Havok Publishing

Tag - aliens

First-Time Driver

“Oh no! Oh no! Nixie, what have I done?” Jope yanked his hands away from the control panel. Lights blinked along the dash, but he pressed fists to his eyes and leaned his weight against the harness. He couldn’t bear to look at the teleportation platform across the cabin. It was ominously, horribly silent.

Read it now

Grandpa’s Adventure with Mean Todd

“Tell me about Mean Todd, Grandpa—and how he died.” Dan grinned up at me.
It was a lazy, warm evening, and the air filled with the chatter of blind flies. The sun set in a red glow behind tired clouds.
I looked across my family’s drywick field to Mean Todd’s ramshackle farm.

Read it now

The Purple Parrot

The green sun of Lilen rose over the city of Shooshun. Its warm rays pierced a certain upper-story window of a certain stone house near the outermost edge of the city’s innermost ring. Soft green light shone on the face of a young Lilenite as she slept among piles of silky-soft furs.

Read it now

A New Mission

Frantic banging on her door shattered Shantel’s much-needed rest.
“Pastor! I know you’re here! Please come out!”
The banging continued.
“Coming!” she called. Dragging herself from the bunk, she opened the cabin door. Shantel shielded her eyes from the hot Bahamian sun, trying to remember her interrupted dream.
Charlie, Nassau’s lead immigration official,

Read it now

Going to Extremes

“Derek Percy handed me a challenge.” Hazel Williamson gripped the edge of her desk as she leaned toward her screen. “It’s the toughest our company’s ever faced.”
Nui grinned at his CEO. “Hazel, Earth Extreme Travel lives on challenge.” He jerked his thumb toward the advertising hologram by his X-Games trophies. “Says so, right there.”

Read it now

Polynesian Disbursement

“Welcome back to the afternoon session,” Conference Chair Toke Tuilaepa greeted, his floral print button down shirt and suit jacket straining to contain a barrel chest and broad shoulders. “The first panel after lunch is always a challenge, but Explaining the Pacific Islander Wanderlust is not one to miss.” He turned to the two

Read it now

Yara-Ma-Yha-Who

There’s nothing like finding yourself in the middle of nowhere, in a strange country, sitting like bait in a trap under a giant fig tree, to make you stop and think about your life-choices.
I always considered myself to be a reasonably intelligent, cautious person, but would a reasonably intelligent, cautious person be…

Read it now

The Once and Future King Returns

SUBJECT: ARTHUR PENDRAGON
STATUS: ACTIVE
[INITIATING RELEASE]

Pale light pierces the darkness, tearing me from slumber. Every fiber in my body ignites with freezing fire.
Coughing, I wake with my face in the dirt, cold and damp beneath me as I struggle to lift my head. The light fades and I’m left…

Read it now

Holograms and Salt

Dr. Trevor Smythe-Barnette looked up as a gust of hot air burst into his tent, ushering in the inevitable barrage of sand particles, and his right-hand man, Karthick, with it. The building stress that threatened to crush the archeologist dissipated as he entered. Karthick had dug with Smythe-Barnette for several years and understood

Read it now

What the Pastor Saw

Moonlight glistened on the Bahamian waters surrounding South Beach. Waves lapped the shore and plantain tree shadows snaked across the sand. Pastor Shantel paced, anxiously scanning the horizon as immigration officials scrambled along the beach. A flash of blue and gold in the clouds caught her eye. Weird.
Shantel stumbled into…

Read it now

The Layover

Of all the places to be stuck during a layover, he’d been told Earth had to be the worst.
But Garxlix had once spent a Galactic Center year on the gas planet Murlkoqluq waiting for a connecting flight. This was just eighteen Earth hours.
Though he would have rather waited at the landing area

Read it now

Legend of the Kentucky Goblin

Shots glanced off a yellow-leafed tree as Tee darted through bushes taller than him. He screeched as another bullet almost grazed his large ear. Taurus’s tail, he thought ERT-82’s greens would provide camouflage, but the chlorophyl-deprived foliage left him exposed. “This is Ambassador Tee, calling dispatch. Come in, Caelum Base!”
Only static.

Read it now