ve had these prostheses longer than I had legs.”

“If anyone had known the whole story, you would’ve been called ‘Laces’ instead of ’Stumpy.’ Or would that have been even more cruel?” Grenan asked.

“Eh, if your nickname isn’t at least a little cruel or embarrassing, then your comrades don’t like you. It’s still better than—”

“Hershey,” Grenan cut her off. “When you explained what the name meant I thought maybe everyone hated him, but he seemed to take it in stride.”

“Well, yeah. He probably still wished he had a better nickname already. Still, when you’re piloting a fighter mid-combat, a stomach bug strikes and you fill your flight suit, you gotta’ know a name’s coming.” Mei snorted. “I talked to him at Whitman’s memorial. He’s still not retired; running the new pilot training program.”

“Oh, Whitman…. If Whitman hadn’t been on station, you wouldn’t have made it.” Grenan raised her glass. “To Marcus ‘Aftershock’ Whitman, may he rest in peace.”

Mei touched her glass to Grenan’s. “To Doc Aftershock.” She took a sip, then asked, “Now that he’s gone, are you allowed to tell me why that became his nickname?”

Grenan’s lip raised above her needle-like teeth, her species’ equivalent of a smile. “After he put the tourniquets on, pumped you full of synth-blood, and put you into a medically induced coma, he took care of you until you were in pre-op on the hospital ship.

“For eleven hours, he was calm, efficient, and meticulous. After he handed you off to the surgical team, and was no longer responsible, he began to shake. He couldn’t stop shaking for hours, breaking into gasping sobs every few minutes. He kept it cool until he didn’t have to, then went into shock. Aftershock.”

“What about you?” Mei asked. “How did you handle it?”

“When Whitman told me not to look, I didn’t. I didn’t see you until after you came out of surgery. Cowardly, huh?”

“Nah, smart.” Mei stood. “I once promised you a human-style birthday party, now you’ve got one at your house to get to. Pretend to be surprised.”

prompt: Write a story about two characters who surprisingly end up spending a holiday or event together.

available at Reedsy

The woman who piloted the ship was in her mid-thirties, close to two meters tall, with broad, strong features, jet hair, deep brown eyes, and warm, golden-brown skin. Despite being human, the ship she piloted was of a sort no other human had ever seen. Sleek, with no visible seams or joins, no hint of door or portal, it tore its way across light years through an artificial wormhole.

#

The woman who watched the customers coming and going from the cafe was fifty-four, 149 centimeters tall, with soft features in a pale, ivory face. Salt and pepper curls were carefully styled above pale, blue eyes. The plate in front of her sat half-finished, while she nursed her coffee. “It’s bullshit, you know,” she said.

The young waiter raised the coffee pot in question and his eyebrows in surprise. “What?”

“You asked how Reeve’s Day was going for me. I just said it’s bullshit.” She moved her coffee cup over to hint at a refill. “Instead of celebrating Howard Reeve’s birthday, we should be celebrating ‘Kahananui Day’ instead.”

He refilled her cup, no room for cream or sugar as she’d indicated on his first round. “What’s that?”

“Patricia Kahananui. She’s the technician that picked up the signal and convinced Captain Reeve to investigate.” She took the refilled cup and wrapped her hands around it as if to warm them. “It’s really too sad nobody remembers her sacrifice.”

“Did she — I mean, um — what happened to her?”

“She readied a relativistic probe to send toward the signal. Not that anyone on the ship would live long enough to see what the response would be, but they were going to send it anyway.” She took a sip of her coffee.

“Then what happened?”

“The official story is that she climbed into the probe to make some sort of adjustment, and there was a communications error. Whether that’s true or not, she was in the probe when it launched at a steady three gees acceleration for the next year according to the probe’s time, with another year of three gee reverse acceleration. And a theoretical maximum of twenty hours oxygen on board.”

“Oh.” The waiter seemed at a loss for words, mumbled an apology and moved on.

The alien ship exited the wormhole that closed behind it. One second there was nothing there, then a bright flash and a strange ship in low Earth orbit. The pilot waved her hand and lights on the smooth console shifted and flashed. She piloted this ship with subtle gestures, landing in the grassy patch behind a cafe. The ship set down amidst wildflowers and gawking stares of passersby.

#

The pilot exited a door that seemed to materialize from the smooth side of the ship. She walked into the cafe and looked at the crowd. There were a few stools at the bar, but all the tables were occupied, one by only one woman. She made a beeline for that table, and asked the woman there, “May I sit here?”

“Sure. You look familiar.”

The pilot sat. “I do?”

The woman across the table from her nodded. “You from around here?”

The pilot smirked. “Yeah, but — that was a long time ago.”

“Sorry,” the woman said, setting down her coffee and extending a hand to shake. “Myra Jenkins.”

The pilot shook Myra’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Myra. Pat Kahananui.”

Myra laughed. “Right, right. Did the waiter put you up to this?”

“Who?”

Just then, the waiter came back to the table. “Would you like to order, ma’am?” he asked Pat.

“Three eggs, over easy, steak, rare, whole-wheat toast with lots of butter, and a pot of coffee, please,” she answered.

Myra eyed the pilot with suspicion until the waiter had poured her coffee and left. “Really, what’s your name?”

“Pat Kahananui. Patricia, actually, but I don’t go by that.”

“You were named after the technician?”

“No, I was named after my mother’s neighbor, but I am — or was — a technician on a research vessel.”

“Which one?”

“UHS Aurum.”

“While I appreciate the attempt at humor, Reeve’s Day pisses me off enough. Seriously, now who—”

“Reeve’s Day? What’s that?”

“Birthday of Captain Howard Reeve,” Myra said with a sneer.

“Why does he get a day?”

“My thoughts exactly.” Myra raised her coffee cup in salute and took another sip.

“I’m serious. Wait, what year is it?”

“What year? It’s 572.”

“Shit,” Pat muttered. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t consider the relativistic effects of my little joy ride.”

“Your what?”

“It’s been long enough that it should all be declassified by now. Alien signals from hundreds of light-years away, then signals from far closer. I picked up on them, then convinced Howie to send a probe. He didn’t know I aimed it at the closer signal and packed enough oxygen and CO2 scrubbers to last me for a few days. I snuck in with the hope that the aliens would pick me up, and they did.” She stopped briefly, as the waiter delivered her heaping plate of food. “Of course, he wouldn’t know about that part.”

“The un-redacted story was the same as the official one. You crawled in to make an adjustment at the last minute, and there was a communications error that was undetected until after you’d launched. It was classified as an accident.”

“Huh,” Pat said. “I guess Howie didn’t want that on his record. I left him a note and told him he could declare me insane if he wanted.”

“Yeah, well, the official story is always just that. Anyway, relativistic effects would account for why you look so good for a hundred and seventeen, but if your story is true, how did you get back?”

Pat removed a disk from her jumpsuit and placed it on the table. “Security view of the Arrow, please.”

A holographic image of the sleek ship parked behind the cafe filled the air between the women. The crowd around it took pictures and video, and at least two law enforcement officers were on-scene trying to maintain order.

“You—you’re really her!”

“I’m, uh, just me,” Pat said around a mouthful of steak and eggs. “God, I missed this so much.”

“So, how come it took so long? Was it tens of light-years away?” Myra asked.

“Oh, no. The relativistic effects were entirely from the probe, and the fact that I aimed for the signal, which had been deflected around a black hole. When the aliens finally picked me up after three days, I don’t know how long that had been.”

