“Alice, are you sure you properly calculated the accelerant?” Alpha set the custom incendiary at the base of the wall. “These were meant for breaching reinforced alloys. They’ll vaporize this wood.”
His AI’s smooth voice answered. “I performed a thorough study of the combustibility of wooden structures. The combustion should be appropriate
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“Look at me, bringing home the bacon for my lady!” Fred hung his jacket in the closet and followed me into what used to be my kitchen. He excitedly inspected the enormous metal box that had replaced our cabinets, refrigerator, oven, toaster, blender, and microwave.
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Owen slumped on the steps of his back porch, chin on his hands, eyes glued to the gentle stream flowing along the furthest edge of his backyard. Ruby had been with him for two years; two wonderful years. She knew him too well. She had to know that something had changed.
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“You’re hurting me, Wynn.”
Wynnstan let go of Gemma’s hand. “Sorry.” He glared at his stone fingers, wishing for the hundredth––perhaps thousandth––time that his hands could be soft and delicate, able to hold Gemma like she deserved to be held.
She rubbed her hands together. The creek’s low rumble filled the silence
By Carlos Candela Terry I wake facedown on the cool titanium floor, my vision blurred and my mind shrouded in fog. My jaw cracks with stiffness. Iaclite’s fiery, blue light shines through the portside window and bathes dust particles in a teal hue; they hover like a swarm of lifeless fireflies. I struggle to my
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“No, it’s the red one.”
Gwen jumped, nearly slicing the black wire. The BD-001 droid hovered around her head like a pesky fly. Before her, the bomb strapped to the fuselage of the colony ship continued to count down. Five minutes. Reaching over and tapping the screen on the droid’s belly, Gwen checked the schematic again.
Pete clung to the crawl handles on the skin of his spaceship and hoped he’d catch a breath before reaching the upper atmosphere. He’d looped his pilot’s harness straps hastily through a handle and clipped them together, taking most of the strain during acceleration, but he was already regretting his recklessness.
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Circuits humming, he calmly plotted his next move. There. Jepedo leaned across the table; arms too short to reach while seated and set his bishop down in front of his opponent’s king. “Checkmate.”
Father studied the board. Running a hand over his thinning hairline, he sighed. “You win again, my boy.” He smiled at Jepedo.
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His mottled hands shook as Viktor Engel etched characters into the damp earthen brow. “The good book says it took a word to create the world, eh?” He shuffled back a few steps, flicking the scrapings from his cracked nailbeds. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” A smile crept across his face, deepening crevices under his grizzled beard.
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Melvin pulled two ties from his closet and held them up in front of the mirror. He’d been single for so long, it was hard to believe he’d connected with Sophie as well as he had.
“Lexi, search restaurants near me.”
The beauty of a Wednesday night date was that last minute reservations were possible.
It was completely transforming the Moon, and I was the last hope of stopping it.
As I waited on the balcony of the one human-accessible building there, I stared out at the vast network of steel and silicon. It looked like the inside of a laptop, but on a monstrous scale. There were trains, ships, and satellites moving in a myriad of ways, spinning and whizzing and drifting, a jigsaw in perpetual motion. I felt dizzy and weak and had to turn away.
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CAL! Get me out of here!” Walden screamed into his comlink.
The whine of blasters sent him scurrying around trees and jumping branches as he bounded through the woods where he’d landed that morning. At least CAL had the foresight to scan the local channels and had seen the proclamation. How the Lothean government knew he was here remained a mystery, unless his contact had snitched on him. After all, the bounty on Terrans was enough to make any poor sod give up his own grandmother.
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