Tag: science fiction

prompt: Write a story in the form of a letter, or multiple letters back and forth.

available at Reedsy

Dearest sister,

I have arrived, and it is beyond everything we’ve heard. The crowds and noise of the city would be overwhelming if I hadn’t spent so long doing language training at Holger Station.

The air smells weird here. I’ve been assured it’s perfectly safe, but there are so many different chemicals that once I get used to one scent, another comes along. The strongest come from the eateries, the odors of cooking pouring out to the streets to entice customers in, but as I’m not used to the food, it’s just strange.

I was met at the port by Lt. Stephen Marks. He’s been an absolute gentleman. After he got me set up in my quarters, he took me out for dinner and introduced me to tacos. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but they were flavorful and filling, once I got over the mix of several strong flavors all at once. He has promised to ensure I get as full education an in all the world’s cuisines and cultures as possible.

I’m still nervous about the course, but I have a few days before it starts to get myself settled and get to know some of the other students. To think that I’m the first of our people to attend — it’s a big honor, but you know how I feel about that sort of thing.

I’ll be cutting this letter short, though, as I need to get some rest after the trip and try to “get my internal clock set to local time,” as Stephen puts it.

Give my love to matron. Your loving sister,

Mia.

#

Little sister,

It’s good to hear that you arrived safely. The danger is over, at least until it’s time to come back home. I have no doubt the officer you’re already on a first name basis with, ~Stephen~, will keep you safe.

You know I’m just teasing. But just in case you ~do~ end up getting involved, you have to promise to tell me if the rumors are true. The ones about human males, I mean. Skies be damned, tell me the truth about ~all~ the rumors, but first the one about the males. I crack myself up.

You need to take holos of ~everything~. I’m not the only curious person around here. How does it feel to be surrounded by a bunch of humans? Do they trip over you? How do you keep from getting your tails stepped on?

As far as the “big honor” goes, you’re a war hero whether you want it or not. And before you start with that stupid ~I just did what anybody would do~ nonsense, NO YOU DIDN’T! You did exactly the right thing at the right time and kept an invading army from taking our home. My silly ass would’ve just run away.

That’s why you’re the youngest Commadorer in the army, and I sell fur care products and groom strangers for pay. By the way, I sent you some of the new fur shine I told you about before. You don’t take enough care of yourself, and since I’m not there to groom you, you have to promise to use it when it gets there. If you don’t I’ll slap you ~so hard~. And then I’ll run, because you can thrash your big sister’s tails. No respect for your elders. It’s so sad.

 I know matron wanted you to go into business, but I’m glad you’re in the military instead. I agree with what the Minister of State or whatever said when you got your Super Value Medal. If you hadn’t been there, we’d all be slaves to the Grogant.

I’ll light a candle for you and send your love at matron’s grave when I go tomorrow.

Cuddles and grooms for my beloved little sister, the savior of Meelak and all Mataka

Nia

#

Dearest sister,

You are forever a source of exasperation. If you want to know about the “rumor” as you put it, pick up your Xeno Biology book from the class you failed and look it up. You’ll find the answer in the section about Terran mammals (which includes humans.) By the way, yes, most Terran mammal males have their gonads suspended outside their abdomens.

I’m not going to argue with you about hero or not anymore, it’s not worth the hassle. But I don’t know what a “Commadorer” is. I’m the youngest Commander in the Army. Also, the Minister of State had nothing to do with my Commendation for Supreme Valor, (“Super Value Medal”? really? what am I, a sale?) — that was the Director of Military Affairs.

No, the humans don’t step on my tails or trip over me. We’re about the same size as a human child and they seem to instinctively watch out for people our size.

The first few days of the course were all classroom stuff, but still intense. It turns out that the humans have different militaries that all send officers to this course, along with some civilians as well.

They have a force that fights only on the ground (Army), one that fights in the air (Air Force), one dedicated to fighting on and in the water, how weird is that? (Navy — that’s where Stephen is from), one dedicated to fighting in space (Space Force), one that specializes in moving from water or space to land or ship-boarding in both places, (Marines), and even a force that only engages in electronic warfare, (Cyber Force.)

At first, I was confused. How could they keep all the different services coordinated? That’s what this course is about: coordinating the efforts of the different services, civilian organizations, and even militaries from other worlds in a war.

There is a lot I need to catch up on in terms of tactics, but it’s engrossing. I was thoroughly embarrassed, though, to find out that the battle of Meelak was taught as a prime example of a “hold and delay” action. The instructor then had a question-and-answer period, where I had to answer the questions. I honestly didn’t know what I was doing most of the time during Meelak. I just made it up as I went since the Commander was dead.

I got the fur shine today. Thank you, my fur was getting dry. Just because I don’t spend two hours every morning grooming my fur, though, doesn’t mean I’m a slob. Seriously, a full treatment every few days is plenty. I’m not trying to be a model. Besides, you got all the looks in the family.

I need to turn in. We’re heading out early in the morning to begin a training exercise involving all the different services. Stephen will be on a ship — as in a water ship, while I’ll be working with an Army mechanized infantry unit. They’ve outfitted me with a modified, smaller version of their uniform (with a hole for my tails) and a civilian pack that’s more suited to my size. They even found a plate carrier and plates small enough for me but, skies above, all this stuff is heavy.

I probably won’t have a chance to send another letter until the end of the course, as the next few weeks will be spent on the exercise, which takes place all over the planet.

All my love,

Mia

#

Little sister,

I don’t care what your award is called, it’s awesome and you’re awesome. My award is that I have the ~best sister in the whole galaxy~!

I don’t know when you’ll get this, since you said you’ll be moving all over the place, but I’m thinking of you every day.

You were right about the bio book, it even had drawings. WEIRD!

Lezl has been reading your letters, by the way, and says hi. She also said you called me dumb in your last letter but I didn’t see it anywhere. That just made her LAUGH at me! I think she made that up just to tease. Thanks for admitting that I’m the prettier one, though. You’re ~so sweet~!

It sounds like the humans are overdoing it on the different militaries. Kind of like using fur shine, then washing with deep rinse, then doing a steam treatment, and then, whatever. You get what I mean. It’s good we just have the army and you are the ~Commander~!

Have fun exercising, and I can’t wait to hear how it went.

Cuddles and grooms,

Nia

#

Dearest sister,

First, allow me to correct something you said. I am not The Commander of the Army, I am A Commander in the Army. I’m in charge of a cohort, what the Terran Army calls a company. In this course, though, we get the chance to take command of an entire brigade combat team, (about the same size as what we call a major combat group), and coordinate with the other services’ teams.

And it’s not that I was out exercising, (although I got plenty of that), the training simulation is called an exercise. We are fighting (with fake rounds) the Opposing Force (OPFOR) made up of other units from the human militaries. While the OPFOR was meant to be generic, the units and tactics they used were exactly like the Grogant. If we’d had this sort of training and cohesion, we could’ve driven them back in half the time, without having to resort to orbital bombardment of three whole cities to get rid of them.

In other words, we “won” the exercise and defeated the OPFOR in a matter of weeks. The training ended with live fire demonstrations of the human “rods from god” which is what they call heavy tungsten rods released from orbit with no guidance or explosives. They are far more precise and cause less surrounding damage than our own orbital bombardment, but still more than enough to demolish a Grogant carrier spike ship with full shields. (How they got one that works is beyond me, and I know better than to ask.)

The different militaries: yes, it does somewhat seem like they’ve overcomplicated it, but it all works together so well that it makes our own Army look somewhat lackluster. Imagine if the major combat groups and cohorts only focused on one type of warfare. Just one thing, rather than being expected to provide ship-board security, then do a boarding action, then defend on the ground, then drive armor, then use artillery, then work to repair vehicles, and so on. We’d be much better at it if we specialized in one job. In this case, the humans have the right of it. Considering that only deep space navigators and trans-light pilots are specialized, we’re all just sort of okay at everything and an expert at nothing.

One thing that surprised me was that your letter got here as quickly as it did. The humans have logistics down to a science. It’s been made clear to me through the exercise that logistics are what makes or breaks a military and can decide battles and even wars.

I would’ve written back sooner but was too busy. Even though it was for training, it was exhausting and hard. They have a saying that exactly translated is, “Don’t use only half your haunches while training. How you train is how you will fight.” I think the first part of that means give it your all. The humans have a lot of saying involving their haunches; maybe because they don’t have tails. Who knows?

Anyway, I’m heading home tomorrow, so I should be there no more than a day or two after this letter reaches you. I’m bringing home my certificate from the Terran Joint and Combined Warfighting School, a host of things to teach to my higher-ups in the Army, an honorary commission as a Captain in the Terran Army, and contacts of some new friends. Sorry, I only managed to make about three hundred holos, I know you’ll complain it’s not enough.

See you soon, dear sister,

Mia.

prompt: Set your story after aliens have officially arrived on Earth.

available at Reedsy

Liza rubbed her hand over her recently shaved head, savoring the “ping,” the feeling of petting a tennis ball. She didn’t care if long hair was in; when summer hit, it was time to shave it all off. Ever since the arrival of the tarkins, Earth’s nearest neighbors in the galaxy, fashions morphed and changed faster than they ever had.

She wondered if it might, however, have been premature on her part. Waiting to board a tarkin ship bound to their world, she didn’t know what kind of climate — or season — to expect. Even in summer, though, the tarkins rarely raised the sail-like cooling fin that ran from the top of their head to the middle of their back so, she figured, it must be a hot world.

The British Columbia Interplanetary Spaceport was massive; carved out of the mountain, built, plumbed, wired, and connected to the highway and rail line in less than a week. Of course, the ships that landed and took off from BCIX were, like the port itself, all tarkin, but that didn’t stop cruise lines from finding a way to offer interplanetary cruises, like the one Liza had won from a trivia contest at work.

The tarkins hadn’t come as saviors or for technological uplift, though their technology healed an ailing world. Nor had they come as friends, though friendship was forged over the years. They came as irate neighbors, telling Earth, “Shut the hell up.”

Our broadcasts, calling out to the universe, “Hey, is anyone out there? Here we are,” riled our neighbors. They intercepted our probes, but worried that if we weren’t quiet, the Swarm would find us, and would happen upon them along the way.

Liza was determined that she would use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find out as much about Greeth as she could. Swarm or no, they had the means to travel in silence, and when would she ever have another chance to travel to a different world?

“Boarding is now beginning for all Ultima Cruise Line passengers for the Greeth Explorer Cruise at gate seven.” The young man’s voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, cutting through the clamor of the terminal without being harsh or uncomfortably loud, as he spoke into the handheld radio. The cruise passengers’ suitcases already loaded, Liza moved to the queue pulling her carryon case. 

The queue for the cruise was all human, and the fall of chilled air washing down over them was a blessed relief from the sweltering summer outside and the higher temperature of most of the port. The tarkins had “healed” the Earth, but it would take at least a century before the temperatures would return to the pre-industrial levels.

A tarkin hemi-female, a head taller than Liza and dressed in a skirt-like wrap that passed beneath her stubby tail and nothing else, gathered Liza and a few other passengers. “My name is Lilget. If you follow me,” she said, “I’ll show you to your cabins.”

Liza heard muttering about the guide “walking around half naked,” and shot a nasty glare at the woman who uttered it. Once she was certain the woman was suitably cowed, she introduced herself to the guide.

“Hi, Lilget, Liza. Pleasure to meet you.” She put her hand out for a shake.

“My pleasure, Miss Liza.” She grasped Liza’s hand with her own blue-grey, six-fingered, webbed, and surprisingly warm hand. She had short, deep blue stripes, one on each side of her nasal slits, small, sparkling orange eyes, six pale blue nipples that reminded Liza of a cat or dog, and a cooling fin that faded from blue-grey at the base to a soft lavender at the tips.

After dropping the others off at their cabins, she led Liza to the end of the corridor, the last cabin. All the trappings of a cruise liner had been constructed in this section of the ship, including the freight elevator used by housekeeping that opened right next to her cabin.

“Should’ve guessed it would be the cheapest cabin available,” she said.

“Miss Liza, if I may?”

“Just Liza, Lilget.”

