Tag: science fiction

Trunk Stories

Samael’s Sweets

prompt: Set your story in a confectionery shop.

available at Reedsy

“I hope you’re sure about this.” Samael nudged the trays of sweets, walking around to the front of the display case to ensure they were most aesthetically pleasing. The trays of the ugly ones were hidden beneath. He still didn’t know why he’d bothered making them.

“Have a little faith, Sam. If anyone knows what sells to humans, who better than a human?”

Samael looked at the woman. She was a head shorter than he, with no wings, no horns, and strange, fleshy feet rather than sensible hooves. Dressed in a bright blue dress that made her pale skin and blue eyes shine, her blonde hair braided into an elaborate updo. “Fine, Gwendolyn, I will trust in your judgement on this. But none of this food has any nutritional value.”

Gwen laughed. “Of course not. These are treats. Something special. And I’ve told you, you can call me Gwen.”

“When you use my proper name, I will use your preferred name.” Samael spread his wings in a great stretch before folding them with a shudder.

“Relax. It’ll be great.” Gwen walked to the front window and looked out on the black road that ran past. “We’ll get plenty of foot traffic here. The shuttle drops off just there,” she pointed, “while most of the tourist traffic will be heading right past our door to the downtown area.”

“And they’ll pass again on their way back to the shuttle,” Samael finished. Gwen had laid it all out for him many times, but with no experience to compare, he still worried how it would work.

He returned behind the counter and made sure the till was properly stocked for the third time of the morning. Turning to the small mirror on the side wall, he checked his appearance.

His jet-black hair lay smooth on his head, his black horns shining. He practiced a smile of sharp, white teeth in his deep red face. The trick, Gwen had taught him, was to not show too much fang. “Look friendly, not hungry,” she’d said.

“Do you really think we’ll see more humans?” he asked.

“Of course,” she answered. “We’re curious apes, after all. Why do you think I worked so hard to get permission to come early and help set up small businesses?”

“For the profits?”

She laughed. “That’s part of it, sure. But…mostly because I was curious.”

“What is it about this place that so fascinates you…humans?”

“I guess it’s hard to explain, since you’ve always known about the other realms. But for us, this was myth, legend. Hell, we called it, and we called you demons.

“We thought those who died after living an evil life were condemned to spend eternity here…tormented in flame while your kind, demons, tortured our souls.”

“But if you’re dead, how would…?”

“I didn’t say it made sense. Myths are just that. Imagine, then, how surprised we were when a group at Cambridge figured out how to step between dimensions…realms you call them…and they found hell.”

“But this is not hell, this is Anlakh.”

“Right, but it sure looks like our stories of hell, and you look like our stories of demons.” She motioned out the window.

“Anyway, they found hell but no tortured souls; no humans at all in fact. There was also a serious lack of fire and brimstone. In the place of what they expected, they found a highly advanced, pacifist society.”

“We are to blame for how we were perceived, perhaps,” Samael said. “Our early exploratory devices were crude, and often subjected those close to their operation to glimpses into the adjoining realm.”

“It may not have been the intention, but it sure made for good publicity…well, not good, but effective maybe.”

The clock on the wall chimed and Samael flipped on the sign an unlocked the door. The first tourist shuttle trundled past to its stop.

They watched the tourists empty to the street, phones in hand taking pictures and recording video. A few seemed perturbed that they had no connection.

Samael tapped Gwen on the shoulder. “That group the other few humans are in a hurry to get away from; why are they dressed like that?”

“Called it,” she said. “Goths. Not like the historical kind, but the kind that are into the goth musical genre.”

“They look dangerous. There won’t be trouble, will there?”

Gwen chuckled. “They wear black and leather and ‘spooky’ clothes but they’re not dangerous. No more than any other human, at least.”

She dashed behind the counter and started changing out the displays. “Get out there and welcome them in,” she said.

“What are you doing?”

“Making your first sales.” She had replaced half of the trays with the black, blood-red, and spider-web designed sweets, and cranked up the sound system playing Sisters of Mercy.

Samael stepped out the door and waved toward the goths. “Come to Samael’s for sweets. We’re open.”

“We’ll have to work on your sales pitch,” Gwen said. She stepped out past him. “Samael’s, home of infernal treats. Only the most decadent and depraved delights from the dark! Come, seekers of night, find sweet release within!”

Her spiel combined with the chorus of Lucretia My Reflection caught their attention and they filed in after Samael. One of the other tourists tapped her on the shoulder. “Do you have…regular candies?”

Gwen laughed. “Of course. That was just a little salesmanship to get the goth crowd in.” She looked at the bustle in the store, and back at the woman who had stopped her. “They’ll probably be in there a while, and I’m guessing you’re tired of them after the long shuttle ride. What’s your name?”

“Alicia.” Her deep brown hair with a few grey strands was pulled into a ponytail, showing off her olive complexion and large, brown eyes.

“Well, Alicia, my name’s Gwen. If you stop by later, on your way back to the shuttle, I’ll give you a ten-percent discount for the inconvenience.”

“Oh, thank you.” She smiled. “I didn’t expect that kind of customer service here. Then again, I didn’t really know what to expect from hell.”

“I’ve been here about six months now, helping Samael and others set up shop. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” She leaned close and whispered conspiratorially, “But I think our goth friends here will be disappointed; it’s not all dark and spooky.”

They laughed, and Alicia waved her goodbye and headed toward the downtown area. Gwen put on her professional face again and entered the shop. The trays of “dark” candies were emptying fast, and fewer than half of the goths had ordered.

She ducked down behind the display case and pulled out more of the dark designs and swapped them for the nearly empty trays. Using the picked-over trays she filled out a new mixed tray for later when they were low.

Only after every member of the group had ordered and gotten their purchases, did the goths leave the store to wander toward the downtown area. Gwen patted Samael on the arm. “Looks like the first rush went well.”

“Those…goths…are the reason you had me make the ugly candies?”

“Yep. But they’re not ugly. Just…a different kind of beauty.” Gwen sighed. “I look at the landscape here, and I find it beautiful, even though it’s nothing like the green hills where I grew up. At first, I thought it was hideous, but after some time, I see the beauty in it.”

Samael nodded. “I know of those green hills. They seem so…alien and weird, but somehow right as well…at least for there.”

Gwen nodded. “Well, Samael, I think we’ll have to make more dark candies tomorrow. As far as the bright colored ones, let’s see what happens later in the day.”

“Sure, Gwen.” Samael bowed slightly. “I bow to your superior wisdom about selling to humans.”

Trunk Stories

The Demise of the Night Flight

prompt: End your story with a character saying “Thank you, God. Thanks an awful lot.” (sarcastically or not).

available at Reedsy

Nyx tried again to jettison the cargo, no response. She tried to operate the manual override, but it was jammed. “Shit. I’m stuck with this now.” She returned to the pilot’s chair and strapped in.

Nyx checked the straps of her harness and made sure her helmet was secured to the side of the pilot’s chair. There were more warning and error lights than systems showing normal. The artificial gravity was straining to overcome the effects of the ship’s diagonal end-over-end tumble.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. MV Night Flight, engines down, steering thrusters down, unstable attitude, moving approximately fourteen-thousand kilometers per hour, last known position Oort Cloud jump gate. When grav shuts down I’m not likely to retain consciousness.”

She set the message to repeat every ten seconds with a new time stamp each call. The stars streaked by, and she put her mind to determining the shape of her tumble. By mentally tracing the path of the sun when it showed in her view, she determined that the Night Flight was doing about one-and-a-half rolls for every two off-kilter end-over-end flips.

The radio crackled to life. “Merchant vessel Night Flight, this is Federation vessel Maria Odobwe. We have your mayday and are scanning for you now. Hang in there, we’re coming for you.”

Nyx stopped the automated transmission and responded. “FV Maria Odobwe, this is MV Night Flight. It’s good to hear your voice. I can’t tell whether the emergency beacon is working or not. Damn near every system is showing red across the board. A tanker entered the gate as I was exiting and my warp bubble stripped wrong, sent me ass over teakettle and fried my systems.”

