Monday, October 20, 2690 “…go! I’m tellin’ Mommy!” Helen’s favorite phrase sounded through the house for the ten thousandth time in her short six years. She rarely told me what had ended her world; for all her threats, Helen was a sweet girl who quickly ironed out differences with her older brother by herself. Aaron…

s Today was the day. For so long he’d awaited it, had Jeffrey Porter. The Veteran’s Memorial Day celebrating the 50th anniversary of the end of the Terran/Martian Wars. An elderly man of 78, Jeff had proudly served the final five years of the sixteen year conflict, finishing up as a lieutenant in the 144th…

April 30, 2394 Hannah – better known to her friends and clients as Wide Open Hannah – locked the door to her living box and waddled down the dim, narrow hall to the exit, her distended midsection leading the way. In the final month of pregnancy, Hannah should have been irritable and tired. She was,…

Monday April 30, 2390 “Here,” came the conspiratorial whisper of Naomi from the top bunk. “The girls and me made this over in shop this week.” With a slight crackling sound, a package was passed down and into Brenda’s hands. “There’s a minute match on the ribbon,” she added helpfully. Brenda felt the gift in…

September 8th, 2306 “Hey, Marcy! Where’s that spanner?” Paul Ellers yelled. He was buried underneath the access panel of the DL White’s starboard power relay coupling. The coupling had blown two weeks earlier along with most of the other plasma transfer conduits and transformers, turning the ancient freighter into a rudderless lump of metal carrying…

February 25, 2293 The air tingled briefly around Stella’s head, causing her hair to spark slightly in the dry air. Through the huge viewing pane of her premium office, the Earth turned slowly and majestically, thousands of miles beneath the orbital station. “Miss Stella?” came the cautious voice of her attendant. “Yes, Becky?” Stella replied,…

Monday, May 25, 2257 It was a gray, wet morning. Perfect for the gray, wet duty that lay in front of me and my family. A duty I faithfully saw to once a year, that my wife gladly bore with me and that our children were only now beginning to understand. We walked slowly through…

Earth Date: April 29th, 2225 AD “You’re joking, right?” Mal’s voice was both incredulous and resigned. “I fly from Mars to Luna, living on the swill our cook calls food, and when I finally get to a real restaurant, you serve the swill our cook didn’t call food?” “Welcome to Archimedes colony,” the waitress said…

shard: v. To switch personas. Once a mind has been riped (wiped and rewritten), the previously used portion is closed off and an artificial psychic barrier is raised. Although impenetrable in theory, the barrier can be breached, and the closed off persona – even the original one – behind that barrier becomes dominant. This episode is…