Pat sipped at the coffee, savoring it with a soft hum. “I spent about ten years on their planet — learned their language, their version of calculus, and the physics of artificial worm-hole generation, and spent the last year building the Arrow — then took off for home three hours ago and got here just before I walked in. So, rough guess, I spent eighty-seven years your time around that damned black hole.”

“Three hours? So, they’re somewhere close?” Myra asked.

“Six-hundred-five light years away, give or take.”

“In three hours?”

“Wormhole.”

“And no relativistic effects from travel in the wormhole?”

“Negligible. About the same as the difference between being on Earth and being in orbit.”

Myra shifted in her seat, pushing her half-emptied plate to the end of the table. “You brought back the physics of faster-than-light travel, and a working prototype? Now, maybe they’ll listen and give you your own day.”

“Don’t want it. But if today is Howie’s birthday, it’s the twenty-eighth of December?”

“No, that was Saturday, but the holiday is always the Monday nearest. It’s the thirtieth.”

Pat ate three quarters of her meal before slowing down. “You never answered me, though.”

“Answered what?”

“Why did Howie get his own day?”

“Using the signal you picked up, he came up with a way to compress data for transmission. At first, it was just used for space exploration, but in time, it was applied to everything, everywhere. The one that gets trotted out the most is that stock trades happen in less than one percent of the time they used to take. Like gambling in nanoseconds is something to cheer.”

Pat looked at the small woman across from her. “What do you do?”

Myra sighed. “I teach middle school science. Not my first choice, but options for astrophysicists have been limited lately.”

A smile crossed Pat’s face. “Wanna take a ride in my ship? We can swing by Jupiter for a bit, then we’ll go set down at JPL and see if they have an opening.” She laid a hundred-year-old fifty-dollar bill on the table.

“That won’t work,” Myra said. She pulled out some North American Credits and laid them on the table. “I got your bill, in exchange for a ride.”

prompt: Write a story that starts and ends in the same place.

available at Reedsy

In the time before the devouring horde, humanity, thinking themselves alone, stretched out among the stars. They made barren worlds habitable, and in generations turned them into paradises. There was no part of the galaxy they considered off-limits.

When the first unmistakable, non-human, artificial signal caught their attention, humanity celebrated. They were no longer alone. While humans were still trying to work out how to respond, They showed up.

Hundreds of thousands of ships, joined together into a traveling city the size of a moon, materialized in a system where humans populated three planets and eight moons. Instead of attempts to communicate, the city broke apart into its constituent ships.

Like a swarm, the ships descended on the planets and moons. Large, rectangular processor ships hung in the sky above the descender ships.

Smaller cubic ships, a kilometer long on each side, headed to the ground and stripped everything they found. Any lifeforms they encountered stood no chance, whether plant, fungus, or animal, megafauna or bacteria. It didn’t matter to the machines that landed, burrowed down half a kilometer into the crust, then returned to the  processor, leaving behind a square crater. The processor ships handled nearly a thousand descenders every second, converting more than six hundred billion kilograms of material into waste. Everything from the descenders they didn’t keep, came out the back of the processor as a fine, dry powder that circled in the upper atmosphere, blocking out the light of the local star.

That was just the first of hundreds of systems the devouring horde stripped bare. Humanity scrambled to fight back. Every ship they destroyed was replaced in a matter of days and did little to slow the advance of the horde. Knowing what sort of signals to look for, humanity found the traveling city to be the only source of the signals, which made it possible to track their movements as they moved ever closer to humanity’s cradle.

The fastest ship in all of the human fleets was the Bonny Marie, said to be able to open a warp space so rapidly, and reaching so far across the stars, as to make reality weep. A converted heavy cargo ship, most of her cargo space taken up with her massive warp engines, she wasn’t as sightly as her name would suggest. Still, she was the only ship to ever pull warp from within a mere  handful of kilometers from the event horizon of a black hole. She was also the only ship ever to make it into, and back out of, the horde’s city of connected ships.

Still, even with her lightning-fast strikes, any damage the Bonny Marie did to the horde was like trying to empty an ocean with a coffee mug. That didn’t stop her crew from trying, though. With over a hundred landers and two processors confirmed destroyed, they harassed the horde from system to system. It was when the horde was closing in on Sol that the crew decided they needed to do something drastic.

Despite most of her cargo area being filled with the most overpowered engines, the Bonny Marie had more space yet to give. In humanity’s darkest hour, every available centimeter of her space was filled with multi-gigaton, three-stage hydrogen bombs. To this day, no one knows where they came from or how many there were. Some say they carried nine, others say thirteen, others say fifteen. However, all reports agree that they were all twelve gigaton yield, installed without the shielding due to space constraints, and all attached to a single trigger for concurrent detonation.

The Bonny Marie was waiting for the horde when they phased into the Sol system near Mars. They said their goodbyes to each other and warped into the structure of the devouring horde. At the center of the conglomeration was a massive pile of ore dust.

The captain gave his orders, the pilot took aim, the ship’s engines shuddered, and the Bonny Marie rammed into the pile of ore, triggering the fusion bombs. The flash of the initial fireball was visible on Earth, the fine dust ore that was not vaporized turned into radioactive shrapnel. Tens of thousands of the horde ships were destroyed in the initial blast, with tens of thousands more rendered inoperable as a result of either the EMP emitted by the blast or by heat and radiation.

It was still too little, too late for Mars, Luna, and Earth, although the weakened horde was slowed, allowing the evacuation of those bodies to continue for many months. It was only after the horde had stripped those bodies and left them in a cloud of the dust of their upper crust that the real damage the nukes had done became obvious.

The new ships they churned out from the irradiated ore failed often, some not even making their first flight from the traveling city. When the horde rejoined the city, almost back to full strength and emitting megacuries of gamma and alpha radiation, they attempted to use their phase-space propulsion to travel to the next system.

 Instead, a ripple washed over the horde city at the speed of light, barely perceptible. Behind it, the ships it had passed over exploded violently. Their cores were vaporized and the remnants ranged in size from the finest dust to small pieces less than two centimeters in diameter. For the second time, a calamity of the horde was visible from Earth, or would have been if there had been anyone there to see it, and they could see through the dust that blotted out the sun.

The remaining humans, listening for the sounds of the horde transmissions, heard silence for the first time in nearly two decades. Earth was wiped bare, but humanity had survived and destroyed the horde, the remnants of which have slowly spread out into a faint ring around the planet.

All the survivors have joined together again, and now we find no other signals. It is time for humanity to build new homes, new paradises for our children’s children. Alone again, we will spread out among the stars in our new ships that use the phase drives we learned from analyzing the horde.

It is with the greatest of honor that I christen humanity’s new flagship, the Bonny Marie 2. May she lead us to the stars and our uncertain, but promising, future.

#

Speech by Admiral Marisol Cortez on the christening of the Bonny Marie 2, flagship of the Human Colonization Fleet.

prompt: Write about a mysterious guest who arrives at a party — but no one knows who they are.

available at Reedsy

A great deal can be learned about a person by who they surround themselves with. The crowds at their parties show what kind of person they aspire to be. Their funeral crowd shows what kind of person they were.

When a gathering of the latter sort turns into the former, well, that’s just good wake planning. Of course, it helped that the deceased was well-loved by the sort of people who could subsume their grief long enough to celebrate the life they’d shared. The intoxicants probably helped, too. Probably more than anything else, if judged solely by the rate at which they were consumed at the wake.