“Certainly, Liza. I would recommend that if you tire of the cruise facilities over the next two weeks, take the freight lift down to level four, then head straight across to the passenger lift, and go up to level twenty-two.”

“What’s there?”

“Similar to your cruise accommodations, there are restaurants, shops, and a recreation center. But they are tarkin, not human. But,” she leaned in to whisper, “you need to avoid the human cruise employees. They don’t like their guests leaving.”

“I’ll probably take you up on that.” She was about to turn away when she stopped. “By the way, how — uh — far is it that we’re going?”

“Greeth is just over 112 light years from Earth.”

“Wow. Two weeks. That’s mind-boggling.”

“Yes, it is slow on these mixed passenger and freight liners.”

Liza laughed. “You and I have different definitions of slow.”

---

It took all of two days for Liza to tire of the cruise’s included meals in the main dining, and the restaurants, spa, and theatre all required money of which she was short — having converted most of her account to Greeth money as recommended by the cruise line.

She followed Lilget’s instructions, ducking into the freight elevator when no other humans were looking. She travelled down to level four, where the doors opened to a deck that was busy and a balmy 28 degrees Celsius. She was surprised to see Lilget there chatting with other tarkins.

Based on the tail shapes, she was talking to another hemi-female, a female, and one that was either a youngish male or adult hemi-male. She didn’t want to interrupt, so she gave a small nod and continued toward the lift.

Lilget raised her cooling sail, waving it back and forth. “Liza! Come over and meet my siblings.”

Liza walked over. “Hi, Lilget. I didn’t want to interrupt, it looked like an important discussion.”

“Only the most important,” the hemi-male said, “what to have for our meal.”

She noticed that all four had similar deep blue stripes by their nasal slits, but Lilget was the only one whose fin paled to lavender, the others all fading to a dusty cyan. “I can see the resemblance,” Liza said.

Lilget went around the circle, introducing her the hemi-male, the hemi-female, and the female in turn. “This is Birget, Mizget, and Grigetta. Siblings, this is Liza.”

They all gave a short flap and wave of their cooling fins. Unable to reciprocate, Liza said, “Now I wish I’d gotten a mohawk instead of cutting it all off, then I could wave back.”

The arrival of the elevator saved her from the awkward silence as none of the tarkins understood what she was talking about. She piled on with, she guessed, around fifty tarkins, but they were the only group speaking English.

When the doors opened on level twenty-two, Liza was hit with an aroma that was at once mouth-watering and alien. As the siblings were still discussing what they would eat, Liza asked, “What is that? It smells delicious.”

Birget laughed. “That is the air purifiers. They put in the smell of smatta fruit, so you know it’s working.”

“A bit like using vanilla-scented candles, and you think you’re in for cookies, but you’re not.”

The siblings stopped, turned to face each other, and shouted out together, “Koukies!”

Liza found herself being led by the hand at breakneck speed for an eatery on the opposite side of the level. The siblings chattered at her, assuring her that it would be the culinary experience of her life.

In the whirlwind of ordering, getting two trays of food, and finding a table, she learned that she was about to taste tarkin comfort food. One of those things which are bad for you, but taste so good.

At the table, Lilget set a glass of water and a box full of green and yellow cubes in front of Liza. “Are you ready?”

Liza took a whiff of the processed food, and it set off the pleasure centers of her brain in the same way a burger and fries would. “I’ll try anything once,” she said, “twice if it doesn’t kill me.”

The green cubes had a flavor of savory spices and some unknown meat somewhere between pork and chicken. The yellow cubes tasted almost, but not quite, like sweet potato fries. Like the tarkins at the table, she made short work of her meal.

Grigetta pulled another box up from where she’d hidden it on the bench. “And a surprise for our new human friend,” she said.

The smell from the box was similar to that in the air purifier. All eyes were on Liza as Grigetta opened the box and showed the four rod-shaped snacks inside.

Lilget grabbed one and said, “Don’t bite it right away. Suck on it for a bit until it softens up.”

“Or dip it in your water,” Birget said, as he did just that. “Softens it up and makes the water sweet.”

Liza opted for sucking on it. The flavor at first was sweet, but flat. As it softened up, though, other flavors came through. It was as though someone had found a way to combine a churro with lemon, coffee, and some savory flavor she couldn’t identify.

It took a moment for her brain to catch on to the flavors, but once it did, her eyes rolled back in bliss. “This is heaven. What is it called?”

“Koukies,” Lilget answered, “I thought you knew this. They are flavored with smatta fruit; it’s not so good raw but makes the best sweets.”

“No, we have something called ‘cookies’ — sounds almost the same — but you’re going to have to try some now.” She leaned toward Lilget. “You work on the cruise, right?”

“I work on this ship. I’m one of the liaison officers for the human cruise line, when they’re using that cargo space. Usually, I’m just working in the cargo office with my siblings, though.”

“Does the cruise line let you get any of their food? I can suggest the few things that are worth it.”

“No, they don’t. The only reason I was there when you boarded was because one of the humans was sick, and they felt it was fine for a tarkin cargo handler to show the ‘cheapskates’ to their bunks.”

Liza frowned. “That won’t do. When we get back to Earth, can you take shore leave?”

“What’s that?”

“Where you leave the ship, for a few hours, or even days?”

“I think we can. We will have two Earth days to offload the cruise module, and then I need to be back for loading.”

The other siblings were looking at Liza with curious expressions. “Then plan on it. While we’re on the ship, I want to discover all your favorite foods, and you can tell me the best places to go while I’m on Greeth in….”

“Prikitalt is the name of the city where we land,” Lilget offered.

“Prikitalt; got it. In exchange, when we get back to Earth, I’m going to treat you all to human comfort food and cookies, and to whatever sights you want to see in Vancouver.”

prompt: Write a story about a character who finds a childhood toy that brings back memories. 

available at Reedsy

Nita unpacked her belongings in the remarkably unremarkable room. Dorm rooms are the same even here, she thought. Her name was affixed to the top bunk, a small chest of drawers, and the empty half of the closet.

With the strict weight limits on how much she could take with her, unpacking took almost no time. Nine hangers took care of her shirts and trousers, while her undergarments, socks, short trousers and tee shirts barely filled the top drawer. She decided to leave the middle drawer empty for the time being, and she could put the bag in the bottom drawer.

As she turned the bag over to roll it up, the sound of something hitting the floor got her attention. She looked down to see an interlocking plastic brick. Not of any use by itself except as a caltrop for bare feet, she picked it up and examined it. A common two-by-four brick, the blue plastic still looked new.

Nita remembered her first set. She’d never been one to play with the other children in the neighborhood. Building things with her interlocking bricks even when shooed into the front garden to play, had caught the attention of some of the other children. Too shy to say “no” when they asked if they could join in, the other children began to hang out with her, building things in the garden. Over the course of that summer, she’d made friends with half the neighborhood, and soon all of them had multiple sets as well.

How that brick wound up in her bag she didn’t know, but she’d ended up a gram overweight at check-in for the gate and had to discard a pair of socks. One would’ve brought her to weight, but a single sock was of little use, so the pair was left behind.

She’d been assured that the campus gift store would be able to order in things she might need…like socks. As she placed the blue brick on top of the dresser, she wondered if the store would be able to get a set — or sets — of the bricks that had made her locally popular and ignited her interest in engineering.

The door creaked open. Her roommate, a tall taurid woman with polished black horns and hooves, came in by timid, slow measures. Given her bulk, Nita found the contrast hilarious, but did her best not to laugh, trying to keep her expression neutral and non-threatening. If she’s that shy, she thought, I should do my best to make her comfortable.

“Hello, my name is Zuna. You must be Nita. I will do my best not to frighten you.”

That was the breaking point. Nita broke down laughing. “Damn, girl. You may be big, but you don’t scare me. I thought you were just super shy. I was trying to be cool to let you get comfortable.”

“Oh, cool.” Zuna stepped into the room, her hooves clacking on the hardwood floor, which creaked in some spots as she walked toward the bunks. “Well, still, if I come crashing in here sometimes, it’s not your fault. I just get like that sometimes.”

“Don’t we all?”

“It’s mostly elves around here, so I wouldn’t know. Everyone seems scared of me, so I try to stay quiet and out of their way,” she said, stopping to look at the plastic brick. “What is this?”

“It’s a plastic brick that ended up in my bag somehow. Just don’t let it end up on the floor. They really hurt to step on.”

Zuna picked it up and examined it. “I thought it might be a magical totem or something, since you spent the weight to bring it here, although it is light.” She put it gingerly back down on the dresser and flopped onto the bottom bunk with a thud that Nita felt through the floor.

“Would you have time to show me around campus?” Nita asked. “I’ve been through the VR walkthrough, but it’s not the same.”

“Sure. What’s your major?”

“Engineering.”

“Then you’ll be spending a lot of time in the sciences building. We’ll start from there and finish up at the cafeteria. Dinner starts in an hour.”

Nita picked up the brick and put it in her pocket as she followed Zuna out of the room. As they walked through the campus, Nita saw what Zuna meant. Most of the students were elves, though a few dwarves, a halfling or two, a group of gnomes that stayed clumped together, and even a goblin passed them.

It was obvious to Nita that the other students gave Zuna a wide berth. Well, she won’t have to stick out on her own, Nita thought, I’ll stick out with her.

“Over there is the library,” Zuna said, pointing. “Behind us is the campus store. Bookstore on one side, gift store on the other. And now the important stop, the cafeteria.”

“Wait a minute,” Nita said. “I need to check on something in the store.”

“You already know which books you need?”

“No, something else.”

Nita left Zuna waiting outside the store while she went in and spoke with the gnome behind the counter. It took several minutes, and the exchange of a larger amount of cash than she’d expected before she returned to the waiting taurid.

They sat eating, others in the cafeteria avoiding their table and suddenly looking away whenever Nita turned their direction. “What’s up with—”

“Ignore them; I do.” Zuna put down her fork after having cleared her third plate. “Why did you come here for engineering, when you could’ve studied that at home for a lot less?”

“Ever since the gates opened, and magic started seeping into the world — my version of the world — I’ve wanted to know how it could be used in materials for engineering. Here, I can get that information, and get my hands on magical materials.” Nita shook her fork, made of a magical alloy that would hold food when desired, but cleaned and sterilized itself when placed down.

“What’s your major?” Nita asked. “I know there’s lots of elf, dwarf, human, and halfling mages and even some goblin, but I didn’t know there were taurid mages too.”

“There are,” Zuna said, “mostly raw shamanistic types, but I’m not one. I’m here because I switched from theoretical physics to theoretical magics. Very similar, but the maths are lot more complicated.”

They walked back to their room, without detours, and Zuna asked, “What were you ordering from the store?”

“A surprise,” she said. “Something that helped me make friends when I was a shy kid. I think you might enjoy it, and I suspect I already got at least one other group of students interested.”

“I’m not one to stress over surprises,” Zuna said, bending down to bring her eye-to-eye with Nita, “but it better not be a surprise party. I hate those.”

“It’s not. I promise.” Nita began to snicker. “But…now I know what to do for your birthday!”

Zuna snorted and began to laugh as well. “You really aren’t the least scared of me, are you?”

“Why should I be? You can’t even keep a straight face when you’re trying to be intimidating. Your little smirk gave you away.”

Over the following week, classes started and Nita and Zuna found themselves busy, but always made time to meet for dinner in the cafeteria. It was there that the gnome Nita had spoken to in the store came rushing in with a large box on a pushcart. Behind him followed the group of gnomes she’d seen traveling together her first day on campus.

The gnome pushing the cart was out of breath. “Your box just came, and your neighbors in the dorm said you were here.”

“You could’ve left it there,” Nita said with a wink. She noticed that the group of gnomes still hung back, but all eyes in the cafeteria were on her and Zuna.

“Yeah, but I…we wanted to see it.”

Nita cleared a space on the table and began removing the contents of the large box. Two sets of standard bricks, a set of motors, actuators, gears, belts, axles, wheels, hinges, and assorted parts for building working machines, and beneath that an architectural set of blocks.

“Come on, Zuna. Let’s build something.”

At first, Zuna just watched as Nita began putting together a working drawbridge spanning the table.

Zuna began fiddling with the pieces, opening the architectural set after Nita gave her the go-ahead, and started adding design elements to the structure. The gnomes gathered in closer and with a nod from Nita began chiming in and helping.

