Science Fiction

A brass dispatch switchboard at dawn, one amber cord glowing, a green river valley through the window beyond.For nine days the sky gave nothing, and Wren sat at the board that decided who in the valley went dark — and quietly, against every rule of the commons, she kept one cord plugged that should have come out.

The Grid Will Hold

Teen

Solarpunk18 min

A fine brush tip touching dark etched glass, one point of starlight bent in it, against black.The reticle is twelve lines of paint I lay down by hand, two microns wide, and the whole observatory measures the sky against them. My hand used to be the most trustworthy instrument on this station. The arithmetic now says otherwise.

The Painted Eye

Teen

Hard science fiction18 min

A huge dead colony ship adrift, lit by one dim ember-glow at its core, a tiny salvage tug tethered alongside against deep space.There were forty-one habitable worlds left in the Reach, and the Empress had quietly erased one of them before the people sailing toward it ever woke. Sefa Brae found that out with her hands, in the dark, reading the wear of a dead ship's heart — and found, too, that the wear would not tell her the one thing she most needed to know.

The Stilling of the Saint Wend

Teen

Space opera19 min

A still body on a chrome cradle in a dark depot, cabling at the nape, rain on the window, neon light on wet steel.The night shift at a body depot is just you, the rain, and a machine that times how long it takes a stranger to get out of someone else's skin. Tonight one of them won't leave.

Returned to Spec

Mature

Cyberpunk16 min

A dim preparation table under one lamp, a pale folded form on dark cloth, instruments in a row.They gave me the body because I am the best, and being the best means I can put a creature into a posture it never held in life and make you believe it chose it. I want that on the record before the rest of this.

The Attitude of the Specimen

Mature

First-contact science fiction13 min

More Science Fiction voices coming soon: Biopunk · Dystopian fiction · Post-apocalyptic fiction · Time-travel fiction · Generation-ship fiction · Military science fiction · Alternate history · Climate fiction · Posthuman / AI fiction · Near-future technothriller