It was into this intoxicated haze of laughter and tears, mirth and grief, and longing and fond remembrance that the stranger inserted themself. There were people from various parts of the life of Professor Jackson “Doc J” Washington, PhD. Students and colleagues from the university where he taught philosophy and comparative religion met leaders and members of local churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, groves, and covens. Current members and former graduates of the half-dozen programs for disadvantaged youths he founded got the opportunity to meet his family and friends.

His modest house was far too small for such a gathering, so it was fittingly held at the newly named Jackson Washington Community Center in his neighborhood. In the spacious multi-use room, the stranger moved from group to group. In some cases, they stood and listened, gleaning what they could about Doc J’s life. Other times, they asked for stories that the speaker would consider exemplified the professor’s true nature.

The conversations swirled around the room, weaving an intricate tapestry of a long life, well-lived.

“I was in the South City Youth Sports League all through grade school, middle school, and high school. When I was trying to figure out what I was going to do after graduation, he asked what university I was going to. When I told him I probably wouldn’t be able to, he took the time to help me apply for scholarships and hired me in the League as a coach and mentor.”

The life of a fighter for the rights and dignities of others.

“…the time he brought an entire high school orchestra to the state house and had them perform on the house floor before the vote on cutting funding for extracurriculars.”

A man who went out of his way to help those less fortunate.

“…he showed up to the black-tie faculty dinner in sweats because he’d spent the entire day helping the family of one of the community center kids move out of the shelter into a new apartment. They didn’t know he was the one that paid the deposits to get the utilities turned on.”

A man who could see beyond his own preconceived notions and experience the viewpoint of others.

“…and after defending Aquinas, he turned around in the next debate and ripped every one of those arguments apart.”

The life of someone who took personal risks.

“…but the fact that he testified after the death threats was the key that got that slumlord locked up for reckless endangerment and criminal threat.”

The life of someone who found joy in teaching, even when not teaching.

“…a shot for every logical fallacy. We got so drunk before they were even halfway through the debate.”

There was a conversation that caught the stranger’s attention. They focused in on it, lest they miss anything.

“I know I’m not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but….”

“But what?”

“That bastard should be here. He’d turn this party up to eleven!” The speaker broke down into heaving sobs. “I miss him so fucking much!”

A man who was deeply missed.

The stranger moved away to watch interactions as people began to move between the groups. They watched an imam in a lively but friendly conversation with a young woman wearing a pride badge. In one part of the room, one of the professor’s former colleagues seemed to be giving advice to a young man from the community center, who seemed to hang on her every word.

The professor’s wife stood on one of the tables and clinked a spoon against her glass. “I would like to say something.”

The room grew quiet, and the stranger watched in anticipation.

“J used to call himself a ‘theistic atheist or atheistic theist.’ While that is just the sort of logical oxymoron he loved, he explained it as, ‘I don’t believe in a higher power because of any rational or logical reasoning, but from a combination of childhood indoctrination, societal pressure, and wishful thinking. In other words, I like to think there might be a god or gods.’” She laughed and wiped a tear from her face.

A man who valued intellectual honesty above all.

“While I don’t believe myself, if anyone deserves an eternal afterlife in some heaven or other, it’s J.” She raised her glass. “To J!”

The crowd responded in kind, repeating the toast, “To J!”

“The life of a man who was deeply loved,” the stranger said to themself.

The stranger stepped out of the room and walked through a door on the far side of the hallway that disappeared behind them. They stepped into a liminal space, an endless plane of grey with an omnidirectional grey light. They looked at the man standing in the space. “Tell me, Jackson Washington, what you think you deserve in your afterlife.”

Dr. J rubbed his chin. “That’s hard to say. Based on which criteria?”

“Your own.”

“Well, as a rational, thinking being, I know it should be whatever is best for the most people and does the least harm. As a selfish being, however, I would prefer the lack of suffering and presence of pleasure or joy.”

The stranger’s form changed, from a nondescript, short, slight person to that of a pulsing light. “In that case, I have a proposal.”

“What proposal is that?”

“While this is not, perhaps, the afterlife you envisioned, your entire intellect, personality, and sense of self, have been uploaded into one of our devices. We are offering you a virtual existence where you will continue to be, and in turn, you will be tasked to teach us your philosophies and religions.”

“I’m in a simulation?” he asked.

“You will be. This space is not a simulation, per se, but an evaluation space.” The stranger dimmed and brightened as it spoke.

“Who, then, are you?”

The stranger changed shape again and looked like one of the aliens known as “grey” in the UFO community. “We are from another world,” they said. “We don’t look like this, but this is what your brain perceives as ‘aliens from space’ so, that is the visualization I will use.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to show me your true self?”

The stranger morphed into indescribable colors and non-Euclidean shapes that Dr. J was certain would give him a headache, if he still had a physical head. He removed his glasses and realized that didn’t help — or hurt — his eyesight.

Depending on which way he turned or tilted his head, the stranger’s shape morphed and changed in ways that defied what he knew of physics. After a few moments of that, Dr. J chuckled. “Okay, maybe the little grey alien is better. At least then I know where to look when I’m talking to you.”

The stranger changed back. “Have you considered the offer? If you wish, we will turn you off and erase your data from this device. I, however, am hopeful that you will accept, because I believe that we can learn a lot from you before we attempt full contact with humanity.”

Dr. J thought for a moment. “You know what? I’ll say yes — for now. As long as I have your assurance that if I change my mind, you’ll let me go.”

“Certainly.”

“How long will it take us to reach your world?”

“We’re already there.” The alien stranger nodded as the endless plane turned into a park-like setting. “Being creatures that exist in five, rather than just four, dimensions, we can easily fold spacetime to simply step from one place and time to another.”

“That’s some impressive power.” Dr. J sat on the lavender grass-like ground covering. “How are using that power to effect change for the better?”

The stranger joined him on the ground. “Beginning to teach already? I’m ready.”

prompt: Write a story that solely consists of dialogue. (No dialogue tags, actions, or descriptions. Just pure dialogue!)

available at Reedsy

“They sent a juvie. A freshly molted breeder.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. He even introduced himself as a male.”

“Hmm. He might be a breeder, but maybe they have male drones. Have you thought of that?”

“Well, no. I guess they could. But still….”

“What?”

“I mean, well, he’s all squishy. His carapace hasn’t hardened, and he molts it and grows a new one every day, sometimes twice or three times in a day.”

“Clothes. You’re talking about clothes. Did you even read the information packet?”

“I read it! I mean, sort of. … I skimmed through it … this morning.”

“Look here, in the packet, it says they put on clothes, coverings of cloth. It even says not to be alarmed if their coverings are changed multiple times in a single day.”

“Oh. But why?”

“Why? Because we’re supposed to have at least some idea of the ambassador we’re meant to work with.”

“No, I mean, why do they cover themselves with cloth?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been through the packet, but that part isn’t clear. I think it might be a religious thing.”

“They have religion?!”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t know. I just thought that was an us thing. Besides, he’s a male. What would he need religion for?”

“Probably a drone, remember?”

“Yeah, I mean…. They’re just… weird, in a not good way.”

“Since you’ve seen him, tell me, what does he look like?”

“Ugh! Just, gross. I mean, a freshly molted drone or breeder is, you know, whatever, but he’s just disgusting.”

