Tag: original fiction

“Aren’t you tired?” Isa asked Theresa.Theresa looked up from the debris she was tearing apart. Her hands were sore from gripping the crowbar, and sweat was collecting under her suit. She was the only one still cracking apart metal, looking for valuable computing components and hidden trinkets. All the Lorak had stopped hours ago, and…

I finally got to see a human give birth ten months after I’d first arrived on Earth. Which is, coincidentally, about the length of the human gestation period. The day I landed on Earth, the baby I eventually witnessed being born might have been conceived. We were in Korea when a private hospital reached out…

“I have a correction to make,” I messaged Skaalt, “Sandra definitely likes me just as much as I like her.” It took several minutes for him to reply to the message, which surprised me. Normally, he took hours to respond to a personal message like that one. “If she does anything to hurt you, I…

“You,” Jiemba said, “you are my brother from another star.” “You are my hatch-mate from a different nest.” I told him. “Greetings. The sands are gentle tonight.” It is always odd to come across a dron from another species. It is a Chintilik social class, after all, and it isn’t expected to translate off-world. But…

It was a thirty-hour drive to Alice Springs from Sydney. Most of it was across the hot, red Australian outback. Nick wanted to fly there, and argued that there wasn’t much to see on the drive. But he was outvoted (and not in charge, I reminded him), and he didn’t have to come on the…

The crew of the Quick Sliver crouched on either side of the command center’s door, ready to spring. The Lorak were pressed further away with ranged weapons, while the humans were up close. All except Markus, who was holding Isa upright in his arms. She was shuddering violently. There was the sound of heavy footfalls…

“You still have to dress up,” Sandra had informed me. “Even with your scales. Your usual robes are nice, Archie, but they’re working clothes. Put on something fun.”I did, because I didn’t want to stand out. And because I wanted to impress Sandra and Nick. Just a little.So I dug into the very bottom of…

I woke up to a sound I hadn’t heard in many years. Sandra was in the kitchen, and she was talking to someone. I detected the gurgle of a coffee machine and the hiss of fat on hot metal. It was a warm, welcoming sound, and it reminded me of being in Chint, where my…

Preliminary report on the classification of the planet known as Earth. Draft document. Not for public release.The planet called Earth is home to an incredibly complex ecosystem. The planet’s primary residents, humans, expend immeasurable resources navigating, controlling, destroying, and repairing their biosphere daily. As they gained control of the planet, they out-competed and killed off…

I overheard a lot of conversations on Earth. Humans talk all the time, and while some of them tend to rattle on about very little all the time, others say a lot in few words. I rarely took note of them, but I noted a lot of chatter between Sandra and Nick that afternoon in…