Tag: sci-fi

Sub-Merged

~ Jae ~ Leave a comment

Photo by Nariman Mesharrafa on Unsplash

This is a part of my One More Verse series; you can find them all here.

After half a month in the abyss, the dim lights of the wet-dock felt like a womb, a warm haven from the dark. Faint simulated sunlight filtered in through the hardened plastic ceiling, illuminating the room as if it were late afternoon; in reality, the surface was nearly two-hundred metres up and it was nearly sunset, but he relished the feeling despite that. The “sun” warmed his skin and soothed his frazzled mind as he clambered through the bulkhead, feeling like a criminal seeking sanctuary from the harsh underwater world. He glanced behind him to see where his partner Horrick was.

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One Last Journey

~ Jae ~ Leave a comment

Photo by Kasey McCoy on Unsplash

This is yet another prompt from the lovely Space Wrecks bot on Twitter. Its an automated bot that generates a short blurb inspired by Stewart Cowley’s Terran Trade Authority book, “Spacewreck: Ghostships & Derelicts of Space”.

ARCH/UB1.3: The Europan pod skimmed through the splintered crags, anchoring just beyond the Brigador V. The enormous ship was pitted by debris from the planet’s fractured moon. There, they buried the dead, beneath the sweeping banks of clouds.

First Mate Hox’inclin glanced up towards the dreary sky, feeling in their stomachs that this was to be it – the final thing that would set them free.

“Hox.” A voice, like mercury poured over grass, whispered in their ear. “You’ve brought us home.”

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Low Tide

~ Jae ~ Leave a comment

Photo by Giovanni Arechavaleta on Unsplash

This is a part of my One More Verse series; you can find them all here.

This story was inspired by these images by Yun Ling. In this story, the character Din uses the neopronouns Fae/Faer; here is a short guide about them.

Murky static, like layers on layers of ocean, compressed and stacked up in ways that would make sedimentary rock blush.

This was Yox’s life: sifting through datum and voices with the practised ease of an algorithm, unravelling transmission bundles with all the care of an octogenarian opening their birthday presents. Sometimes the bundles contained beautiful imagery, intoxicating emotion and amazing clarity. Other times, the feelings and words and numbers were sewn so tightly it was impossible to decipher it without immersing oneself in it, sinking below the water level of Tidepool Relay Indigo to fully experience the transmissions.

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Herxes Station

~ Jae ~ Leave a comment

Photo by Luuk Wouters on Unsplash

Dirty walls. Filthy lights. A frozen void spun carelessly through twenty centimetres of pressed silica.

The band was busy setting up while the crowd murmured their assent. They were all here for the same reason. Not just music; that was implied by the posters, the homemade shirts, the thin station hallway packed full of stitched-together styles and clashing hairdos. Most of these people were miners, haulers, maintenance workers – the ones that did the work so others could live. Even with the small boosts to pay last quarter, these were thankless tasks, and the crowd was clearly a sea of comrades in arms, all frustrated beyond a doubt and looking for an out.

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