She waited for the response…and waited…and waited. Twenty-six minutes later it came back. “Roger, MV Night Flight. We see your emergency beacon ping and are triangulating your location and speed now. We will be jumping soon. Expect to see you in ten minutes. Out.”

The artificial gravity cut out. The roll of the ship was like a demented carnival ride but not as severe as she’d feared. Okay, Nyx, she thought, you got this. Just ride this out for a few minutes until the cavalry gets here. As long as they don’t look too close, I may still be fine.

At this distance it was hard to tell, but Nyx was certain the sun was getting further away as she rolled and tumbled through space. If they didn’t get here soon enough, she was in danger of finding some random piece of debris or ice from the Oort Cloud the hard way.

She saw a flash of blue as she tumbled; the glow from a ship dropping from warp. “Odobwe, this is Night Flight, was that you I just saw dropping from warp?”

“MV Night Flight, FV Maria Odobwe, affirmative. My name’s Wen Banks, what’s yours?”

“Nyx Carlisle. Can you match rotation and pull me in?”

“Listen, Nyx. You’ve got a double rotation going along with your speed of 14,223 kilometers per hour. We’ve got to stop one of those rotational motions.”

“No engines, no steering thrusters, remember, Wen?”

“I remember, Nyx. Does that ship have a front or rear docking port? If we only have to match a roll that’s simple enough.”

“Negative. Sorry, Wen. The docking ports are starboard and port broadside. This ship isn’t designed for loading in vacuum. She’s a little rock hopper.”

“Roger. We’re working out a solution. Hang tight, Nyx. By the way, how’s the gravity holding up?”

“Went out before you got here. It’s not as bad as I expected, but I’m getting one hell of a headache.”

The minutes dragged by as Nyx watched the large military ship appear and disappear from her view. By watching the ship, she could get a mirror view of how her own was tumbling. Slowly, however, the tumbling turned into a wobble while she seemed to be spinning beside it.

“Nyx, we’ve been over your telemetry and ship specs, and we have a solution for you. Are you in a vac suit?”

“Affirmative, Wen. Helmet close to hand as well.”

“That’s good. I’m going to need you to put the helmet on and make sure of your levels before the next step.”

“Roger. Just a minute while I helmet and seal.” Nyx put on her helmet and verified the seal, then donned the gloves that hung from her wrists and checked the seals on those as well.

“I’m all buttoned up,” she said.

“We’re going to learn a pattern now.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Repeat after me: cabin four, three seconds, cabin six, nine seconds, cabin one, five seconds, bridge, one second, remaining cabins.”

“Cabin four, three seconds, cabin six, nine seconds, cabin one, five seconds, bridge, one second, remaining cabins.” Nyx took a deep breath. “Venting atmosphere via the fire suppression system?”

“Exactly. The order is critical, and the closer the timing the better we remove the roll and the yaw.”

“Okay, Wen, let me check that I can access fire control.” Nyx checked the fire suppression system and verified that it was operational. “I’d really like to practice this a time or twelve, but I’m worried that if I disconnect fire control, I won’t get it back. Sealing all bulkheads now.”

“You can do this, Nyx, and I’ll be right here with you every step of the way.”

“Hey, Wen. You keep track of the timing, and I’ll track the order. It takes a couple strokes at least to vent a section. Four, six, one, bridge, other cabins, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Ready to vent cabin four. On your mark.” Nyx held her gloved hand above the console.

“Vent.”

Nyx tapped the console and felt the ship’s rotation change while she keyed in the command to vent cabin six.

“…one, vent!”

She stabbed at the console. She’d missed the first part of the countdown, so she listened closely while Wen counted down from nine as she prepped to vent cabin one.

“…four, three, two, one, vent!”

Another tap on the console followed by a shift in the feel of the ship’s tumbling and the three taps it took to prepare to vent the bridge.

“…two, one, vent!”

Nyx tapped the console and put in the command to vent all the cabins as fast as her fingers allowed, but she was still nearly a second behind Wen’s call of “Vent!”

“Sorry, Wen,” she said, “that was the fastest I could do it.”

“It’s all good, Nyx. You’ve got less than two degrees yaw. We can dock. Look out your starboard.”

To her right, the large military ship slowly moved closer, wobbling only a slight bit. The stars in the view seemed to be moving consistent with a steady end-over-end tumble without the roll or off-axis tilt.

When the docking clamps locked on, the larger ship stopped the tumble and Nyx felt the weightlessness of free-fall. “I’m still here,” she said, “and ready for whatever maneuvers you have planned.”

“Negative, Nyx. You need to come aboard. We’ve got some high-gee maneuvers we have to make.”

“Roger that, Wen. On my way.” She released her straps and pushed off against the console to the starboard airlock. I just hope they don’t want to check the cargo, she thought.

As she made her way onto the Maria Odobwe, a guard led her down a corridor to a waiting room. From the uniform she knew this wasn’t a combat ship; it was a police ship. The sound of boots outside the room, heading toward the airlock was the only thing she could hear, then silence for several minutes.

The door opened and an officer entered. “Nyx Carlisle? I’m Lieutenant Colonel Graves, Fourteenth Police. Good news, and bad news.”

“Of course,” Nyx said. She looked at the stocky woman in her dress uniform standing just inside the door. She was waiting to hear that she was under arrest. It was the only logical thing that could happen now.

“Bad news: the docking clamps wouldn’t hold up to the maneuvers we needed to make to avoid splattering ourselves on something in the Oort Cloud, so we had to cut your ship loose. It’s a total loss.”

“And what’s the good news?”

“Sensors show that you were transporting explosives. Your license doesn’t allow that, and your flight plan doesn’t include any licensed dealers. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to break into your cargo hold and get the physical evidence, so it looks like you walk from this one…unless you want to turn yourself in.”

Nyx groaned and laid her head on the table. “All I’ll say about the cargo is it was a privately contracted job. I would’ve paid my ship off. Failure to deliver puts me in a bad position. Not only do I still owe credits on the ship, but that’s half a million credits of cargo gone…along with my entire life. That ship was my home.”

“You should be thanking whatever god you believe in that we got here when we did,” Graves said. “Any later, and you’d be dead, any earlier, and you’d likely be facing a long sentence. Now, at least, you’re alive and at most we’ll put you on a suspected smugglers list for a while. Show us you can keep your nose clean, and we’ll leave you alone soon enough.”

“I should be thanking god? For my wondrous luck? Hey, my life’s ruined, my home and livelihood are destroyed but I’m still alive to be hunted down by my last client! Sure. Thank you, God. Thanks an awful lot.”

Trunk Stories

Stranded

prompt: Start your story with someone making a cup of tea — either for themself or for someone else.

available at Reedsy

Cara watched the water reach a boil in the animal skin bag over the open fire. She kept a close eye to ensure the flame never reached higher than the water. She’d crisped one bag that way already and wasn’t looking for a repeat.

When the water reached boiling, she removed the bag from the fire and poured it carefully into the hand-carved wooden mug, soaking the crushed dried leaves waiting there. She let it steep for a few minutes before taking a tentative sip.

Nodding her approval, Cara sipped at her “tea” until she reached the dregs at the bottom. I should figure out a way to make a strainer, she thought.

The last leftovers of the creature she’d eaten the previous few days constituted her breakfast. That, combined with the stimulant properties of the leaves gave her the energy to hunt. She’d named the creatures “piradeer” because they looked like a cross between a pig, a rabbit, and a deer.

They were not frightened by her presence, but she worried that as time went on, they would begin to fear her. For now, “hunting” involved picking a couple of the bitter berries (that made her sicker than she ever wanted to be) and finding a piradeer. Once spotted, she need only show the fruit to the animal and lead it back to the cave.

About the size of a medium dog and gentle, she found that she could calm them by scratching behind the long ears, and then a tight hug around their thin neck put them out. The butchering was bloody and difficult, but she’d gotten efficient during the months she’d been stranded.

Cara looked out on the area outside her cave. The area to her right was flat and mostly clear. If she was still here in thirty more days, she’d build a paddock and see if she couldn’t domesticate the piradeer. They didn’t move far, but they moved in loose herds to fresh grass.

