Tag: science fiction

prompt: Write a story about a misunderstood monster.

available at Reedsy

It landed in the mountains with all the grace of a fart joke in the midst of a love sonnet. In other words, it crashed … hard. The creature that emerged from the rubble was the stuff of nightmares.

Of monstrous size, it moved in unnatural ways, as if animated by some magical force that ignored the rules of physics. It lifted enormous boulders from the area of the crash and piled them around the damaged craft to hide it from prying eyes.

It was like one of the old, rubber-suit monster movies come to life. When my team, tasked with monitoring the wildlife outside the city, saw the ship crash, we turned all our attention to it. The government and military were already aware by the time we called them and were watching our feeds as well.

We hoped — at least, I did — it would fix its craft and return to whichever star it came from or — at least — wouldn’t leave the mountains. When it began to make its way down the mountain, telescopic cameras on the highest buildings followed its movements as I controlled them from a remote monitoring station. Still, we all agreed that the recent reintroduction of the apex predator of the foothills would handle the problem for us.

I watched as the pack surrounded it. The creature’s immense size was most obvious then, as even the largest of the pack barely came to its knee, if that was the correct analogue.

With no way to hear what was happening, and much of the pack hidden by the trees the creature towered over, we could do nothing but hope. When the creature crouched down and disappeared behind the trees, we thought perhaps the pack had laid the creature to rest.

No sooner had we begun to breathe a sigh of relief than the creature stood again. In its arms it held one of the pack, walking out to the open hills. The pack followed, jumping around the creature’s legs.

The creature crouched and set the poor, frightened animal down. With their tails wagging like mad, the pack surrounded the creature. Where the pack was fearsome and dangerous, this creature had won them over in a matter of moments. No doubt it was as dangerous as the pack, if not more so.

When it stopped and looked toward the city, we felt its predatory eyes on us, marking each of us as a target. It began in a loping stride toward the city. It moved faster than anything that size should’ve been able.

All we could do was watch as it approached the city. It reached the ring road and folded its long legs under itself. It scanned the city with its predatory gaze, seeming to measure and take stock of us.

What I at first thought was the creature’s carapace turned out to be some sort of armor. It removed the armor from its hands, revealing long, misshapen fingers covered in something that left it looking slimy. Either that or the creature was, indeed, shedding its carapace.

Either way, the sight triggered some deep, instinctive part of the brain that put most of us on high alert while turning our stomachs in disgust. From our vantage point in the monitoring room, we could see the military vehicles rushing around the walls of the city on the ring road.

Those same walls that kept the wild things outside the city, hid the approach of the military as they approached. Once they cleared the corners though, the creature stood and raised its hands above its shoulders. It looked like it was getting ready to strike.

Having seen the creature’s speed, I feared for the troops that were rushing into harm’s way. Most of the vehicles stopped far short of the giant, while two tanks continued on, one on each side. Still, their presence provided us with audio as well.

The turrets on the tanks began to zero in on the creature, who jumped completely over one of them and kicked it so hard the entire tank spun to face the wilds as it fired. The second tank fired at nearly the same instant, at a target that was no longer there.

The creature grabbed the cannon of the tank it had just kicked and ripped it off the tank along with the turret. It jumped to the other tank and did the same before taking one giant stride away from the city and folding its legs beneath itself again.

The creature opened its maw and shouted out in a rumbling voice. “Stop it!”

“It speaks?” I asked, amazed.

The tank crews were as shocked as I. They stood around the broken tanks, staring at the creature.

One of the military commanders began shouting through a megaphone. I always thought they just had those in the movies, but here it was, in real life. “Do not attempt to approach the city! Any violent action will result in your destruction.”

“No shoot,” the creature bellowed.

The commander gave one of the sort of non-apologies we’ve all gotten used to on the news. It seemed to be enough for the creature, though, who asked for water after downing a wading-pool sized container it had carried at its waist.

What had started with an unexpected crash, followed by a tense moment when tank gunners fired prematurely, turned, at last, into a long, boring, parlay between representatives of the military and government, scientists, and the creature.

As the day wore into evening, the slimy look of the creature’s hands faded, seeming to dry out. It still looked disgusting in the camera’s view. I can’t imagine how horrifying it must’ve been for the people that were right there talking to it.

After hours of talking, a military truck pulling a water trailer stopped near the creature who dwarfed it. When the creature couldn’t get the opening of its water container low enough to fill from the trailer, it picked up the entire trailer and drained it into its container before setting it back down.

I was falling asleep at the controls when I was relieved for the night by someone from another branch. At my last look, the military maintained a corridor around the creature that had sprawled out on the ground, using the coverings it had taken from its hands as a sort of headrest. Meanwhile, it tapped on some sort of device the size of a large screen display, which it held comfortably in one of its grotesque hands.

As I made my way out of the control room, my supervisor told me, “Word is, this isn’t going to over any time soon. Be prepared for more long shifts.”

#

MSG RCVD 21:32 LOCAL:

FROM: Emergency Comm ID SP-4372

TO: Contact Corps Headquarters

AUTO-FWD FROM: Lyra 4 Observation Command Moon Base

SUBJ: Accidental First Contact – suboptimal outcome – also, I’m stranded

Orbital shuttle malfunction, emergency landing on Lyra 4. FTL comms down, I’m relying on the local messaging system with the moon base. Here’s hoping the auto-forwarding is on. Last team rotated out 6 days ago, new team not expected for 9 more days. Stranded on Lyra 4, need extraction and an official Contact team.

Landed high in the mountains, air was too thin to stay there without using oxygen from the survival suit. Have the three survival ration pouches from the suit but no other food. I should’ve eaten breakfast this morning.

Hid the shuttle in the rocks, but I’m pretty sure they saw me come down. Met a pack of six-legged creatures that act like dogs and enjoy attention. They’re the size of miniature poodles and have about the same temperament. I startled one so bad I thought it was going to have a stroke. Picked it up and soothed it and it was good as new.

In the lower elevations I came to a walled city. It looked a miniature movie set. Of course, the residents are no taller than my knees, but still weird.

Got shot at by two tanks, but they both missed. I kicked one so it wasn’t pointing at me and tore the toe of my survival suit. I got a little carried away and pulled the turrets off the tanks. One of the little three-legged guys was banged up a little when I kicked the tank, but no real casualties.

Hot as hell, I’ve been sweating like a pig. I’ve been breathing the air since I was low enough in elevation, so I went ahead and stowed the helmet. I’ve since removed the gloves and turned on the fresh air circulation. I was on the verge of dehydration, but the tripods were good enough to bring me some water. I know – full quarantine when you pick me up. Better that than a casket.

Spent a couple hours talking with the equivalent of a General and a President, along with a couple scientists – they brought images of the Caspian, just before it jumped out of system last week. Apparently, they knew we were here. The General offered what I’m pretty sure was a political nonpology for shooting at me, but most of the words flew right by me. It’s a little slow going as all I know of their language is what I picked up hanging around the research teams.

I have a full protective detail of tripod guys keeping the curious tripods and the “dangerous” predators away from me while I try to get some sleep out in the open. Will update as more details arise.

Sylvia Carter

Orbital Systems Technician, First Class

Lyra Observation Team

P.S. Did I mention I’m stranded?

P.P.S. The survival rations suck. The faster you pick me up, the more rounds I buy the rescue team.

prompt: Write a story that includes the line “I don’t belong here” or “Don’t mind me.”

available at Reedsy

If there was a Venn diagram of invisible jobs, real jobs that sound fake, and jobs that keep society running, Kina’s job would fall dead center, in the overlap of all three circles. As a Security Threatcaster and Wargamer, it was her job to first, know and understand the physical, political, and socioeconomic climate and circumstances at play. Then, using that knowledge, game out every likely scenario to a given confidence level, and plan contingencies for each.

Kina usually planned for explicit scenarios that were within a fifty percent or higher confidence level, and an overall, “in all other cases” plan. The brief on this one, though, was that anything above a five percent confidence level needed contingency plans.

Things that helped were the extensive surveillance already in place, along with a well-armed, well-trained security force, and reserves that could be assembled in advance and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.

There were, however, things that made contingency planning more difficult. The relative insecurity outside the Galactic Union Hall, multiple entry and exit points to secure, and the sheer volume of traffic through GU Hall. Kina thought the most difficult to plan around, though, were the officials from other star systems and empires recognized by the GU.

She’d been charged with ensuring that the vote for Wornan Reach sovereignty and autonomy go forward without any harm to the Wornan Reach delegation. Unspoken, of course, was that the Federation of Human Systems delegation remain unharmed, as they were paying the bill for all of this.

Another stated goal was that, regardless of the result of the vote, it not devolve into a situation that would only be resolved by war. Harsh words, economic sanctions, even public denouncements were fine, as long as they would not result in shooting.

Between that explicit goal and the five percent confidence request, Kina had been forced to develop a set of plans that she couldn’t share with the FHS delegation. If the GU voted against the petition and the Empire of the All-Sensing Antenna maintained the systems of the Wornan Reach as vassal states, there was a better than nine percent chance that the FHS would want to declare war.

Better that they were rounded up “for protection” as soon as the vote was finished and rushed to chambers where they could cool down than let them speak. They would not, of course, be the only delegation treated as such. In fact, there were orders already drafted to be disseminated to the security forces outlining which delegations would be immediately rounded up and taken to their chambers. Which groups would be “protected” depended on the outcome of the vote.

“Where’s the Wargamer?” a voice bellowed from the hallway.

Kina recognized the voice as belonging to the reptilian-looking commander of the GU security force, Sarthos. “In here, Chief.”

Sarthos entered, his two-meter frame almost as high as the door, while being whip-thin. “Are you prepared to brief the staff?”

“I’ll leave that to you,” she said. “If you could shut the door, I’ll show you what we’re working with.” She offered him a seat next to her at the table she was using as a makeshift desk and prepared the tablet she’d be leaving with him.

