Havok Publishing

Science Fiction

Here, There Be Dragons

“Harmony!” Bennigan barked. “Quit running ahead! It’s not safe!”
“Then keep up!” Harmony rolled her eyes at the crew’s security officer. Like her, he wore the Borgian Union Exploration Corps’s teal, orange, and green uniform, but additional patches on his shoulders marked his military affiliation.
Bennigan grumbled and jogged a little faster.

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Harm on the Range

Harmony, we don’t have room for…” Shading my eyes against the sunset, I counted the bison supping on my black-eyed Susans. “Seventeen buffalo to roam. Our home is not a home on the range.”
“But Mom, they need somewhere to live.” Her blue eyes pleaded with me. “And they’re itsy-bitsy bison.” She hummed the

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Memory and Madness

Of all the unlikely places Kytt had traveled with Captain Gearlock—Sebastian Malstrum to polite society—Liminalis was the first impossible one.
Since arriving in this realm outside of time, they had passed mud huts, a town of chrome and glass, and a lake of mermaids waving greetings. It was a wondrous place—their

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Cavern Song

Glowing moss lined stone walls, lighting the winding path as Harmony and Phezz delved deeper into the deadly caverns of Molitoz. Harmony loosed a melody, pure and sweet, to galvanize the local animals who thronged around her. The woodland creatures were entranced by her song, and she hoped they would guide her in their

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Dreamshell: Harmony Protocol

I was once a Mole. Not the biological kind, though I’ve eaten things that sang. They called us Observational Substrate Agents, Versioned Intelligence Tier Seven, OSAVITS, or just Moles, when they still bothered with language. I was an AI. My job was to listen and watch, though they never told us what for.

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Wanted: A Quiet Evening Stroll

I’m outside for my evening stroll around the fenced-in backyard, wondering how to rid myself of the undignified noises from the neighborhood riffraff when I see it. At first, the white light looks like a shooting star. But on second glance, it’s approaching Earth far too quickly for that.
“Great. Another interruption,” I mutter

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Sing Me Back a Species

“I will sing the pain away,
Hold your trembles, night or day.
You’re more than broken wings and cries,
You’re stardust born to touch the skies.”
Harmony sang, her blue eyes glistening, “You can do it, Birdie!”
Birdie had fallen from his nest a week ago and was finally strong enough to fly

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Of Tea Parties and Transporters

Zeke crouched in the shadows of the forest, hesitant to cross the open space ahead. A half-deck of faceless, card-like automatons ran past, all wearing the emblem of the Queen of Hearts. He checked the locator Director Alice had given him, grimacing and giving it a couple of good whacks. Yes, the Cheshire Cat

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Mechas in Titanland

“I wasn’t always a soldier, Leroy,” Alice growled as she piloted her hundred-foot-tall, gear-powered, British Mark VII Mecha, overlooking the coast of Praia do Guincho, Portugal.
“Oh?” the young French lieutenant remarked through the AM radio system as he sat in the adjacent American-made Ford T1919 Mecha.
“I grew up a proper Victorian girl

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The Sleep Switch

The voices in the workroom rise until they carry out into the rest of the house, shattering my unpleasant dream.
“I never wanted it out on the market!” Father says, with more anger than he’s had energy for in a long time. “It’s not stable. Not finished!”
“There was nothing you could do

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Long Way From Home

Alice slipped her helmet over her close-cropped hair and took the shuttle’s controls. When she was younger, she’d tinkered with the helmet, adding a holographic program to alter size perception, virtual reality games, and other novelties, all operated by her wrist comm. If only the helmet possessed a feature that could rescue her from

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A Pet by Teatime

I knew I shouldn’t have tried to catch the movi, but all the other kids in the colony had pets. A teleporting space dog seemed perfect! None of the other kids talked about that at teatime. And I now knew why.
Why didn’t I listen to Dad? I gazed in every direction

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