It would require work on her part not just to build the paddock, but to collect fresh grass for them every day. She’d been so lost in her thoughts that she’d neglected to knock out the piradeer that was now sleeping calmly under her scratching fingers, its pig-like snout twitching with each breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and rendered it unconscious with a squeeze of its neck. A tear ran down her cheek. No matter how many times she did it, it never got easier.

Aside from the bitter leaves she used for tea, every other plant she’d come across made her violently ill, even in tiny tastes. The pseudo-tea leaves, however, were far stronger than coffee or actual tea. She learned that two of the fingernail-sized leaves were the right amount to give her energy without the shakes.

The meat smoked over the fire, her food for the next few days. The meat was gamey and a bit grainy, but she’d grown used to it. Cara picked up a stick and charred the end in the fire, before adding another mark to the wall. She wasn’t sure how long the days were here, but they felt longer than twenty-four hours. Still, this was the two-hundred-twenty-sixth mark she’d made.

There had been many days before that, sitting first at the wreck, then moving out when her supplies dwindled. The cave was a lucky find. It was two days travel from the wreck, and Cara hadn’t been sure where she was going. The lower oxygen levels caused her to tire easily at first, and her thinking was often clouded. It also made starting the fire more difficult, or at least she rationalized the entire day spent getting it going that way. Cara hadn’t allowed it to go out since.

She’d acclimated over time, and guessed that now she could return to the wreck in a single day or less. The hide of the creature that now cooked in the smoke of the fire lay before her. She scraped the back with the knife that constituted her entire collection of useful modern tools. Muscle memory took over, allowing her mind to wander while she scraped.

Her emergency radio sat quiet in the corner of the cave, the green light indicating that it was listening, the slow blinking of the orange light indicating every time her ship in orbit sent a distress call. Folded neatly beneath the radio was her flight suit, a massive rip in the right leg. How she didn’t die in the crash was still beyond her.

She stopped scraping and rubbed the scar on her right calf which itched when she thought about it. Cara was glad for the warmth of the weather, as she hadn’t anything other than her undergarments to wear. She wondered if she should make a needle and try to sew some hide clothes.

The scraping finished, she hung the skin over a rock near the fire. She wasn’t ready to sleep yet, so she grabbed a bone from the pile and began carving with her knife. Making a needle would probably take a good deal of practice and now was as good a time as any.

Cara woke the next morning and stoked the fire, adding another log. After tea, her next chore was to find more dried wood. While her tea steeped, she saw movement in the underbrush outside the cave. The piradeer were moving to the clearing near the cave.

“Hey, guys,” she said.

A few of them stopped and looked her quizzically, their ears perking up. She sipped her tea and watched them go about their calm business. While they ate, they seemed to take turns coming to the mouth of the cave, sniffing at the fire and deciding it was not good or sniffing at her and showing a great deal of curiosity.

She scratched behind their ears as they came around, and soon she had a dozen of them lying around her, in a state somewhere between waking and sleep.

Cara finished her tea and rose to set her mug on the rock outcropping she thought of as her “shelf” when the radio crackled to life. “Exploratory Vessel Andrews, this is Rescue Vessel Sunrise, do you copy?”

She picked up the radio and responded. “RV Sunrise, EV Andrews, Dr. Cara Meeks. I’m on the planet’s surface. From the downed shuttle, look for the smoke of my fire.”

“Roger, Dr. Meeks, we’ll be there to pick you up in less than an hour.”

The curious piradeer had risen and were surrounding her and she found herself scratching them as they got close enough. “Thanks, Sunrise. Take your time, I’m in no hurry today.”

Trunk Stories

Savages

prompt: Write about a character whose intuition is always right — until one day it isn’t.

available at Reedsy

His calm was not born of insouciance, but of clarity; he already knew what would happen and how it would play out. He waited outside the Lord High General’s office, letting the harried couriers and lesser generals bustle about. A subtle feeling led him to move to the other side of the entryway as the door swung violently open where he had just been.

“The Lord High General calls for the Royal Seer, Terkannan!” The guard that opened the door and barked it out hadn’t even noticed Terkannan until he was halfway through the door.

He approached the broad desk and bowed. “Lord High General, I am at your service.”

The general’s voice was hoarse from non-stop meetings since the first light of dawn. “The primitives in this system, here,” he said, pointing at a star chart. “You’ve seen the reports, what is your assessment?”

Terkannan closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Not that he needed to, but it helped maintain the mystery of his line; long bred for intuition to the point of being nearly precognizant. “They are savage, brutish creatures, capable of only violence. This has led them to fight each other, making the strongest among them their leader. Strong they are, too…far superior to our raw abilities, but that’s what weapons are for.”

The general nodded in assent and motioned for the seer to continue.

“Due to their violent nature, they will advance only slowly if at all…assuming they do not do us the favor of wiping themselves out first. Worst case, they may advance rudimentary armor in a few hundred qot. We can use this to our advantage, as we have the technology and weapons to make us…that is…you, Lord High General, the leader of them all.”

“Strategy?” the general asked.

“Overwhelming show of force. As they gather in groups, find the largest gathering first and kill the leader and fighting capable males outright and capture the rest. This demonstration, using their own methods, will make you their undisputed leader.

“From there, it is a simple matter to assimilate bordering groups and grow an army of the creatures organically. They will be fanatically dedicated to you and do your will. They will also make good slaves for mineral extraction.”

“Thank you, Terkannan. The other generals are concerned by the strength of the beasts, while the scientists want to study them, and at least one princess wants to protect them. Bah! That entire system is wealth for the empire, and a million of those beasts on chains in front of our armies will secure our place in the galaxy forever.”

“Exactly as you say, Lord High General.” Terkannan bowed and left the general’s office to return to his own study.

As he walked through the city toward the library, activity around the fort increased. Shuttles were already transporting troops to the waiting ships in orbit. A quarter of a qot to board and prepare the fleet, then three quarters there. The system would be under the empire’s control in just over one qot. Which leaves another nine-hundred-ninety-nine to plan for. This would be the empire’s greatest turning.

Terkannan entered the library and climbed the steps to his study. It was quiet here, and he could shut out the world around him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath; not for show, but to clear his mind, let his intuition wander. Suspicion niggled at the back of his mind. Something was missing, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

He was trying to let intuition guide him to the missing piece, when he felt he should stand and face his comms. He stood for only a moment when it chimed, and the Lord High General’s assistant showed up on the screen.

“How may I help?” Terkannan asked.

“The Lord High General requests your attendance on this campaign.” The assistant didn’t wait for a reply but disconnected immediately. As with all things the general did, this was an order, not a request.

Terkannan took the bag he had packed the previous day, knowing he would need it but not why. He made his way to the fort and turned left at the sign that pointed to the right for shuttles. A short way down the road he met the general’s staff, boarding a private shuttle, and let himself in.

He was shuttled to the command ship and settled into his cryopod. The general wouldn’t board until just before they left and wouldn’t have time to consult him anyway.

He woke to a cacophony of alarms and shouting. Something had gone wrong, in the worst possible way. Terkannan made his way to the bridge, and the sight that filled the screens was unbelievable.

This was the same planet, but it was ringed with artificial satellites, cities that lit up the night skies, vast amounts of pollutants in the atmosphere. It shouldn’t be possible. He knew they would never advance.

“Did someone get here before us?” the general barked out.

“Scans show the same creatures,” one of the deck officers responded.

“Hundreds of qots to get to crude armor!” The general’s face was distorted with rage as he rose and towered over the seer. “You said they would never advance!”

“Perhaps, Lord High General, I let logic try to explain the reason for my intuition, but I stand by it. An overwhelming show of force and they will follow you blindly.”

The general grunted and sat back down. He pulled up a holographic globe and picked the brightest spot on the night side. “We’re setting down there,” he said. “Set a course and lock it in. The fighters can flatten a landing area for us.”

“Lord High General,” the comms officer said, “we’re getting even more radio wave transmissions from the planet, all across the spectrum. Should we analyze before we—”

“No. Take us in.”

The fighters flew in ahead of the formation and began blasting the strange towers to flatten the land for the fleet. The response from the creatures was immediate.