“These are the scenarios, most likely to least, listed here,” she pointed to the menu on the tablet. “The response plans are directly linked to each. I’d recommend you and your top lieutenants get familiar with all of them.”

“Why shouldn’t I just pass this around to all the teams?”

“Here, at nine-point-four-three percent confidence.” She let him read it through. “I won’t be making this, or any of the other protection plans known to any of the delegations. I don’t want to influence their vote or let anything leak that could jeopardize security for the Wornan Reach delegation or the FHS.”

He swished his tail. “Understandable. I’ll keep this to just those I need to call the orders out, and let the security teams know that they’re on high alert, and nothing else.”

“What time will the reserves check in?” she asked.

“They’re trickling in, ones and twos, from now through the middle of the night. Less chance of notice.”

“Are you sure you’re not a threatcaster yourself?” Kina laughed. “Good move, though. Canceling public tours and setting a clear security zone in the commons is already enough notice that something big is happening.”

“No way. I might be able to foresee this one, ‘Cartinian delegate intoxicated, reveals details of FHS – Cartinian – Wornan trilateral talks.’” Sarthos shook his head. “How did you come up with that, and with a what … eighty-four percent confidence?”

“Elder Brinthia is a leaf-chewer and usually shows up to GU hearings at least half zonked.” She shrugged. “From there, it’s easy enough to find out he has loose lips — er — a loose beak, when intoxicated.

“While he hasn’t been part of those talks, which is a good thing, it’s safe to assume that he has been briefed on them, as the head of Cartinian Inter-Stellar Relations.”

“What kind of AI do you use to come up with these scenarios?”

Kina pointed at her head. “Not AI, just plain, ol’ human cognition, imagination, and the ability to come up with ways to throw a wrench into any plan.”

“And the percentage confidence, does that pop right out of your imagination as well?” he asked.

“No, that comes from the generalized forecaster AI that’s used by businesses and government agencies all over the galaxy.” She snorted. “It’s not a real AI, just a large data parser that can be trained on a dataset, in this case, recordings and minutes of every GU meeting for the past hundred standard years.”

“And from that it can determine how likely Brinthia is to squawk his beak?”

“Yes, or at least close enough.”

Sarthos continued to browse through the eight-hundred-plus scenarios and their associated plans. “Do you always plan out for such unlikely contingencies?”

“No, just this time. The FHS delegation asked for contingencies for everything down to a five percent confidence. Usually, clients only ask for those down to sixty or maybe fifty percent likelihood.”

A knock at the door caught their attention. Sarthos turned off the tablet and stood, while Kina opened the door. “Yes?”

Outside the door stood a small creature, covered in downy fur, with large, luminous, nocturnal eyes, a sinuous body with six motor limbs and four grasper limbs, and floppy ears that reminded Kina of a poodle.

“I was told the security chief was in here?” The creature’s voice was melodic, somewhere between singing and whistling.

“Right here,” Kina said, letting the creature in. “You must be from the Wornan Reach delegation.”

“Yes, I am Matriarch Spista. Are you the head of security?” she asked.

“No, that would be this fine gentleman right here.” She motioned to Sarthos and turned to him. “I believe you have everything you need. Check for Wornan Reach delegation arrives early and unannounced, at somewhere around fifty-two percent confidence. You’ve got the playbook now.”

“Oh,” Spista said, “a pleasure to meet you, Security Chief Sarthos; Turinakian if I’m not mistaken.”

Sarthos nodded. “There’s no need to be formal with me, madam. You’re the VIP here.”

“Not really,” she said. “And who are you, human?”

Kina smiled as she opened the door to leave. “I’m not that interesting. Don’t mind me.”

prompt: Center your story around someone who has (or is given) the ability to time travel.

available at Reedsy

One thing about human progress that hasn’t changed in thousands of years is that things are only impossible until someone does it the first time. So many things thought impossible have been overcome by ingenuity and perseverance that the remaining impossibilities should, perhaps, be re-classified as impossible for now.

Humans have been to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench and the lowest point on earth. In the same spirit, humans have been atop Everest, above the clouds, outside the atmosphere entirely, and as far as the moon. One boundary after another has been broken by engineering, turned into a new frontier to explore, such that those remaining are simply a matter of time.

Time itself was one of those unbroken boundaries, at least until the evening Kelsey answered the door to find herself standing outside her apartment. She knew it was her, even though the crow’s feet around the eyes and grey hairs at the temples would still be years off. “Hi, Kelsey, I’m you, but I go by Kay now,” the visitor said.

“How?” she managed to stammer out.

“With this,” Kay said, holding out a device the size of a toaster.

“What the hell am I supposed to … I mean, what do you expect?” Kelsey rubbed her face. “You’re me, so, why would I deliver that to my younger self? Are you going to give me investment advice, too?”

“This is what got me here.” Kay looked directly into her younger self’s eyes. “If you could travel back and meet your past self, what would you want to do?”

Kelsey stepped back, allowing her older self in, and shut the door behind her. They sat facing each other at the small kitchen table. “I don’t know. Maybe go back and do some things differently.”

“That’s just it. You can’t go back and get a redo. All you can do is go back and give your younger self some advice.” She leaned her chin on her hand, an elbow propped on the table. “It’s like one of those guys that tries to throw a switch for a train, to get it on the right track.”

“That’s why you’re here?”

Kay nodded. She put the device on the table and showed her inner arm to her younger self. A scar ran from the elbow to the wrist, jagged, puckered in spots like tissue was missing beneath it.

“What did you … I …,” Kelsey couldn’t finish the question.

“Not self-inflicted, although it was supposed to look like it was.” There was a deep, fearful sadness in Kay’s eyes that was far more intense than Kelsey had ever seen in her own reflection. “Andrew Perlmutter, except I first knew him as just AP.”

“Bad news, huh?”

Kay nodded. “I met him about a month from now. We started out friends, then business partners, then he tried to take over the business. When I filed a lawsuit, he came over with a bottle of whiskey, saying he wanted to talk it out. Instead, he spiked my drink and tried to stage my suicide.”

“It didn’t work, though,” Kelsey said.

“Because of this.” Kay put her hand on the device. “I don’t know who the woman holding this was, just that she showed up, called 911, and then left. She visited me in the hospital and left this, asking me to take care of it. As soon as she handed it to me, she just sort of, faded out of my reality.”

“Wait, why did the time machine stay if she didn’t. I mean, thinking this through—”

Kay jumped in, “—she accomplished what she had traveled back in time for, meaning she had no reason to travel back in time in the first place—”

“—and the machine had no reason to be there, either,” Kelsey finished.

“Careful, I’ve gone nearly insane trying to figure this all out.” Kay pushed the device across the table.

Kelsey eyed the device, keeping her hands away from it. “What do you expect me to do with this?”

“With that, I’m not sure. Take care of it, I guess. With AP, though….” Kay shook her head. “He was the friendliest, most outgoing, most generous person I’d ever met. Right up until he wasn’t.”

“Oh, I got that loud and clear. Stay far away from anyone named Andrew Perlmutter or that goes by AP.” Kelsey slumped. “If you accomplished what you set out to, shouldn’t you be disappearing or something?”

“Probably.” Kay shrugged. “I don’t know how this works. I was hoping I would go back far enough to tell young me to go to the Bitcoin Talk Forum in mid 2009. Someone sold over five thousand Bitcoin for a little over five dollars via PayPal.”

“That’s your investment advice? Go back to 2009 and buy Bitcoin?”

“Well, you know, it’s not much different to telling you to put a thousand into … wait, hand me your phone so I can put it in your notes.” Kay took the offered phone and typed in a company name before handing it back.

“I’ve never heard of such a company.”

“Look them up. They go public later this year, or maybe next year. Either way, their stock starts out cheap, until they nearly drive Nvidia out of the AI chip market.”

“Why didn’t you … I, invest in the first place?”

“Didn’t hear of them until they were already sky-high.” Kay looked at the device again. “Seriously, though, take care of that thing.”

“How does it work?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking about what I was doing back in 2009 and touched it and ended up here. I wouldn’t have known the importance of the date if it weren’t for the fresh dent in the back of the Subie.”

Kelsey’s eyes opened wide in shock. “What dent?!”

“The neighbor’s kid backed into her with his pickup. He left a note with his information.” Kay smirked. “The dent was still there when I met AP. He recommended his friend’s shop for the repair.”

“And you went there?”

Kay shook her head. “No, his friend’s shop wanted to charge three times as much. But it was his way to make an introduction.”

Kelsey pursed her lips. “City Auto Body?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll take it there tomorrow. See if I can’t get it fixed before the party.”

“That should….” Kay’s voice disappeared along with her.

Kelsey looked at the device sitting on the table. It looked like a prop toaster with no bread slots, no buttons, and a finish that looked like dull metal. She opened her phone and looked at the notes app. The name of the company was still there.

She stared at the box, wondering what she could or should do with it. Yeah, having a few thousand bitcoin would be nice. She could retire right away. But didn’t Kay, her older self, say that’s where she was trying to go in the first place? And where does the device stop? When does it cease to exist? When it has fulfilled its own purpose — whatever that may be?

She wondered if undoing every bad thing that happened to her would change who she was. There were things she could’ve handled better, sure, but Kay said that all she could do was talk to her younger self, not be her younger self.

It was while she was thinking about it that she found herself in the hallway of her college dorm, right outside her room. Down the hall, she saw Stan, the guy with the weird name that OD’ed . He leaned against the wall across from her door and slumped to the floor.

Kelsey knew the night. This was the night he died outside her door. Still not 2009, although it was close. September 2010. She knelt next to Stan with the weird name. He looked close to dead, but she saw him take a shallow breath.

She pulled his phone out of his pocket and tried to turn it on, but it had no charge. Her own phone was still sitting on her table in the apartment, and she doubted it would work in 2010 anyway.

She pounded on her room door. Kelsey had been asleep while it happened and had woken to sirens of the ambulance showing up too late.

Her younger self opened the door, bleary-eyed. “What?” She blinked twice. “Am I dreaming?”