“You’re not explaining anything, and you’ve never seen a breeder, much less a freshly molted one.”

“Yes, I have. I used to work in the nursery with my clutch sisters.”

“I didn’t know that. Still, you haven’t described anything.”

“Okay. He’s got limbs for grasping and manipulating, and limbs for locomotion.”

“Yeah, so does everyone.”

“Separate. Limbs.”

“He can only grab things from one end and walk on the other? Or do they alternate?”

“No. I mean, imagine a grub. Now put it on end, with the head at the top. Then split the bottom third into two walking limbs and stick two grasping limbs on opposite sides of the thorax.”

“What about the other limbs?”

“That’s it.”

“Now you’re telling lies. The best circus performers can walk on three limbs…barely. It takes incredible strength and balance, but you’re saying they walk on just two.”

“All. The. Time.”

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

“I mean, I wish I was. I kept seeing him in my nightmare.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah. Looking right at me with those two eyes.”

“Which two?”

“The only two he has!”

“Wait, four limbs, two eyes? Does he have a single antenna or something as well?”

“No antennae.”

“No…what in the name of the Great Mother?!”

“Well, I mean, I don’t think so, unless all the stuff on top of his head is millions of tiny antennae.”

“Ugh. Why did the Empress Mother agree to talks with these disgusting things? I mean, they can’t even emote without antennae.”

“I don’t know. I think they emote with their face.”

“What, like mandibles wide open in surprise or something?”

“No mandibles.”

“But how do they—”

“They have squishy faces that move around, and bits of bone behind soft, fleshy things around their mouth.”

“Bone?”

“I’m sure that’s what they are. I mean, he bared them at everyone he met. It’s like bits of their endoskeleton are sticking out inside their mouth.”

“You saw the inside of his mouth? How intimate! How did you stand being that close to him?”

“No, no, it’s not like that. With no mandibles to hide it, and with how big his mouth is, you can’t help but see inside when he talks.”

“Oof. Just stop. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“I mean, I almost lost my meal when I saw him yesterday, but that’s okay. I’ll stop talking about him.”

“Please do. I’m terrified of having to work with him now.”

“I mean, you could always ask for a transfer.”

“The Empress Mother would feed us both to the grubs.”

“Yeah. Especially since she’s been busy with her new breeders. I mean, she’s got thousands of soldiers in this clutch.”

“Along with twenty or thirty thousand drones.”

“Oh! There’s a new queen in the latest clutch!”

“You listen to too many unsubstantiated rumors.”

“Two of my clutch sisters still work in the nursery. They said the queen grub is twice as fat as any of the others. They had to move her away from the soldier and drone grubs, since she’s so fat she can’t move or even eat without help.”

“Aww, she sounds so cute!”

“Did you want to see a picture?”

“How did you get—?”

“Clutch sisters in the nursery. Take a look.”

“Oh, Great Mother, she’s so cute I can’t stand it.”

“Look, look! You can already see all twelve eyes.”

“I think I may faint from how adorable she is.”

“Isn’t she just, though?”

“Quick, put it away, I hear someone coming.”

“Done.”

“Wait, is that…?”

“Oh, Mother, it is. Act like you didn’t see him.”

“Too late. What is he doing?”

“He’s showing his mouth bones and wagging a grasping limb at us.”

“Doing what?”

“He calls it waving. Just do it back.”

“He’s showing more of his mouth bones. Do I have to keep looking at him?”

“I think we’re okay to look away now. It seems like he’s in a hurry to go somewhere.”

“Thank the Great Mother! It looks like he’s going to fall over at any second. It’s giving me vertigo.”

“Now you see what I mean by weird, and not in a good way?”

“I do. That’s disturbing. Huh, do you smell that?”

“Fruit, but I’m not sure what kind. I mean, mixed fruit for soldier meals, maybe?”

“Maybe, but they wouldn’t be carrying it anywhere near here.”

“Don’t look up. He’s coming back.”

“Too late. He’s wagging his limb again. What is he carrying?”

“I mean, looks strange, but smells sweet.”

“Howdy, ladies! I’m Steve, the new ambassador from Earth. Y’all are pretty. You remind me of my red-knee —. I heard y’all like fruit, and want you to have these — from the tree I brought with me.”

“I… uh, thank you.”

“Got to run. See you ladies tomorrow morning!”

“Did you understand what he said?”

“With that accent? Not even close. I mean, where’s the translator?”

“There were a couple words I didn’t catch. He called us pretty, said we look like some red-kneed something or other, and gave us these fruits he grows on a tree that he brought with him.”

“I can’t help it, I have to try this. I mean, it’s so….”

“Wow, this is lovely. You know, even though he looks a little, disgusting, I think I could get used to this.”

“I mean, maybe he’s not that disgusting after all.”

prompt: Write a story about someone confronting their worst nightmare.

available at Reedsy

The katakat law officer, like others of her kind, stood just over four feet tall, fine-boned and slender. Covered as they were in green and yellow feathers with a red beak and large eyes set to either side of their head, humans tended to call them ‘parakeets’, ‘keets’ for short.

Unlike their nickname sakes, however, katakats had arms ending in hands with disturbingly long fingers. The officer’s fingers at that moment twirled a set of dull grey cuffs. While she puffed up her chest to appear in control of the situation, those fingers trembled and the feathers on her neck stood out in alarm.

She was to arrest a human. One of those dangerous apes from a remote arm of the galaxy. This was the day she dreaded might come and hoped to never have to live to see. She’d never met one of them, but she knew they were larger, heavier boned, densely muscled creatures with predatory eyes and diet. The stories she never hoped to verify terrified her.

Living up to their reputation as blood-thirsty savages, this one had claimed an emergency and docked at the station in a ship bristling with weapons. Carried within, the ship held a quantity of explosives that, if set off, would vaporize the ship and a huge portion of the station with it.

The pilot stood next to his vehicle. He was grimy, with oil and grease stains on his jumpsuit, boots, hands, and face. Slung across his shoulder was an emergency oxygen tank, now depleted as evidenced by the open valve and no sound of gas escaping the mask that hung from his neck. Whether it was a real emergency or manufactured to gain access to the station would be determined by the investigators.

“Pilot Silas Roberts,” she said, challenging the beast of a man in front of her, “I am placing you under arrest for the transport of dangerous goods to a civilian station.”

“I figured as much,” he said. He turned his back to her and put his hands behind his back. “I won’t fight it. I don’t bite … unless you ask nicely.”

The cuffs barely closed around the large wrists of the man. Her sensitive fingers felt the rough texture of his hands, as though humans had built-in work gloves. The solidity and weight of his limbs caught her full attention. She hoped the cuffs would hold. Maybe there was something sturdier in the station’s garrison.

“Ma’am,” he said, “if you wouldn’t mind, what’s your name?”

“Officer Takara,” she said. “Follow the yellow lights on the floor. We’re going to the garrison. Don’t try anything. I’m armed and not afraid to use it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Silas said. “You’re in charge here.”

As they walked, Takara asked, “I know humans love war, but who are you fighting that you need all those weapons and explosives?”

Silas laughed. “Ain’t fighting nothing but asteroids. I’m a buster for a mining operation.”

“But all those weapons—”

“Wait,” he cut her off, “I’ll explain, after you. What did you mean that humans ‘love war?’”

The tone of his voice raised the feathers on her face and neck, sending a shiver of fear down her spine and raising the feathers on the way down. Her hand tightened on the grip of her stunner, and she took an involuntary step back from him.

