Astrocast Flashes: Warp Rider's Lament

Astrocast Flashes originated as a way for deep-space attendants to stay entertained and connected to the rest of humanity while stationed in isolated space stations. With limited bandwidth and transmission capabilities, long-form entertainment and communication were simply not feasible, so they had to come up with creative ways to share stories and experiences with each other.

At first, Astrocast Flashes were simple messages or updates sent out by individuals stationed on different space stations, sharing news, jokes, and personal stories to stay connected with one another. However, as technology improved and transmission capabilities increased, Astrocast Flashes began to evolve into short, pithy stories that could be broadcast across the interstellar gulfs in a matter of seconds.

These stories became popular among deep-space attendants because they provided a brief but welcome escape from the monotony and isolation of their lonely jobs. The stories were often imaginative, exciting, and filled with wonder, transporting listeners to other worlds and sparking their imaginations.

As more and more people began tuning in to Astrocast Flashes, they became a cultural phenomenon, inspiring a new generation of storytellers and deep-space enthusiasts. Today, Astrocast Flashes are a beloved tradition among deep-space attendants and continue to captivate audiences with their short, thrilling tales of adventure in the depths of space.

Have an Astrocast Flash to share? Contact spiraltowerpress@gmail.com. Because of interstellar bandwidth limitations, stories must be kept to 500 to 750 words.

Warp Rider's Lament

by Anthony Perconti

Approx. 620 words

"Brane entry complete," the scout ship's AI said to Captain Sharma. The exploratory vessel was the first of its kind to breach the neighboring parallel. Isha Sharma's eyes welled up as the enormity of the moment overcame her.

"Goddamn," she mumbled, as she swiped at tears. 

Through all those years of trial and error. The sacrifices. Of the countless manpower hours poured into this endeavor; she was finally here. Now that the Indo-Chinese Republic had successfully crossed into the multiverse, humanity's future was secure. She let out a long sigh of relief.

"I feel much the same." 

Sharma gave a nod in the affirmative. "This must be how my distant ancestors felt when they harnessed the flame. Or when we first set foot on Chanda." 

"Or at the onset of the Great Machine Awakening amongst my kind." 

"Indeed. Scan vicinity for gravitational lensing and or bio-forms, Maan," Sharma said.  After a few cycles, the telemetry screens showed a vast starless expanse of darkness.

"Telemetry scan show's nothing, Captain."

"Huh. Just our luck to be crapped out into a cosmological desert." 

"So, it appears," the AI responded. 

"Extensive telemetry reading, Maan. Go deep. Let's hit that jackpot!" 

The cycles crept by. After what seemed an eternity, the telemetry screens updated-pitch black. "Long range scan found zero, Captain." 

Nothing? Could it be that she was ported over into a barren universe? That this brane was devoid of any celestial bodies? And yet-

"Zero? There has got to be something out there. We're just not looking hard enough." 

"Shall I run another long-range telemetry scan, Captain? Just to be sure?" 

"Absolutely, old friend. And don't rush it for my sake," Sharma said, chuckling to her companion. "We've got nothing but time on our hands." 

And yet, Sharma felt something out there. Some sentient presence lurking in the black beyond. She just knew it. She could feel it in her bones. That off-putting feeling of being watched, of being studied stuck with her, regardless of what the equipment readouts said. The sensation made the base of skull itch. It reminded her of that time as a little girl, when her parents took her into the city. They spent the day at the New Ahmedabad Aquarium. Her ten-year-old self goggle eyed at the profusion of sea life before her. Pitaajee scolding her for the incessant tattooing on the glass. 

After sixty cycles of nervous apprehension, the screens blipped to life again. A vast field of unbroken black, its velvet uniformity unmarred by any star, planet or nebula. Hell, not even an errant chunk of mineral was detected. 

"This just can't be. Something must be wrong with our sensors. Maybe the passage through the portal fragged our hardware?" 

"I'm afraid not. All systems are working at optimal capacity, Captain."

"Don't you sense that," Sharma asked the AI. 

"Captain?" 

"Some…I don't know what. Some thing. Some entity.  Watching. Observing us. Like a roundworm under a microscope." 

A shudder ran through the craft, followed an instant later by the barks and scarlet flashes of the emergency klaxon. 

"Maan! What the hell was that?" 

The ebon uniformity wavered like a heat mirage and gradually began to transform. A vast empyrean eye, lazily dilating open. A sickly golden iris expanding outward, outward until the darkness on the screens was subsumed by the light of this unnatural sun. A violet decagonal pupil the size of a moon pulsed and vibrated at the organ's center. 