“If you use an actuator to move this section like that…” “We could increase clearance by putting the swing-arm…” “If we cantilever this section of the span, we can…”

During the build, Arrold, the gnome from the shop, wrote down orders for dozens of kits — including two for himself — as they all played with the bricks. When the lights dimmed, letting them know the cafeteria was closing, a collective groan went around the table.

Everyone that had been playing with the bricks, and even a few of the elves and others that had stood around watching, began to put all of them back into their respective boxes. Nita stood and raised a hand to stop everyone.

“I know people who like to keep their kits in the original box and separate, but I’m not one of those.” With that, she swept all the bricks on the table into the large shipping box. She noticed winces from some of those watching and thought, Yep, those are the ones that’ll keep them in the original boxes.

As she picked up the large box and Zuna picked up and smashed the kit boxes for recycling, Nita smiled and watched Zuna saying her goodbyes to the same students who had been too scared of her to even walk on the same side of the hallway.

“Bye, Arrold, Rin, Leelee, Violet, Tansy—”

“All the rest!” Tansy interrupted. “Can we do this again?”

“Oh, these are Nita’s blocks, you’d have to ask—”

“I already did. I just meant, will you be there too?”

“Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

The little gnome leaned forward and grabbed Zuna’s leg in a hug, her face barely reaching the taurid’s hip. Zuna gave Tansy an awkward pat on the head.

Tansy let go and stepped back. “I’m sorry we were afraid of you. You’re a lot of fun!”

Zuna smiled. “Thank you, Tansy. See you around.”

Nita winked. “See you later, Short Stuff. Let’s go, Zuna. We’ve got to figure out what you’re going to wear when we go clubbing with the girls this weekend, and what kind of makeup to do.”

Zuna’s smiled dropped as confusion crossed her face. “Which girls?”

“Tansy, Violet, Leelee, April, and Yen and Tan, the twin elf girls that were watching. They said they all want to hang out with you, and I said I’d make it happen.”

Zuna looked at the boxes she was about to drop into the recycler. “To think, all that from some children’s blocks.”

“Bricks,” Nita corrected her, “and not just for children. It says, ‘Ages 4 to 3999’ right on the box.”

prompt: A journalist has been granted permission to visit the premises of a lab carrying out top-secret work. They could never have anticipated what they’d find…

available at Reedsy

Teryn looked at the drab, grey building hidden behind high fences. “Here we go again.”

“These so-called science stories are killing me.” Liz checked her camera equipment before hoisting the camera to her shoulder. “Oh, it’s a breakthrough,” she said in a mocking tone, “look, toast in sixty seconds.”

Teryn frowned. “At least your name isn’t attached to every one of these. As long as the network keeps sending me out to these nothing-burger stories, I’ll never get promoted. Always a junior producer, never a real science reporter.”

“Maybe there’s a story this time?”

“Yeah, Liz, and maybe I’m the queen of France.” Teryn looked at the camera operator. “Sorry. I know you’re just trying to cheer me up.”

“Exterior shots for B-roll finished, unless you want some more of the uh…is that astroturf or weirdly green grass?”

“It’s fine. If this is anything like the others, it’ll end up being a thirty-second piece to fill in between real stories.”

Liz let the camera down to hang by the straps that distributed its weight evenly over her shoulders. “Judging by the building, I’d guess we won’t get a PR person leading us around.”

“No ‘face’ then. So, what do you guess? Lab nerd or pasty, thirty-something founder that looks like he or she still lives in mom’s basement?”

The woman that came out the door at that moment to escort them in didn’t fit any of their categories. At barely five feet tall, her features were broad, her hair a curly mop of reddish blonde. Light blue eyes shone in her bronze face, enhanced by the deep blue of the skin-tight tee shirt that showed her strong arms.

Liz leaned over and whispered in Teryn’s ear, “I go to the gym, but god damn, she makes me feel like a slacker.”

“Head in the game, Liz. Get a shot of us meeting. For once, I won’t be the short one.”

The woman approached as Liz readied the camera. “Welcome to Avacorp, I am Jessica, and I will be your guide.” She shook hands with Teryn while Liz filmed, then turned to Liz and shook her hand as well.

As she led them in the door, she handed each of them a lanyard with a “Visitor” tag. “Sorry, you need to keep these visible at all times.” Three bored security guards sat in the bare entryway, only looking up long enough to see the tags, one of them giving Jessica a small wave.

“I think Alex has a little crush on me,” she confided to Teryn in a hushed voice.

Teryn kept looking at the guide. There was something…off about her. Some sort of genetic anomaly. It wasn’t anything like Down’s syndrome, but it was something. That, combined with the odd accent of swallowed r’s and lack of contractions left Teryn dying to ask a host of inappropriate questions.

Jessica smiled and winked at her. “I can tell you have questions about me. They will be answered in just a few moments. Please, ladies, follow me to the main lab.”

She placed her palm on a reader next to the elevator, which opened for her. Teryn took note of the high-tech biometric security in the midst of what was an otherwise unremarkable entryway within a drab building.

The elevator went down instead of up. It stopped on floor -9 and opened on a clinical-looking hallway. Jessica stepped out and led them to a door near the end of the hallway.

“Before we go in, I have to remind you that nothing you see or film in here is to be released until the fourth of next month; to coincide with our own public announcement.”

The lab was a cavernous space, one wall lined with banks of thrumming machines behind a glass wall. A monstrous coil of cables led from the machines to a device in a glass-enclosed, free-standing room in the center of the lab, surrounded with cameras and antennae of some sort.

A row of desks on the opposite wall held computers where men and women in casual clothes worked amid a constant, low murmur of conversation. It looked more like the office of an internet start-up than a science lab.

“Dr. Ball will be here soon to explain what this is.”

One of the techs behind the computers, dressed in cargo shorts and a faded band tee shirt, stood and started calling out a checklist in a nasal tone. “Spatial coordinates locked in?”

“Spatial coordinates locked in,” a tech replied in a booming basso.

“Temporal coordinate locked in?”

“Temporal coordinate locked,” another shouted with a thick, Spanish accent.

“Assist team, in the chamber.”

Two people in hazmat suits walked into the room with the device, closed the door with a hiss, and gave a thumbs up.

“Run decontamination in the chamber.”

A mist filled the chamber before being sucked out through vents in the floor. The two inside again gave a thumbs up.

“Decontamination complete. Spool up.”

“Spooling up,” a woman responded in a clear soprano, and the machines that thrummed behind the glass began to speed up their thrumming.

Jessica turned to Teryn, allowing Liz to continue filming the goings-on. “I just want to remind you, that Dr. Ball may decide some things are not to be released publicly.”

Teryn nodded. “I read the fine print before I signed the limited disclosure agreement. Are you the company’s legal advisor?”

Jessica laughed. “Hardly. I am Dr. Ball’s assistant. Which means I fetch coffee, file documents, categorize video, translate, and do some data entry.”

“Sounds like a rounded job. What was your major?”

“Major? Oh, no. I have not had any formal schooling. I am studying botany in my free time, though.” Jessica smiled but her eyes carried sadness. “Dr. Ball has been very good to me, since I cannot go back home.”

The thrum of the machines had grown into a whine that was felt more than heard. The woman that had called out last said, “Spooled up.”

The standing tech called out, “Spooled up. Call out levels stable post sixty seconds.”

She read off the countdown, not trying to carry her voice, but the clear, high pitch carried well in the room. Finally, she called, “Levels stable, seventy seconds and counting.”

“All silent. Initiate,” the standing tech called, a keyboard clicked once and, a swirling vortex appeared near the device in the center of the room-within-a-room.

As the smoky center of the vortex cleared, the space beyond it was woods, just near enough to see a small collection of skin shelters and stocky people wearing skins moving about.

“That was my home,” Jessica whispered, tears pooling in her eyes.

Teryn looked again. They were Neanderthal. That was what she found odd about Jessica. Liz continued to film, though her hands shook.

Jessica stepped over to the camera and helped Liz steady her hand. Then, something that didn’t fit what they were seeing appeared.

A hand and forearm in a hazmat suit propped itself against the floor, as if climbing from some unseen point below the vortex. The assist team pulled the person in the hazmat suit up into the lab.

Once he was in and had stuck his head through it one last time, no doubt looking for anything he might have left behind, he stood and made a “kill” gesture. The vortex disappeared in a puff, the machines quickly went back to their low thrumming, and a cheer washed over the lab.

“Run decontamination in the chamber.” His shrill, nasal voice was perfect to cut through the din.

Once again, the chamber filled with mist which was then sucked out through the floor vents. All three inside the chamber gave a thumbs-up.

“Decontamination complete. Exit the chamber.”

The door to the chamber opened with a hiss and the three inside stepped out. The door closed behind them with another hiss, and they stripped out of their hazmat suits.

“Lockdown status.”

“Generators locked on standby.”

“Targeting locked on standby.”

“Chamber locked on secure standby.”

“Thanks, everyone.” The tech sat back down and slumped in his chair. Meanwhile, Dr. Ball, the one that the assist team had pulled out of the vortex walked to the desks. His dark hair was shoulder-length, with streaks of grey. His face had the lines and deep tan of a forty-something who spent many years outdoors, but he moved as though he was a decade younger than he looked.

“How did we do, team?” he asked. “Did we get all twelve cameras? How long did it take to calculate?”

“Got ’em all,” the nasal-voiced tech said, “and two weeks.”

“Great! In two weeks’ time, we’ll aim for group N1, same day, download only, and see what data we get, before we decide if we need to move and to where.” Before anyone could answer, he made his way over to Jessica, Teryn, and Liz.

“It is good to have you back, Dr. Ball,” Jessica said. “We missed you these past two weeks.”

“It’s okay, Jess, there’s no need for formalities right now. My name’s Mike,” he said, “and you must be Teryn. Sorry, they didn’t tell me what your camera operator’s name was.”

“I’m Liz, Dr. Ball.”

“Nice to meet you, Liz, just Mike, though. I’m only Dr. Ball when I’m giving a lecture.” He motioned toward the door. “Shall we go to my office to talk?”

He led them across the hall to a cramped office. A dry-erase board and map took up half the wall behind him, carefully sectioned into grids, and filled with dates and cryptic notes. He added the current date and the text, “N2: replace, zone A-19,” before turning around offering them a seat.

He sat behind his desk while Liz unfolded a tripod and set the camera up. Before she could give the go-ahead, Teryn jumped in with questions.

“Was that a time machine? Those were Neanderthals. Were those Neanderthal? And does that mean that Jessica is—”

“Teryn, if I may.” He leaned forward. “Yes, what you saw was a time machine. And yes, that was a Neanderthal group of thirty-seven called Falla-intes, which we call N2, in their summer hunting grounds. They’ll probably move again in a few weeks, their time. Based on past data, to either zone B-18,” he pointed to a section on the map, “or over to A-11. Those areas already have cameras, so it’s just a matter of connecting and downloading.”

“But…you were there for two weeks?”

“No, I was there for six hours. Just long enough to replace some dead cameras while staying hidden.” He sighed. “It took two weeks to calculate the exact spot in space to pick me up, 63,017 years, 147 days, and…roughly nine and half hours ago in what is now northern France. We’re working on getting the compute times down, but we don’t want to make a mistake and open a portal in the vacuum of space…or the bottom of the ocean.”

“Okay, now I need to get this cleared up. You built a time machine to record the lives of Neanderthals…and maybe dinosaurs?”

“The time machine is a means to an end. How do we move from archeological inference to the actual recording of history? We are historians, first and foremost.

“We’re currently following three groups of Neanderthals,” he said, “and we have plans for other historical periods. Going back millions of years for dinosaurs, though…the compute time goes from weeks into decades, and there are a lot of unknowns about changed trajectories via asteroids and so on.”

“That makes sense, I guess. What I don’t understand…at what point did you decide to kidnap Jessica and bring her 63,000 years into the future?”

Dr. Ball just raised his eyebrows and nodded at Jessica. She smiled at them from where she’d been standing off to the side.

“I was hunting, and got separated from my group, Falla-intes. I was going back to the camp to wait for them but was cornered by a boar.” She took a stance as though she was holding a spear.