Silas stopped and bowed his head. “I apologize for my tone, Officer Takara. I just… I get fed up with hearing about how dangerous and scary humans are. We’re all just people trying to make our way.”

Takara regained her composure and got them moving again. “I know about humans,” she said, “well, I mean, I hear stories.”

“The best stories can tell the worst lies, ma’am.” Silas shook his head. “I’m not saying there’s no dangerous humans, because there are. Plenty that I wouldn’t want to face alone. But isn’t it the same for everyone?”

“The same how?”

“I mean, aren’t there dangerous ’keets out there too? Like that weird cult that was doing medical experiments on kids?” He sighed. “I’d like to sic some of those dangerous humans on ’em.”

“Fine. I will concede that there are dangerous persons of all species.” She relaxed the grip on her stunner. The human continued to cooperate and not make any threatening gestures. “That still doesn’t explain the explosives and weapons.”

“Right,” he said. “What do you know about asteroid mining?”

“Not much.”

“Well, I’m a buster. Our job is break apart large, metallic asteroids into smaller pieces that can be managed by a processor ship.

“We do that by drilling holes in the asteroid, planting explosives, getting the hell outta the way and blowing it up. Then we fly around the expanding cloud of debris and push it towards the processor. The guns are for breaking the chunks that are still too big, and to protect our ass from any rogue pieces that wanna take a bite outta the ship.”

“I see. It seems….” She stopped herself before she said something else that might annoy or anger the human.

“Dangerous?” he asked. “It is, but that’s why it pays so good.”

She had stopped herself from saying it was inefficient but let him believe that she meant dangerous. As they neared the garrison, the noise of a fight reached their ears and the yellow line on the floor turned red. The sounds of multiple stunners discharging in the garrison put her on high alert, her stunner drawn and aimed at the garrison doors on instinct.

One of the doors buckled and flew open into the hallway, opposite to the direction it was meant to open. Two katakats, brandishing stunners and wearing police armor over civilian clothes stepped into the hallway. Seeing Takara, they swung their stunners towards her even as she fired both of her charges at them. The armor made it ineffective, but Takara wasn’t wearing any.

Silas stepped in front of her and with a jerk of his arms snapped the cuffs off. “Stay behind me!” He ran toward the armed duo, not even flinching at the four stun shots they unloaded on him.

He punched one in the beak, cracking it and sending his head snapping to the side, knocking him out cold. He turned toward the second who had raised another stunner and shot Takara.

The stunned officer dropped to the deck hard. Silas reached out and grabbed the second katakat and pulled so hard it dislocated the katakat’s shoulder, making him drop the stunner.

As officers in uniform swarmed into the hall to take the two back into custody, Silas returned to Takara and knelt beside her. “Officer Takara, are you hurt?”

“Can’t move,” she said. “Should wear off soon.”

“Is it okay if I carry you into the garrison?”

“Fine.”

Silas lifted her as if she weighed nothing. Takara marveled at how gentle he was, especially given the scene she’d just witnessed. “The cuffs.”

“Sorry, but I thought it more important to stop dangerous people,” Silas said. “I can buy you a new pair.”

“No. You could’ve just … any time … and yet you ….”

He did that strange thing humans did with their soft faces they call a smile. “I told you, you’re in charge, and I’m willing to pay whatever fines. I just needed a place to dock since I was losing my oxygen.”

“I think I believe you,” she said. “I’ll put in a word with the investigators.”

“Thank you, Officer Takara. I have the busted valve in my pocket anyway, since I need to find a replacement.” He laid her gently on the first clear table he saw. “Somebody help! She was hit with a stunner.”

Other officers came around to administer first aid but waited until he had stepped well clear of her. Takara huffed. “He doesn’t bite, you know. Unless you ask nicely.”

prompt: A court or disciplinary hearing is taking place — but the person accused does not know what they’re apologizing for.

available at Reedsy

“Allow me to make the facts of the case clear.” The newly elected prosecutor, Hiratha of clan Ororos, stood at her designated spot, addressing the panel of judges. Like her, they were covered in a fine layer of fur, wearing stylish sashes. Hiratha extended one of her six upper tentacles, spreading the six small, grasper tentacles at the end, pointing in the manner of her people at the dock.

Maxwell sat in a cage in the dock. He was meant to be standing, but it wasn’t built for someone as tall as him. He was the only human in the chamber, surrounded by the fluffy oraxans. Max was made uncomfortable by the confines of the dock, the chilly temperature of the room, and the prospect of being found a criminal without being told what he was suspected of.

Hiratha swayed all six of her upper tentacles. “Maxwell of clan Martinez, did the Department of Genetics provide you with a suitable match?”

“Who … what?!” Max looked at Hiratha, smaller than her campaign ads made her seem, trying to determine if this was all an elaborate prank or she was serious and insane.

“Answer the question.” Hiratha’s tentacles stiffened at her sides, pointing straight down. “Did the Department of Genetics provide you with a suitable match?”

Max wanted to stand, but the cage was too small. “I don’t understand what you are asking.”

Hiratha extended a tentacle behind herself without looking and picked up the sheet of processed cellulose on the table behind her. She held it out where it could be seen by the judges and the accused. “Did you receive this notice of genetic suitability?”

Max looked at the paper she held. “Yes, but—”

“A simple yes or no will suffice.” She put the paper back on the desk behind her.

“But I’m—”

“Hold your comments while I am questioning you.” Hiratha gestured at the judges. “Please forgive me, honorable judges, but his continued outbursts point to his disrespect and disdain for cultural norms.”

Max groaned. This was ridiculous.

“Maxwell of clan Martinez—”

“My name is Maxwell Luis Martinez-Orwell,” Max cut her off. “No clans, just family names. But please, just call me Max.”

A shudder ran down all Hiratha’s tentacles, the oraxan equivalent of a sigh. “Very well. Max, when did you become of citizen of the Slimark Republic of Planets?”

“Day 382 of period 854. It was my seventeenth birthday in Earth years, and I’m thirty-four now.”

“You have had more than nine periods since then.” Hiratha waved her tentacles in an inquisitive gesture that Max was certain was acting and not sincere. “Would you consider nine periods a reasonable amount of time to acclimate to a culture and its laws? That is, after passing the citizenship tests and proving your knowledge of that culture and those laws, is nine periods long enough to acclimate?”

“I grew up here,” he said. “I was born here, since my folks were ambassadors.”

“Answer the question, Maxwell Luis Martinez-Orwell. Is nine periods long enough to acclimate?”

“Sure. I guess.” Max sighed.

“When did you learn about reproduction — specifically oraxan reproductive cycles and customs?” she asked.

“I guess I was still a young kid,” he said. “I was a bit precocious in my curiosity about where babies come from, whether it was humans, puppies, or oraxans.”

“So that was before you became a citizen?”

“Yes.” Max leaned against the side of the cage. “Where are you going with this?”

“I’m asking the questions here.” She snapped her tentacles as his teachers had done, creating the sound of six whips simultaneously cracking.

Max sat up straight and folded his hands in his lap. He chuckled at himself internally for becoming a schoolboy at the sound.

“What,” she asked, “happens during the thirteen days beginning on day 211 of the period?”

“Life festival,” Max answered.

“And what does the Festival of Life celebrate?”

“When oraxans enter their fertile cycle.” Max leaned back. “This is youngling school stuff.”

