March 2016 75-word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO ROBERT MACKAY!

[TheDustyZebra]

RULES:

Write a story inspired by the chosen theme and genre in no more than 75 words, not including the title

ONE entry per person

NO links, commentary or extraneous material in the posts, please -- the stories must stand on their own
​

WHEN WRITING YOUR STORY, PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IS A FAMILY-FRIENDLY FORUM

All stories Copyright 2016 by their respective authors,​

who grant the Chronicles Network the non-exclusive right to publish them here


The complete rules can be found at RULES FOR THE WRITING CHALLENGES

Contest ends at 11:59 pm GMT, March 23, 2016​

Voting Ends at 11:59 pm GMT, March 28, 2016


You do not have to submit a story in order to vote --

in fact, we encourage all Chrons members to take part in choosing a winner



The Magnificent Prize:

​

The Dignified Congratulations/Grovelling Admiration of Your Peers​

and the challenge of choosing next month's theme and genre



Theme:

New Worlds

Genre:

Space Fantasy



This thread to be used for entries only.

Please keep all comments to the DISCUSSION THREAD

We invite (and indeed hope for) lively discussion and speculation about the stories as they are posted, so long as it doesn't involve the author explaining the plot.


** Please do not use the "Like" button in this thread! **​

 

[Ashleyne]

How I Went Missing

It all started the day my penis dissapeared. Seven years old, no idea what was happening, and too scared to tell anyone.

After that, I couldn't eat. For months, I threw everything up.

Then it hit me: the truck. I left a dint. It didn't even injure me, although it did send me flying.

I haven't touched the ground since. I spend my days flying through space, smashing astroids, in my own little world.

 

[Cathbad]

Terraforming Nightmare​

U.S.S. Magellan (02/14/84 0601) – Captain Erin Richtor reporting.


Have ceased all Terraforming operations.


The Jade Obelisk has proven indestructible.


Still don’t know if alien technology or ? All we do know is that three crew members have now joined Ensign Simms. Their powers are formidable. Our weapons have all been rendered useless.


Leaving orbit at 0615 hours. Without mutineers.



Earth Central to Magellan (02/29/84 0928) - Can you read us? Are you out there?

 

[Ajid]

The Joining

The ships stabilizer had malfunctioned; I heard the artifact shatter behind me. A ball of energy emerged from the dusty remains of the urn and effortlessly passed through the hull.

A resplendent gas giant had appeared where there had been only vacuum. I could hear it somehow, feel it with all my senses. Fear gave way to wonder as I felt myself absorbed.

We’re one now. Not planet or man. I am something entirely new.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Traveler's Tales

“I know a place where birds fly underwater.” Slissik’s voice was blurred by the warm yellow seawater filling her spacesuit. The Martians clicked their mandibles together in laughter. “Not Venus, but another planet.”

A child danced around her, his twelve tiny legs thumping the red sand. “That’s silly.”

Slissik opened her gills in a smile. She glanced at me, the only Earthling present, with enormous silver eyes. We had swum with penguins on our honeymoon.

 

[Vaz]

Day One Dark

Her first breath was sharp, the air like breathing knives.

Tears welled as she was marked like the rest of her people. Not like others, their skin pale and bleak as new home.

A man led her to a solitary chamber. He smiled, mouthing strange words before leaving.

She sat in darkness wrestling with the words he had said.

"B..bre..breedink."

Behind her an egg crackled and hatched...

​

 

[J5V]

Radiant

As she rose from the host star's core, her quark plasma separated from her family's, and she coalesced into baryons, "When I fission, will I die?"

"Gloriously, and you might be the first of us to transmit!"

She had prepared for this for a whole millisecond. "When?"

It began, unstoppable. Her tendrils ripped apart, pain immense, releasing the fuse of prime-patterned gamma. Then her head, deploying coherently-encoded words, as her thoughts scattered, "Will I?"

 

[Droflet]

To Boldly Go the Whole Hog


“Captain Porkus, the enemy battleship is closing. Oink.”

“Those wolves never give up the scent. Prepare to engage the swine drive. Oink.”

“Standing by, captain. Oink.”

“Make it sow. Oink.”

The Exithog was immediately transported to the far side of the galaxy.”

“We’ve arrived, captain. Oink.”

“Good. It will take the wolves hundreds of years to reach us with their standard ruff drive. Now to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new oinkers. Oink.”

 

[Shyrka]

From the Ashes

Valta watched as the Megaloth devoured her world. There were no tears. There couldn’t be.

Menthalus was dying, bloated and swollen; a cinder. The Megaloth turned. The old star flared, as if sensing its end.

An end, yes, but a beginning also. In the great creature’s wake came nebulous excreta. In time, it would flare anew. A new Menthalus would rise, with it new life.

But her time here was past. The void was calling.

 

[Pentagon]

Digital cognitive incarceration

Cracking his knuckles he waited, relishing the freedom of imminently redundant joints.

He considered his alleged soul, ‘will it cross over? But then again, that faith testing ignorance is partly what makes me human.’