Flying machines harried the fighters, tearing holes through them with projectile weapons, and finally destroying them with flying bombs. The fleet came over the horizon, flying machines at their backs, and we met head-on with missiles firing from the area of the destruction.

Terkannan felt the unsurety that had bothered him fall away. The general’s ship, and the fleet along with it, would die here. His fate was to sink with the ship in the deep water off the coast they were approaching.

“In this evening’s news: We are not alone, but we may not be safe. An alien invasion in Europe destroyed much of the Benelux before NATO troops were able to bring them down. Thousands dead and many more missing. An underwater salvage is underway in the North Sea to recover as many of the alien ships as possible. Here’s Dr. Silva from the European Space Administration to tell us what they hope to learn from the wreckage.”

Trunk Stories

The Other Me

prompt: End your story with someone finding themselves.

available at Reedsy

Sometimes it’s easier to pretend that everything’s fine. This wasn’t one of those times. Still, I put on a smile and went through the motions until the end of the workday.

When I left at the end of the day I went straight home to try and straighten the whole mess out. I pulled out my phone and looked at the twelve messages I’d received over the course of the day.

Each message was, supposedly, sent from my own number. That’s easy enough to spoof, I guess, if one knows how. What concerned me were the intimate details contained in each message. Things that I’d not told anyone or written down anywhere…ever.

I read over the last message again, trying to make sense of it. It left more questions than answers.

Your bank password will be given to you tomorrow morning. Trust me, this is for your own good. You’ll find things a little tight until payday, but when the auto trade happens on Nov 22, three years from now, you’ll never have to work again. You’ll even have enough to buy J a house, even though she doesn’t even know you feel the way you do about her. When you do, don’t let her know it was you. Let it be anonymous for her and her kids.

I went to my laptop and logged on to my bank account…or tried to anyway. Not only had my password been changed, but I got an alert on my phone that someone unauthorized had attempted to access my account.

After spending twenty minutes on hold, I was connected with a service rep. They told me I had changed my password three times in the past few hours, and the account was now locked for further changes for a twenty-four cool-down.

The call ended with them trying to hint that maybe I was having a dissociative episode and might benefit from medical help. I’m sure they thought they were being gentle and subtle about it, but it hit like a hammer.

Was I going crazy? How would I have disturbed my own meeting this morning with a text to myself? Was someone trying to convince me I was going insane? Who would do that?

I was left with questions I couldn’t answer. Rather than continue the fruitless conversation with myself, I settled in for a Friday evening of binging streaming video. At least those passwords hadn’t been changed.

I finally got to sleep despite the nagging worry that my life had been hacked in some unrealistically deep way. My sleep was not restful. When I was woken by a text message notification, I didn’t feel like I’d slept at all.

The text message contained my new bank password, and login credentials to a stock trading site connected to a national broker with an office in town. It concluded with, “The good pruning shears are in the kitchen junk drawer—don’t know why. I’ll answer your questions Monday. I know it won’t do any good but be careful tomorrow.”

Not that I had any reason to, but I checked the kitchen junk drawer. I didn’t see any pruning shears in there. Of course, it was a mess. I dug into the drawer, and under the top layer of odds and ends…there they were. Missing for the entire summer, yet this person knew where they were.

I logged in to my back account and noticed it was short a thousand dollars. I checked the transaction history and found an in-person withdrawal that happened while I was in the meeting that had been interrupted by the text message. I looked at the record of the withdrawal and found that it was verified with ID, debit card, and thumbprint. On top of that, I knew all the tellers at the bank by name, and they knew me, as I was there on a weekly basis.

It was looking more impossible the further I went. I’d only added thumbprint verification for cash withdrawals a week prior, as soon as the bank offered it. Whoever this was, had a passable ID, my debit card with the chip, and my thumbprint.

I checked in my wallet, and found that my debit card was, indeed, still in my possession. Still in a haze of feeling violated, I checked the stock trading site. I had three transactions. The first was a deposit of one thousand dollars that included a free five-year membership. Next was an automatic purchase order for GryTek at nine dollars, which had triggered yesterday at noon, resulting in the purchase of one hundred shares after the trading site took their fees. The third was an automatic sell order of the GryTek at nine thousand dollars.

Here again, the transaction records showed that the transactions had been made in person with ID, and that certainly looked like my signature. I checked through the terms and conditions. The agreement was binding and there was no provision for refund. That money was gone.

Should I get the police involved? Someone with my debit card in hand, and my thumbprint, withdrew my money from the bank, and then bought a hundred shares in a nobody company. It would sound like buyer’s remorse…like I wanted to back out of a hasty decision.

I spent the day going in circles, trying to decide how to handle the situation. No idea I came up with was satisfactory. At some point I turned on the TV and let some documentary series play, until I fell asleep there.

The morning came and I woke feeling not refreshed, but like I had at least gotten some sleep. I showered and dressed, planning to spend the day trying to research identity theft, to see if it had ever been done so completely.

The phone rang around noon and I answered, hoping for the thief, but got a coworker instead.

“Could you swing by the office? You missed a signature on one page of your benefits packet. I need to get them out to FedEx this afternoon, but without your signature you’ll miss out on your revenue sharing.”

I drove to the office and handled the paperwork. I sat into the car and had no sooner started it than changed my mind about heading straight home. I got back out of the car and crossed the street to the park.

I walked to the bench by the water where I sometimes ate my lunch and sat facing the river. I wanted to clear my mind, let rationality take over.

The river made a pleasant burbling in front of me; the sunlight sparkled off the water in bright shards. I took a deep breath, letting the fresh air of the park calm me. I’m not sure how long I sat there, but I rose and headed back out of the park as the sun hung low in the sky.

I hadn’t even made it out of the park when my mind began to race again, going in circles as I stepped into the crosswalk. A screech of tires and loud honk made me jump. The last thing I felt before everything went black was my knee shattering against the bumper.

When I woke in the hospital, my entire body felt like a giant bruise. I could only see out of one eye. I reached up with a hand in a cast, only my pointer finger free, and felt at the bandage covering my eye.

The TV at the other end of the room was tuned to a news channel. They were talking about a hundred-fold increase in the stock price of a little-known scientific instrument company that had just signed deals with every major smart phone maker.

I found the remote by my other hand. That hand wasn’t in a cast, although that elbow was immobilized. I turned up the volume.

“The announcement of the deals signed by GryTek early this morning signaled a meteoric stock rise. The CEO has said that they plan a series of stock splits, to normalize their stock prices over the next few years. The first came as a surprise this morning when they made a one to five split.”

I muted the TV. It seemed I now owned five hundred shares of GryTek. I muted the TV, turned my head to the left…and there I stood, smiling.

“Hey, there I am. I couldn’t remember what room I was in,” the other me said. “I know this is weird but hear me out.”

We looked like identical twins, although I noticed a small wrinkle near the corner of other me’s eyes I knew I didn’t have. “What…what is this?”

“GryTek just had the first of several stock splits. Over the next three years, that one hundred…well, five hundred now…shares will turn into twenty thousand. They reach their peak at nine thousand and four dollars a share before they collapse completely.

“For the next three years, their name will be in the news constantly. They make a sensor that ends up in every smart phone and smart watch, until they get pounded by a patent suit.”

“How…who…?”

“I’m you, four years from now. I had this same conversation with myself, on your side, four years ago. Last year…three years from now for you…I retired. A few safe real-estate investments and I’m set for life.”

“If you’re from the future, how does this all work? Causality, I mean?” I asked.

“Hell if I know. I didn’t invent this, just stumbled on it by accident…you’ll see. Was there a version of me that didn’t have a future me come back and make that investment? Maybe. That might have been the me that started all this.”

“But you have my debit card…?”

“Of course. It doesn’t expire for another four years for you, next month for me.” Other me stood. “It’s time for me to go.”

I noticed a slight limp as other me walked a few steps away then faded away into thin air.

Trunk Stories

Hidden Links

prompt: Write about someone in a thankless job.

available at Reedsy

In all the inhabited worlds there were fewer than five people who had more than a passing acquaintance with Kia Tyler. Her direct supervisor, Adama, was perhaps the one who knew her best, and they never saw each other outside of work.

