The hard blow fell across her back from behind. “Get fucked by a Beluvian tocar!” Luna swore at the offender. Her electric orange outposter splashed down her shirt and onto the data pad she was reading. She turned to locate the dead grinter who’d doused her in her favorite beverage, only to find a trembling waitress backing away from ...

The crash is so loud; I hear it above the buzz of my kids’ electric toothbrushes.  My five-year-old Sasha gasps, sending white spittle flying in every direction. “Santa only comes if we’re asleep. Everyone, hurry!” She flings her Spider Gwen toothbrush at the mirror and runs to her bedroom. We haven’t read ‘Twas the Night Before ...

Of course, it produced no change in temperature, but when the dust from the ring system pelted Ularma’s Orbital Station, it sounded like a massive thunderstorm and made Corry long to curl up in a warm blanket. The sand formed tiny rivulets on the domed window that comprised the ceiling and upper wall, working in ...

A skeleton dances when the front door swings open, drawing my latest customer inside. I go overboard decorating, but this season is the bread and butter for shops like mine. In January, I might spend weeks without pulling cards for anyone, but come October, even the most devout Catholics know the veil between the world ...

One afternoon in late October, autumn made its presence known in the English countryside for the quiet acts of dancing leaves and the chill of wind gusts. This subtle announcement signified the upcoming arrival of the harvest moon, an event that a tiny village overlooking a golden sea of wheat looked forward to every year. ...

Peris and Alfie sat facing each other on Nor’s ribs, their feet dangling. They continued to orbit the yellow star while Nor lapped at its energy, half-asleep. On a normal day, they’d be underway as soon as they woke up, but on this occasion, they let her doze.  “It feels wrong to exercise control over ...

1. There’s a moment, a second in time, when something happens that we can’t turn back. It’s the accident where we’re not there but at home unaware of what’s coming.  The instance that changed my life, our lives, happened on an uneventful Friday night. The boys were in bed, or at least pretending to be. ...

Peris couldn’t remember feeling more relieved than she did when Nor disengaged from the rusty hatch and they put the whole dirty-minded, overheated space station behind them. Let’s get away from here! She transmitted, but she barely bothered to stay engaged after they cleared the arms of the flimsy metal snowflake.   Nor glided blithely ...

They could always feel the difference at the heliopause where they stopped riding the system’s solar winds and Nor could stretch herself out and approach lightspeed. It was a limitless expanse of possibility. Neighboring stars elongated into streaks of plasma and Doppler shifted blue as they drew closer and red as they passed. But the ...

Peris stood on the brink of the cliff and reached out with her mind while she held her lightstick over the chasm. Stray orange pebbles skittered into the murky schism below while she pitched her body in defiance of gravity. Night had already fallen, but she pictured the twin suns, fierce and blazing in the bright green of midday. Then she imagined the sky ...