“Exactly.” Hiratha paused a moment before continuing. “Do you know what the Department of Genetics does?”

“I guess they find suitable matches for reproduction?” Max cocked his head. “I know oraxans don’t do the whole family for love thing.”

“Your guess is good, but it goes further. The Department of Genetics finds the matches in a given geographical area with the most diverse genetics; those who are most dissimilar and most distantly related.” She extended a tentacle with spread graspers toward him. “Do you know why they do that?”

“Oh, I remember this from school,” he said. “During the era of the First Republic, people didn’t travel very far, and the unmanaged fertility cycles led to in-breeding and the propagation of genetic illnesses.”

“Maxwell Luis Martinez-Orwell, you have admitted to knowing oraxan culture, the reasons for the Festival of Life, and the importance of the work of the Department of Genetics. Despite knowing all that, though, you failed to follow the instructions given to you for the most recent Festival of Life. I hereby request that the judges find you culpable and award punitive damages in the amount of 190,000 regals.” Hiratha whipped her tentacles again and moved behind the table to sit.

The lead judge said, “The accused may now speak on their own behalf.”

Max heaved a sigh. “Okay, first of all, I’m not a suitable genetic match for anyone on this planet. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m human, not oraxan, and the other humans in the embassy are all related to me.”

He gestured toward the prosecutor’s table where the decree still sat. “Yeah, I got that. I figured it had to be a clerical error. One thing the Republic is very good at is bureaucracy. I figured it would get straightened around, no problem, once they figured out they matched a human for breeding.”

Max looked around the chamber. “I still don’t know what law I’ve been charged with breaking, and I have no representation, nor was I asked if I wanted any. I can afford an attorney, so please, can we put this trial on hold long enough that I can hire one?”

When no answer was forthcoming, he continued. “Look, I’m not sure what the crime is, but the guilty party is the Department of Genetics, or whoever in that department made the error. Why the prosecutor is coming after me so hard makes no sense.”

One of the judge panel members spoke up. “This is not a criminal court, this is a civil matter, and there is no prosecutor here, just the aggrieved, and you, the accused.”

Max closed his eyes and shook his head. “Wait, wait wait wait. I got bundled into a van, stashed in a cell, then locked into a literal cage in the courtroom for a civil case?!” He took a deep breath and did his best not to scream.

“Okay, if this is civil court, why all that and why am I locked in this cage?” he asked.

“This is standard procedure for any case which could lead to the aggrieved being injured by the accused or vice versa.” The lead judge swayed his tentacles in an apologetic manner. “Seeing that this case does not include any sort of violence, you may exit the protective chamber, assuming you and the aggrieved both promise not to injure each other?”

“Of course, your honors,” Max said.

Hiratha agreed with a gesture and the door to the cage opened.

“May I speak directly to the prosec—the aggrieved?” he asked the judges after exiting the cage and stretching.

“You may speak to and question the aggrieved. This is your time to do so.”

“Hiratha of clan Ororos, can you admit this isn’t about me? You’ve never seen me before today. It’s not even about the fact I didn’t show up to meet you. You’re upset that you missed a chance to breed, because the Department of Genetics assigned you to someone that shouldn’t even be in consideration due to being a different species.” Max let his shoulders droop and softened his gaze.

“I’m very sorry you missed out on a chance to reproduce this cycle. You seem like a driven woman … uh, oraxan, and there’s bound to be a good choice for you on the next go-round. I wish you all the luck in that, and if you choose to bring a case against the Department of Genetics, I will back you all the way. What they did by matching you with me wasn’t right at all.”

Hiratha pulled her tentacles in tight. “When you didn’t show up at the appointed time to the coupling center, I thought maybe my match had seen me and run away. I know I’m not the most attractive. It wasn’t until I dug into it that I found out I’d been matched to the only human citizen of the Republic in thirty light years distance.”

“But you still chose to take me to court, to hold someone accountable for your hurt.” Max smiled at her with a sad smile. “I understand. You’re a prosecutor, so that’s what you know. We have a saying, ‘When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.’ You just did what you know how to do.”

He straightened up. “That said, I can now see that I’ve caused you pain, though it was never my intention. Hiratha, I beg your forgiveness for my insensitivity. I’m not sure how money will heal the hurt, but 190,000 regals is far more than I make in an entire period.”

Max looked at Hiratha. “If it is amenable to you, I would like to offer my sincerest apologies in the form of a dinner at my home. Any human or oraxan dish you would like, to be prepared and served by me, using the skills I’ve acquired working in the embassy kitchen.”

The judges conferred for a moment, before the lead judge said, “We have a counteroffer of a meal. As the harm inflicted was not physical in nature, and was not intentional, we are reluctant to hold the accused to account. Will the aggrieved accept the counteroffer?”

Hiratha stood and walked to the front of the table. “I—I will … on the condition that Max agrees to testify when I charge the Department of Genetics with malpractice and dereliction of duty.”

“I will, Hiratha. I’ll help you hammer that particular nail.”

prompt: Start or end your story with two friends who become enemies/rivals, or vice versa.

available at Reedsy

Saying that the war was going poorly would be a massive understatement. If one were to say that the war was a horrifying shit-show, they would be closer to the mark, but still underselling it. We were losing, simple as that.

My entire shake, except me, were killed as soon as our dropship made landfall and opened to deploy. Three branches of eighteen warriors each gone in an instant. I was still in shock, covered in the purple slick of my fellows’ blood and bits of destroyed armor when they came into the dropship and captured me.

They were efficient in their movements, disarming and securing me before I could gather myself enough to fight back. Beneath the shock, shame began to build. This wasn’t my first battle, but I froze like a fresh recruit. Me, a decorated warrior, officer, and veteran. I thought I’d been through everything in battle that could happen. I’d just never seen such devastation in less than time than a single breath.

I spoke their language a little bit. It was expected of an officer like myself. It turned out that at least half the enemy shake spoke my language. We would never allow that, as the threat of enemy propaganda grows exponentially with every new possible target. At least, that’s what our military doctrine said.

With half their troops as possible targets, though, our steady propaganda barrage should’ve turned them all if that was true. That realization made me wonder what else we had wrong. If we could correct our mistaken assumptions, we could turn the war around.

These creatures were like nothing we’d ever fought. They wore armor on their heads and torsos, but left their limbs exposed. Of course, hitting a limb would injure them, but they could often still fight.

At the same time, their weaponry, though crude, smashed through our armor, and even punctured the hulls of our dropships. If that wasn’t bad enough, they had hyper-maneuverable flying craft that could attack our dropships in the atmosphere and hit them with chemical explosives.

After securing all four of my graspers with self-locking, polymer bands, they loaded me into a ground vehicle. With no viewports in the section of the vehicle I was in, it was a disorienting, bumpy ride for what seemed like an entire day with three of the infant-skinned creatures guarding me.

I was unloaded at a prison. At least these creatures had the same sort of ideas about a prison as we did; high walls, guard towers, and I guessed the strands of wire coiled along the top were their equivalent of our stun beams that kept prisoners in.

That’s when I met him. His skin was a deep brown, and he had some lines around his eyes. Maybe they just don’t come into their adult skin until later in life. If that’s the case, though, then we’re losing a war against children.

He cut the polymer bands off my limbs and offered his grasper. “I’m Captain Jerome Morse, but you can just call me J,” he said.