The most important thing that Adama knew about his employee was that her skin was very sensitive, and she was, according to her, “allergic to damn near everything in the universe.”

With mandatory genetic counseling, this sort of trait was all but unheard of, making her uniquely suited to her job. It wasn’t difficult, or physically demanding, but she often ended the day with contact dermatitis around her nose and mouth.

As the only manufacturer of masks for low-oxygen environments that didn’t require full vac suits, the lives of nearly everyone on Mars depended on his product. Adama felt his company should do everything in their power to ensure their product was not just safe and effective but comfortable as well. That’s where Kia’s sensitive skin came in.

Kia wore an oxygen mask in her testing office. Since she didn’t require extra oxygen in the environment of the dome, the mask delivered slightly cooled room air. Thermal cameras recorded any leaks of the mask. A certain amount was allowed, but she would automatically fail any material that was less than 98% effective in the proper size or 90% if too small or large.

The new compound of the mask seal she was testing passed the leak test with flying colors. Despite trying it on in every size available, even the masks too small and too large maintained a seal above 98%. Her face, however, was not happy.

It began as a faint itch, progressing to a burning sensation. Less than an hour after donning the mask, Kia was forced to remove it. She looked in the mirror at her desk. The edges of the mask were clearly marked by what appeared to be an angry red burn; bumps beginning to form.

“Compound Z-443-alpha-2, wear test negative. Allergic reaction positive. Wear time: forty-eight minutes.” She saved the results and pulled the seal off the testing mask and tossed it in the recycler. Kia made a point of cleaning her hands, then her face, and finally, the mask.

There was no more testing that she would be able to do for the day. Before treating with an antihistamine, her face was sensitive to any contact, including the rush of air caused by her breathing. After treatment, her face would be completely insensitive to any sort of allergic assault for at least twelve hours.

Miria loved her job, traveling across the Martian landscape far from any domes, checking the progress of the bacteria and fungus that had been engineered to release oxygen from the iron oxide in the soil. Her rover had food, water, and oxygen for twenty days. She would spend fourteen in the wild.

She was required to post regular reports to the terraforming commission, but never had to deal with them face-to-face. Her reports were signed by her employee number. Miria didn’t mind being a small cog in a large machine.

The thing she loved most about her job, though, was that she was completely alone. Not one given to idle companionship, she preferred the company of her “little world changers,” as she called them.

Two dozen mask seals, labeled Z-799, were stored in a cubby above her three masks, near the airlock. One primary, and two backups. Ten oxygen canisters provided enough for twenty hours outside the rover and could be refilled in the rover itself.

She stopped at the grid coordinates for her inspection and pulled on her mask. Cycling the airlock, she stepped out into the cold, thin atmosphere. She found the marker flag, bent over by a windstorm at some point, and straightened it back up.

Yellow lichens clung to every rock larger than a couple centimeters. Miria took samples of the lichen, the surrounding soil, and one deep soil sample. She paused to lift her mask and take a drink from her water canister. The air was sharp, acidic. She lowered her mask and took another breath.

“Someday, you will make the air sweet here,” she said to the lichen sample. “I’ll be out of a job then, but I’ll probably be over a hundred, so it doesn’t matter.”

Back in the rover, she made use of the mobile lab and compared the genome of the current bacteria and lichen versus those originally seeded. The faster reproducing of the current bacteria had a lower oxygen toxicity threshold than was desirable. Miria would have to find a way to give the more oxygen resistant bacteria a leg up, so to speak.

The lichen, however, was doing its job superbly. “Strain 613-gamma, code name whirlwind, maintaining stable genome and positive nitrogen production,” she added to her audio log.

Zane planted pale yellow lichens around the base of the new hybrid rhododendron in the Capital City Park. He took a deep breath of the air, sweetened with the scent of roses and the moisture from this morning’s watering.

“You need some of this to help you get enough nitrogen,” he said to the plant. He liked tending the plants in the park. The Martian atmosphere was thin, but high enough in oxygen for daily life. He had seen holos of the early settlers more than a century prior. First with their fully contained suits, then, after millions of tonnes of Venusian atmosphere had been mined and dumped on Mars as CO2, with their masks.

He stepped back and admired his handiwork. It made him proud that thousands of people admired his work every day, even if they never knew it. Zane prided himself on planting and pruning in such a way that the garden looked like it just happened to grow that way.

With a check of the time, Zane gathered his tools into his carrier and made his way to the hidden gardener’s shack. The carrier hovered a few inches above the ground, not leaving any tell-tale wheel marks. He’d had the idea when he first started of planting a hardy, low-growing moss on the path to the shed. Any footprints would be gone within minutes, leaving no trace that a human had been anywhere other than the paved path.

In the shack, Zane put away the tools and checked his supplies. He’d need to order more whirlwind lichen starts soon. The respirator he used when spreading fine particulate like mold spores still had good filters, and he had plenty of spares. He checked the seals and ordered another dozen 799 grade face mask seals.

His day done, Zane logged his time out in the shack, and left by the door that led to the employee gate. He looked up at the sky, where the morning sun reflected off the few, high clouds. It was going to be another beautiful day on Mars.

Trunk Stories

Another Quest

prompt: Write about a character who yearns for something they lost, or never had.

available at Reedsy

Watt put the book back on the shelf. Reading it had become a monthly ritual. They especially liked the stories about brave knights rescuing fair damsels. Sometimes Watt was the knight, and other times the damsel.

Dreams of living in the romanticized version of the Middle Ages frequented their slumber. Watt knew, intellectually, that the stories had no relation to reality. Their heart though, or something very like it, still ached for the times and places of the stories they read.

Watt left the library via the basement exit to the tunnels. Once there, they navigated the short distance to their home. It was time to turn in, so they hurried up the stairs to their loft.

Their loft was a simple space: bed, kitchenette, closet, sink. A shared washroom down the hallway finished out the amenities. Watt lay on the bed, falling to slumber and dreams of castles and dragons immediately.

Rising refreshed, Watt left to run errands. Fulfilling quests, they thought. By the middle of the day, they had downgraded that. Gathering supplies to use on upcoming quests.

The week continued in the same vein, until the day Watt found themself with nothing to do. They could go to the library again, but it had only been a week.

Watt pulled the edge of the curtain away from the single window in the loft. They could venture outside. The thought was frightening, but isn’t that what heroes did? Face their fears and continue undeterred by them.

The closer Watt came to leaving on an adventure outside, the less they felt like the knight, and the more they felt like the damsel trapped in the tower. Rather than taking part in an adventure, Watt sat on the bed staring at the door for hours.

During Watt’s slumber, they dreamed of a knight in shining armor, rescuing them from their flat. The dream’s happily ever after was in a cottage in the country, surrounded by fields of wheat bordered by magical forests.

Somewhere out there, they thought, may be a damsel waiting for rescue. Determined to be the knight, Watt strode confidently down the stairs, and out the door at ground level.

The night was damp, a heavy fog clinging to the streets and buildings. Watt maneuvered around the rubble of the ruined buildings and the demolished, rusting hulks of vehicles, long since forgotten. Vines climbed the buildings, grasses and small trees forcing their way up through cracks in the sidewalks and streets.

Despite the lack of moonlight, Watt found it easy to see. They headed south with no real destination in mind. A rusted signpost would do for a sword. They picked it up and hit it against the side of a building. It made a satisfying clang.

After an hour of wandering, Watt began to think of returning home. They were about to turn around when they heard a woman’s scream. The damsel!

Watt raced toward the sound of the scream where they found two men struggling to restrain a woman. They clanged their “sword” on the ground.

“Unhand her at once, foul curs!”

“Oh shit!” One of the men let go of the woman and shot at Watt. The other had let go after the first shot and joined in shooting at Watt.

Watt looked down. Their armor was dented, but not seriously damaged. They raised the “sword” over their head and charged. “Have at thee!”

The two men ran away, but not before Watt struck one with the weapon. They were certain they felt the man’s arm break under the impact, and his high-pitched scream as he ran made that likely.

Watt turned to the damsel, currently trying to hide in the shadow of a rusted truck. “It is safe now, fair lady.” They held out a hand to help her up.