Sharma sat transfixed in her compression harness, unable to tear her eyes from the alien tableau blossoming before her. 

"I'm so sorry, Maan. So sorry it had to end this way." 

The screams of the two explorers conjoined, christening the newfound world in blood and silica.

END

Astrocast Flash: Warp Rider's Lament

Astrocast Flash: Space Too Deep, Orbit Too Wide

Astrocast Flash: Bug-eyed Monsters and the Women Who Love them

 

Waystation: Amateur Magazine of Space Opera Issue 1 -- Free for Download

The first issue of Waystation: Amateur Magazine of Space Opera is now available as a free pdf.  Several people are responsible for this issue. First, thanks to our excellent contributors. Your stories are the main feature. Next, thanks to Ben Simmons, the Editor-in-Chief, for spearheading this and giving us the motivation to work through the project. Next, thanks to all the readers: Grey Cashwell, Nils Hedglin, Luke E. Dodd, and Aaron Cummins. Of course, thanks to our artists, specifically Geraldo Marinho, for his excellent cover. And thanks to you, the readers, for checking this out. We hope you enjoy it! You can access it here: Waystation: Amateur Magazine of Space Opera: Issue 1

Cover for Issue #1. Artist: Geraldo Marinho.

 Here is the cover for our first issue, available as a free PDF on Saturday, May 18th.

Astrocast Flashes: Bug-eyed Monsters and the Women Who Love Them

  

Astrocast Flashes originated as a way for deep-space attendants to stay entertained and connected to the rest of humanity while stationed in isolated space stations. With limited bandwidth and transmission capabilities, long-form entertainment and communication were simply not feasible, so they had to come up with creative ways to share stories and experiences with each other.

At first, Astrocast Flashes were simple messages or updates sent out by individuals stationed on different space stations, sharing news, jokes, and personal stories to stay connected with one another. However, as technology improved and transmission capabilities increased, Astrocast Flashes began to evolve into short, pithy stories that could be broadcast across the interstellar gulfs in a matter of seconds.

These stories became popular among deep-space attendants because they provided a brief but welcome escape from the monotony and isolation of their lonely jobs. The stories were often imaginative, exciting, and filled with wonder, transporting listeners to other worlds and sparking their imaginations.

As more and more people began tuning in to Astrocast Flashes, they became a cultural phenomenon, inspiring a new generation of storytellers and deep-space enthusiasts. Today, Astrocast Flashes are a beloved tradition among deep-space attendants and continue to captivate audiences with their short, thrilling tales of adventure in the depths of space.

Have an Astrocast Flash to share? Contact spiraltowerpress@gmail.com. Because of interstellar bandwidth limitations, stories must be kept to 500 to 750 words.

Bug-eyed Monsters and the Women Who Love Them

749 words

By Cora Buhlert

Captain Crash Martigan of the rocket scout squad was on patrol, protecting New Pluto City and its inhabitants from bug-eyed monsters.

Of course, bug-eyed monsters wasn't their real name. No, the creatures had a long and official Latinate name that no one could remember nor pronounce. So the colonists took to calling them bug-eyed monsters, because that's what they looked like.

For reasons only known to themselves, the bug-eyed monsters had started attacking New Pluto City, killing the men and kidnapping the women. The attacks had gotten out of hand, which was where men like Crash, true heroes of the new frontier of space, came in.

The cockpit alarm chimed. A bug-eyed monster was near. Crash landed his flyer, popped open the canopy and jumped out, looking very steely and manly in his gleaming silver spacesuit.

He took his electro-binoculars and scanned his surroundings. And then he spotted it. A bug-eyed monster – a particularly ugly one with long, sucker-laden tentacles – was molesting a dame. And not just any old dame either – not that there were old dames in New Pluto City, considering the maximum age for female colonists was twenty-six. No, this was a particularly fine dame with golden curls, luminous alabaster skin and a curvaceous figure swathed in a clinging gown of red silk that the bug-eyed monster was about to rip off her shapely body.

Crash activated his jet pack and raced to the rescue. For whenever there was a dame in danger, Crash would be there to save her like the dashing hero that he was.

By now, the dame had swooned in the tentacled embrace of the monster. Crash could hardly blame her. After all, women were known to be the weaker sex and this particular bug-eyed monster really was damn ugly. 

He took a closer look through his electro-binoculars and realised that he knew this dame. Her name was Geraldine Carmichael and she had been newly transferred to New Pluto City to work as a biologist or psychologist or nurse, some womanly profession at any rate.

Geraldine had already caught Crash's eye, for she was a true looker. So far, she had studiously ignored Crash and rebuffed his advances, but that would change once he'd saved her from the slimy embrace of the bug-eyed monster.