“I tried to fight him off, but he gored me,” she raised her shirt and showed the massive scar on her abdomen. “I passed out from the pain and expected to be eaten. When I woke up, though, I saw the portal. I thought was this was my rebirth, returning to the womb, so I reached for it, and crawled through.”

Jessica chuckled. “I don’t know who was more scared…me or Mike. He made sure I got medical treatment, which included too many rounds of vaccinations and antibiotics to count. Nothing from then is dangerous to you now—”

“That we know of,” Dr. Ball interjected.

“Right…that we know of, but plenty of your germs now I had no immunity to.” She smiled at Dr. Ball. “He sat beside me, day and night for weeks, talking to me until I was well enough to walk around. By then, I had learned a few English words, and we talked all the time. It took me a few months to get to a basic conversational level, but by then I understood what Mike meant by ‘germs.’

“I decided it would be dangerous for me to go back to my people with modern germs, so I stayed. I have been here three years local time, and from the time you saw in the portal, I have been gone, dead according to them, for twelve years.”

Teryn’s eyes pooled with tears as she understood just how isolated Jessica was. Her family and everyone she’d known dead for tens of thousands of years, and yet close enough to touch on a regular basis.

She pulled herself together and continued with the spate of new questions that now rolled around in her head. Perhaps her physics minor wasn’t wasted after all.

They talked for over an hour, covering topics from the power supply, to the generation of the wormhole and its stability, to questions about the many-worlds interpretation and whether anything done in the past could change the present. On the latter, Dr. Ball was hesitant to say for certain, but he assured her that he did everything in his power to leave the past untouched other than the small cameras, easily hidden and recovered when they broke down or were no longer needed. He also assured her that no biological material was allowed to go through either direction, thanks to their decontamination protocols.

As they finished up, Dr. Ball leaned forward. “I want you to understand something,” he said. “You are never to reveal the truth about Jessica to anyone. If her image, voice, or even mention of her presence other than ‘lab assistant’ leaks from your report, I will take your network for everything they have.”

“We’ll delete the footage of her, and any mention of her in the interview before we leave. I mean, we signed the limited disclosure agreement, but aren’t you being a little harsh?”

Dr. Ball shook his head. “No. Jess is not going to end up an oddity for research and experimentation, and she’s certainly not going to be exploited for others to gawk at. As far as anyone outside this floor knows, she’s Jessica Smith, from Little Rock, Arkansas. She even has a driver’s license that says so. I’m already worried about her safety once we release the first sixteen years of the footage we have from the Falla-allas, Falla-intes, and Falla-eswa groups. Even though we’ve edited around her, someone might see the resemblance, and then she’d have to go into hiding.”

Teryn rose and gave Jessica a hug. “I’m so sorry you lost…everything. I won’t tell anyone about you, but Mike has my card, and if you ever want to talk…about anything, give me a call.”

“Thank you, Teryn, it was nice meeting you.” Her eyes still had that sad touch, that Teryn understood now. “I have not lost everything without gain, though. I have made friends and learned much.”

Once they’d left, Liz loaded the camera in the trunk of the car while Teryn’s mind whirled. Liz pulled her out of her reverie with a poke on the shoulder. “Maybe this is the story that gets you promoted. If not, you know of a living Neanderthal….”

“Not happening. She’s lost so much already, you want to take away her privacy, too?”

“I wasn’t being serious,” Liz said. “Just trying to get you out of your funk.”

“Not in a funk, I’m just wondering if anyone got written out of history, due to Jessica coming here. I mean, she might have survived.”

“Would we even notice?”

Teryn hummed. “Not likely. Wait, we know time travel exists, but no one showed up to Dr. Hawking’s Time Travelers Party. Ugh! I should’ve asked why not.”

prompt: Write a story that contains a flashback of a nightmare.

available at Reedsy

I flinched away from his touch. I didn’t mean to, I just couldn’t help it.

“Again?” he asked. “Last night? Did you get any sleep after?”

I nodded to the first two and sighed at the last. “Sorry, Balan. Maybe I’m not ready for this.”

“No need to apologize. I understand that it isn’t easy and saying ‘Get over it’ helps no one.” He set down a mug of coffee near me, careful to maintain some distance.

He gave me a few moments before he asked, “Not ready for which this? Us…or…? I mean, if you need space I can move back in with my family—”

“No!” I was emphatic on this point, because it was the one thing I was certain of. “I need you around.”

“I’m here,” he said. “I’ve heard that talking about it can help. Whenever you want to, I’ll listen.”

“Thanks.” I checked the display on the control for the kitchenette. “If I don’t get moving now, I’ll be late.”

“I won’t say good luck, you don’t need it. You deserve the promotion. You’ve got this.” There was a certain mirthful certainty on his face; I was getting better at reading him.

The office was larger and more plush than I’d expected. It looked more like a nineteenth century drawing room than an office. All the high-tech bits had been tastefully hidden.

A small desk contained a keyboard on a pull-out drawer, which activated the holo display above it. The bookshelf contained a few real books along with files disguised as books that were locked to the shelf with my fingerprints or DNA or something I didn’t quite understand.

I sat at the desk and logged in, wishing I’d either gotten more sleep or drank more coffee. I considered calling Balan and asking him to bring me a pot of strong coffee but decided against it. There had to be coffee around here somewhere.

The holo display shut itself off when a knock came at the door; security measure, I guess. “It’s open, come in.” No sooner had I said it than my guts tied in knots at what was probably a huge breach of protocol.

The young woman that entered didn’t seem too put off by it. “Good morning, Ambassador McAllen. Melina of Aritoz, and I’ll be your aide here at the embassy.”

I stood and walked around the desk to properly greet her. “Pleased to meet you, Melina, and please, just call me Catherine…or Kate.” I held out a hand to shake hers.

Her hand was like Balan’s, a tough, leathery palm and fine scales on the back and the three long fingers. Her oval eyes were larger than his, their solid black unreadable. The ridges over her eyes and the corners of her mouth showed delight.

“Thank you, Catherine. I’m really excited for this opportunity, and I won’t let you down.” Concern crossed her face. “Did I do the handshake thing right? I’ve been practicing so I wouldn’t—”

“It was perfect.” I put my arms up, palms together, and she did the same. We touched forearms and leaned our foreheads together for a second.

I stood back and said, “I hope I did that right.”

Her eye ridges rose and her mouth opened in joy. “Perfect.” She gave a slight bow. “Is there anything I can do for you, Ambassa—Catherine?”

“Coffee. Where would I find it?”

“I can either bring you some, show you where the cafe is or bring in what we need to make you a pot here.” Her shoulders dropped and her eye ridges lowered in concern. “I’m sorry. I should’ve thought of that. I’ll make sure there’s a pot ready tomorrow morning.”

“No, no, that’s fine.” I sighed. “If I had a pot here every morning, I’d drink all of it and get nothing done while my head ran in circles all day. Why don’t we head to the cafe and have breakfast; my treat.”

The cafeteria was spacious, with the sort of bare aesthetic I expected of an embassy. I was surprised, however, at the way sound didn’t echo.

We had the option of filling trays from a buffet-style line or ordering a meal at the checkout. I opted for the second and ordered a doner kebab and chips, which I was surprised to see on the menu. Melina ordered something local that looked like scotch eggs until she cut into them, and I saw that the insides were made of some root vegetable.

We traded tastes of our dishes. Hers was tasty, with a hint of radish under multiple layers of umami and smoke. She didn’t seem too keen on the kebab but enjoyed the chips enough to help me finish them.

As we walked back to my office, I looked at her and the other Rellans. They had small scales that covered them from head to toe, a short, thick tail, four-digit hands and feet, large, black eyes with no visible pupil or sclera, ridges above their eyes, and the mixed teeth of omnivores.

In the daylight, I could look at them and understand that — looks aside — they would be classed as a mammal on Earth, not a reptile. Not only did they give live birth, have mammaries — both females and males — but they were warm-blooded with a normal temperature of 38.5 Celsius, well into fever range for a human.

Still, I’d heard more than one crude comment from men talking about “hot lizard-girls.” It wasn’t like women didn’t say things every bit as crude, but we at least have the decency to only say them in private…not in a crowded terminal.

“What are you thinking about, Catherine?”

Melina brought me out of my reverie, standing in front of my office. I didn’t know how long we’d been standing there. I opened the door and waved her in, closing the door behind myself.

“I’m not even sure,” I said. I sat at the desk. There was no work for me to do until after the formal introductions the following day. It was meant to be a day for me to settle into my office. I looked at Melina standing in the center of the room, as though waiting for something.

I moved to the sofa and offered her a place to sit. “You look like you have something on your mind,” I said.

“This may be…indelicate,” she said.

“I’ll keep it just between us girls.”

“Terran males keep approaching me, trying to interest me in…mating.”

I laughed. “If that’s their only goal, keep turning them down. If they only see you as an object of fetish, there’s no sense in bothering with them.”

We spent some time talking about the signs that a human was interested in more than her body, and I shared some rather scathing turndowns for those who weren’t.

Melina looked at me then, and then said, “Aren’t you living with a Rellan?”

“I am.”

“How…how did you know it wasn’t just a…fetish thing?” As soon as she’d asked her eye ridges squeezed together in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s a fair question. I wasn’t interested in him at all when we first met. Over time, though….”  I took a deep breath. “I keep having a nightmare, but I can’t talk to Balan about it, because I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“What is it?” She laid a hand on mine, the scales on the side of her thumb making brief contact with my wrist.

The scenes flashed through my mind again, and I forced myself not to jerk away. Balan stood before me, thousands of other Rellans behind him. He seemed far away, but he was close, and small.

All intelligence left his face as he dropped into a four-legged position and turned into a lizard along with all the other Rellans. They swarmed me, covering me. That was the point I usually woke up in a panic.

I’d explained it to Melina as I relived it, and she held onto my hand the whole time. When I finished and opened my eyes, her nictitating membrane was half-closed. I’d learned that was a response similar to tears for a human.

“I’m sorry, dear,” I said, “I didn’t mean to upset you. But you understand why I can’t tell Balan, right?”

She put a warm arm around my shoulders. “I think you should. If he cares about you as much as you obviously care about him, he’ll understand. But I have a question: Lizards are reptiles, so why lizards?”

“Display on,” I said. “Show a picture of an iguana.” The three-dimensional image hovered over my desk, and I shuddered. I went through the steps I’d worked on with my therapist to slow my breathing and take control of my panic response.

Melina said, “Display off,” but it didn’t respond. She moved herself between me and the display. “I can tell this bothers you. You should turn it off.”

“Display off. I’m much better than I was. It’s a phobia…an irrational fear of lizards. Snakes are fine…but put legs on them and they’re just…wrong. I went through a year of exposure therapy to prepare me for working in the Rellan embassy on Earth — Terra. And then another year working there, and getting close with Balan, before being assigned to Rell. I thought I was over it.” I sighed. “I didn’t start having nightmares until I moved here. Balan’s a huge relief, but it’s rough right now.”

“I don’t know if it would help, but the Terran-run exotic pet stores in the city carry waklas,” she tried to hide her disgust and failed. “Maybe having a small, furry animal close to hand….”

“I see you react the same way to them as Balan. Like lots of humans do toward reptiles.” I chuckled. “It doesn’t seem to carry over for Rellans — waklas to Terrans, that is, like it does for us as far as reptiles to Rellans.”

“Because you’re more like us than xots and greks and aniles and all the other waklas. They’re furry all over, have constantly growing teeth, and lay eggs that they abandon to their fate. And they’ll eat anything they can fit in their mouth or take a bite out of. My sister assures me that her captive-bred grek is gentle, but still hasn’t convinced me to hold it.”

“I won’t force a fuzzy animal on Balan, I care about him too much. Just like he turned down an offer for a pet monitor lizard while we were on Earth, although, he did react to it the way I tend to react to puppies and kittens.” I thought about it for a moment. “It probably wasn’t obtained legally anyway.”

We sat in silence for a while, her warm arm still around my shoulders. I looked over at her, noticing the feel of the scales of her arm against my neck as I turned my head. “Thanks, Melina. I think I will talk to Balan about it tonight.”

“That’s probably better than bringing home a wakla,” she said.