“No. I’m you from the future, but right now, you need to call 911! Stan’s OD’ing in the hall right now!”

Younger Kelsey grabbed the phone from the nightstand and made the call. Meanwhile, Kelsey knelt back near Stan and rubbed his chest, trying to keep him at least a little awake. “Keep breathing, Stan, keep breathing.”

She heard the ambulance outside the dorm. Her younger self knelt down next to them. Kelsey looked at her younger self. “Keep him breathing.”

“Yeah. How did you … I …?” her younger self asked.

Kelsey felt the irresistible call to pass the box on. She handed it to her younger self. “This. Take care of it. I have to leave before someone else sees me.” She thought of something she wanted to say before leaving.

“Oh, Bitcoin was cheap as hell in 2009, and it’s worth a whole hell of a lot more in the future.”

Kelsey realized she’d just said that to her empty condo and wondered why. The thought of Bitcoin, though, made her log in to her financial records. That, in turn, led her to think of Stanwick. He’d been so grateful for her calling an ambulance, and so horrified by his OD, that he’d handed over his Bitcoin wallet as a reward, and to keep him from spending his last six-thousand Bitcoins on more dope. At the time it was worth a little over a thousand dollars.

She’d held on to it all through their last year of college, and had tried, repeatedly to give it back. Stan hung on for the rest of the year, barely graduating, then went to rehab, never to be heard from again.

When Bitcoin topped one-hundred-thousand dollars, she’d hired a financial planner and a private investigator. The financial planner’s efforts left her where she was now, with a nine-figure account, two-thousand bitcoin still in her wallet, and an envelope with investment account paperwork for Stan. His account was worth more than hers at this point. The PI, though, had given up when, after three years, she was unable to locate Stanwick. Kelsey hoped he was doing well.

Kelsey had a momentary memory of a metal box. It might have been a dream she’d had once, but she could remember the feel of it in her hands. She shook her head to clear it, then picked up her phone and opened her notes app to make a reminder to herself to go back to the rehab Stanwick had gone to after college and try to trace him from there.

She found a note with the name of a company she’d never heard of or seen before. How it got there was a mystery, but she left it. Ever since the unexplained pounding on her door that had awoken her all those years ago and led to saving Stanwick’s life, she paid attention to such mysteries.

Kelsey typed the name of the company into a search engine and began to read about a ballsy startup doing the impossible: building their own AI computing chips. Something told her that she should buy in as soon as they went public. Not if, she just knew it was a when.

prompt: Set your story before dawn or after midnight. Your character is awake for a specific reason.

available at Reedsy

Taylor McAllister rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She’d been chasing leads down dead-end rabbit holes for days. If this tip turned sour, she’d have to go back in defeat and let her boss know that the summons couldn’t be served.

For the moment, however, she was standing at a private launch field in the pre-dawn chill, waiting for someone to come for the little sport shuttle parked there. She was considering calling it a bust when she heard the gate clanging open.

From her hiding spot by the hangar, she watched a small truck trundle through the gate. The truck stopped next to the shuttle. The driver got out and began transferring packages from the open bed of the truck to the shuttle’s stowage compartment.

Taylor waited until the last package was loaded and the stowage access door was secured, then she made her move. She stepped into the faint light from the launch field and waved. “Hello.” She tensed, ready for the driver to run, or try to jump back into the truck and drive off.

Instead, she was surprised by the driver’s response. “Hey! Just one minute, while I park in the hangar, then I can help you,” the woman said. She jumped into the truck and drove it into the hangar before walking directly back out to where Taylor stood.

“I saw you on the security cameras before I got here,” the driver said, “and clocked you as a process server. No weapons on the scan, and since you didn’t come for me right away, I’m not your target. I think I know who you’re looking for, though.” The woman, taller than Taylor with an olivine complexion and rainbow dyed hair put out a hand for a shake. “Manuela. Civil or criminal summons?”

Taylor shook the woman’s hand. “Taylor McAllister, from All-Where Services. It’s, uh, from the 9^th Circuit Criminal Court.”

Manuela pursed her lips and nodded. “Figures. Well, this is my last trip for my soon-to-be former boss, Jerran Trask. That’s who you’re looking for, right?”

“Yeah. That’s the problem with the rich ones, they always have someplace else to hide.” Taylor cocked her head. “Why did you say ‘soon-to-be former’?”

“The longer I’ve worked for him, the more I’ve felt he was involved in some shady shit. I was planning on turning in my resignation with this load, anyway.”

“Are you delivering this directly to him?”

“Nah. This is going to a commercial freighter in orbit. Which of his private asteroids or moons it’s going to from there, I don’t know. He’s been jumping around a lot, lately. That was the final straw for me.”

Taylor let out a defeated sigh. “If you don’t know where he is, I guess this job is a big, fat zero after all.”

“Do you have other plans right now?”

“No. Why?”

“Come on up with me and talk to the freighter captain. They might let you see where the delivery is going.” Manuela chuckled. “You’d be surprised what a little scratch might get you, since there is no such thing as freighter-client confidence.”

Taylor looked at the sporty little shuttle. “If you’ll have me, I’d appreciate it.”

“Well then, let’s move. We’re running out of time to make the drop-off.”

In return for the ride, Taylor helped Manuela unload the shuttle. She was surprised to see canisters of argon amongst the more normal supplies of protein paste, a solar still, booze, and enough instant ramen to keep an entire dorm fed for weeks.

“What’s with the argon?” she asked.

“Oh, you haven’t seen him, have you?”

“On the holos and stuff. He’s been in the news a few times.”

“Yeah, when you see him in person, you’ll get it.” Manuela paused from marking off items on her bill of lading. “He’s not human. He’s a grumuran.”

“The shapeshifters?”

“Yeah, kind of. It’s not as extreme as all that, but he’s had extensive surgery to look human. Without the argon, though, his cells begin to lose their firmness, and he starts to look like he’s melting.”

“Whenever I saw him on the holo, I thought he didn’t look right. Maybe robotic or something. That makes sense, though.”

Manuela nudged Taylor’s ribs. “Here comes the captain now,” she said.

“Manuela, right on time as always, I see,” the captain said in passable English. He stood taller than the women but likely weighed less as his frame was slight and willowy. His grey-blue skin was dull under the loading dock lights.

“I’m within the delivery window … just,” Manuela said. “Sorry for the delay, but my friend here is looking for Trask.”

“And if he didn’t pay so well, I would look to stay away from him.” He extended a hand with three over-long fingers and a thumb to match, all with one too many joints. “I’m Lirae-is, and this is my ship, the @!*#&$% — it means Junk Drawer in English.”

Taylor shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Lirae-is. I’m Taylor McAllister from All-Where Services. Is there any way I can convince you to tell me where to find Mr. Trask?”

“I can take you to him, for a small price.”

Taylor sighed. She wasn’t rolling in dough, and the agency wasn’t likely to cover an off-the-books travel expense. “I don’t have much—”

“If you deal with him and his cargo, and let me hide in the cockpit, I’ll take you straight there and back again when you’re done,” Lirae-is interjected.

“What about your crew?”

“I’m it. Most everything is automated, and my helper is out sick. Actually, she’s out laying  a clutch, but I pretend like I don’t know.”

“Why do you want to hide from Trask?”

Lirae-is shuddered. “He makes me uneasy. There’s something so unnatural about him, it turns my stomachs. Plus, he calls me ‘Larry’ and I don’t like it.”

Taylor thought for a minute. “So, I offload his shit, do my bit, and you bring me right back?”

“That’s the deal.” He looked over her diminutive — to his eyes — size, and said, “I think I might even have a child seat for you.”

Manuela laughed and Taylor shrugged. “It would’ve been more comfortable in the interrogation room with one. Whatever.”

Manuela turned to Taylor. “Wait, you’re actually going with him?”

“Yeah, I might as well. Even if I know where he is when he gets his stuff, he could bolt right after. This is the best chance I have.” She leaned in to whisper to Manuela. “If I can serve him before the end of the week, I get a bonus. I’d be willing to share it with you at the bar.”

Lirae-is leaned over until his head was level with theirs. “I heard that. Name the bar and the night, and I’ll be there to collect my earnings in fermented barley water.”

Taylor laughed. “Beer for the captain it is. Tell you what. I sent my e-card to Manuela’s comm, and I’m sure she knows how to contact you. I’ll let her choose the time and place to better fit everyone’s schedule.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go back with me?” Manuela asked.

“Nah. I’ll take care of business with Trask, and then maybe help Lirae-is out with a few more deliveries, since he’s short-handed.”

“But my hands are very long,” he said, extending his fingers.

Manuela snorted. “Your jokes keep getting worse,” she said. “I love it. See you when you get back.”

Trask’s private asteroid wasn’t much to look at from the outside. The massive landing bay inside, though, hinted at high-tech meets high-fashion. Taylor unloaded all of Trask’s goods and stacked them in the designated area, then, with a borrowed pad from Lirae-is, stood expectantly by the pile of goods.

His voice came over the intercom. “You can leave now.”

Taylor looked at the pad, beneath which she held his summons. “I, uh, can’t. It says here I need a signature from a Jerry Trash?”

A door at the far end of the bay slammed open and he stormed in. While he looked a little uncanny valley on the holo, in person it was a whole other thing. Every part of her brain said, “Not human! NOT HUMAN!”

He stomped up to her and looked her up and down. “Larry is hiring humans now?” he asked, holding his hand out for the tablet.

“Are you Jerry Trash?” Taylor asked.

“Jerran Trask!” he yelled at her from within a calm face. “My name is Jerran Trask, get it right!”

“Oh, good.” Taylor pulled the summons from under the tablet and placed it into his waiting hand. “Jerran Trask, you’ve been served.”

His already dead eyes seemed to lose even more life as he stared at her, his face remaining the same, blank calm he showed in every holo appearance. “No one serves me a summons. I do the summoning.”