‘Did the technicians know? Were they human, possessing that knowledge?’

Politely, he sat, realising that one way or another, 'I will either know of my soul, or be stripped of it. I shouldn’t judge- as imminently I won’t be human either.'

 

[Zoe Mackay]

Symphony From A New World

I sung the ship down.

We had spent a month orbiting the planet, tuning to its celestial key, immersing ourselves in alien arpeggios and harmonics.

Finally, we composed the landing – even more carefully orchestrated than the jump through hypomixolydia.

Conductor Gravis caught me before rehearsal. “You’ll do the solo.”

No improvisation; no mistakes. I sung, knowing one wrong breath would kill us.

The chorus faded. My lonely voice guided us onto our new home.

Bravo.

 

[Starbeast]

Discussion on the Nostromo: Which Unknown World?​

"Dallas. Xenomorph is priority retrieval."

"Come on man. Doughnut and beer planet."

"Right."

"Lambert and I, want the Bunny Planet."

"Deadly alien world."

"No. That's scary. The cute Bunny Planet."

"Doughnuts and beer."

"Right."

"Bunnies."

"Deadly Alien."

"Beer and doughnuts."

"Right."

"Bunnies."

"Deadly, inseminating, flesh eating alien world."

"WHAT?!!", said everyone but Ash.

"Otherwise everyone forfeits their pay. Dallas?"

"Ash is correct. Ripley, set a course, after Kane returns."

(flush) "So, where are we going?"

 

[Tim Murray]

Denarah


The beautifully ornate unicorn whale, yes, a unicorn whale with magical powers, swam up to me as I exited the scout ship. How she swam in thin air was astounding to me as I watched her many facial expressions accompany her physic conversations forming in my head.


“You can breathe the air; you do not need a space suit here.”


“Who…what are you?”


“Remove your suit, I will show you our world.”


I complied.

 

[Uruss]

A cryogenic freeze longer than I've been "living" and this is it? How could we be so wrong? The data seemed so sound.

No atmosphere, no possible living habitat to be created. We staked everything on this. This was supposed to be our salvation - the place we could call home.

Hope is lost.

She pressed her comms, "I'm sorry. We failed you."

Static.

Silence.

 

[Bowler1]

Population - One

I beamed down to a new world, all ready to start exploring.

Five minutes later, I beamed down again.

Then five minutes later, I beamed down again, then again, and again.

I have been beaming down for months now, there doesn’t seem to be any end to me.

It’s getting crowded now, I’m everywhere.

I’d never realised just how annoying I can be.

I can’t get a moment's peace.

I’m really beginning to hate myself.

 

[chrispenycate]

Cosmic Irony

Walls dance - robotic intervention
Builds habitat from wasted matter.
Constructing solar mirrors, concentrating
The energy for growth, rejeuvination.

On vampire wings, on dragon wings, the retribution struck
The dark side of the psyche, the source of Murphy's luck
Industrial pollution, light absorbing dust
Dims corruscating Dyson swarm
Extinguishing with darkening storm
Species' expansion lust

Human political dissension
As energy reserves fall ever flatter
Disagrees about solutions, dissipating,
Billions die, of freezing or starvation.​

 

[Cascade]

A man of God (or Vice Versa)

Father Guran knelt, knees bare on the cold marble before the altar and reflected on his own humility.

Sixty years since he had commenced his sacred mission. Three score races on a hundred planets, blessed by his faith and baptized in the blood militant. Countless souls, raised to drink from the cup of the High Father.

And still, he felt no closer to his own ascension.

Were he a man prone to doubts…

 

[Sigfrid von Shrink]

Discontent

Albireo's twin stars swirled through their celestial dance, their flirtatious routine known to all around. But all was not well.

"You do not love me," said Blue.

"Look," thundered Yellow, summoning swarms of meteors, glowing like fireflies.

"See my love," Yellow continued, ensnaring a great gas giant in an elliptical orbit, its gases igniting in a multicoloured blaze that tinted the backdrop of space.

"A mere display," said Blue, and wandered off.

 

[willwallace]

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights



Jon watched the planet fade away as the ship shuddered, blazing into superspace.



“What was wrong with that one?” he asked the ship.



“I didn’t like the oceans. Too blue.”


Jon sighed. Ever since the ship developed sentience, it found fault with every planet, refusing to land.



“I promise to return, I will never abandon you,” he vowed.



“No landings. You stay with me.”


Groaning, Jon sat. This was going to be a boring trip.

 

[Lex E. Darion]

The Fate of Mankind


Mankind’s hopes rested with the Starship Mayflower.

“Short-range telemetry shows oxygen levels of 22.5%. Comparable climate and land mass.”

“Excellent. Prime the Genesis pods.”


Planet Munch licked her lips at the sight of the tasty morsel heading towards her. A shudder later her glamour disappeared, revealing her true self, pointed mountain-sized teeth and all. Chomp.


Picking up another long-range scan, she morphed into a sulphur based planet and waited for dessert.