I laughed. “But they’re so cute…kind of like fluffy mice with bunny tails.”

She shuddered and pulled away. “Don’t be mean.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “I won’t, Melina. I’ll never bring it up again unless you want to.”

“Thanks.”

“What do you say to taking the rest of the day off, and meeting here in the morning for breakfast before the formal introductions are made?”

“Sounds good,” she said. She crossed to the door and stopped. “If you don’t mind, I have one more question, though.”

“Sure.”

“What is exposure therapy?”

I smiled. “I promised not to talk about them, but if you want some exposure therapy, talk to your sister about her pet. Spend time around it…get used to being near it, then come talk to me about the next steps.”

“You mean you…?”

“Yeah. I held an iguana…for over an hour the last time while it slept on me, using me as a heat source.” I shrugged. “Like I said, I thought I was over it.”

prompt: Write a story about a stranger coming to town and shaking up the order of things.

available at Reedsy

The stranger walked into the edge of town on a dull, cloudy morning. A tall figure wearing a wide hat and wrapped in a blanket against the chill. Only their boots showed beneath the blanket. Not the flashy footwear of the wealthy, they were well-worn and practical work boots.

It was far too early in the morning for most of the town, so the only witnesses to the stranger’s arrival were the livestock in the pens near the road, and the innkeeper who happened to be outside to watch the sunrise and take a guess at the day’s weather.

He waved at the stranger then retreated into the inn as though he’d just decided that was a bad idea. Far too soon after he’d shut the door, the stranger opened it and walked in.

“I—I’m Heironymus, and this is my inn. Wo—would you be needing a room?”

Still hidden from view, the first thing the stranger uncovered was the star on their chest. After standing in silence for a moment, the stranger dropped the blanket to reveal her tall, thin form, her left hand returning a pistol to its holster.

“Good morning, Heironymus. I’m marshal Emma Collins, and I would very much like a room. Do you have anything long-term?” She removed her hat, freeing her inky-black hair to fall to her shoulders in unkempt waves.

Heironymus stared at the figure in front of him. “You don’t look like any marshal I’ve ever seen.”

Emma snapped her fingers and pointed to her face where piercing light-brown eyes shone against the deep bronze of her skin. “My eyes are up here. And do you have a long-term room?”

“I’m sure we can find something.” He flipped through the book on the desk in front of him while he hemmed and hawed.

“You know I can see that there’s nothing in your reservations book, right? And I see eleven keys on the wall behind you and only two empty hooks.”

He closed the book and attempted a smile that was wholly out of place on his face. “I can give you a suite with an attached bath for,” he seemed to think on it, “twenty-two a week.”

“You wouldn’t be trying to rip off a marshal, would you?” She leaned over the desk, her height imposing.

“I—It’s not that. I’m just trying to work out a rate that’s—”

“Fifteen a week,” she said, “and breakfast every morning, since you’re up early.” She pointed at the sign behind him. “That’s nearly double your usual rate.”

“Right, right.” He grabbed a key from the top row of the hooks and fumbled it for a moment before managing to set it on the counter. “Top floor, furthest on the end, faces the mountains.”

Emma picked up the key and laid down a stack of cash. “Here’s thirty for two weeks. If I’ll be here longer, I’ll pay up before then.”

Heironymus gave a slight bow before scooping up the bills and stuffing them into the small drawer under the counter. “I don’t have any breakfast for today, but if you need I can—”

“That’s fine. I’ll get some sleep this morning and take a walk around later this afternoon.”

“And your bags?” he asked, looking around her feet where only a blanket lay.

“Another marshal will be bringing those by this evening.”

“Wi—will they be needing a room, too?”

“Nope. Just me. He’ll drop my bag off and continue on his way. I just wanted to get here early.”

Emma picked up the blanket and walked up the stairs to the third floor where she found her room. She folded the blanket and laid it on the foot of the bed, pulled a folding brush out of a side pocket and tamed her hair in front of the small mirror in the bath.

She removed her duty belt and laid it on the bed next to where she lay, the pistol in reach of her left hand, her boots atop her folded blanket. Emma closed her eyes and took a nap. By the time she woke, her arrival should be all over town. The innkeeper seemed the nervous sort that would squawk to everyone about his unexpected guest. Good, she thought, let them squirm. As she dozed off, she wondered if Heironymus was in on it.

She woke with a chill. The room was cooler than she preferred, and with the south-facing window got no sun. She hoped she’d packed some warm clothes, but with nothing to be done for it at the moment, she strapped on her duty belt, checked the seven-pointed star on her left breast, put on her hat, and walked out of the inn.

The town was small and quiet. There was one place to eat that doubled as a saloon in the evenings, and she made her way there. The conversations that wove around and through each other fell silent as she entered.

She removed her hat and sat at a table farthest from the door. After a round of silent stares from everyone in the now library-silent room, a short waitress approached.

“What can I get for you?”

“Whatever the special of the day is, and do you have orange juice or lemonade?”

“We don’t have anything like that.”

“Water is fine,” she said. She looked around and saw plates piled with meat and bread. Fine for the locals, she thought, but it’s a good thing I packed a bunch of vitamins.

She ate her meal in silence, seemingly ignoring the stares of the locals. In truth, she was looking for the sort of nervous behavior that might mark one or more of them as being her target.

A couple of locals near the door caught her attention. Rather than openly staring, they went back to their meal as if nothing unusual was happening before they walked out.

Emma watched them walk out, past the windows going the opposite direction of the inn. They turned down an alley and out of view. On a hunch, Emma walked to the front of the dining room and watched through the window where she caught sight of them walking toward the inn on the next street over.

She sat back down and finished her meal before motioning for the waitress. “Who were those two that left?” she asked.

“Elian and Caliaphas. They mostly keep to themselves,” the waitress said, “unless they’re deman—asking for something.”

Emma nodded. “Thanks.” She laid two bills on the table and stood.

“That’s too much.”

“That’s for the meal, the service, and the information.” Emma winked. “Keep it.”

She returned to the inn where the previously empty hooks held keys. She didn’t see Heironymus anywhere, but figured he had other things to do.

The sound of the buggy trundling up to the inn brought her back into the moment, and she stepped outside to meet her fellow marshal and get her bags.

“Hey, Balian, how was the trip?”

“Bumpy, dusty, long. What time did you get in?”

“Around sunrise.”

“Anyone ever tell you, you walk too fast?”

Emma laughed. “You. All the time.”

Balian struggled with her bags, letting them fall to the ground with a thud. “Why did you pack so much?”

“It’s cold. Plus, I don’t know when I’ll be able to re-supply, so I’ve got a bunch of ammo and first-aid supplies, too.” She easily lifted both bags and turned toward the inn. “Did you want to come in and rest for a bit? It’s not much….”

“Not unless you changed your mind about backup.”

Emma chuckled. “No, nothing like that. I saw a footpath leading off the road last night, a couple klicks back.”

“That must be where the two locals were going. Why were they in a hurry?”

She nodded toward the inn. “They were staying here. I’m guessing they didn’t like having a marshal staying down the hall from them.”

“Did you get names?”

“Caliaphas and Elian.”

“I’ll pass that on up the chain, see what we can connect them to.”

“I’m betting they’re involved in the freight hijackings…and they’re certainly armed. Locals seem spooked by them.”

“Oh, I put the keys to the marshal’s office and cells in the smaller bag; the one you loaded up for war. Sometimes I wonder about you people….”

She paused and turned back to fully face the other marshal. “You people?!”

“Sorry, you know what I mean. Just be careful. There’s no wire here, so no way to call for help.”

Emma smiled. “I’ve got it. Besides, they’ve never seen a marshal like me.”

Balian snorted. “They’ve never seen an anything like you.”

After unpacking, Emma assembled the carbine that had been packed with her clothes and loaded all the carbine magazines and pistol magazines she had.

She made sure she had two pairs of cuffs, six magazines for the carbine, and four magazines for the pistol, her cuff key, and a dozen or so zip cuffs. She tightened her duty belt and rapped on the breastplate of the armor under her uniform.

She thought about wrapping up in the blanket again, but her height would give her away anyway. For now, she was going to have to play it by ear.

Arriving at the bottom of the stairs she found Heironymus, his left arm in a sling, the left side of his face swollen. He flinched away from her as she approached.

“It’s okay, Heironymus. I take it Elian and Caliaphas did this?”

His voice was a weak whisper. “Caliaphas. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t the one that called the marshals. Elian just watched and laughed.”

“Did they say anything else?”

“They’re coming back in after dark tonight. I have to let them in your room.”

Emma laughed. “I love it when they make my job easy. Listen, Heironymus, I’m going to go make sure the cells are ready for them. You do exactly what they tell you to when they get here, but don’t tell them you talked to me. You avoided me, right?”

The innkeeper nodded. “If they knew, they’d kill me.”

“That won’t be a problem after tonight.”

Emma walked through the town to the marshal’s office, all eyes on her fully armed and combat-ready form. She let herself into the office, the dust of long abandonment on every surface. She made sure the cells closed and locked properly, shook out the meager bedding and re-folded it.

That done, she walked back to the saloon and ordered a plate to go. She took her food with her to the inn and settled into her room.

It was in the early morning hours, her blanket around her shoulders keeping her warm when she heard her door unlock. Caliaphas was the first one in, as evidenced by the fact he was right-handed and the other was, like herself, left-handed.

Once Caliaphas was inside, Elian followed. They both raised pistols and emptied them into the figure on the bed. Elian moved toward the bed and Emma stood, dropped the blanket and kicked the door shut from where she’d sat behind it.

“You’re under arrest for the attempted murder of a marshal. Drop your weapons and put your hands out to the side.”

Elian started to turn around and Emma fired a round from her carbine past his ear. “You don’t want to do that.”

Caliaphas dropped his weapon and held his arms out. Elian seemed to be trying to decide his next move.

“If you want to die, just do anything other than dropping your weapon. Same amount of paperwork either way.”

Elian’s shoulders relaxed and he dropped his pistol. Emma kept her carbine pointed at them as she approached and cuffed them, Elian first.

After getting them into the cells, filling out her paperwork and giving the office a quick dusting, the sun began to rise. “You gentlemen will be transferred to the city in a couple days,” she said. “Until then, make yourselves comfortable.”

She walked back to the saloon and found Heironymus ordering her breakfast. “Thanks,” she said, “I’ll just eat it here.”

A crowd began to assemble in the dining room, word seeming to spread about the arrest. When she felt there were enough people around to make it worthwhile, she stopped eating her breakfast and stood.

“Listen up,” she said. “The Marshal Service has decided that the frontier has been without full-time law enforcement for too long. That changes now. I’m the permanent marshal assigned to your town, and I won’t stand by while hijackers use this place as a hideout.”

Someone from the crowd called out, “But, you’re a….”

Emma’s right eyebrow rose. “I’m a marshal. You were saying?”

Heironymus slammed his tail down on the wooden floor. Despite his wounds and swollen face, he spoke loud and clear enough for everyone to hear. “Yes, she’s a human. Probably the first ever in this backwashed part of space, but she’s a marshal. Besides, she put Elian behind bars without any trouble.”

“Thank you, Heironymus. By the way, tell me how much it’ll cost to replace the bedding and towels those idiots shot up, and I’ll get the Marshal Service to pay you for it.”

He started to think when she leaned down to eye-level, staring into his compound eyes. “Just the actual replacement cost…plus, say, ten percent for the hassle.”

“Of course,” he said, “you’ve saved me from letting out two suites for free.”

“If anyone has any questions, find me in the marshal’s office or around town. If there’s a problem, same, except you can get me any time of night in the inn. Third floor, last room.”

With that, she sat back down to finish her breakfast. Unlike the previous day, conversations began again in the dining room, rising to an almost raucous level. Emma smiled. “I think I’m going to like it here.”

prompt: Write about someone who has always done something as part of a group, and is now starting to set out solo, or vice versa.

available at Reedsy

The small cargo ship, in the default medium grey, was wholly unremarkable. The same and similar made up the fleets of corporate and private couriers, with the result that it was not surprising to see it anywhere.