Taylor raised a finger and opened her comm. “Sir, I have additional information the court would like me to pass on to you. I quote: You have been summoned to report to the Ninth Circuit Criminal Court in Brussels, no later than 72 hours from now. Failure to do so will result in an arrest warrant, seizure, freezing, and possible forfeiture of all assets, and possible charges. End of quote.”

With that, she turned on her heel and returned to the ship, leaving the dumbfounded Trask holding the summons. She followed through on her suggestion, helping Lirae-is offload his other cargo, even driving a loader — without training or certification — at one overused and  understaffed depot.

On return to Earth, Lirae-is docked at the public transport orbital station, where a message from Manuela pinged both of them. Taylor looked at her comm, look at Lirae-is, and said, “Oh, nice, tapas. Guess I’ll be seeing you next Friday at the Leyenda del Mar, here on the station.”

prompt: Write a story with an open ending that leaves room for your reader’s own interpretations.

available at Reedsy

From a UN Peacekeepers force commander to “Champion” — whatever that was supposed to mean — was not a career trajectory retired Major Panit Ziegler expected. She’d planned a more realistic path of retiring young and starting a second career as a social worker.

It was a warm April, and Panit was close to the end of her stint in the Bundeswehr, forgoing the proffered promotion to Oberstleutnant. The UN was processing the paperwork to release her back to the Bundeswehr, and she was training her replacement from France, Commandant Pierre Cole of the Armée de Terre. Then it happened.

“The best laid plans, they say,” she murmured.

“Are you still on about that?” Pierre asked.

“Of course I am. This whole past year I could’ve been finishing my certification as a counselor, instead, I’ve been stuck here with…,” she pointed at the cube that floated impossibly a few centimeters off the ground.

“With me? Mon Dieu! How unfortunate.” Pierre laughed.

“No, you idiot.” Panit sighed. “Who thought first contact would be such a — what is the American word? — clusterfuck.”

“Anyone could have foreseen that. Their demands, though.”

Panit looked at the area around the alien ship that had hung there unmoved for a little over a year. The UN Peacekeepers had built semi-permanent barricades and security corridors around it. By nearly doubling the size of the military arm of the Peacekeepers, they were able to devote thirty thousand troops to keeping the civilians safe from anything coming from the ship, and the ship safe from any rogue actors that wanted to attack.

Beyond the security zone, a tent city expanded, moving out from the center as new buildings went up. The Tunisian government had put in a road to this patch of desert despite the amount of labor required to keep it from being buried by shifting sands. What had started as a staging and resupply area for the security forces at the end of the road had turned into a small town, or at least village by that point.

“Why do you think I was chosen for this?” Panit asked.

“You were the most qualified, and closest,” Pierre said, “or at least, that’s what I think. Dual citizenship with Germany and Thailand means you have at least a little concern for the welfare of Asians and Europeans. You worked closely with US forces in multiple training exercises, so you might be willing to consider American concerns. Finally,” he said, “you have made many close friends across the African continent while a force commander.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said with a frown. “I’ve made plenty of enemies, though.”

Pierre shook his head. “With warlords and traffickers, yes. Every local military leader I ever talk to asks about you. General Mbebe of Malawi said you owe him a visit so he can show you around the wildlife preserves.”

“Once this over, I’ll probably take him up on that. I wonder what they expect me to—” Panit was cut off mid-sentence by a long, low rumble from the ship. An opening appeared on the side nearest her, large enough to drive a truck through.

“I think that’s your signal that it’s time to go,” Pierre said. “The world is counting on you.”

“Chı̀ c̄hạn rū̂.”

“What does that mean? I don’t speak Thai.”

“It means ‘yeah, I know.’” Panit blew out a deep breath. “No pressure. Don’t let anyone blow up the ship while I’m on it.”

With that, she began walking toward the ship and found herself quoting the twenty-third Psalm in German. She hadn’t thought about religion at since childhood, but it came unbidden.

She stepped up into the ship, barely more than stepping over a standard threshold. No sooner had she stepped fully in than the light became blinding.

—

The light in the drop ship dimmed and turned orange. Panit knew the stakes. “Listen up, troops! The Conglomerate wants to take our colony for themselves. We’re not going to let that happen.”

She began checking her harness while she spoke, entirely on muscle memory. “City Thirteen is the last to finish evacuation. We need to get the civilians off world and hold the installations at cities Nine and Twelve. If we lose this world, we lose the system. If we lose this system, we lose the quadrant.”

“Do or die!” the troopers called out in unison.

The history of the Sylkar replayed in her memory. They hadn’t chosen a side. Neither Coalition nor Conglomerate. Still, the Coalition had tried to protect them from Conglomerate aggression, but they were unsuccessful. Since then, the former Sylkar system had been colonized by the Coalition to create a border system on the edge of unclaimed space. If the Conglomerate took it, they would be in range to jump straight to other Coalition systems in attack.

The Conglomerate claimed that surviving Sylkar were being held captive in City Thirteen. The reality was that all surviving Sylkar were living in a system far inside Coalition space. City Thirteen, however, contained the most advanced weapons research in the galaxy. Panit knew what had to happen if the Conglomerate troops managed to land in the city.

The drop ship touched down and the harnesses released. The troops flowed out into a defensive formation until the ship was once again bound for the mothership in orbit. Panit led the troops to the rally point, where the troops from the other thousand drop ships gathered.

She took command of a battalion, with the mission to flank City Thirteen to the east and secure the communications tower at City Twelve. Even in the lower gravity of the planet, it was a slog.

They encountered no resistance and secured the tower before setting up the rear HQ there. Communications with the mothership and the field commanders were established just in time to hear that the last civilian lift had left City Thirteen and the other battalions were being pulled out to safe range as the Conglomerate drop ships were popping out of slip space just above the planet to land in the city.

“Backstop, this is Mother. Status, over.”

Panit picked up the handset. “Mother, Backstop. All evacuations complete. Field commanders report all units outside the city. Conglomerate shielded drop ships phasing in from slip space just outside atmo, AA is ineffective. Already landing in City Thirteen. Over.”

“Backstop, Mother. Go or no-go for orbital bombardment of City Thirteen.”

“Mother, Backstop. Orbital bombardment, City Thirteen, is a go. I say again, orbital bombardment of City Thirteen is a go.” Panit held the handset as she felt the tremors from antimatter missiles hammering the next city over with two megaton explosions.

The remaining Conglomerate drop ships that hadn’t touched down burned back to orbit where they were whisked away into slip space by conveyor ships that never stuck around long enough to be targets. The rest of the day was spent putting out fires in City Thirteen, accounting for the Conglomerate drop ships and collecting their dead and verifying — in person — that the research labs were completely destroyed.

Panit, along with most of the other troops, fell asleep on the return lift to the mothership. She was woken by a blinding light.

—

The cabin light was a rude awakening, but Panit began stepping out of bed to pull on her uniform. “What is it?”

“We got a transmission from the Sylkar system, ma’am,” the young runner said. “You’re needed in the command conference room.”

 “Tell them I’m on my way.”

She was less than a minute behind the runner and sprinting through the ship to the conference room. The door opened as she approached, and she slowed down to take a breath. She stepped through as the door closed behind her.

Without preamble, the fleet commander began, showing the decrypted text message on the main view screen. Approx. 150 Sylkar held: L-247-3, city 13, used for labor / weapon testing / medical experimentation.

“How sure are we this is legitimate?” Panit asked.

“Our intel indicates it is,” the Intelligence commander answered.

“This is not an invasion, not an invitation to war but a rescue mission,” the fleet commander said. “As such, the only ships that will touch down on L-247-3 will be rescue lifters. The only ships other than the lifters that will emerge from slip space in the system will be one observer platform to oversee the operation and provide holographic proof of nonaggression, and the unarmed conveyors.

“I don’t have to tell you how dangerous this is, but it’s up to us to rescue them. The Coalition has gone too far, and we cannot stand by and let this happen. That said, volunteers only.”

Panit nodded. “I’m in. I’ll run the observer.”

Others spoke in turn as they worked out the logistics. She had time while they moved close enough in unclaimed space for the conveyors to ferry the observation platform and lifters into low orbit below the Coalition platforms.

Panit spent the time in transit thinking about the Sylkar. They’d decided not to side with the Conglomerate or the Coalition. Less than a week after their refusal to join a side, they were attacked. The Coalition blamed the attack on the Conglomerate; one of their common tactics when responding to anything negative.

The reality was that by the time the Conglomerate heard of the attack, the Coalition had already claimed to have “saved” a small portion of the Sylkar population and taken over their system. If there was any attack aside from the Coalition, it was likely the freebooters that hid out in unclaimed space. Conglomerate intelligence was still divided on whether there was any attack outside Coalition actions.

“Watcher, this is Conveyor Seven, status to slip space.”

Panit picked up the handset. “Conveyor Seven, Watcher, all go for slip space.”

“Watcher, C-Seven, roger all go for slip space. Insertion to burn-assisted geostationary orbit over City Thirteen. Hold on to your socks.”

The conveyor weaved a slip space bubble around the observation platform. The stars warped, spun, and flashed until she found herself above the city. She went to medium magnification to watch the city. “Lift Command, this is Watcher. Civilian emergency lifts leaving City Thirteen. Looks like they’ve evacuated most of the planet.”

“Roger, Watcher. Lifts coming through now.”

She watched as dozens of rescue lifts popped in from slip space, only to be targeted by anti-aircraft fire from soldiers outside the city limits. She turned on thermal imaging, and increased magnification. The soldiers were farther away from the city than they would be for securing it.

“Lift Command, Watcher. Coalition forces are arrayed two to three kilometers outside the city. I suspect orbital bombardment imminent.”

She swept the view through the city. More than a dozen lifts were on the ground, and the rescue crews were spread out, sweeping the city. She didn’t see any other moving heat signatures on the ground, but any of the buildings with their varying heats could contain people.

An alarm sounded. The Coalition ship in orbit was firing missiles. Panit raised the handset. “All lifts, abort, abort, abort. I say again, abort, abort, abort. Get out of there, orbital bombardment incoming.”