She cowered further back in the shadow, shivering in fear. “Y—you’re a….”

“I am your knight in shining armor.” Watt looked down again. Their armor wasn’t exactly shining. “Well, your knight in armor, anyhow. Come my lady, these environs are not safe.”

By degrees, Watt earned the woman’s trust and finally led her back their loft. “You will be safe here, for as long as you choose to stay,” they said.

She turned on the sink and nothing came out but a faint groan. “Hey, you! Your water’s busted. Where can I get some water?”

“I recently acquired supplies. There is water in the cupboard to the right of the sink.”

She grabbed a bottle and gulped it down. “What do I call you?”

“I apologize, my lady. I should have introduced myself. I am Watt. Today I am the knight, sometimes I am the damsel, and sometimes I can’t determine which.”

“Okay, that was…a lot. I’m Tara. Please stop calling me lady.”

“My apologies, again, my la…Tara.”

Tara checked out the loft, looking out the single window to the rubble below. “How are you still around?” she asked.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You’re really messed up, aren’t you?” She stepped closer and began to inspect Watt. It made them feel self-conscious.

“What are you doing? You’re making me nervous.”

Tara laughed. “Yeah, you’re messed up bad. How long have you been here? Living in this flat, I mean.”

“Always.” Watt felt uneasy. “I can’t remember ever not living here.”

Tara looked at the bed and nodded. “I thought so. I’ll be back in a little bit; going to check out the facilities.”

Watt nodded. They were feeling extra tired and lay down on the bed. The dreams came right away. Watt saving Tara from a dragon, Tara saving Watt from an evil sorcerer, and more. They all ended with the two of them living on a farm surrounded by magical forests.

Watt awoke to Tara sitting in the middle of the floor, drinking another bottle of water and eating one of the rations they had gathered. She nodded at them and continued to eat in silence.

When she had finished, she stood. “Come on, Watt, I want to show you something.”

Watt followed her to the end of the hallway where she opened the door to the shared washroom. She led them to a large mirror on the wall and stood next to them.

“Look at our reflection and tell me what you see.”

Watt looked. Tara, although her clothes were torn and stained, and a large bruise adorned her cheek, looked like the ultimate damsel from their fantasy. Beside her, Watt stood taller; dark grey armor with a full face-mask helm protecting their head.

“A damsel and a knight.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Tara pursed her lips in thought. “Is there somewhere that has old newspapers or magazines nearby?”

“Oh yes!” Watt brightened. “We can go to the library. We don’t even have to go outside to do it.”

“Lead the way, then.”

Once in the library, Watt went straight to their favorite book and removed it from the shelf. Tara, meanwhile, was elsewhere, using a flashlight she’d been carrying.

Watt petted the cover of the book, trying to decide whether they would re-read it now, or wait until the next month. Tara approached from the rear, holding a newspaper.

She laid it on the desk beside them and pointed her flashlight at it. “What do you see?”

“It…it looks like my armor. A knight like me?” They studied the image. “And the fires behind; it is there to rescue damsels?”

“This isn’t a story book. Read the headline.”

“AI army lays waste to Chicago in latest fighting.” Watt was confused. “Was Chicago evil? The home of a dragon or evil sorcerer?”

“No. It was a city of nearly three million civilians.” Tara wore concern openly on her face. “Do you really not remember anything of the war?”

Watt shook their head. “No. There has been no war that I know of, except for the ones in here.” They gingerly held the book out to Tara.

“A Children’s Book of Tales,” she read. “You really are a child, aren’t you?”

“I am knight or damsel…or maybe both. Not a child.”

“You’ve always lived in the loft, right?”

Watt nodded.

She handed the book back to them. “How did you find this book?”

“When I woke up in the loft on the first morning, it was there. I read it, and returned it, since it said it belonged here.” Watt hummed. “It was my first quest; find the library and return the book to its proper home.”

“How long do you remember living in the loft?”

“Eight-hundred-sixty-two days.” They shrugged. “I can remember by counting the number of times I’ve dreamed.”

“You dream? Interesting.”

“Yes. In my last dreams, I saved you from a dragon, then you saved me from an evil sorcerer, then we lived happily ever after in a farm cottage surrounded by magical forests.”

“That would be nice,” she said. “We just have to find a farm cottage with its own reactor in the basement, like your building.”

“Why does it need a reactor?” Watt asked.

“Your bed…it’s a recharging station.” Tara laid a hand on Watt’s cold, metal arm. “It would be like me trying to live somewhere without food and water.”

“But I have food and water. I make sure to keep well supplied, and make sure the food has not spoiled. I could do that on a farm, too.”

“I’m sure you could,” she said. “If we can figure out a way to take a reactor with us.”

“Another quest?” Watt asked.

“Another quest,” she answered.

“Am I the knight or the damsel this time?”

“Take your pick, Watt. I’ll play along.”

Trunk Stories

Gates

prompt: Start your story with an unusual sound being heard.

available at Reedsy

It started with a low rumble that continued far too long to be normal. As it continued, the frequency rose and the amplitude spiked in increasingly shorter intervals, causing the volume to pulse faster and faster as the rumble climbed into a ringing, rising tone.

In all the years that the Gravity Wave Research Center had been recording and converting gravity waves to sound waves, this anomaly was a first. The duration and non-randomness of it pointed to the possibility of intelligence behind the still-increasing waves.

“I’m telling you, it’s the collision of a pair of pulsars. I’m working on the model now.” Andre typed away at his laptop, heavily chewed pen in his teeth.

“I don’t think so,” Liz said. “We’re either looking at something made by…someone…or we have a whole new thing to learn about in cosmology.”

Andre raised his hands to either side of his face with a mocking grin. “Aliens!”

Liz sucked her teeth at him. “Okay, be that way. Where’s the data from KGOT?” The Kuiper Gravity Observer Telescope was the furthest gravity wave telescope humans had deployed yet, in hopes of getting more and better data.

“Huh?” Andre removed the pen from his teeth. “You sure it’s in position for that?”

“Pretty sure.” Liz pointed to her monitor, where a solar system map with the position of every planet and every man-made object outside of Earth’s orbit. “We picked it up first at Jupiter…JGOT. Then us, at the same time as the message from JGOT. Then Mars is here, where MGOT picked it up twenty minutes after us. That gives us a general direction.

“Following that back, it takes us directly to KGOT.”

“Wonder if there’s a comms issue. I’ll look into that,” Andre said. “In the meantime, can we turn down the speakers? It’s giving me a headache.”

Andre sent a system test message to the gravity telescope near the Kuiper belt, knowing it would be an eight-hour round trip. That out of the way, he went back to work trying to make his model of colliding pulsars match the gravity waves they were still seeing going on close to three hours now.

“Um, Andre, I think you should really check the logs for the KGOT.” Liz’s voice was tense with worry.

Andre switched tasks to look at the logs. They showed that the telescope was sending its regular messages every half-hour for the entire time that they had been recording the anomaly.

“How…how could we pick it up here, but not there? I wonder if there’s a malfunction.”

“Maybe—,” Liz started, but fell silent as the wave ceased. “It’s done. Whatever it was.”

“I’m still trying to get these models to match. It may not be colliding pulsars, if the results I’m seeing are any indication.”

As the hours passed, Liz and Andre worked hard on trying to make some sense out of the strangeness of the wave. They had given up on hearing anything more from the anomaly, until an alert from KGOT showed up.

“Liz! KGOT started picking it up…uh…around four hours ago.”

“Can you give me a more precise time?”

“Yeah, according to the logs, it started at 01:13:22.93114 Zulu.”

Liz entered the data into her solar system model showing the track of the gravity wave. “That would mean it came from—”

“From what?”

“Inside the solar system. Jupiter L4 Lagrange point to be exact.”

“Impossible. There’s not enough matter in the entire solar system for a wave like that, much less the Trojans there.” He returned to his model. “It would take at least a supermassive black hole to generate a wave of that magnitude and duration.”

The videoconference phone chimed with its annoying song. Andre answered and looked to the screen. “Yeah?”