The anonymity and ability to blend in served Sidra well…usually. This station, run by the hyper-bureaucratic aslodzhins was the exception. The “bugs,” as many humans called them, had their own ways of doing things and didn’t like a “squishy,” as they called humans and other endoskeletal beings in their own language, upsetting the order.

“Private vessel Hobby Horse, please state the purpose of your visit and expected duration.”

“Station 47 control, I say again: PV Hobby Horse requesting permission to dock in an out-of-the-way small cargo dock for fueling. Expected visit duration no more than a week…seven standard days, but no less than an hour.”

“PV Hobby Horse, docking for fuel cleared at Lock 7-16. All passengers and crew are required to wait inside the vehicle until security arrives to clear you. …Cracked-shell squishy thinks they can—” The controller’s voice cut out as they must have noticed they were still transmitting.

“Thank you, station 47 control. Docking at Lock 7-16. Squishy out….”

Sidra expected one or two security to show up to clear her to enter the station, instead, there were a dozen. She opened the airlock and waited inside. “Come on in.”

The leader, obvious by the shiny, silver emblem in the center of its blast armor, stepped in, followed by two others that made a quick inspection of the ship to verify the claim of no other persons aboard. The brown color of the leader’s head carapace marked them as a drone, while the black carapaces were male and bright blue were female.

Sidra extended a hand. “Sidra Boston; captain, owner, pilot, and sole crew of the Hobby Horse. Welcome to my home.”

“Sub-adjutant-lieutenant-detachment-commander Slivdzak.” The officer looked at her extended hand and grasped it with one their six manipulators.

“Pleasure to meet you, Slivdzak. How can I help?” Sidra felt a secret rush of joy at the way the officer tried and failed to hide their discomfort. She knew that the lack of carapace was as disconcerting to them as the feel of a surprise tarantula crawling on the neck was to humans.

“Captain Sidra Boston—”

“Please, just call me Sid. Drop all the Captain and Boston stuff.”

“Sid, you have not made clear the purpose of your ‘one-hour to seven-day’ stay. Please elaborate.”

“I’m meeting someone here and taking them home.”

The officer looked at a small device it carried. A hologram rose from it, her close-cropped black hair, medium-brown skin, large, green eyes, and humped nose obvious. Beneath the hologram was writing in the bugs’ script. “Are you not a hunter of bounties?”

“Well, if that’s what you want to call it, I guess.”

“Such activity is only allowed in teams of three or more by aslodzhin law 9314-27.664 and safety regulations 647-88.932 and 90991-17.0. In addition, at least one of the team must be aslodzhin.”

“That’s kind of speciesist, isn’t it?”

“The courts have allowed for permanent residents of aslodzhin space to fill the requirements where applicable, in accordance with Galactic Union Resolution on the Rights of Sapients, 74.23.08 Paragraph 12.”

“Great, good to hear. Problem is, I work alone and I’m not after a bug.” She shrugged. “You know how we squishies are.”

“Station command has already decreed that you are not to leave your vessel without the two members chosen for you.” The officer raised to its full height, its head carapace close to scraping the ceiling. “Your team will be here soon. Good day, Captain Sidra Boston.”

“Good day, sub-whatever-whatchamacallit Sliv.”

After the security detail left, she stepped out of the ship to check on the refueling. No sooner had her foot set down outside the airlock than she found herself in the crosshairs of two armed security guards that had been standing out of sight.

“They aren’t kidding about not leaving without a team, huh? Damned bureaucracy.” She stepped back inside the ship and sat on the floor to await her babysitters.

When her team arrived, she was surprised by the presence of the furred, six-limbed hikarin hemi-male. He was easily head and shoulders taller than her, but slight of build, and thin-boned, coming from a lower-gravity world.

The aslodzhin female didn’t surprise her, even in her law enforcement uniform. She wore a red symbol on the chest of her uniform.

Sidra stood. “Okay guys, I’m Sid, and this is my job. You do what I say and stay out of the way we’ll get along fine. You,” she said, pointing at the aslodzhin female, “change out of that uniform. You’ll scare off my skip.”

“Sid, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m senior-squad-chief Dliz, and this is Soolyasin.” Dliz extended a manipulator for a shake and Sidra obliged.

Dliz’s compound eyes rotated in a way Sidra didn’t know they could, and she showed frank wonder at the feel of a hand in her manipulator. “Could you do that again?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“You moved your hand, and I could feel the muscles flex…yes! That’s it!” Dliz laughed. “That’s the neatest feeling ever!”

“Am I the first squishy you’ve met?”

“Oh, no. I’ve known Sool since I was a nymph.” Dliz continued to hold on to Sidra’s hand.

“How about humans?” Sidra raised an eyebrow and tried to extricate herself from the increasingly awkward handshake.

“Yes. I mean, I’ve seen plenty passing through, but never met one.” Dliz let go and uttered a quiet apology.

Soolyasin stepped forward. He was dressed in technician’s clothes, complete with tool belt. “You’ll have to forgive Dliz. She’s a fan of bounty hunters in general, and you in particular.”

“Shush.” Dliz stood straight up at attention on her four hind legs, her head scraping the ceiling, her three left manipulators raised in a salute. “What are your orders, Sid?”

“First order of business, you need to lose the uniform and dress in something less conspicuous. Sool, is that a disguise?”

“No, these are my work clothes. When Dliz called I ran straight here.”

“That’s fine. You’ll blend in, no trouble.” Sidra put on a ballistic vest and covered it with a loose jacket. She checked that she had cuffs, shackles, bench warrant, and badge.

She turned toward Dliz. “Do you have a ballistic vest?”

“I have a carapace; I’m not a squishy.”

“Will your carapace stop a slug from a weapon like this?” Sidra held up a high-powered, 6mm rifle.

“Um, no. I have armor, though.”

“Can you wear it under clothes?”

“Yes, but it’s against the regulations.”

“Screw the rules, wear your armor…under your clothes.” She muttered under her breath, “Damned bureaucracy.”

Sidra turned toward Soolyasin. “I think I have a vest that’ll fit you.”

He looked at Sidra, then Dliz, then back again. “Is it going to be that dangerous?”

Sidra showed them the bench warrant. Soolyasin’s eyes grew wide and Dliz’s eyes rolled in a different way to earlier. Sidra thought she might be able to read bug emotions if this kept up.

“You were going after a turgen terrorist by yourself?” he asked.

“Still am. Just don’t want to see my babysitters get hurt.” She turned to look at Dliz. “Dliz, relax. You don’t have to stand at attention. I need you to tell me which of these weapons you’ll let me carry on the station.”

Dliz settled back down onto six legs and looked over the cabinet Sidra had unlocked. In addition to the rifle, she had pistols, tasers, batons, knives, and a shotgun with less-lethal beanbag loads along with standard loads.

“Which of them are capable of breaching the station hull?”

“The 6-mil, and the shotgun, if I loaded it with steel shot or slugs instead of beanbags.” She didn’t mention that the 10mm pistols were just as likely to do the same damage, but she wasn’t going out without at least one lethal weapon.

“In that case, leave the rifle and lethal shotgun rounds behind. I’ll be carrying a beam weapon, too, so we should be covered.”

“What about me?” Soolyasin asked.

“The only thing I need you to do is stay out of the way. Unless I need some inconspicuous eyes in the bay.”

After fitting Soolyasin with a ballistic vest and Dliz getting into civilian clothes over her armor, much to her dismay, they moved to the main cargo bays where they expected their quarry to show. Sidra positioned them so that she could watch arrivals, Dliz could watch her back, and Soolyasin could stay well out of the way unless and until needed.

The first hour went by at glacial speed, with constant interruptions from Dliz and Soolyasin asking questions or pointing at every passerby that might be a turgen in disguise. The next two hours dragged compared to the first.

It was in the middle of the fourth hour that Sidra got notice that the ship carrying her quarry was docking. She moved them to cover the lock where it pulled in, granting them a view on both the personnel airlock and the cargo airlock.

A much smaller contingent of security met the ship, cleared the crew for the station, and left. Four crewmembers, all turgen, filed off. Larger than humans in bulk, grey skin covered with hard dermal denticles, they had two arms, two legs, the remnants of a dorsal fin, and a long, flat tail with which they could do bone-breaking damage.

Sidra waited. If he was going to sneak off the ship, he’d need to do it soon. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to get out on his own, she radioed Soolyasin.

“Okay, Sool. It’s clear around the ship. Just carry your tool case and walk onboard like you belong there. You’ve seen his picture, if you see him, run. If there’s anyone else on the ship, just tell them you’re checking the fuel gauges because of some regulation or other.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. You got this, and I’ve got your back.”

Soolyasin walked onto the ship, and they could hear him in their headsets, “Hello? Anyone here? I need to check your fuel gauges. Hello?”

A few quiet moments passed before Soolyasin spoke up again. “There’s no one else here,” he said, “I’m co—” His voice was cut off by the sound of a heavy thud.

Sidra ran for the ship, pulling her shotgun into firing position and cycling a round into the chamber. She stopped at the door of the ship and called inside. “Give it up, Otto. The only way you’re leaving here is in cuffs.”

When she didn’t hear anything else, she moved to clear the corners. She looked right where the door to the cockpit was closed. She swiveled around to check the other side only to find it empty as well. “Dliz, move up and cover the exit. The cargo airlock hasn’t been cycled, so this is the only way off.”

She began to move down the passageway when she heard the cockpit door click behind her. She swung around a delivered a 12-gauge beanbag into Otto’s gut at near point-blank range. Rather than stopping him, it enraged him. He turned and swiped at her with his tail.

Sidra tried to dodge out the way, but he managed to knock the shotgun out of her hands. He picked it up and threw it behind himself into the cockpit, next to the limp form of Soolyasin. “Time to go away, bounty hunter.”

He began to move toward her. When he stepped in front of the open door, he was met with a concentrated beam of infrared energy that forced him to jump back. “Listen, soft-skin. You leave now, and I’ll throw your friend out. It’s your one chance to leave alive.”

She drew her 10mm pistol and pointed it at him. “And if I don’t?”

He started toward her again, then stopped when the beam almost connected. “I’ll start by killing your furry friend, then your trigger-happy friend, then you…but nice and slow. There’s no way you’re taking me to a human prison.”

Sidra couldn’t see Dliz, but from the angle of the last beam, she’d moved to where she had more coverage of the passageway toward the cockpit. She knew that if he wanted, he could ignore the burns and rush her, crushing her carapace in a thousand different ways. Her shotgun was far out of reach, not to mention ineffective, but the 10mm pistol was a comforting weight in her hand.

Otto turned his back on her, his tail swishing wildly, smashing against the bulkheads on each side of the passage. “Very well, then. On to killing your furry friend first.”

“I’m warning you, Otto, these are lethal rounds. Put your hands behind your head, your tail between your legs, and drop to your knees.”

By the time Otto had taken a step, Sidra had taken aim and fired a shot into his torso and another into his thigh. He stopped and turned to look at her, bright pink blood running down his leg and back. He laughed. “You’re going to be so much fun.”

The courts tended to look down on spinal injuries, but when a round in the torso and thigh didn’t slow him down, she didn’t feel like she had much choice. She took aim again and fired at the base of his tail. His tail dropped like a dead weight, and he cried out.

The pain dropped him to his knees. Sidra finished the motion by jumping between his shoulder blades to put him flat on the deck. She cuffed his hands behind his back, and secured his ankles with shackles before motioning Dliz to come in.

“Call for medical for Sool and for the idiot here.”

Dliz made the call and medical teams arrived in less than a minute.

“Damn,” Sidra said, “I guess bureaucracy is good for something after all.”

Soolyasin was awake by the time he was loaded onto a stretcher. There didn’t seem to be any broken bones, but he’d been thrown rather hard by Otto’s tail strike. “Sorry I wasn’t any help,” he said.

“Nonsense. I’m sorry I sent you in there and you got hurt. I’m splitting the bounty three ways, even across with both of you.”

“I can’t take any payment,” Dliz said. “It’s against the regulations for police to have any outside earnings.”

“You saved my bacon, though. If you hadn’t been enough of an inconvenience with the beam, he would’ve tail swiped me before I could draw.”

“Still can’t accept any payments or monetary gifts.”

“How about this? You two have been friends forever, right? I’ll pay your portion to Sool, and he can treat you to fancy dinners for the rest of your life.”