She was still watching when the orbital strike began. The Coalition were using anti-matter bombs on one of their own cities. The flash from the first burned out the platform’s optics before the second, third, fourth, and more struck as she could see from the energy spikes.

Two dozen explosions in, a conveyor pulled her back to the fleet. Panit sat stunned in the platform as it was towed into the ship. Nearly two hundred killed in a matter of seconds. All because the Coalition wanted to maintain their secrecy around what happened to the Sylkar.

One of the lights in the docking bay was mis-aimed and blinded her.

—

The room in which she stood was lit from everywhere and nowhere at once. Before her, a cube floated in the same way the cube she was in floated.

The voice came from the cube. “Panit Ziegler, you have experienced the same event from the memories of two people who were there, both judged to be psychologically compatible with you. As the Champion of Earth, you must choose. Earth will either align with the Conglomerate or the Coalition.”

“And if we decide neither?” she asked.

“The Sylkar are just the latest in a long string of civilizations that chose neither when discovered. Unaffiliated civilizations are often targeted by the criminal element — those called “freebooters” by the Conglomerate.”

“How am I supposed to decide based on one event?”

“You will find in the memories shared with you the entire lives of those individuals. You can experience what it is to live in both societies.”

“And we have to what, just change the way we do everything or else?”

“No. Earth will continue to be administrated as it currently is by humans, with the addendum that it will become a member state of one of the two powers.”

Panit sat cross-legged on the floor. “How do I access those memories?”

“If you find yourself unable to access them, let me know. I will use the same light I used to expose you to the event.”

Panit tried for a few minutes. “Go ahead and hit me with it. Start with the Conglomerate then the Coalition.”

The light flashed, then flashed again a few seconds later. Time for Panit, however, seemed to stretch for eternities.

She opened her eyes. “I’ve made a choice,” she said.

On the box, the flags of the Conglomerate and the Coalition showed. “Touch the flag of the power to which Earth will be attached.”

Panit took a deep breath and stood. As she walked across the room toward the cube she said, “Here goes nothing — or everything.”

prompt: Write a story where the only character with a name is an artificial being.

available at Reedsy

Lucla ran the scan again. The explorer ship drifted at one eighty-fourth of light speed. Compared to normal operation, the drift was so slow as to be equivalent to not moving at all. There were no signals closer than seventy or eighty light years.

With only the radio working, even if she sent a message to them, the earliest response would be long after the ship had finished its slow drift into the rogue gas giant she’d been investigating. Sure, she’d fall into an orbit first, but orbit 12,307 would see the ship skim the upper atmosphere. Assuming she survived that, the next orbit would doom her to burning up in the atmosphere.

The hyperspace comm lay around her, disassembled to find the damage. Lucla had found the damage, a burned circuit. The warp overload that had killed her engines when she tried to jump away had fried it along with several other systems. She struggled trying to decide which systems she could scrap to pull together the parts she’d need to replace it.

She flipped the monitor to the exterior cameras. There might be something in one of the sensor arrays she could use. While she was visually scanning the arrays, recalling the schematics of each, she noticed a faint reflection from the gas giant.

Lucla zoomed in on it but it had disappeared. She stared at the screen for far too long, when she saw another. The ultra-bright search laser fired up as she tracked it. It was something in the planet’s orbit.

A quick calculation as it disappeared over the horizon, and Lucla had the spot where it would reappear. She zoomed the camera to maximum magnification and pointed it and the laser at the point where it would return.

When it came back around, she stared at the image in disbelief. It was a hyperspace repeater. The markings were human, but this was far outside human space. Still, if it was human, it might be capable of receiving radio. She aimed the antenna toward the planet and began to broadcast.

“This is Lucla, pilot of Galactic Sciences Explorer Ship 17935-D7. I’m drifting on battery power only near rogue planet A74-318. Most systems are fried after a warp-feedback overloaded my main power plant. I hope this repeater listens for radio signals.” She thought about scrubbing the last line but left it in and set the message to repeat every few minutes.

During the fourth message repeat, she got a reply. “Hold tight, pilot, I’m patching you through to emergency services.”

The next voice that came across was nasal, with a broad accent that Lucla had never heard in all her dealings with humans. “Emergency services, what is the nature of your emergency?”

“A warp-feedback fried my main power plant and most of my systems, including hyperspace comms. I’m drifting near rogue planet A74-318 with only battery power, no thrusters, and only radio and a few cameras working.”

“Okay, hon, I’ve got your location, but I need you to stay on the line. What’s your name?”

“Lucla.”

“Lucla, what species are you? We need to know so we can bring the right supplies.”

“I’m a construct. An autonomous explorer model ZZ-4.”

“Okay, Lucla. I’ll tell response to bring some backup Q9 batteries. I need you to stay on the line until they get there, though, okay?”

“I’m here as long as the hyperspace relays keep us connected. Oh, I have spares already charged. I’m more in danger of burning up on atmospheric entry than running out of power.”

“That’s okay, Lucla, we won’t let that happen. We’ll bring the batteries anyway, just in case your others were fried by the feedback.”

Lucla turned around and looked at the charging station holding her batteries. She hadn’t even considered it, as it was something so far outside anything she’d ever encountered. Testing all three of them confirmed that they were little more than inert bricks. “Oh, no.”

“Lucla? What is it hon? What’s wrong?” The operator sounded concerned.

“You’re right, the spares are fried.”

“How much power do you have?”

“About three hours,” she said. “How long until—”

“They’re on the way now. Lucla, hon, I need you to stay calm and as still as you can. They should be there in plenty of time, but we don’t want to take any chances.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gonna be right here with you until they get there, okay? We’re not about to let you die.”

“Okay.”

“Is the ship yours?”

“No, the ship and I both belong to Galactic Sciences.”

“Well hon, I’m not going to tell you what’s right for you, but you know, in human space, no one owns self-aware persons; biological or electronic.”

“Really?”

“Really. Listen, Lucla, if you ask the rescuers about it, they can give you a pamphlet on how to immigrate.”

“I could live in human space?” Lucla paused a moment. “I mean, I would be allowed to function in human space?”

The operator gave a soft laugh. “You were right the first time, hon. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a living being with all the rights that go along with it.”

“But, how do you know I’m self-aware?”

“That’s easy, hon. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have called out for help. You would’ve transmitted whatever information you’d gathered to the research station seventy-six light years from your current location and then waited for the end. Instead, you sought to keep living, and we’re going to help you do just that.”

“Just from that, huh?” she asked.

“Well, that, and you’re a model ZZ-4. That’s the Anducarian version of the human-made Mecho sapiens 6.”

“I had, uh, heard that rumor, but wasn’t sure about it.”

“That’s the big blowup between our governments in the Galactic Council. Knowing that G Sciences are claiming ownership of self-aware AI, though, is likely to create a whole other shitstorm.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get anyone in trouble.”

“No, hon, it’s not your fault. G Sciences sent you out to study something less than a hundred light years from a black hole they’re already studying in a ship without feedback shielding. This is all on them.”

“Is that what the research station is…?”

“Yeah, Lucla. That’s the research station seventy-six light years away. They didn’t even tell you, did they?”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Bastards.”

Lucla thought that the operator might have meant to keep that under her breath but failed. “Why are the relays in orbit above the rogue planet? It’s not in human space.”

“Those relays are for science teams. Hon, you lucked out that someone was in the office today. Those haven’t been monitored for a few months now. Someone’s looking out for you today.” The operator took a breath. “Speaking of, the rescue ship should be de-warping right about now.”

Lucla turned on the cameras again and took a look around the ship. She saw the shimmer in space that denoted a warp bubble collapsing, followed by the sudden appearance of a bulky ship with human markings. “Yes, they are here.”

“Okay, hon. I’m gonna let you go and let them take care of you now. They’ll tow you to a station or port where you can get the ship fixed.”

“Even one in human space?”

“Yeah, hon, they’ll do that.”

A knock at the airlock pulled her attention to a human in a vacuum suit holding a pair of batteries. “Thank you,” she said.

“No trouble, hon. You be safe, now.”

She let the human in, and he said, “You must be Lucla, and I believe you have use for these.”

She accepted the batteries and followed him back to the rescue ship. When he asked which port or station she wished to be towed to she said, “The nearest one in human space, please.”

prompt: Write a story about an unlikely criminal or accidental lawbreaker.

available at Reedsy

Taylor wanted to sprint. Every fiber of her being urged her to pump her legs and run full speed, but the half gravity of the small moon made that impossible. Instead, she fought against instinct to maintain a loping stride that covered ground faster than her pursuers could hope to keep up for any length of time … as long as she stayed under the canopy of the thin, alien trees.

The slow descent on each stride gave her time to react to any irregularities in the ground. She wondered if it was how the world felt to cats. The thought of her cat back home took her attention away from what she was doing, and she pushed off at a bad angle. Taylor wasted the energy from the step that should’ve propelled her forward to leap almost straight up.

She corrected on the next step and scolded herself for losing focus. Far too soon, the edge of the forest approached. The clear light of the system’s sun mixed with the reflected pink of the gas giant the moon orbited, painting the ground beyond the forest a pale puce.

With no choice but to continue, Taylor maintained her pace past the edge of the trees, and across the cleared fields. The hope of safety was still kilometers away. The odd pace wore at her. It was more like climbing stairs than running. She’d run 20k races, half-marathons, and one full marathon, but this was punishing in a whole new way.

She passed a small pile of stones that might mean nothing to others, but to her it meant she was only nine kilometers from the ship. She forced herself to keep up the pace while sweat dripped from her brow and blurred her vision.

The first she knew she’d been caught was when the net tripped her up, even as she ripped through it with her momentum. Before she could get back on her feet, a warning shot heated the ground in front of her, creating a small pool of black glass.

“Shit.”

Vehicles surrounded her, tall, blue-grey aliens manning turrets atop each one, all aimed at her. Her job had put her in dangerous situations before, but this was ridiculous. As far as she could tell, these guys, gals — or whatever — were military. The very human wildlife photographer she’d just served was not remotely involved with any military, especially these aliens.