Crash landed on a rock outcropping overlooking the spot where the monster had dragged poor Geraldine.

He drew his atomic blaster. "Let go off her, fiend!"

"Eee-yip?" the bug-eyed monster said, which Crash decided to take as a challenge. 

Geraldine said nothing. She was unconscious, after all.

Crash fired his blaster, hitting one of the monster's tentacles.

"Eeee-Yaaah," the monster screamed and let go off Geraldine.

For a split-second, Crash feared that Geraldine was a goner, which would be a pity, for she was such a fine dame. But then she stirred and sat up, shaking her golden curls and pressing a slender hand to her forehead.

"Uh, what… what's going on?"

"You were attacked, Miss. But have no fear, for Captain Crash Martigan is here to rescue you."

Behind Geraldine, the bug-eyed monster was stirring, its slimy tentacles reaching for the hapless girl.

"Eeee-yuuup," the monster wailed.

Crash raised his blaster and aimed at the monster. "Begone, blackguard." 

He was about to shoot, but then Geraldine stumbled into his line of fire.

"What are you doing? Why are you threatening my boyfriend?"

"Your what?"

"My boyfriend," Geraldine repeated, "This New Plutonian here is my boyfriend." 

She reached for the creature's tentacle and patted it with her slender hands.

"Eeooouuh," the monster moaned.

"This… this thing is your boyfriend?"

"Yes, he's my boyfriend," Geraldine repeated for the third time, "His name is Eee'chuk-chi'up and he's not a thing."

"But…"

Geraldine sighed. "Yes, I know he doesn't talk much and what little he says I don't understand. But he's a rocket in bed, if you know what I mean?" 

She winked at Crash, still stroking the monster's appendage.

"Can you imagine how much pleasure all those tentacles and suckers can bring a woman?"

Crash couldn't imagine and he didn't want to either.

"But I… I thought you were in danger"

"Well, I'm not. And now be a good boy and scoot. Patrol the perimeter or whatever it is that you guys do. Cause…"

She continued stroking Eee'chuk-chi'up, who moaned in pleasure and began winding his tentacles around Geraldine's shapely body.

"…we'd like to be alone now, if you know what I mean?"

END

Astrocast Flash: Warp Rider's Lament

Astrocast Flash: Space Too Deep, Orbit Too Wide

Astrocast Flash: Bug-eyed Monsters and the Women Who Love them

Astrocast Flashes: Space Too Deep, Orbit Too Wide

 

Astrocast Flashes originated as a way for deep-space attendants to stay entertained and connected to the rest of humanity while stationed in isolated space stations. With limited bandwidth and transmission capabilities, long-form entertainment and communication were simply not feasible, so they had to come up with creative ways to share stories and experiences with each other.

At first, Astrocast Flashes were simple messages or updates sent out by individuals stationed on different space stations, sharing news, jokes, and personal stories to stay connected with one another. However, as technology improved and transmission capabilities increased, Astrocast Flashes began to evolve into short, pithy stories that could be broadcast across the interstellar gulfs in a matter of seconds.

These stories became popular among deep-space attendants because they provided a brief but welcome escape from the monotony and isolation of their lonely jobs. The stories were often imaginative, exciting, and filled with wonder, transporting listeners to other worlds and sparking their imaginations.

As more and more people began tuning in to Astrocast Flashes, they became a cultural phenomenon, inspiring a new generation of storytellers and deep-space enthusiasts. Today, Astrocast Flashes are a beloved tradition among deep-space attendants and continue to captivate audiences with their short, thrilling tales of adventure in the depths of space.

Have an Astrocast Flash to share? Contact spiraltowerpress@gmail.com. Because of interstellar bandwidth limitations, stories must be kept to 500 to 750 words.

Space Too Deep, Orbit Too Wide

635 words

By Jason Ray Carney

Originally published in Empyreome Science Fiction and Fantasy Quarterly (February 2017)

Some deepspacer spun this yarn. You can believe it or not. I don't care.

There was a pilgrim frigate out of the Plesh Cluster that got off course and was thrown into the deep. Drive started acting up. And so they took orbit on the closest Earth-like planet. Some great boggy sphere, barely a bit of dry land with an orbit so wide there'd be no sunrise for close to a standard century.

Scans showed there was food and water and a vein of ore and other materials they needed to fix the drive, and so the crew ported down, left their ship a ghost satellite. Story goes there were twelve of them--a family and some serfs: mom, dad, grandpa, two sons, a young daughter--that's six--and six serfs (I think they was slime-vatters, those synths with the white hair and the lousy senses of humor).

