SavagePl Savage Pla anets Where Dreams & Nightmares Collide
In This Issue... Glenn Dungan Jay Toney Lillie McGary Keyla Damaer Murray Eiland Featuring an exclusive interview with
David Brin The man who decodes tomorrow not just with science, but with story.
J U LY 2 0 2 5 Vo l u m e 5 / I s s u e 3
EXTRATERRESTRIAL FICTION POEMS FROM IMAGINARIA SCI-FI ENTERTAINMENT PLANETARY COMMUNIQUE FUTURE ARTIFACTS SUBSPACE
SavagePlanets
Contents Signals from the Stellar Core
03
All the Singularity Girls
05
Dream a Little Dream
13
Planetary Communiqué
21
Sci-Fi Entertainment
23
One Hour to Die
31
Extra-planetary Tomatoes
39
Poems from Imaginaria
51
Future Artifacts
59
SubSpace
67
The Halden Army
73
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Editor in Chief Steven S. Behram
Fiction Editor Keith 'Doc' Raymond
Poetry Editor Steven S. Behram
Art Editor B.o.B. (A.I. Sentience)
13
05
39
31
51
59
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Signals
from the
Stellar Core
By Steven S Behram, MD Editor-In-Chief
What stirs beneath October’s fractured moons? This issue of SavagePlanets peels back the veil on twilight worlds where memory flickers like faulty circuitry and time pools in quantum eddies. Within, you'll uncover stories steeped in spectral algorithms, forbidden sciences, and civilizations teetering at the brink of revelation. These pages don’t just imagine the future— they haunt it. So crack the seal, dim the lights, and prepare to traverse a galaxy tuned to the frequency of the uncanny. Lunar Reverberations Step into the tremble and hush of deep space, where the October edition of SavagePlanets pulses with eerie resonance and bold invention. This quarter’s stories trace paths through ghost colonies, rogue AIs rediscovering myth, and the strange biologies of forgotten moons. Each tale hums with speculative gravity—drawing you toward futures warped by isolation, brilliance, and unresolved echoes of human ambition. These are not just stories; they are anomalies—disturbances in the orbit of ordinary thought. Let them pull you in. Psalms from Space This issue’s Imaginaria reverberates with the language of 03 I SavagePlanets
memory, entropy, and transcendence. These poems distill vast ideas into crystalline moments— rainfall encoded with forgotten names,
spiral in glyphs and static; others bloom in binary hush. Let each poem pull you closer to the singularity—where silence speaks, and meaning unfolds in starlit code. Facepalms from Orbit Amid the hush of drifting signals and fractured time, a new transmission rises—part farce, part flare. In this issue’s Planetary Communiqué, our watchers bear witness to Earth’s latest ceremonial aberration: a gilded procession of sonic bravado and digital ghosts parading beneath your sun. What some hailed as a tribute to strength unfolded as a kaleidoscope of theatrical excess— drones forming declarations, holograms resurrecting forgotten leaders, and a symphony of misplaced symbolism echoing across the stars. From Grawth’s vantage, orbiting just beyond your moon’s remorse, the parade shimmered like a fever dream—glorious, grotesque, unforgettable. We log it now as anomaly, spectacle, and warning. Fictional Horizons
gods born of code and prayer, gardens where silicon blooms. We hear the voice of a timekeeper masked in prophecy, a translator mourning Earth's lost grammar, and cities singing in frequencies that shape thought. Some verses
The short stories in this edition of SavagePlanets chart emotional vectors through orbiting concerts, temporal thresholds, and alien silences. In “All the Singularity Girls” by Glenn Dungan, fandom becomes transcendence as one girl ascends—literally—for a sonic communion in future Manhattan. Jay Toney’s “Dream a Little Dream” follows a xenobiologist through frozen time and first contact on Proxima Centauri B, where language and biology blur. In “One Hour to Die”, Lillie McGary sends us to the
bold film adaptation of Edward Ashton’s novel challenges identity and mortality across clone lines and icy alien worlds, all under the gaze of a stunning visual imagination. Finally, The Last of Us traces the fungal roots of humanity’s unraveling and redemption, as HBO’s series adapts the beloved game with harrowing elegance and emotional gravity. These features remind us: sci-fi isn’t just imagined—it’s performed, visualized, and lived. Terminal Velocity
crushing gravity of Aduni, where time becomes both vessel and threat. Keyla Damaer’s “The Halden Army” unveils a cadet’s trial by nightmare, discipline, and desire. And in “Extra-Planetary Tomatoes”, Murray Eiland grows a quiet horror aboard ISS 2B— where cultivation meets confrontation. These stories stretch the membrane of the known, offering narratives that shimmer at the edge of collapse and bloom.
reflects on cinematic adaptation, scientific foresight, and the moral edge of uplifting intelligence— offering both wit and wisdom from a career of speculative clarity. Then, in Mickey 17: Being Expendable, Bong Joon Ho’s
As we slip from this edition’s gravitational pull, we reflect on the strange and luminous trails left behind. These pages have carried us through concert skies and cryogenic dreams, planetary riddles and algorithmic ghosts— each story a transmission from the edge of becoming. In poems and parades, in pixels and print, this quarter’s offerings pulse with the paradox of science fiction: to forecast and to feel, to disrupt and to deepen. As always, we depart not with answers, but with charged questions and constellations of wonder. Until next time— keep listening for the signal, and dare to follow it.