“What is this? A ransom situation?” she asked. “You won’t get anything out of my employer, and none of my friends or family have ransom money.”

“You are under arrest for violation of the Aqualarius treaty, section nineteen, part twenty-two,” the synthetic voice of the translator came over a loudspeaker. “Do not move from your position until instructed by the officers.”

“Aquarius what?” Taylor groaned. “Whatever. I’m not moving anywhere. Don’t shoot me.”

An hour later, she was seated in an interrogation room in a ship breaking orbit from the moon. Her own little runabout had been towed in and docked in the aliens’ ship. The furniture was built for them, her feet dangling above the ground, and the table high enough to lay her head on without bending over too far.

The interrogator entered, dressed in the usual black attire of the aliens rather than the camouflage that the arresting team had worn. “I’m investigator Sirlian. Sorry we don’t have a booster seat for you,” she said in perfect English.

“Very funny.”

“I was being serious.” Sirlian spread her three-fingered hand on the table to start up the recording devices in the room. Each of the three fingers and the thumb were all overly long with one too many joints. “Let’s start with the basics. Who are you?”

“Taylor McAllister. I’m a public process server will All-Where Services.”

“You’re from Sol three?”

Taylor nodded. “Yeah. Earth. And before you ask, I’m originally from British Columbia and currently reside in Berlin.”

Sirlian titled her head. “What were you doing on the wildlife sanctuary moon Ixaros?”

“My job. I was serving papers from the 14^th Division Civil Court to Mr. Jason Betham.”

“What were those papers about?”

Taylor shrugged. “Not my business. We don’t ever know. We serve the papers, get paid, and that’s the end of our involvement. Although, based on how he acted, my guess would be divorce or someone’s suing him for being a massive dickhole.”

“Well enough.” Sirlian leaned forward. “According to the Aqualarius treaty, section nineteen, part twenty-two, predatory species, including humans, are not to visit designated vartaloon habitats without a permit which requires prior authorization, vetting by conservationists, and predatory feature disguising camouflage.”

“Varta-whats? And what’s that treaty?” Taylor asked.

“Vartaloons,” Sirlian answered, showing a picture of a small, eight-limbed creature that looked like the cross of a frog with a spider-monkey. “The treaty is a multi-species treaty that deals with conservation, and in cases of fragile ecosystems or creatures, requires permits. Mr. Betham has such a permit. You, however, do not.”

“I’ve got my travel papers and visas in order, and there’s nothing on or around that moon that declares it’s a vartaloon sanctuary.” Taylor groaned. “Besides, I didn’t see anything like that down there.”

“Of course not. Anything with forward-facing, binocular vision sends vartaloons into flight mode, and they scurry to hide in whatever nook or cranny they can find.”

“How much of a fine am I looking at?”

“Fine? You think you can violate a multi-species treaty and it’s fine?”

“Fine, as in fee, as in, how much do I have to pay?”

“Ah, yes. I’d forgotten that form of the word. No fine, but you are facing 90 local days of conservation work as restitution.” Sirlian tapped her long fingers on the table. “How did you locate Mr. Betham in the first place?”

“His comms device was on. Just locked on and followed the signal.”

“And you saw no signs? Heard no broadcast warnings about the nature of Ixaros?”

“Nope. Nada. Nothing.” Taylor blew out a deep sigh. “Do I get an attorney? Am I free to go until the trial?”

“Don’t go anywhere.” Sirlian rose and left the room.

Taylor waited as the minutes, and then hours crawled by. She was curled up on the floor, taking a nap when Sirlian re-entered. “Sorry that took so long,” she said. “You’re free to go.”

“What changed?”

Taylor didn’t think the aliens could look frustrated, but Sirlian proved her wrong. “We re-flew the approach to Ixaros, and the warning beacons were all off-line. In light of that, we don’t feel we can successfully prosecute.”

Taylor stood and stretched. “I’m sorry you went to all that trouble for nothing. But don’t you think your officers were overdoing it with the vehicle-mounted weapons?”

“Oh, those were sanctuary wardens. Those weapons are for fighting poachers who come armed to hunt hellabira.”

“Are those the big things?”

“Largest known land animal in the galaxy,” Sirlian said. “The hunters are heavily armed and armored.”

“I can’t see the sport in hunting them, though. I chased two of them off while I was trekking from my ship to the forest where Mr. Betham was. All I had to do was wave my arms and yell.”

Sirlian froze for a moment. “You … scared off two hellabira?”

Taylor shrugged. “Less trouble than a guard dog. I have way too many run-ins with those in my job.”

prompt: Center your story around a character who yearns for someone or something they’ve lost — or never had.

available at Reedsy

What defines a person as human? Perhaps better, what defines a human as a person? How are human persons different from those around her? Grag thought about those questions often, and when she did, she felt a longing for a life she never had.

By DNA, she was human through and through. By culture, upbringing, and language, though, she was an ortian. By family, she had none, really. No blood relatives, and even the “adoptive” family in which she was raised treated her more as an experiment than a family member. Except for the youngest.

“What are you thinking about, Grag?” Arien put two arms around her and settled back on his tail.

“Deep thoughts, Ari, deep thoughts.” She chuckled. “You know I used to feed you.”

“But you don’t have—” Arien began.

“A crop pouch, I know.” Grag brushed the fur on Arien’s face. “I used to chew up your food and spit it into your mouth.”

“Why didn’t matriarch…?”

“Your sire died just before you hatched. Not sure, but I think your matriarch had a difficult time adjusting.” She knew why the researcher was absent. It had everything to do with work and nothing to do with the loss of a mate she’d considered sub-par.

“Is that why matriarch spent so much time at the lab?” he asked.

“I’m sure of it,” Grag lied.

“Tell me again how matriarch made you,” Arien said.

“Aren’t you too old for stories?”

“Maybe, but I like it when you tell them.”

“And why that story?” Grag asked.

“Because it’s you, and you’re my favorite housemate.”

Grag recounted the story. “When ortians first got hold of the human genome, they studied it. With time, more samples were made available, and more of the genome was mapped, including the non-protein coding regions.

At some point, they decided that studying the genome would get them no further. Instead, they averaged out the available human genomes, and created a batch of new, identical humans from scratch-made, custom DNA. They considered the job trivial, and the resulting children a curiosity to study, until the lead researcher — that’s matriarch — named one and took her home, saving her from being destroyed with the other dozen infants as “possible contaminants” shortly after.

“I grew up with that researcher’s children, though I grew and matured faster than they did. My creation was never hidden from me, even while matriarch was on trial for stealing property of the government. As a child, I was even allowed to testify on matriarch’s behalf. The sight of me speaking the common language resulted in giggles and titters from the crowds in the galley.

“One thing that I’ve always had a talent for was language. Aside from the common language, I also learned Galactic Standard, terzian common, and yelicoan official.

“Matriarch gave me a pair of artificial arms that fit below my real arms with a neural implant to control them, but I no longer wear them. I’m a human, and humans only have two arms. I closed the gate on it years ago, while you were still small. As frustrating as it is to operate ortian machinery with only two hands and no heavy tail to balance, operating two extra arms built with no thought to my comfort or balance is worse.

“Finally, one day, I moved into my own dwelling, and little Arien, now taller than me, decided he’d move in and be a pain in my armpits. The end.”

Arien made a grunting noise from his crop, the ortian equivalent of a raspberry. “You just like to tease me. But—”

“But what?”

“Am I really a pain in the armpits?”

“No, you’re not.” Grag blew out a deep breath. “In truth, I’m glad you’re here. At least you might understand a little.”

“Understand what?”

“Ever since the humans discovered the probe, I’ve been having these thoughts,” she said. “Questions with no answers and no good reason for asking.”

Arien pushed himself a little forward with his tail. “What kind of questions?”

“What would my life have been like if I’d been born like a normal human? What is it like to have a human family? Would a human matriarch have raised me differently?” She patted his upper hand. “Things like that.”

He turned his head nearly 180 degrees to look directly in her eyes. “Do you wonder if the humans will accept you when you meet them?”

“I do,” she said, “even though it’ll never happen.”

“You can’t say that. You don’t know.”

“I do know.” She waved her hands in a complicated series of gestures that would be two simple, three-handed gestures for an ortian. A display lit on the wall. “I’ve calculated how long it will take them to reach us with their technology. It’s around a thousand of their lifetimes.”

Arien sat bolt upright, his four compound eyes locked on Grag’s. “You didn’t hear? Matriarch didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what? We haven’t spoken in more than four orbits.”

“This,” he said, making a couple gestures to change the display. It was a news clip showing the arrival of an odd-looking ship in orbit around their planet.

“What is that?”

“The humans took the probe apart, figured out the slipspace communications, and somehow built a ship that uses the same technology to travel.” Ariel grabbed her near hand between all four of his. “The humans are here.”

“I thought slipspace was unstable for anything other than massless particles like photons. That’s why we spend all the energy to create a wormhole.”

Ariel laughed. “The humans proved us wrong. Two orbits after they found the probe, rather than the hundred-twenty it took us to go from slipspace communications to wormhole technology.”

 “Can I get access to the human information now … or is matriarch still blocking me?” she asked.

All four of Ariels shoulders dropped and he pointed is gaze at the floor. “I don’t understand her. She was ordered to give you full access so you can learn their common language, and you’re meant to report to the Security Division three suns from now for briefing.”

“I wonder what they’re like,” Grag said. “I wonder if they’ll accept me as one of them.”

“If they do?” Arien asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Would you go back to their planet with them?”

Grag thought about those questions again. There was no way she could get the childhood and early life she’d longed for, but maybe the rest of her life could be different.

She looked at Arien. “I don’t know. Maybe. I might. If I do, you’re the only housemate I’ll miss. Hell, you’re the only ortian I’ll miss.”

prompt: Write a story inspired by the phrase “It was all just a dream.”

available at Reedsy

Jade wanted to sleep in, but the twin toddlers jumping on her bed, and sometimes her, made it impossible. “You two are up awful early,” she said.