“Wha…how much is the bounty?”

“Three-point-seven million Terran credits. About sixteen million galactic.”

Dliz’s eyes rolled in yet another motion. “Damned bureaucracy.”

prompt: Write about a school trip that takes a turn for the unexpected.

available at Reedsy

The small craft set down in a field, silent as an owl. Three young women filed out into the moonless night, turning on night-vision goggles. One of them lugged a device on her back and twelve drones flew behind them.

“Are you sure about this?” Astrid asked. In the NVGs everything looked green, including her friends. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“It’ll be fine,” Dani said. “We’re grad students on break, we’re expected to have some fun.”

“This is a school trip,” Gwen said.

Astrid grabbed Gwen’s arm and stopped. “How do you figure that?”

“We’re exoanthropology students, and we’re meant to be studying the goats’ culture. How they handle the unexpected is part of that.” Gwen freed herself from Astrid’s grasp and urged the other two to follow. “Let’s go.”

“I hope we don’t run across any of the caprids while we’re here.” Astrid emphasized the proper name for their body type — calling them goats was like calling hominids monkeys — but she was still unsure about the enterprise.

Gwen laughed. “That’s why we only come down on moonless nights. Their night vision is worse than ours, and we can only see with NVGs.”

“How do you think we get all the spy cameras down here?” Dani asked. “I was with the team that planted the cameras by the well. We were almost spotted by the caprids but were far enough away that they could only hear us running away.”

“Okay, that’s legitimate, though. This is…I don’t know.”

Dani put a hand on Astrid’s shoulder. “It’s no different than what the Correlanians did to us. Lights in the sky, holograms of the so-called ‘greys,’ the original Nazca lines—”

Astrid interrupted. “Those were made by first the Paracas, and later the Nazca cultures…humans.”

Gwen said, “The ones that are there now, yes. The original lines were smaller, made by the Correlanians to see how the indigenous humans would react. They reacted by filling them in and making even bigger ones. Didn’t you study the Correlanian texts in exo-anthro 201?”

“No, we studied the Harveran texts about their studies on ZQ497-32.1.”

“Shit, isn’t that the one where they messed up and the xenos started worshipping them and got into a huge religious war and wiped themselves out?” Dani asked.

“Yeah,” Astrid said, “so, I’m sure you can understand my concern.”

Gwen stopped and pointed at the flat plateau in front of them. “There’s our canvas, let’s go to work.” She unstrapped the vibra-trencher from her back. “Dani, fire up the drones.”

The drones lit up, flying in odd formations, but one stayed directly in front of the vibra-trencher, showing where to dig in order to make the design Gwen had come up with. “Let’s make some art!”

A stylized drawing of a caprid, three-hundred meters tall, was dug from the topsoil; the vibra-trencher throwing the dirt clear to each side of the even, forty-centimeter-wide, fifteen-centimeter-deep trench. The design was drawn out in one, continuous line, as fast as Gwen could run.

The caprid drawing complete, a circle was drawn around it from the same line, ending with letters that left Astrid confused and Dani laughing.

“Um, why did you put that?” Astrid asked.

“Because we weren’t here,” Dani said, helping Gwen strap the vibra-trencher on her back. “Start drone program three, Astrid.”

Astrid nodded, and keyed in the command for the drones on the remote that Dani had previously held. They extinguished their lights and three of them overflew the lines, close to the ground, roiling up dust.

The other nine followed the women on their return trek to the ship, blowing away all footprints as they did. The three that had cleared the footprints from the lines flew back to the ship and were waiting when the others arrived.

Once back aboard, Dani said, “I hate this part.”

The ship lifted off the ground and began lurching side to side, turning and tilting, blowing the ground into something that might have been caused by nothing more than the wind…erasing the traces of their landing.

Astrid looked at her in the light of the ship. “You almost look as green as you did in the NVGs.”

“Shut up,” she said.

After a moment, the ship settled and lifted back to orbit where they docked with the research station. Most of the other student shuttles were still gone, so the women decided to hit the bar and get plastered. Some time during the evening, the bar filled with their fellow grad students, along with a group from their rival university.

—

Astrid felt as bad as Dani had looked the previous night. A massive hangover was not the best way to sit through a lecture.

Dr. Arkan stepped into the lecture hall and let the door slam behind him. He was not in a good mood.

“Oh, shit,” Dani whispered.

Dr. Arkan sat as his desk, rather than standing behind his podium. He sipped his coffee loudly while he waited for the room to quiet.

“Oh, double-shit,” Gwen whispered back.

“How many of you,” he asked, “did your undergraduate here? Not, here, here, but with Terra Galactic University?”

About half the hands in the room were raised. “How many of you studied the Harveran texts in EO 201?”

Astrid’s hand went up, along with four others, joining the raised hand of the other TGU students.

Dr. Arkan heaved a heavy sigh and took another loud sip of his coffee. “You can put your hands down now. Everyone who raised their hand will understand why…I…am…PISSED!”

The display screen behind him showed the women’s artwork; a stylized caprid surrounded by a circle, with the conjoined U-T logo for the University of Terra at the bottom. A picture-in-picture popped up in the corner of the display, showing a conversation happening at the well. Another popped up in the opposite corner showing a group of caprids heading toward the bluff.

“For those of you who can’t follow the dialect of this group when they talk fast like this, the conversation is about strange lights over the bluff. There are questions of whether it was gods or fires of their enemies or some strange weather.”

He slammed his palm down on the table. “The FIRST DAY that University of Terra students are allowed on this site, and they do this. Those assholes have CONTAMINATED our study! No trace means NO TRACE!”

Astrid took a breath to speak, but Dani punched her in the leg to shut her up.

“We don’t know which of those Terrors did this, but when we find out, they…will…feel…my…wrath.”

Several of the class fought to hold in giggles at hearing the professor refer to the UT students as Terrors, the bastardization of their mascot: Terriers. UT did the same with the TGU mascot, calling the Pilots the Pyros.

“Those of you who studied the Correlanian or Vistuvan texts in EO 201 might wonder what the big deal is. Yes, we hope that this will go at least as well as it did for the Correlanians. We fear what happened with the Harverans.”

Dr. Arkan sipped at his coffee again. “No lecture today. I’ll be spending the next few hours welcoming the Terrors to our study. In the meantime, I want a ten-page essay on what impact this may have on the caprids at site 14-G, and the surrounding locations, with a compare and contrast of the Correlanian and Harveran results.”

The class sat stunned, most of all Astrid who felt guilt gnawing at her bones.

Dr. Arkan set his coffee down and turned off the corner pictures. “One thing, though…whoever did this has studied the artwork from 14-G and done it true to style. Part of me wants to say, ‘Well done,’ but I’m still pissed.

“Now get out of here!”

Everyone rose and gathered their tablets, but Dr. Arkan raised a hand. “Gwen, Dani, Astrid…hang on a minute.”

Astrid’s hangover fought with the guilt to make her sicker than she’d ever felt. Gwen’s face was unreadable, but Dani had the kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar look.

Once the room was empty of everyone else, Dr. Arkin looked at the trio. “I know it was you, and I honestly believe that this will turn out at least as fine as the Correlanian experiment, if not better.”

Astrid opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her. “This is not the official policy of TGU, and if anyone asks, I never said this.

“I did my doctoral thesis on what went wrong with ZQ497-32.1 and it is nothing like this. One of researchers decided it was taking the indigenous population too long to invent writing. Without approval, he showed himself to what the Harverans called the ‘prinikal’ which means four-footeds in their language.

“Anyway, he showed himself to them, and using a laser, engraved pictographs of the stories they told as they were telling them! He did this in full view of ten or more prinikal — sources differ on that from ten to over a hundred.

“Regardless, they saw this as proof that he was a god and began to worship him. He was sent away immediately, but the prinikal began preparing for his return. The disagreement was in how they should prepare, and how they should worship.”

Astrid felt a mix of relief and shame and hangover pain. “But you were so mad….”

Dr. Arkan smiled. “It was all a show. I need everyone convinced that I’m convinced some of the new UT students did this. It wouldn’t do to have to boot my best and brightest.”

He pointed to Dani. “You programmed the drones?”

Dani nodded.

“And Gwen ran the trencher.”

“Yes, sir,” Gwen said.

“What was your part, Astrid?”

“I drew the glyph that Dani programmed into the drones and Gwen carved.”

“Including the UT logo at the bottom?”

Astrid shook her head.

Gwen said, “The circle and logo was all me, sir. I was…hoping to throw the trail somewhere else.”

Dr. Arkan laughed. “Well, as far as anyone knows, you’ve done just that. I…may…have messed up when reading the logs from your shuttle and accidentally erased them,” he said. “Of course, that menu is fiddly, and I think I might have erased four or five shuttle logs.”

“Th—thank you Dr. Arkan,” Astrid said. “We won’t ever do anything like this again.”

“Oh, you’ll do something similar, soon.” He smiled at her. “You’re going down with the next group to add cameras around the bluff. I have a feeling it’s about to be important to the caprids…at least those in 14-G. Also, if you could draw up a few similar glyphs in the same style, it would be interesting to see how close you get to what they follow up with.”

Astrid nodded. “Sure.”

Dr. Arkan rose. “All right, now get out of here. I’ve got to get my ire up again before I go talk to the UT group. Damn Terrors.”

“Go Pilots!” Gwen said, getting a harsh look from Dr. Arkan.

The three of them hurried out of the lecture hall. “I think you got him started again, Gwen.”

“What can I say, Dani? I’ve got spirit!”

“And I’ve had too many spirits,” Astrid said. “I’m going back to my dorm and sleeping for a week.”

“Don’t forget the paper,” Gwen said.

“It’s just a riff on a paper I did for EA-451 at CalTech,” Astrid said. “One day touch-up, tops.”

“You think we can use the stuff he told us about the laser and stuff?” Dani asked.

“Not unless you can find his doctoral thesis in the library,” Astrid said. “If you want, I still have my old 201 textbook somewhere if you want to borrow it.”

“Only if I can’t find enough sources in the library,” Gwen said. “It’s kind of a bummer to know that it’s not the whole story.”

“I have a feeling that a lot of textbooks are that way,” Astrid said. “Somebody did something, and someone else tried to condense it into a few glyphs and that’s all we get.”

prompt: Write a story involving a portal into a parallel universe.

available at Reedsy

Everyone over the age of two knows how doors work. You can open a door and go from one space to another, and from the other to the one. That’s it. Nothing more. Except for the door that stood open in front of Scott.

The landlady had insisted that his new apartment was laid out exactly like the model unit. The model unit’s walk-in closet only had one door, though. This second door had to lead outside his apartment. By the location of his corner apartment, it should lead directly outside.

He had opened it, hoping to be pleasantly surprised by a secret balcony, only to see another bedroom beyond the door. Leaving the door open, he rushed out of the closet, into the bathroom that shared an outside wall with the closet. The small, frosted glass window in the bathroom let in the light of the sun, dappled shadows from the large trees swaying in the breeze. There was nothing where the room on the other side of the closet would be.

Scott returned to the closet and looked at the apartment on the other side of the second door in his closet. It had to be an optical illusion of some sort. He opened one of the boxes he’d been about to unpack and pulled out a plastic hangar.

He tried to tap on the mirror or screen or whatever lay beyond the door. There was nothing. He tossed the hanger, thinking that it might go back a foot or two. The hanger sailed halfway across the other bedroom and clattered to the floor.

“Hello?” He leaned through the doorway. “Anyone here?”

When there was no answer, he stepped through and picked up the hangar. The bedroom looked like the one he’d just left, but oriented on the other side of the building.

He looked around the apartment that shouldn’t exist. The sound of voices from the hallway, one of them the landlady’s, ended his exploration early. He returned through the closet to his own apartment.

Scott shut the second door, and decided he would get a lock for it and just pay for the damages out of his deposit. He dropped the hangar back into the box he’d just opened, except it was still sealed tight.

Looking around the room, everything seemed as he remembered it…maybe? He wandered through the apartment, stopping in the kitchen. He’d stashed the new yellow broom next to the fridge. It wasn’t his first choice for colors, but it was the last one the store had in stock.