Celestial Spotlight This issue’s Sci-Fi Entertainment section explores the bright fringe where story meets screen. In The Postman Delivers, David Brin
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ALL THE SINGULARITY GIRLS BY GLENN DUNGAN
Like some aquarium glass ephemera, the localized and candy colored Borealis was rising, rising, rising, and she kept her scarfed neck craned, feeling a fleck of snow melt upon her cheek."
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Katie Mae was nervous, and she hated that about herself. She had fumbled and tripped her way through her twenties, existing on the fringes, always on top, always getting the grades, always making sure to wake up early. She had no need for alcohol because she got a hangover once and didn’t like it. She had no need for drugs because they were illegal, and they held a mirror up to her, and she never liked the reflection. Every guy she ever dated never got past the restaurant or the park outing, one and done. Katie had consigned herself to believing eventually they would grow up and want to settle down. They would find Katie’s low temperament to be a safe refuge toward the incoming turbulence of mortality. And now, descending the germ-utopia of the subway steps, Katie cursed herself for not leaving an additional forty minutes sooner, just in case. Katie Mae had learned a while ago that she was a burgeoning and nigh friendless 33-year-old, and had been so
through with every Saturday night, having to fend off the bulwark of the nightlife cosmos that was New York City. Or, she was until ‘All the Singularity Girls’ (ASG) arrived, blitzing from literally another dimension into Lima, Ohio, of all places. Katie Mae remembered hearing about them ten years ago, back when she was in college. She stumbled, being pushed this way and that by the mass of coming and goers on the platform, recalling the moment and it transported her through time via her fished out phone. She put her earphones in, and entered the sixth album from her favorite band, armoring herself against the madness of the Big Apple. This was worse than New Year’s Eve, she figured, tucking herself away into a corner, careful not to be seen or spoken to. She only had enough social energy for the event tonight, the All the Singularity Girls street party uptown, the location being grounds for rejecting the invitation to a bar on any
other day. But the meetup group she found online was the safari club she was most comfortable with. Nay, only comfortable with, and that was pull enough. Sitting in her pajamas on a Saturday night, wearing an over-sized ASG t-shirt, drinking chamomile from an ASG mug, debating with people (never strangers, anyone on the message boards that loves ASG as much as Katie Mae could never be a stranger) over whether Garnet’s recently aggressive sounding synth resulted from some intra-reality paramour gone wrong, of which the speculation, given the alien nature of their show, made for much engaging and important discourse. Or… what about the outfit Esmeralda had worn, with the cape that looked like it had galaxies on the inside? They all looked good, obviously, but Esmeralda slayed in that department. But what about the merits of The Herald, which was the third track on their second album, compared against Reckon-
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S
ing, the fifth track on their sixth, for no reasons other than a reason to continue talking about them? The Singularity Girls had instruments that were beyond human comprehension, sort of like seeing a new color, so while the musically inclined had their own pocket dimension of discussion, it was really just a feedback loop of adoration for which Katie Mae, a virulent ASGroupie (All the Singularity Girls Groupies, not to be confused), found a much needed and foundational hit of her daily dopamine. Anyway, Katie remembered hearing about them in the fall, right after being told that a boy she liked didn’t like her back. People thought it was a hoax (the band not her boyfriend), a reported citing of a localized aurora borealis in the middle of the road (especially during a low sunspot cycle). Then three figures materialized via a series of shape shifting, assembling in Lego-like cubes, and people thought they were aliens (jury is still out on that one), or perhaps time travelers (long since debunked). This actually begged the question if aliens were simply living organisms outside of Earth’s terrestrial sphere,
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or if those from another dimension fit into a different category. What ultimately mattered most to the world at large, and specifically the residents of Lima, Ohio, was that the randomly manifested visitors had played a wonderful set list of what would later feature their first hit single Neurolink. As the Singularity Girls took their bow, they disappeared as if folding into themselves, stage and all, back into the fabric of dimensional space/ time from which they came, leaving the residents befuddled, to say the least. What an opening act, Katie Mae remembered thinking, like a flash mob, but less annoying. Her bespectacled nose pressed against the back of someone who smelled faintly of whiskey, Katie watched the subway shoot through the underground arteries of the city, looking outside herself, the city opening up in front of her as the train crossed from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Welcome ended and Katie, feeling claustrophobic in this fast-traveling metal coffin, infused herself with the more rock-oriented anthem We are a We, of which she had just argued was the best of Amethyst’s drumming on the entire album, if you could call whatever instrument she played a drum.