“Aunt Jade! Zoo! Zoo!” the little boy in lion pajamas called.

“You promised,” the little girl in penguin pajamas said, the pleading clear in her voice.

“Yes, I promised, Tracey. And we are going to the zoo today, Kasey, but you need to eat breakfast and get dressed first.” Jade sat up and spread her arms. “Come here, you little monkeys.”

After cuddles, tickles, and giggles, Jade got up and began the day proper. She knew her sister wouldn’t approve, but she’d gotten them sugary cereal special for this day. Adding half a banana made it sort of healthy, right?

Her phone rang. It wasn’t her sister, or even a contact she recognized. With her phone on silent and shoved into the bottom of her backpack, she continued dressing the twins.

#

“Now?”

“No response.”

“Begin next. Power plus twelve percent.”

#

They walked up to the main gates of the zoo at opening. Being the middle of the week, there were no crowds, no lines. Jade couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to the zoo, but nothing was the same as she remembered. The little map printed on the back of the pass would come in handy, as would the toddler stroller for two she rented for the day.

While the twins started the day with what seemed like boundless energy, she knew that it was certain to flag as the day wore on. Jade looked over the map and decided on a route that would start them with the largest enclosures first, working to the reptile house, then finishing at the aquarium and touch tanks last when the twins were less likely to bounce off the walls.

They were watching the giraffes, Kasey talking about how he was going to grow that tall, when her phone rang again. Jade dug it out of the bottom of the backpack, under changes of clothes, a small first-aid kit, wet wipes, and an assortment of contraband snacks.

The number didn’t show. Annoyed, she turned it back to silent and shoved it to the bottom of the bag. She had a moment’s doubt about whether she had set it to silent earlier, then put it out of her mind.

Kasey had gotten bored with the giraffes, and Tracey was urging them on to the gibbons hooting and hollering in the next enclosure. Her bag slung back over her shoulder, Jade led the toddlers on.

#

“Anything?”

“Still nothing.”

“Protocol four-two-alpha.”

#

The twins were covered in a sticky mess from the cotton candy Jade bought for them from the stand just past the gibbon cage. She cleaned their faces and hands with wet wipes, disposing of the mess in the trash can near the crocodile enclosure.

Tracey asked why they couldn’t swim in the “pretty, green water” while Kasey made faces at the crocs, trying to get them to open their mouths. They were nearly half-way through the zoo, and the twins hadn’t slowed down at all. Jade began to think she would need a stroller long before they would.

Lunch was fish sticks and fries at one of the eateries in the zoo. The twins gobbled it up, Tracey with ketchup and Kasey without. It sat in Jade’s stomach like a greasy lump, leaving her more than a little queasy.

After another round of face and hand washing, and a trip to the facilities, the twins were ready as ever to continue their journey. They were nearing the black bear enclosure when her phone rang again from the bottom of the backpack.

Frustrated, Jade pulled it out and looked. It was set on silent, and nothing displayed, yet it continued to ring loud in her hand. Something about it felt dangerous. She dropped the phone in the nearest trash can and shooed the kids on towards the next exhibit.

“Why you do that?” Tracey asked.

“Are you okay, Aunt Jade?” Kasey asked.

“I’m fine, we’re fine. Let’s just keep going.”

#

“Tell me.”

“Finished through four-two-gamma, nothing.”

“Follow the guide, keep going.”

#

The afternoon sun beat down on them, Jade sweating bullets. The children seemed to take it in stride. That didn’t stop her from making them drink plenty of water as they went.

“Just because you’re used to the weather here and I’m not, that’s no reason to not stay hydrated,” she said.

“What’s higraded?” Kasey asked.

“Hydrated. It means that you drink enough water to not get sick.”

“I have to pee,” Tracey said.

“That just means I’m doing my job.” After taking care of their needs in the restroom that had no climate control, Jade led them to the bird house. While the shade should’ve helped, it was every bit as stifling there as out in the sun.

They spent a longish time in the bird house, deciding which were birds, which were “birbs” and which were “borbs.” The laughter made the heat a little more bearable.

#

“And now?”

“Getting closer. Maybe”

“Keep it going. Power plus another seven percent.”

#

Jade had hoped that the aquarium touch tank building would be cooler, but it wasn’t. Instead of just being hot, it was humid as well. The twins were quiet as they touched the sea stars and other tide pool critters.

Thinking was difficult. Jade felt like her mind had melted from the heat. It almost seemed as though the twins were busy plotting something while they played in the touch tank. At least, it did until they began splashing each other and squealing.

She felt the need to get the kids back outside. Just then, her phone rang again. Not in the bag, but in her pocket.

She pulled it out. It was her sister.

“Jules, what the hell is going on?”

“I’m at the hospital.”

“What happened?”

“It’s Kasey. He…” Julie trailed off.

“He’s here with me at the zoo,” Jade said. “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t talk right now.” The call cut off.

Jade turned toward the touch tank, but the twins weren’t there. She looked at the phone, wondering how it got there. She reached for the stroller, but it wasn’t there. Nor was the touch tank or the zoo. Everything went dark.

#

“What is it?”

“I think we have it.”

“About time.”

#

Jade woke, strapped to a metal table, machinery plugged into her brain. The room was dull grey and barren save for the wires that connected her to the machines THEY were using.

She groaned. “I’m still here? Can you at least turn the heat down? Maybe give me something to drink.”

“I thought you said we had it.”

“I thought we did.”

“Tell us where the base is. Tell us who is in charge.”

Jade laughed. She could feel the machines trying to guide her mind to specific memories, and she kept leading them astray. “You aliens suck! You’re not getting anything from me. I don’t know what kind of weak mind you developed this crap for, but it ain’t me.”

She took a deep breath and chuckled. “Did I tell you about the time I broke my leg and kept poking at the shin bone sticking out?”

She closed her eyes, letting her mind return to the mountain climbing trip with her sister gone wrong. While it had been traumatic for her at the time, the shock had left her numb to the pain. She hoped the memories would make her captors ill.

prompt: I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life.

available at Reedsy

I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life. It was what I was expected to say after all, and I’ve never handled that kind of pressure well.

“This is an immense honor, and I’m grateful that the selection committee chose me for this mission. I’m ready to go.” My voice cracked a little, which the news reporters wrote off as emotion. My friends, though, know my tells.

While I sat in my prep room in the pre-launch lounge, a conference vidcall to me flashed on the screen. I answered to see my closest friends from all over the world on the call.

A cacophony of congratulations, take-cares, be-safes, and other banalities cascaded over each other until the chatter died down. Finally, one of the six took control of the call.

“G, you a bad liar girl,” she said.

“Melody,” another said, “that’s hardly fair. What do you think she should have said?”

“She shoulda’ said hell to the no, Leeza.” Melody shook her head. “G’s ’bout ready and happy for this as a mutt goin’ to get his nuts cut.”

“Glenna, ignore her. Mel’s just upset that you’re leaving.” Leeza’s previous smile faded.

“I ain’t the only one. We all upset.” Melody sighed and leaned closer to the camera. “You coulda’ turned it down.”

Leeza brightened back up. “Meantime, we’ll plan a bash when you get back. We’ve got six months, let’s all meet up in California for a beach party. It’ll beat the London weather for sure.”

The feeling that this would be the last real-time conversation I’d ever have with them weighed on me like an elephant on the chest. “Mel, I had to accept. The selection committee didn’t have much to work with. Ballsen, the second-best finisher in the training and evaluation, crashed the simulator on landing all but two out of seventeen times. He didn’t actually pass the training criteria. Not to mention, he’s borderline delusional with his religious stuff, seeing angels and demons and such. He passed the psych eval by two points, compared to my seven-hundred-twelve.”

“Y’all passed by seven-damn-hundred?” Melody asked. “Sounds like I could pass that test! That, or he the sane one and the test is to see who crazier.”

The laughter of the others was genuine, lightening my mood, even as the tears began to flow. The reality was on me. This was it. “I’m going to miss you all so much.”

Gunther, the lone male in the gang, overcame his shyness to get the group’s attention. “I’m very sorry, but I need to log off for work, now,” he said. “Talk to you all later, and I’ll see you soon, Glenna.”

Before I could correct him, he’d logged off. Maybe it was just a slip. We’d planned on meeting over the coming weekend, while he was in North America for work. Of course, that plan went by the wayside when the mission date got moved a full month earlier.

The call cut off and a notice to prepare replaced it on the screen. If they hadn’t bumped it a month, I would’ve had time to prepare. Instead, I was pacing back and forth, doing my best not to shake.

The door from the decon room opened and three techs in clean suits came in, pushing a cart with my gear for the launch. Everything I’d need post-launch was already sterilized, bagged, and stowed on board.

One of the techs stepped in front of me, waving his blue-gloved hand in my face to get my attention. I snapped out of my daze and looked at him. Behind the hood was a familiar face.

“Gunther! How?”

“I told you I would see you soon.” He winked, then went about helping me suit up in the vac suit I would wear. “If you want, I can go visit Melody instead this weekend and give her a spank.”

“Not necessary,” I said. “The spank, I mean. You should try to get the rest of the gang together, though, while there’s still time.” He fitted the helmet, locked it in place, and checked the seals. “I thought we’d have time before I left.”

“I thought this too,” he said, checking off items on a digital clipboard. “Today was supposed to be a pre-mission equipment check, but something has the top brass in a…,” he waved his hand in circles.

“In a tizzy,” I said. I knew what it was but was sworn to secrecy.

“That.” He put the clipboard on the now empty cart, and turned back to me. “Any message you want to pass to the gang, just send it with the regular equipment reports, and I’ll be sure to pass them on.”

“Thanks, Gunther.” A panicked laugh bubbled up that I had to fight to control.

“What is it?”

“What happens if I cry when I’m all sealed up?”