I looked at the grasper, unsure what to do. I extended one of my graspers the same way and said, “Grisshk ix Pikshis, Commander of the Red-Sky-Over-Green-Water Shake … or at least I used to be.”

He grabbed my grasper in his own and shook it up and down a couple times. “Welcome, Commander. If you don’t mind, I’ll have one of my troops take you to the medics to get checked out, then off to the showers to clean up.”

The creature that checked my health knew enough about our anatomy to pick out that my fourth heart-segment had a murmur in the second chamber. I’d had that since hatching. It wasn’t a threat to my health, but I’d had actual doctors miss it in the past.

After washing the blood of my compatriots off, I was given a drab outfit to wear. My jailers had whisked away my uniform and armor.

Captain Morse joined me after that in a sitting lounge my cell shared with several others. It didn’t feel nearly as much like prison as I expected. “I suspect the accommodations are due to my rank?”

“Well, there are perks to being an officer, yes,” Morse said, “but the enlisted have all the same amenities. The only difference is that the officer’s cells are mostly empty.”

“Not surprising.” I sat in one of the available seats and took in the room around me. There was a way to escape, I just needed to find it.

“We sent a message to your people, to let them know you’re alive and well. We also put your soldiers on a drone ship with instructions on where to pick them up so they can be returned home for interment.” He leaned on the armrest of the seat he occupied. “I don’t know long it will be before we’re sure that messages are getting through, but once we are, we’ll allow you to send recorded messages home to your family.”

“Heavily redacted, I suppose,” I said.

“If we think you’re trying to sneak information out, yes.” He sat up straight and leaned forward. “Look, Commander. I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you yet, but that’s no reason for me to be a dick.”

“Trust?” I asked. “You speak of trust with an enemy?”

“I do,” he said. “Trust is earned, regardless of allegiance or flag. I will do my best to earn your trust, and I hope you’ll do the same.”

“By telling you about our military disposition and plan, I suppose?”

He laughed. “Hardly. If M.I. thought you had valuable intel, you wouldn’t be here.” He stood and stretched. “I’ll let you get settled in. Don’t try too hard to escape, I’d hate to see you hurt yourself on your first day.”

I tried to escape. That was my first of dozens of attempts, none of which got me far, and most of which went unnoticed — or at least unmentioned — by the guards and Captain Morse.

He came in every day, and even though I could feel his animosity, he did his best to be professional and not let it show. We settled into a routine after a few day cycles: the latest news on the war from my people, then from his, a meal, record a message to send home and play any messages received, then talk about everything and nothing.

“It’s all propaganda, you know,” I said.

“What is?” he asked.

“The news about the war. That’s why my people say we’re winning, your people say you’re winning.”

Instead of disagreeing or arguing about it, he turned the news of his own people back on. Rather than talking about the state of the war, they were covering protests against the government, along with government officials trying to mollify the crowds. Not the sort of thing a state propaganda machine would report so openly on.

After that day, I ignored the propaganda from my world, and we spent more time watching news and entertainment from J’s world. It gave me more insight into these creatures. They still looked weird with their baby skin and missing arms, but they were just people like us.

We discovered that certain fruits of this world were intoxicating to me. There were some days that we would close out with intoxicating drinks, his some sort of poison, mine an orange or yellow fruit juice.

The war was getting closer to my home world with every passing day. One day, J came in and sat down with a serious look on his face. It was still early in the day, but he broke out the intoxicants and poured us both drinks.

“What’s on your mind, J?” I asked.

“Good news and bad news,” he said.

“My home world has fallen, and the war is over,” I guessed. “But that’s not bad news for you, I’d think.”

“Well, G, it actually is, because it means you’re going home. No more escape attempts, although the one with the cleaning cart was enjoyable.” He poured us both another drink. “Here’s to hoping to see you again under better circumstances.”

“You say that as if I’m leaving right away.”

He nodded. “The property sergeant is getting your uniform and armor packed up, and we’ve converted one of your dropships into a shuttle that will take you all back to your transport ship in orbit.”

“We have a transport ship in orbit?”

“Yeah, ever since they surrendered last month,” he said. “About the same time your escape attempts became more a matter of habit than real attempts to get away. I get the feeling that you might enjoy my company.”

“I might, J, I might. How long will we have to vacate our home world?” I asked.

“What?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve won. Will you not take over our worlds?”

The look of confusion on his face was clear. “No. What? We don’t do that. If anything, we’ll help you rebuild and make sure you’re not left in a position where your only option is to start another war.”

Originally written for HFY, then tied to prompt: Write about an encounter with someone new to you who changed your life forever.

Not all who wander are lost, but I am. The thought echoed through my mind like a mantra, telling myself over and over again how completely fucked I was. Lost in every sense of the word. I didn’t know where I was on the planet geographically, which planet I was on or even if I was still in the Milky Way galaxy. My emotions were a jumbled, indecipherable mess made all the worse by the realization that I was likely stuck here for a long time. I’d lost my cell phone and purse, meaning I was flat broke, as if this planet would even accept Visa or MasterCard.

The city around me was large and bustling, filled with alien creatures of all descriptions. I couldn’t understand a word anyone said in any of the dozens of languages I heard, and the five or possibly six different writing systems I saw displayed were just as foreign to me.

At first, I’d thought maybe I was in the middle of some sort of massive cosplay gathering, until I realized that the strange creatures were not humans in costumes. This was a poor situation for first contact, and there had to be someone more qualified for it than I.

I still kept wandering, hoping to overhear some English — or anything that sounded human. There was a small part of my mind that kept telling me I would survive this, that I’m the final girl. Not that it felt like a horror movie, more like a fever dream.

What little I could remember of getting here was broken, distorted, vague. I had followed the girl in the android cosplay out the back door of the club. It was almost disturbing how much her skin looked artificial. She hadn’t stayed longer than it took for me to ask where she was going to or coming from in her cosplay.

With the way she bolted out, I thought I’d insulted her somehow. I followed her out the door to the alley to apologize. She turned and saw me and just said, “No.” Then it felt like I was run over by a train, and I woke up in a park or public garden of some sort, dressed in this tunic gown I wouldn’t be caught dead in back home.

I have no way of determining how long I was out. Along with my purse and everything in it, all my clothes, and my shoes, I was missing all my jewelry, including my watch.

Regardless, I was parched. I heard the sound of running water and followed it around the corner of a building to a fountain. I wouldn’t normally deign to drink from a public decorative fountain in the middle of a city, but thirst won out.

I tried to be casual about it, sitting on the edge of the fountain, dipping a hand in when I wasn’t being watched. After the first couple single handfuls of water, I decided to go for it. I cupped both hands together and drank three of the double-handfuls without care about who might see me.

As I sat for a while longer, I realized my bare feet ached. With the advent of hydration, I began to feel the pangs of hunger. I wondered if there was anything here I could even eat.

A scent not dissimilar to fry-bread caught my attention. I followed it to a lane with food vendors on both sides of the uncannily smooth road. A few customers lined up in queues, but it seemed like I had either missed or beat the rush. When some of the customers began to be served and sat at the empty benches in the road, I realized I had beat the rush.

It wasn’t difficult to locate the trash receptacles, but I wasn’t ready to go picking trash to eat. While I tried not to stare, I watched the creatures that ate. One of them left their mess on the bench.

I sat where they had been and looked at the trash. There was a half-eaten something, with a texture between gelatin and mashed potatoes. It smelled like boiled cabbage and some sort of spice. I took a tentative taste.