His freshly signed lease was still sitting on the breakfast bar. He checked beside the fridge. The broom was there, but it was a powder blue. This was not his apartment…at least, not the one he’d been in just ten minutes ago.

Scott returned to the bedroom and began going through the boxes. He recognized most of the items, with a few minor inconsistencies. He put on a pair of sneakers, grabbed his wallet off the bed and dropped his keys into his pocket.

He looked through the wallet. Everything looked normal, except that he had two-hundred-thirty dollars in cash. He never carried cash unless it was a necessity, and he’d had none when he’d first stepped into the apartment.

If he’d gone through the door into another universe, did that mean that coming back through didn’t return him to his starting position? Scott needed to think about it, and more than that, he needed a drink.

“Day drinking,” he said to his reflection in the mirror. “If it doesn’t solve the problem, at least it makes it seem less daunting.”

He left the apartment and walked to the corner market. It looked the same on the outside, but he’d only seen it when coming to view the apartment and then when moving in.

The sign on the door read Lotto, Deli Sandwich’s & Cold Drink’s…complete with the superfluous apostrophes. Scott took a deep breath and promised himself he wouldn’t let it annoy him. There were bigger things at play here.

He found the alcohol where he expected it, in the locked cabinet behind the cashier. “A bottle of the 12-year Irish whiskey, please.”

“ID?” the woman at the register asked.

He showed his driver’s license, and she motioned him to turn it around. He did so, and she scanned the barcode on the back and seemed satisfied with the sound the register made.

She unlocked the cabinet, removed the only bottle of its kind, and locked the cabinet before placing it near the register, out of his reach. “That’s seventy-one-fifty,” she said. “Anything else?”

Scott shook his head. “No thanks.” He placed a hundred-dollar bill on the counter.

The cashier ran a pen across the bill to ensure it was real, then wrapped the bottle in a paper bag and passed it across the counter followed by his change. “New face,” she said. “You just moved into the Argo?” she asked.

“The Argo?”

“River Greens Overlook apartments,” she said. “RGO…Argo.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“See you around then, Scott,” she said. “I’m Tiffany. And since you aren’t buying a bottle of hooch, you’re either rich or not a full-time drunk. Both of which are rare around here during work hours.”

“Yeah, just moving in today,” he said.

He went back to his apartment and looked over everything again. The broom was still powder blue. He cracked the bottle and was about to swig directly from it when he stopped himself.

A minute of digging through the two kitchen boxes brought him to the rocks glasses. He pulled one out, wiped the inside with the paper towels it had been packed in, and poured himself two fingers of whiskey.

It was smooth and warmed his insides. Carrying the glass, he went back into the bedroom and looked in the closet. The second door was still there, and still closed.

He drained the glass and went back to the kitchen for a refill. While there, he checked the drawers for anything that might have been left behind.

In the back of one drawer, he found a piece of sidewalk chalk. It gave him an idea.

Scott went to the bedroom and marked the floor just outside the closet with a 3. He entered the closet and marked the floor there with another 3. He opened the door and looked at the bedroom beyond. Reaching through with just one hand and the chalk, he marked the floor there with “4?” and pulled his hand back.

The marks in the closet and bedroom remained unchanged. Still clutching the chalk and drink, he stepped halfway through the door.

Looking back, the marks seemed the same. He took a deep breath and stepped through the rest of the way.

The floor in front of him still carried the same mark. The floor in the closet and the floor in the bedroom beyond were marked 11.

He knew this was bad, but he wasn’t sure how bad. He erased the question mark from the floor, leaving the 4, then checked the kitchen. The broom was still powder blue, but his signature on the lease agreement looked off, and there was no bottle of whiskey on the counter.

Scott wondered about the other versions of him. Were they trapped, going through the same thing he was? The reversed apartment layout felt wrong, so he took a deep breath and headed back to the closet.

Time to step into number eleven, he thought. He began drawing a line from the middle of the bedroom into the closet, and as he stepped through the door, he found the line continuing into the bedroom, right past the number 11.

On looking back, the line was there, running past the number 10 rather than 4. How many times have I done this? he wondered. He hoped this time there would be a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen. There was, but it was half empty. He poured another two fingers and checked the broom…pink with flowers.

Scott picked up the lease agreement and didn’t recognize the signature at all. He flipped it over to write a message to one of his other selves, only to find one already there.

“My name is Scottie, 31 years old, born in San Francisco, California, Mexico. Every time I go through the second door in the closet everything changes. I am just trying to get back home. I no longer think it’s possible, but I keep trying.”

Scott went to the bedroom and looked through the boxes. Women’s clothing. He left the apartment and went to the corner market. The sign on the door read, Lotto, Deli Sandwiches, and Cold Drinks. Well, that was at least a positive change.

He walked in. “Tiffany, right?”

“Do I know you? Oh, wait, you look just like the woman that was in here earlier. Are you her brother?”

“Uh, yeah.” He headed to the soft drink cooler and selected something high in caffeine. He brought it to the counter where she scanned it, and he tried his bank card on the machine, but it was rejected.

“Machine’s acting up again,” Tiffany said. “Do you have cash?”

Scott pulled out the change he’d gotten earlier and laid a twenty on the counter.

“What’s that?” Tiffany asked. “Foreign money from somewhere? We only take dollars. North American dollars.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I must’ve grabbed my travel wallet. I’ll come back for it later.”

Scott returned to the apartment and looked at the message again. He turned over the lease agreement and checked the particulars. This was no longer California, USA, but was “Western Coastal Territory, NA.”

He sat in front of the closet with the remainder of the bottle. He would wait until another version of himself showed up. Maybe stop himself…herself?…before they stepped all the way through to see if “trading” universes was possible.

If another version of him didn’t show up, well, at least it would take a while to enjoy the rest of the whiskey. He would let his future, empty-bottle self figure out the next move then.

prompt: Write a story inspired by the phrase “The short end of the stick.”

available at Reedsy

Few things are as disheartening as being given a choice that is no choice at all. Technically, it was a choice, but the only options were bad or worst. If she called the vote for the resolution, Earth would become a vassal state of multi-star-system empire for which citizens were resources to be used as the empire saw fit.

The other option would be not to call for the resolution, at which point the blockade of gargantuan warships protecting Earth would leave. Without their protection, Earth would have to fight off the other group of warships currently amassed around Jupiter.

The whole thing started with that other fleet. They had appeared out of a wash of radio waves and x-ray. Where before had been empty space, hundreds of ships appeared. Despite their odd shapes, it was obvious what they were when they moved into a formation and began to head toward Earth.

While governments were still trying to figure out a response to what seemed like a hostile force, a second force materialized in the same manner, just outside the moon’s orbit, and settled into a quick formation around Earth.

It wasn’t like the movies. Nobody tried firing missiles into high orbit to intercept; no hot-shot pilot strapped into an experimental space plane to confront them. The world held their collective breath.

Lara Biagi had been Secretary General for less than a month. As much as she had hoped there were others “out there” in the universe, she had hoped any meeting might’ve been more…friendly.

Instead, from the fleet surrounding Earth, a small craft landed in front of the UN building. Smaller than the fighter jets that shadowed it on its way down, it looked out of place, like a car parked in front of a medieval village reconstruction.

The sole occupant walked into the General Assembly, unfazed by the attempts of the security teams to stop it. No one could get within a meter of it without being thrown back violently. Bullets just…stopped on that barrier and dropped to the ground.

When it motioned for Lara to move over so it could take the podium, she did. It was humanoid, covered with fine scales, with three long fingers and a long thumb on each hand, all of which had too many joints.

That was when it offered the “protection” of its Empire of the Galactic Egg against the other creatures it called the Formoran Raiders. The deciding factor was when it showed what the other creatures looked like. Giant insect-like creatures covered in armor and carrying far too much weaponry.

Now it was down to her to make the call. Either hope that Earth could stand up to the bugs or become part of the Empire of the Galactic Egg. Lara hoped that one of the permanent security council members would veto the resolution before it got off the ground, then it wouldn’t be her fault any longer.

“The resolution for all member nations to join the Empire of the Galactic Egg is hereby put to a vote in the General Assembly.” She banged the gavel and waited for the results to come in.

The alien looked at her with its unreadable black eyes. At least, she thought it was looking at her, based on which way its head was turned.

When the vote was called, there were no dissensions and only three abstentions. She felt ill as she read the resolution into the record, making Earth a subordinate member of the Empire of the Galactic Egg. The aliens seemed to come prepared, as another dozen ships landed around the UN building and the alien lizard people started walking through the assembly making their wishes known.

The aliens demanded seventeen metric tonnes of fissile material, (plutonium or uranium), two million conscripts for their military, and another six million conscripts for labor. All to be provided in twenty-four hours, or they would arbitrarily pluck the conscripts from the populace and take the materials from every power plant and weapon. Just like that, Earth had become slaves.

They even brought their own flag, replacing the UN flag with their colors; a grey flag with subtle stripes and a white glyph two-thirds of the way to the fly end.

The assembly sat; shock, dread, and heavy expectation permeating the chamber.

There was a steady murmur of conversation on the floor when an aide ran to her side with a message. She opened it and swallowed hard. She nodded at the aide who left just as fast as he had arrived.

Lara stood at the podium and cleared her throat. “Honorable members of the General Assembly, I have been given a message to read to you.”

Her hands shook as she looked at the paper and glanced back at the alien. “This message, sent from the fleet around Jupiter, was embedded in the radio waves their fleet emitted as they arrived.

The US Navy has just finished deciphering it.”

There was a commotion on the floor.

Lara held up a hand. “We the people of the Formoran Reach wish to alert you to the imminent arrival of the slavers of—”

The alien cut her off by muting her mic. “Lies! They tell you lies to lower your guard, in order to strip your planet of resources and persons.”

 One of the members on the floor called out, “How is that any different from you?”

“Silence!” The alien darkened the lights, leaving only itself illuminated.

“You, subjects of the Empire, are to provide your levies. Until that time, all other activities are a waste of Empire resources. Leave at once.”

Lara turned to go, when the alien grabbed her shoulder. “Except you. Your world has elected you leader, you are useful to us.”

“You don’t understand,” Lara said, “I only preside over the people here. They now must get their governments to go along. I can only guess how badly most will react.”

“There is no longer a need for any government beyond ours,” the alien said, “and you are our Governor on this planet. Any subjects that attempt to resist the will of the Empire will be dealt with. That is not your concern, now.”

Once the chamber had emptied out, Lara braced herself to confront the alien. Based on what she’d read in the message, she had to ask. “If we had said no, what would the Empire have done?”

The alien pointed at the message Lara still clutched. “They told you that we leave no ground for them? Well, Governor, they aren’t wrong. We would have purged your world to keep it out of their mandibles.”

“I wish they’d voted no,” she said. “A quick death would be preferable to our enslavement. You’ve already demanded a massive chunk of the population. When does it stop? When the Earth is empty?”

“One-tenth of one percent is a light demand. The Empire will not allow this planet to empty as long as it proves beneficial to our aims.” The alien stopped for a moment, as if listening. “I am informed that the raiders have left the system. You are safe.”

“Are we, though?”

“Governor, of all the creatures on this planet, you are the most useful to us as leader of this planet…providing you follow our instructions. That makes you the safest subject in this system.”

In the short time Lara had spent staring at the message, she had memorized the last line, an apology for arriving late, and a way to contact them if Earth wanted to fight back.

Rather than risk the aliens seeing the message, she pulled a lighter out of her pocket and lit the message on fire, letting it burn in front of the alien. “I guess we won’t be needing this anymore.”

The alien cocked its head to one side. “It seems your species is highly adaptable, and open to the acceptance of reality. It bodes well for your people and for the Empire.”

The alien walked toward the chamber doors. “Come, Governor, we will show you how to oversee the transfer of the levies.”

“There will be a number of people who will want my head,” she said. “Could I request a couple of the human guards for my personal safety?”

“We can keep you safer than any of your own people.”

“Be that as it may, we are a social species, and having others of my kind around I can count on would make me feel more secure.”

“We will allow it,” the alien said.

Lara thought about something her grandmother had taught her long ago; “When you get the short end of the stick, don’t give up. Hold on tighter and fight harder.” She didn’t know how, but she would be doing exactly that.