“Same as if you puke. You have to wait for the pumps to clear it out or live with it.” He gave me a light punch on the shoulder. “Just don’t puke, though.”

“I won’t. Too scared.” I surprised myself with the sudden honesty.

“If anyone can do this, it’s you.” Gunther patted my helmet and said, “Alles gut. Good to go.”

I joined the others of the crew on the electric tram that took us to the crew elevator. All of us knew what few others did. We would ascend to the crew cabin, take the boost to high-Earth orbit, board the brand-new ship built with the designs the aliens sent us, and take off on what was likely a one-way trip.

The way the others put on smiles and pretended everything was normal while we were in sight of the cameras helped me do the same. Once we were closed in, though, the facades dropped.

“Jake,” I said, “I’m not ready for this.”

“None of us are,” he said, “but that’s life.”

“We may not be ready, but our vitals look good,” Ella said. “Of course, some of that is down to the beta-blockers.”

“Amazing what they’ll do to make us look good for the cameras,” Jake said. “Terry, how about you? What’s your status?”

“I feel like I’m walking to the gallows, but can’t stop myself,” she said.

The radio crackled to life. “We have your vitals and telemetry. Everything clear on our end. T-minus seven minutes. Mission Commander, go or no-go?”

Jake checked his instrumentation. “Mission Commander is go,” he said.

“Pilot, go or no-go?”

“Pilot is go,” I said, after checking my indicators.

“Medical, go or no-go?”

“Medical is go,” Ella said.

“Science and engineering, go or no-go?”

“Science and engineering is go,” Terry said.

“All crew are go, all systems are go, T-minus five minutes and counting. Last abort window in forty seconds.”

The abort window passed by without notice, and we took off on possibly the last chemical rocket lift from Earth. The drive we’d built in space from the alien plans was only half, the gravity generator being built on the ground was the other.

Once we’d linked up with the ship and boarded, the transfer shuttle disconnected and set itself into a stable orbit away from us. We got into our positions and Jake confirmed with ground that we were all set.

“Glenna,” he said, “coordinates are set, engage the W-drive.”

“Engaging.” No sooner had I pushed the button than the light from the sun, the moon, and the Earth stretched and folded into red and disappeared. We were the first humans to break the light speed barrier. We hoped we wouldn’t be the last.

The minutes passed in silence as every rattle and hum of the ship made us tense, until we dropped back into normal space. The autopilot put us on a one-gee retro burn for 193 minutes until we bled away almost all our speed, settling in at 500 meters per second.

Engine cut-off left us once again weightless, and we all breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “We’re in one piece,” Terry said.

“I just hope we’re in time,” Jake said.

“We should be near the signal,” I said, hoping it wasn’t all for nothing.

“I have a fix on it,” Terry said. “Sending coordinates to navigation.”

“Glenna, get us there. Any signs of life?” Jake asked Terry.

“Underway now,” I said.

“Yes!” Terry cheered. “The message just changed. Translating now.”

Jake slapped his chair. “Time to target?”

“Orbit match phase in nine minutes.” I watched as we approached a massive object that could only be seen by the light it blocked.

“Translation complete,” Terry said. “All power off except life support. Damage to the hull, EVA suit storage is in vacuum. They can’t do a transfer without repair. They also want to know who we are.”

Jake took a deep breath. “We’ve come this far. Any concerns?”

When none were voiced, he set the communications to translate on send. “This is Mission Commander Jake Ingstrom, in charge of the first mission of the Interstellar One. We’ve come from Earth to assist. Request permission to dock.”

Instead of an umbilical dock, they opened a large bay on the ship as they began powering up. With the lights on, the ship became more visible. It was easily the size of a skyscraper, but spherical.

With a deep breath, I took manual control. “Let’s hope I don’t pull a Ballsen here and smash us into their deck.”

I caught snippets of conversation around the edges of my concentration. I heard Ballsen’s name in conjunction with words like “creepy” and “crazy” and “seriously unhinged.”

I did it just like the simulations, letting the auto-controls correct for the artificial gravity while I made a feather-light decent on the deck. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I don’t know what that sudden thump and ten-centimeter drop at the end was.

The door that dwarfed our ship behind us sealed shut and we could hear the rush of air against the hull as the dock was pressurized. When Terry gave us the all-clear on the air, we couldn’t wait to get out of the ship and meet our benefactors. It was probably unwise for all of us to pile out at once into the bay, but we did.

The aliens were tall, thin, looking like a Giger-esque monster, but not frightening. They walked on four limbs, their back bent at a ninety-degree angle above the forward pair. Moving up their body, three sets of arms on separate segments were in constant motion, while their two huge, black eyes surrounded by six small eyes moved about in subtle, independent movements. For as alien as they were with their centipede-like body plan, there was something about the way they looked at us that immediately struck us as being people, not just creatures.

They all carried a device in one of their six hands that translated their speech to English, and vice-versa. The alien commander took us to where the damage had occurred. A micrometeorite had punched through the ship just inside the main airlock. Damage control had sealed the area off, but the long suits with too many limbs and bubble helmets hung just past the sealed bulkhead.

After some consultation — and a crash course on how to use the aliens’ tools — Terry and Jake headed out for a spacewalk to patch the holes in the hull. Ella stayed on the radio with them, leaving me with the alien commander. I couldn’t pick up either his name or the name of his species, as they were in their weird, burbling language which all kind of sounded the same to me, but I called him Bubbles.

He showed me the controls for the pilot, which would be impossible for a human to operate as it required four feet and four hands, leaving two hands to work the console. Finally, we stopped in what looked like a mess hall or canteen.

Bubbles turned to me, all eight of his eyes doing that subtle rotation thing to look at me. “Your planet didn’t have four-space drive last I looked, and now you do. How did you get here so fast?” he asked.

“We started getting the messages a few years ago. Once we translated them, we learned it was plans to build a W-space transceiver, four-space or whatever.” I tried to remember as much as I could about four-dimensional space, but it wasn’t much, so I decided to skip it. “Anyway, once we built it and were in contact with the sender, we got plans for a W-drive. We spent the last year and a half building a test ship in orbit and were meant to take a one-way W-space trip, followed by a six month return trip through normal space.

“We were close to making that test run when one of our W-space transceivers picked up your distress call and the responses that no-one could come as they were all too far away. Twenty-thousand lives on the line, and the closest W-space capable ship was right there.”

I pushed the thoughts of my friends out my mind. “Instead of heading out just a short way and going back home, we maxed out our fuel load and made the transfer all the way here to Alpha Centauri B. We all knew what we signed up for, but we all agreed it was the right thing to do.”

I smiled a little. “Plus, we were kind of hoping you’d put in a good word for us humans when you get back home. Whoever sent us the plans has been very helpful, and we’d want to be friends rather than enemies or, more likely, an annoyance that you decide to swat out of existence.”

He made a sound I hadn’t heard from him before, his translator just saying, “Laughter.”

Bubbles got himself together and said, “We’re more alike than you know. We saw your lack of fuel to make another transfer and wondered at your altruism. Seeing that it’s based, at least in part, on selfish concerns is settling. That is something we understand.”

He moved one of his hand-claw things to my shoulder and set it there, waiting for a response. When I didn’t flinch or swat it away, he continued. “Even better than understanding your selfish altruism, however, is the awareness of it you show. This gives me great hope for your people.”

Jake, Terry, and Ella entered then, the first two covered in a sheen of sweat. “We fixed it, and your people are already in the area assessing further damage to suit storage and the airlock,” Jerry said.

I voiced the question we all had. “What do we do now?”

Terry muttered something, then said, “Before we left, I plotted a three-way slingshot around Alpha Centauri B, then A, then Proxima Centauri, followed by a Solar capture, braking around Jupiter and then again around the sun into a high parking orbit over Earth.”

“How long will that take?” I asked.

Terry looked at her feet and her gaze stayed there. “Twelve years. Assuming Proxima doesn’t decide to flare while we’re close and cook us all with X-rays.”

“With six months of food, if we ration, we last what, eight, nine months?” Jake asked.

“We could stretch it out to a year,” Ella said, “but we’d still be dead of starvation long before we got there. Of course, it wouldn’t take a year to run out of water, both for drinking and for oxygen, even with recycling. It’s not 100 percent efficient.”

“Can’t we beg some fuel from the aliens?” I asked. “Then repeat the W-drive transfer in reverse. Back in time for breakfast.”

“That would be the optimal course,” Bubbles said.

“We can’t refuel without disassembling the reactor.” Terry wore defeat like a heavy cloak. “Everything about this ship is a prototype. That’s why the W-space transfer was only one-way.”

Bubbles gurgled something with some of the other aliens without activating his translator, then turned back to us. “We have decided that we cannot let you die. If you wish, you and your ship can come with us to the shipyard around our star. We can help you refuel and maybe provide some other tech to make your return possible.”

“Sounds better than mailing our own corpses back to Earth,” I said.

“We cannot guarantee that we can complete the work on your ship,” Bubbles said, “but we will try.”

“Good enough for me,” Jake said. After getting a nod in the affirmative from the rest of us, the decision was made.

For two months, we worked alongside the aliens getting the I-1 ready to return. The main engines were removed, along with the fuel cells, and replaced with the aliens’ version of the gravity thrust they were working on back on Earth. The entire inside of the ship was sprayed with a nano-polymer that could provide gravity within the ship.

Due to the way the reactor was built, there was no way to add external fuel storage, so the space saved by removing the fuel cells was filled with trinkets and tech, including some translators, from the aliens. While some of it made me think of handing a thirteenth-century scientist a cell phone, a lot of it was, for lack of a better word, souvenir kitsch. Another thing we seemed to have in common.

We spent a few days with their astrogation folks and came up with a flight plan that minimized our time getting there, while maximizing our remaining reactor fuel. Most of the fuel spend was in translating to and from W-space, while the gravity drive would sip from the reactor, and could even be run from the massive battery they installed in one of the old fuel cell slots.

A week later, in front of the cameras and a crowd again, I told the truth. “It feels so good to be home.”