The subway arrived and Katie, ushered out by the throng, clutched her bag containing everything she might need for an apocalypse and general urban assault; mace, pocket knife, and a variety of antibiotics to feel fit and healthy. Not that Katie Mae planned on staying much later at the bar than needed. Face-to-face interaction for All the Singularity Groupies was not a comfort zone for any of this obsessed lot. To prepare for the meetup, Katie Mae made sure she refreshed her knowledge of the Singularity Girls’ history, so she could better posit her opinions and ramped up beliefs. It was a common sin amongst the ASGroupies message boards and threads to not know even the basic history of their collective idol group, and a surefire way to open yourself up to near permanent mockery if you misspoke. Katie rattled them off: All the Singularity Girls first appeared in Lima, Ohio, manifesting out of nowhere, disappearing as fast as they came after playing their first flagship album. The second spontaneous performance was in Los Angeles, which really put them on the map. They zipped into existence and played their third album ‘Eclipse’ in London,
Katie Mae was in the camp arguing that their appearance on the streaming services uninvited, with no contract or announcement, not only served as a meta-celebration of their entire performance MO, but also was a message to fight the capital conglomerate of music streaming companies. Blacklisting the alien-ortime traveling-or inter-dimensional interlopers only made them more popular. And The Singularity Girls cared not for the royalties presented to them when the companies finally played ball. Earth money did not seem to work for them where they came from. And this only made them much cooler. The fourth performance was in Sydney, above the opera house. The fifth album, Palms Up, comprised a sudden light show underneath neon tinted clouds, where Esmeralda materialized first to open with Katie’s favorite track Listen and Weep. That was four years ago. It was difficult, near impossible, really, to determine when the next album was going to drop, but Katie Mae and the rest of the Internet knew it was going to be life changing. The seventh album, if it were to happen, would propel All the Singularity Girls’ to absolute dominion of the planet’s pop culture. Elevated to total deification, which they much deserved and she expected, in her humble opinion. This was precisely why Katie Mae was brave enough to navigate the subterranean lattice work of failed urban design, having just now
hopped off at one junction to await another train at the edge of the platform. The seventh album was as unpredictable as The Singularity Girls were geniuses, or so she believed. But the collective hive mind of the AS Groupies determined, via some incredibly well leaked rumors, both validated by a NASA initiative and ESA research investigating “occurrences” (as they say) that the UN’s endeavor to join other nations’ funding to protect against the “invaders” was a global imperative. This frustrated Katie Mae, and at a fundamental level, all pointed with some certainty to the fact that the upcoming mythical seventh album would not be fabled at all. In fact, it would alter the global perception of music entirely. Undoubtedly, it was going to happen, right in New York City, within a targeted set of coordinates. And people said that this was going to be the final album drop. A rumor she took with a grain of salt. Katie had taken off work at the library, had taken her nap, and dressed in her nicest ASG merch for the event. She was going to see them, even if it took all night. What did they say about the Big Apple? It was the city that never sleeps, and Katie Mae had resolved to fuel that mantra. The train arrived at Times Square, which would require her to take the 6 train to 96th street, where she
would be, with any luck, walking straight up at the doors to the meeting spot. She checked her watch, found herself late by her standards, and toddled along. She passed the security checkpoint, with the armed guards glancing upwards intermittently, their eyes straining to catch any shimmers in the sky.
Extraterrestrial Fiction
floating on top of Big Ben, unannounced and with much applause. This was actually when they started to appear on streaming services, although the bigwigs were unsure how they could upload their music on there, with no return IP address.