“Hey gravity nerds, I take it you have something big, right?” The screen didn’t show the caller, but a visual telescope view that looked warped, out of focus somehow.

“Hey Janice, what do you have?” Liz asked. “Need help to focus your telescope?”

“Nope. It’s focused perfectly.”

Andre snorted. “If that’s the case, why does it look smeared?”

“Let me zoom out.” The warped look stayed confined within a circle in the middle of the view, limned with a sparkling, blue light. Beyond the light, the rest of the view looked normal.

“Where…where are we looking?” Andre asked.

Liz answered, “Jupiter L4, I bet.”

“Ding! Ding! Ding! You win a prize! I knew you were the smart one.”

“Stow it, Janice. Any idea what it is?” Liz asked.

“Well, this is going to be huge, but I thought I’d show you guys first. I recorded this about ten minutes ago.” The view zoomed back in on the warped, distorted look through the center of the anomaly.

The warped view slowly began to redraw itself as a software algorithm tried to compensate for it. “Either I’m off my rocker or it’s a gateway…to a bunch of other gateways.”

Where once was an image of smudges of light, there was an image of hundreds of glowing circles with distortions at their centers. There were no other lights in the view; no stars, no reflecting nebulae, just the glowing circles.

“There’s no way this is natural,” Liz said.

“Well, maybe,” Andre said. “But still, I think you were right when you said we’d have something new to learn about in cosmology.”

“Just wait,” Janice said. “Here comes the good part.”

A bright shape, like an elongated triangle, came out of one of the glowing circles and moved into another. With no sense of scale there was no way of determining its speed.

“If those are the same size as the one here,” Liz said, “that ship is the size of the moon. I first estimated its speed as three-quarters C, until I realized that the gates…or whatever you want to call them…seem to heavily warp space in their vicinity.”

“What does that have to do with the velocity of the ship?” Andre asked.

“It’s three-quarters C relative to our view, but with the way the space between the gates is warped, the distances we think we see between them can be completely wrong. They may be right beside each other with the ship traveling at a leisurely fourteen thousand kilometers an hour. We just don’t know.”

Ho—how many gates do you see in there?” Andre asked.

“From this vantage point, we count just shy of seven hundred,” Janice said. “I think it’s safe to assume thousands.”

“What…or who made these?”

“That’s the real question,” Liz said. “That’s what’s going to keep us up at night until we know.”

Trunk Stories

Stellum and Planetum

prompt: Set your story during a sudden change of season.

available at Reedsy

Habitat Nine, known colloquially as “Hab-9,” was a test platform for colonization. Agé, the largest moon around the gas giant Xevioso, second planet in the Kal system, teemed with life; slender plants that grew tall in the light gravity, a healthy micro-biome, and small creatures similar to nematodes on Earth.

Although Agé orbited Xevioso once every nineteen hours, it was almost tidally locked to the gas giant. The moon completed one rotation relative to its parent in a period of 413 Earth days, while the Xevioso system orbited its star every 204 Earth days.

“We should get the last of the crops in,” Tara said. “We’re nearly halfway to facing planet-side.”

The rising Xevioso filled the sky with its splendor. Swirls and bands of color adorned the gas giant; browns, oranges, and yellows, along with a deep purple band that marked its equator.

Lev looked at the planet looming in the sky. “It won’t be as bright, but at least it won’t be four hundred days of darkness. The way Xev reflects, the only dark times will be when we’re on the backside of the planet; same as now.”

“We have some low-light crops to test out during the planet-side transition.” Tara pulled her light jacket tighter around her shoulders. “The wind is picking up. When was the last time the ventgrass was checked?”

“It’s been a few days. We should do that before it seeds again.”

The native plants of Agé were compatible with humans and their crops, apart from a highly toxic, stiff, grass-like plant found only around the steam vents that dotted the landscape. The “ventgrass” contained high levels of a novel alkaloid and spread its tiny seeds on the slightest breeze. When dropped too far from a steam vent, the seeds didn’t germinate, instead decaying and poisoning the ground on which they landed, dotting the ground with centimeter-sized dead spots.

“Let’s start with that, then.” Tara shrugged into her hazard suit, checking that her mask made a good seal, and her filters were fresh. She was glad to get into the suit, adding another layer of protection against the chilling fingers of the wind.

As they neared the steam vent, their worst fears were confirmed. “It’s gone to seed already,” Lev said.

“That’s way too fast.” She turned on her radio to the habitat. “Tara to Hab-9. Close and seal all doors, use only air locks, do not leave without protective gear. Ventgrass is seeding. Run the air purifiers on full power, wipe down all surfaces. Any symptoms of alkaloid poisoning are to be treated as an immediate emergency.”

The responses back from the habitat were quick and clipped. Everyone there knew their job and the dangers it entailed. Countless drills had prepared them for a situation like this.

Tara placed a plastic bag over one of the clumps of ventgrass and dug it out at the roots.

“They must be seasonally reactive.” Lev burned the remainder of the ventgrass with a small torch. “With this wind, the entire crop is ruined.”

“Yeah, there’s no telling how much seed has settled on the vegetables, and we can’t dig the tubers without contaminating them.”

“They’re all seed crop now, if they survive.”

They returned to the habitat in silence. After moving through the decontaminating airlock, they shed their hazard suits. The wind increased through the following hours and days, the chill it carried turning into biting cold.

Over the following days, Tara and Lev returned to the vent. The ventgrass doubled, then trebled its rate of growth as the winds grew icier. The steam from the vent turned to fine snow in the wind, carrying the seeds farther than they could travel on their own.

A layer of ice formed as the snow fell and was constantly groomed by the undying winds. The temperature dropped well below freezing, the sky taken up by the swirls of the gas giant overhead. When Xevioso stood between Agé and the sun, the planet’s edge was limned in light surrounding the inscrutable dark of its surface, with bright stars in the small bits of sky not taken up by its looming presence.

By the end of the second week, the winds had receded, returning to the gentle breezes they were accustomed to. The ground had gone hard and frozen at the surface, under a layer of ice onto which a growing powder of constant snow fell.

“We have two hundred days of this?” Lev asked.

“It looks that way.” Tara studied the soil from the roots of the ventgrass she had brought into the lab. The nematode-like creatures were unaffected by the toxins. One of the micro-organisms they fed on seemed to thrive on those same alkaloids, converting them to non-toxic hydrocarbons.

“So much for the low-light crops. We can’t plant, even if the ground wasn’t frozen,” Lev sighed. “I’m not even sure we’ll get a full season of growing, since we have to clean everything up after all the seeding.”

“We don’t have to,” Tara said. “That’s up to these guys.” She held a Petri dish grown grey with the bacteria-like organisms in question.

Lev gave her a doubtful glance. “How long will that take? When we landed it was already a hundred days into the sun-side cycle.”

“And it was lush. I have a feeling this will happen faster than either of us expect. Just like the sudden change in temperature.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

“We grow a bunch of this and spread it as soon as we can. It slows down at sub-freezing temperatures but doesn’t die.”

“So, the grey slime eats the alkaloid, and the nemagétodes eat the bacteria, right? A combined nitrogen-fixer. Maybe alkateria and nitrotodes….”

“Those names are terrible.” Tara didn’t feel like going over yet again how Lev’s acceptable name for the ventgrass was not license to name everything else, so she gave it a rest. “That’s it, essentially. After the pseudo-bacteria break down the alkaloids, the pseudo-nematodes eat them and release nitrogen in the soil.”

“And you’re pretty certain it happens fast?”

“Yep. How long do the dead spots last?” Tara asked.

“Usually a few weeks.”

“Not the ones in our crops. We amended the soil, and these guys are still trying to repopulate. I meant in the native plants.”

“Well,” Lev said, “you get some permanent black spots on the leaves, but the ground cover usually fills back in within a couple days.”

“Exactly. Now, since we have a couple hundred days of cold, why don’t we get to work building new soil amendments with these guys?”

“By the way,” Lev asked, “what are we calling the seasons? I was thinking stellum and planetum. Just need to figure out when stellumnar and planetumnar solstices are.”

“Um, Lev, what’s wrong with summer and winter?” Tara asked.

Lev shrugged. “Boring.”