The flavor was how I imagined rotten cabbage, not fermented like kraut or kimchi, but rotten, together with enough black pepper and fake cinnamon to choke a goat. It made me gag but I managed to swallow it, but one tiny bite was all I could handle.

I picked up the slob’s trash to take it to the waste bin and there was a small device left under it on the bench. Old habits die hard, and I picked up the device and began scanning the crowd for the short, orange, beetle-like creature that had left it.

Not seeing them anywhere, I dropped the trash into the receptacle and examined the device. It was a disk, about the size of a quarter, maybe three times as thick, and one side felt sticky. The odd thing about it was that it would stick to my skin, but not to the gown I wore.

I stuck it to my arm, under the sleeve, to keep it safe. Whether the creature that left it would come back to look for it or not, it seemed important.

The smell of something vaguely bread-like frying caught my attention again. I followed it through the various stalls to where a deep pan of boiling oil was being put through its paces.

The creature that was cooking had at least eight tentacles going every which way, handling multiple tasks at once like a cartoon octopus. One tentacle plucked small, green, puckered fruits from a bush and dropped them in the oil. Another wielded a strainer ladle, fishing out the crispy, plump, brown results of frying the fruits.

They looked a bit like large donut holes, even though the raw fruits were unappetizing. The wind shifted and the smell hit me hard. The smell of fried bread and sugar was overwhelming.

I watched as the creature served dozens of customers. The variety of creatures that lined up for what I guessed was a sweet treat was mind-boggling.

There was one that looked like a cross between a turtle and bird that wore a tunic gown that looked very similar to the one I wore. They also had one of those devices, stuck to their beak. They got two of the treats and swallowed them down whole as they walked away.

I must’ve been too obvious in my watching of the vendor. It put three of the treats in a small bag and moved faster than I could track to be standing next to me. It held out the offering and made chirping noises at me.

I took the bag and said, “Thank you. I—I’ll help you out to pay it back.”

It chirped something else and was back behind the fryer before I knew it. The closest I could describe the fried treats would be a sweet mushroom, with a crunchy skin like a super thin chicharron.

When I finished the surprisingly filling meal, I joined the creature behind the fryer. I’d been watching long enough to know that despite all the tentacles, some tasks required time away from the main task of cooking and serving.

I separated the bags and opened them up, making lines of opened bags on the counter behind as the creature had. When the side of the bush closest to the creature was bare, I rotated it to keep the fruit in reach.

Whenever I saw one of the creature’s bags left empty on a bench or the ground, I ran out, picked it up, and dropped it into a bin. At one point, the creature pointed at a canister, then at the bush.

I picked up the canister and felt the liquid inside slosh around. As I brought the canister closer, the creature pointed at the bush.

I figured it wanted me to water the bush, but just to be certain, I began slowly. It came as a surprise when one of its tentacles took a soft grasp of my wrist and turned the canister over to dump the entire contents on the bush.

The bush began to rustle, and new fruits sprouted on the bush in seconds, growing at a rate that would make them mature in a few hours at most. The crowds died down, and the lane became still and silent as the food stalls shut down.

My feet ached and I felt tired after rushing about. I sat on the nearest bench, then lay down. Sleep was not far behind.

The cold of night woke me. I was stiff from sleeping on the bench, but felt otherwise energized, though thirsty. I walked through the silent, dark city back to the fountain and drank my fill.

That’s when I saw her again, the girl in the android cosplay. Or was she a real android? She stood stock still, watching me.

I walked toward her and stopped a few feet away. She looked at my face as though she was looking for something.

“I didn’t mean to insult you last night,” I said, “if it was you at the Hap ’n’ Stan’s bar.”

She raised her arm, and the forearm opened up. Either a hyper-advanced prosthetic or she was a real android.

She lifted one of the round devices out of the space in her arm and showed it to me. I took the one off my arm and showed it to her. She mimed putting it on her temple, so I did the same.

“Very good. You’re doing well,” she said, then walked away.

At least, I was sure that was what she said, even though the sounds she made all sounded like variations on the word no. I sat back down on the edge of the fountain and wondered what I could do to stay warm until morning.

Three of the beetle-like creatures came around the corner, wearing official-looking clothing. They stopped in front of me. “What is your business here at this hour?” one of them asked. I was surprised that I could understand the word behind the mandible clicks and purrs that made up their speech.

“No business, just trying to stay warm until morning, then trying to figure out how to get out of here.”

One of the beetles extended a limb with a pincer-like grasper. “If you would follow us, we can show you where to find accommodations.”

“I don’t have any money,” I said. “Is it a shelter or something?”

All three looked at me as though I’d grown another head. “Yes,” the one with the still-extended limb said, “we’ll show you where to find shelter.”

I figured something had been lost in translation, so I gave up and followed them. I wouldn’t have guessed that the building they led me to was a shelter, or hotel even.

They led me to a wall that looked like maps of the building’s many floors, with some rooms in orange, and most in blue. The beetle explained that each map corresponded to a floor, and the rooms marked in orange were available.

When I reiterated that I had no money, the beetle just ignored me and continued on. By selecting a room, it would be locked to my DNA for the night and only I could open the door.

I picked what I guessed was the lowest available floor and touched the map at a room that looked close to the elevator, if that’s what it was. I studied the symbol for the floor, and the beetle led me to what looked like an elevator without the niceties like walls or doors. It was a platform directly under a hole in each of the floors above.

There was a control panel that rose up, with all the symbols from the map on it. I selected the one that matched the floor I’d chosen, and we were whisked up at breakneck speed, while I didn’t feel so much as a whisper of movement.

I lost count of floors somewhere around thirty-four, but we finally came to a stop. The beetle walked me down the hall to a wall with the room symbol on it. He motioned me to the wall.

I stepped closer, and the wall opened to reveal a room on the other side with a soft, mattress-like floor. I was too tired to care and lay down on the floor to sleep.

That was the first day of my first month on what I learned was called Tukraz … at least as close as I can pronounce it. I also learned to whistle the name of the fried fruit vendor, but I also call her Octavia as it seems fitting.

I’ve gotten over worrying about money, as the concept doesn’t exist here, or in the coalition formed by all these different species. Octavia and the other vendors cook because they like to.

I’ve been working with one of the beetles, Kikrizik, at his shop where he makes clothes. I’ve shared designs for Earth clothes, and he’s converted them for other species. Thanks to him, I’m learning how to sew and how to read Tukra common.

I say my first month because the android visited me again last night. She said I was here to test how well humans could adapt to the coalition. Given that my translator was taken before I woke, and I didn’t know what to do with the one the agent left behind, she said I passed with flying colors. We’re adaptable, after all, and that’s a big part of what makes a species “fit” for inclusion.

Last night, she offered to take me back home, which I have learned is “only” eighteen-thousand light-years away. Just a short warp translation to get there.

My initial reaction was, “Yes! Let’s go!” The second reaction, less than a second later, though, was, “Can we wait a bit?”

She looked at me as if calculating something. “How long would you like to wait?”

I thought about it. So far, I’d seen this city, but not much else. “Is there a way I can contact you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, removing another little disk device from her forearm. “You have represented humans well, and there will be more brought for evaluation before the coalition decides to uplift or not. Is there something you wish to accomplish?”

“I haven’t seen much of Tukraz. I think I’d like to wander a bit and see more.” I smiled at her and tied my new shoes Kikrizik made for me. “I’ll contact you when I’m ready to go home.”