The expedition rolled on and had lasted about half a standard year. They'd built shelter and had a good fuel source and was able to harvest protein and milk from fungous grazer. No predators to speak of.

They was working that vein of ore with slow burn nano-drills and nearly had what they needed, all the while their ship just hung up there in orbit, a cylinder of steel and electronics blinking in the night sky.

It just so happened the daughter went missing. She was a little girl, wandered off in the swamps and those folks assumed she'd drowned. A month passed and they gave up searching and held a small funeral for her, fired an obelisk and ever-burning light in her honor. Still burning there, probably.

About month eight they were still working that vein and spirits were low on account of the lost girl. And then three of the synths were found dead, their milky bodies bobbing on the grimy water. And the peculiar thing was the manner they were killed. Something had sucked out their eyes.

Well, these folks were deepspacers and they knew that stranger stuff has never been found but on Earth-like planets with life and mutations and what not. And so, out came the needle guns and the collapsible walls and they turned their little vacation bungalow into an armed fortress.

They continued working the ore but they kept their guard double up. And here is where things get stranger. One of the slime-vatters (you can't trust those synths--he might have just been malfunctioning) swore and swore he saw that little girl who had gone missing, only she was bright and fine with narry a scratch on her.

Well, of course they started up the search again. I reckon they was too spooked and too space-sick by now to realize the error of their ways. And yet, love and hope had heralded many a fall, yea?

Not long after two more of those synths were found dead, their eyes sucked out just like the other three.

That left--one little girl and three and two synths--six of them: grandpa, mom, dad, two sons and two serfs. That was eight eyes sucked out, not counting the little girl (whose body was never found).

By then they decided to get going, the planet being too hostile, the space too deep and the orbit too wide, and they being too few to justify staying to finish their job. They had enough material to rig something up in order to oar themselves to what they hoped was a more hospitable planet.

But on the twilight they tuck-tailed, the little girl showed back up. Pale and shivering, she was. And here is the weird thing: she was wearing a necklace of eyes preserved in glass. Ain't spoke a word since.

END

Astrocast Flash: Warp Rider's Lament

Astrocast Flash: Space Too Deep, Orbit Too Wide

Astrocast Flash: Bug-eyed Monsters and the Women Who Love them

Way Station's Soft Opening

Unlike the instant coffee that space station crew members would probably drink, this zine idea has been a percolating for several years. We small few, the motley crew of dilettantes at Spiral Tower Press, have had a lot of fun with Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Sword and Sorcery and Witch House: Amateur Magazine of Cosmic Horror and have been inspired by the writers we've inspired. So, we're at it again. 

I had always intended to complete the trinity of the "pulp genres of the unreal" with a third science fiction zine of comparable scope and aim to Whetstone and Witch House. Moreover, I want to "do it right," but there is only so much time in the day. If we were going to publish a third zine, some help will be needed. 

Currently Whetstone is on a bi-annual publication schedule (there are Fall and Spring issues). We've maintained that schedule successfully. Witch House publishes once per year, during the summer, when the academic year's responsibilities are lightest (many who work on Spiral Tower Press projects are academics, teachers, and students). But our labor is stretched thin. The truth is, we currently do not have the resources to publish Way Station in the way we want to, as a professionally produced yet free pdf that reads like a print zine. 

Still, we no longer want to keep this idea under wraps. 

So, consider today the "soft opening" of Way Station: Amateur Magazine of Space Opera.

Our seal was illustrated by Jessica Robinson; the crisp graphic elements were added by Nonpolygon.

Over the next few months we will gauge interest in this enterprise, put our feelers out, hopefully locate and enlist generous editors and readers. Perhaps Way Station will be a rocket that never takes off. But why not give it a try?

Here is the first draft of our description. It includes our mission statement and our compressed definition of space opera.

WAY STATION is an amateur magazine that seeks to discover, inspire, and publish emerging authors who are enthusiastic about the tradition of "space opera." Space opera is a pulp genre of science fiction, known for grand, epic adventures, interstellar empires, and complex character relationships. Set against a vast cosmic backdrop, space operas explore themes of heroism, warfare, political intrigue, and occasionally elements of cosmic horror, as seen in the Aliens movies or fictional universes such as Warhammer 40k. Classic authors include Isaac Asimov (Foundation series), E.E. 'Doc' Smith (Lensman series), and Frank Herbert (Dune series). These works captivate readers with thrilling journeys through the numberless stars, weaving human drama into the sublime vastness of the cosmos. Published by Spiral Tower Press.

Onward!

JRC

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