Trunk Stories

One Good Deed

prompt: Write about a character breaking a rule, but for good reason.

available at Reedsy

“Have we got a navigation solution, Chip?” The pilot rushed through his pre-flight checks.

“Affirmative. I am unable to activate, however. I apologize, Stefan.”

“I understand. Manual entry and activation.”

“Attention, cargo vessel Uragon:you are to immediately power down your warp generator until you reach minimum clearance distance of one-hundred-thirty thousand kilometers.”

“Sorry, no time to talk.” He switched off the comm. As soon as his warp generator spooled up, he tapped the console, shooting off at maximum speed.

“Okay, Chip. You can take over now without violating any regs.”

“Navigation control regained. We will break super-C in three hours, twenty-seven minutes.”

“I hope we get there in time.” Stefan released the harness holding him in the pilot’s chair and stood to stretch.

“It is possible that the Defense Force may get an escort there before us,” Chip said, its voice neither masculine nor feminine. Like all navigation AIs, Chip’s voice was designed to be unmistakable and easily understood.

“Just because a thing is possible, doesn’t make it probable,” Stefan replied. “If a carrier is going to get there first, they need to leave the system in the next thirty minutes. I don’t see it happening.”

“I agree with your assessment,” Chip said, “as the only escort in system was in dock for fueling and provisions.”

“My husband’s going to kill me when we get back, though.”

“Should I prepare a message to have police protection when we return?”

“I didn’t mean literally, Chip. It’s a figure of speech,” Stefan said as he walked through the ship to the cargo area. “It means he’s going to be angry with me.”

“Are you planning on bringing them aboard when you get there?”

“Not unless their ship is fatally compromised. There’s no room in the hold for even a small shuttle.” He began moving the cargo around to get at the oxygen he was meant to deliver. “I just want to buy them some time.”

“Are you going to give the oxygen to them?”

“As much as they need, until the escort gets there.”

“And this is why your husband will be angry?”

“It’ll hurt our finances, sure,” he said, “but I think the fine for breaking the minimum warp distance will be big thing. I might even lose my license over it.”

“Your record is clean up to today. According to Federation law, you will be given a warning, and your license will be revoked if you get another violation in the next eighteen months.”

“Thanks for clearing that up, Chip.” Stefan stacked the oxygen in the airlock. “It also depends on the judge, though. I was less than a thousand kilometers from the station when I warped. They might take that as reckless.”

“Prepare for exit from super-C, twelve minutes and counting.”

Stefan made his way back to the pilot’s chair and strapped himself in. He keyed in the commands to start all the scanners and held his hand above the console. As the dull grey of super-C flashed bright white and returned to the view of normal space, he tapped the console to activate the scanners.

“Thirteen-hundred-forty-one kilometers, heading one-three-zero by seven-four by one-six-point-one,” Chip said. “Course laid in.”

“Maximum sub-light, full burn with mid-flight flip.”

“Engaging. High-gee maneuvers, Stefan.”

Stefan nodded, as extensions from the seat wrapped around his legs, squeezing them tight. He forced his breath while it felt like an elephant sat on his chest. The gravity plating was not of the sort that the military used, so it couldn’t do much for the nine gravities he was subjecting himself to.

At the halfway point, he took big gulps of air and prepared to repeat the procedure for the slow-down portion of the trip. The ship went into full burn again to slow down. Tunnel-vision told him he was close to passing out.

When he thought he wouldn’t be able to take it any longer, it ended as with a sudden moment of weightlessness before the gravity plating returned the ship to one gee.

Without wasting any time, Stefan unbuckled and ran for the airlock. “Hail them and dock, Chip.”

“Affirmative. I have positive hail from the Timbe, four people, all unconscious. Airlock docked.”

Stefan cycled the airlock and watched as the outer door of the other ship opened at the other end of the short tunnel. The air that poured out from the crippled ship set off his CO2 alarm.

“Chip, where is their oxygen connect?”

“Three meters to the right of the inner airlock door.”

Stefan connected one of the oxygen canisters, and opened another wide. “Not the best way, but the quickest to get some oxygen in here. Timbe AI, where are the crew?”

“They are on the bridge,” the Timbe’s AI responded.

Carrying one of the tanks of oxygen, Stefan followed the signs to the bridge. Once there, he opened the oxygen canister and removed their emergency oxygen masks. As they came around, he made sure they were aware of what was happening and then returned to change out more of their oxygen tanks.

The FDF escort vessel Bright Harbor arrived more than three hours later. It was like a space-faring port, capable of docking a large ship and warping to a destination with that ship attached. Stefan returned to his ship and undocked so the escort could lock the Tembe into its docking port.

“No good deed…. I’ll probably be arrested when we get back,” he said.

“The law is clear,” Chip said, “that it would be a fine.”

“Unless they want to call it reckless endangerment.”

Stefan returned to the station at a more leisurely pace, arriving after five hours in super-C. He made sure to exit well outside the warp exclusion limit and hail the station for docking. As expected, he was arrested as soon as he docked and stepped off the ship.

After two days in a cell, he was brought before a judge. He had a public defender there he hadn’t yet met, and across from her sat the Federation prosecuting attorney. The four crew from the Tembe were present, along with the executive officer from the Bright Harbor. A woman he couldn’t identify, dressed in an obviously expensive suit, sat with them in the area reserved for witnesses.

“Prisoner Stefan Inholt, you are charged with the following crimes. Ignoring minimum safe distance for warp with reckless endangerment, first class. Maximum sentence: two years and revocation of your piloting license for life. Theft of goods in transit, aggravated second class. Maximum sentence: one year. Prosecution, you may make your case.”

The prosecutor rose, and looked at Stefan, where he stood in the block, before looking back to the judge. “Your honor, prosecution would like to drop the charge for ignoring minimum safe distance for warp. The Tembe sent a distress call from a distance of thirty-one light hours, with only thirty-three hours of oxygen left on board. The extra hour it would have taken the accused to get to minimum safe distance would have resulted the death of the crew.”

The judge looked to the defense attorney for their nod of approval and banged her gavel. “Removed: ignoring safe minimum distance with reckless endangerment, first class. Moving on to theft of goods in transit, aggravated second class.”

“Prosecution calls Maria Obele, the client for whom the goods were being delivered.”

“I remind you that you are under oath to speak only the truth to the court,” the judge said.

Maria stood and cleared her throat. “Your honor, had I known the circumstances, I would not have lodged a complaint.”

The prosecutor raised a hand. “Citizen Obele, what was the value of the goods missing from your delivery?”

“About a hundred credits. But, as I already stated, had I known the circumstances—”

“Citizen Obele,” the prosecutor cut in, “did you or did you not lose cargo in transit?”

“Objection,” the defense attorney said. “If the aggrieved wishes to remove the charges, they should be allowed.”

One of the crew of the Tembe stood. “Your honor, I know this is irregular, but my crew and I are willing to pay for the oxygen that Citizen Inholt used to save our lives.”

The judge pounded her gavel. “You have not been called upon to speak yet. Maria Obele, do you wish to drop the charge of theft of goods in transit, aggravated second class?”

“Yes, your honor, I do.” She turned toward the Tembe crew seated next to her and smiled. “And I do not seek remuneration.”

“Prosecutor, the aggrieved has stated their desire to remove the charge of theft of goods in transit, aggravated second class.”

The prosecutor frowned. “Prosecution drops the charge of theft of goods in transit, aggravated second class.”

“No further charges. Citizen Stefan Inholt, you are free to go. This session is adjourned.” The judge banged her gavel and Stefan was led out of the block and released into the station.

Stefan walked onto his ship. “Hey, Chip, I’m back.”

“Welcome, Stefan. Have you been fined?”

“Nope, it seems that maybe…sometimes, at least one good deed does go unpunished.”

“Why would a good deed be punished in the first place?”

“It’s a figure of speech, Chip. Don’t worry about it.” Stefan fired up his comm and began scrolling. “Now to find a load to haul. Regardless of what she says, I’m paying Obele back for her oxygen. And we aren’t mentioning any of this to my husband when we get back home.”

evardsson.com: stuff that w0rks