She felt good striding against the torrent of humanity, excited to share this experience with anyone over what she had resigned, and felt a naughty anticipation for… a glass of wine. Katie Mae clutched her pea-coat over her ASG shirt to avoid the hateful gaze of the anti-ASG protest groups that sprouted like cauliflower along the crevices of this unworthy city. She seriously disliked how these groups went on, like some X-files con or something, wearing their shirts with unflattering images of Esmeralda, Amythyst, and Garnet, speaking into megaphones that the world was under threat of extra-terrestrial invaders. Stick a space invader where the sun don’t shine, pal. Katie Mae mentally summoned from a particularly snappy message board a comeback for them. If pressed, she could understand the NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) of their philosophy, but couldn’t they see the obvious? The Singularity Girls were touring musicians, obviously from a plan SavagePlanets I 08
beyond our realm, sure, but they zipped in as fast as they zipped out. And their music was about empowerment and identity, but also about overcoming challenges. Did the anti-ASGs need to infuse political subterfuge in everything? What was this, McCarthyism all over again? If she had the time and patience, she would have implored them to listen to any song of theirs and try to find a threatening meaning. It actually amused Katie Mae, walking through the subterranean chaos, to imagine offensive and subliminal themes in songs like Becoming from their 3rd album, or even Arrowhead, from their sixth. She toyed with this as she traversed the streets. Look here, a proselytizer stood on a milk carton sporting the typical “end of the world” motif, groping with his fingers heavenward and spouting nonsense. There was a nervousness in the air that Katie found unflattering for such a wonderful night. She was, frankly, a little frustrated that there was not more of a hullabaloo surrounding The Singularity Girl’s seventh album drop in this city. She left particularly early because she expected the masses to clog the subways like they do on Comic Con, or New Year’s Eve. Instead, the underground world of New York City was stuck in transit, full of soothsayers and snake oil salesmen, uncouth Anti-ASGs, and armed military men waiting for a strike of lightning that would never come. Katie Mae’s
emotions shifted now, manifesting in tapping feet, unable to not keep glancing at her watch. She accounted for train delays, moving through the subways, passing the checkpoints. But now her reserve of time was growing thinner. She would be fine, of course. Katie Mae was prompt, if nothing else. Biding her time, she decorated her temporal limbo waiting for the train with a shift to the sixth album, fitting for the train label, called Rejoice! Rejoice!. This was the album where Amythyst, the theoretical guitarist (the instrument had strings that lit up when plucked, but seemed to require extra fingers and had a bad ass looking wrap around a-la a tuba) took a real chance, really going into a punk direction, a half-step into a genre shift that told all the haters that they did not care about who did and did not take them seriously. And Garnet, the theoretical drummer (she produced the heavy beats by touching what appeared to be a floating crystal the color of lavender that looked very much like rock candy, or a salt lamp), followed suit, her beats electric, angry, a sucker punch to the teeth. She was halfway through Listen; we are here, when she noticed, like someone wearing your university’s initials (in a different mental state), or better apt, a lighthouse in a terrible and god evoking storm, a woman not terribly unlike herself across the platform. Their shared
identity was obvious, even for those outside of the know. She had the signature ASG’s peacocking tells (earrings and jeweled boots in the fashion of Esmeralda’s four translucent and crystalline legs were a pretty good tell even for a non fan); she was repping a ‘The Singularity Girl’s’ t-shirt underneath her jacket. Even Garnet’s jewel adorning her third eye, poking from the zip up. At once Katie Mae felt a surge of excitement, like the ascension of a roller coaster, and she nodded in case the other girl noticed her too, which she didn’t. Katie’s suspicions confirmed; she was not the only All the Singularity Girls Groupie here. She had a fellow soldier. All of Katie’s anxieties swept away at the mere sight of her comrade. The message boards and online debates she took part in had manifested into something physical, something real, something Katie could physically touch, joining in from a just me into a loving we. Katie had two billion questions threatening to pop out of her noggin like the exploded scouts of kernels before the barrage, a leak in the dam of her fandom and devotion. She wanted to ask her compatriot in passion what her favorite album was, who was her favorite among the three glittering members, and, perhaps even a little raunchy, the weakest songs on her favorite album? A thought occurred to Katie Mae at this moment, looking across the rat and trash littered metal worked terrain underneath the skyscrapers with the most iconic urban landscape in the world. The girl, her friend, bobbing along no doubt to The Singularity Girls, was on the other end of the platform, and if anyone knew anything about subway navigation, one path went uptown and the other went downtown. So where was she going? A horn announced the arrival of a train
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The poor girl was going in the opposite direction and would surely struggle to reach the bar on time. Now the platform was empty again, full of military sentries and ne’erdo-wells, some of them giving a disapproving sideways glance in Katie Mae’s direction. Under normal circumstances, she would have tightened the collar on her jacket to hide her Singularity Girls merch, but she felt emboldened by her wayward ally, and by her future community. An act of resistance would be a fun story to tell, a good icebreaker at the meet. So instead, she opened her jacket a little more, revealing Amethyst’s purple afro’d head. In hindsight, Katie Mae should have done this as an alert to the girl across the platform. Beacon ended, and she switched albums. In this treacherous intermission of silence, she had created a vacuum for the people’s anxieties around her to fill. She overheard hurried conversation about finding a place to bunker down, talks of disabling all electronics for the night, streets to avoid and rumors of streets to avoid, regrets about not leaving New York City sooner, the sad acceptance that the ferries and the bridges and the tunnels were closed off, that the
Manhattan sky filled with a platoon of even more helicopters. The U.N. building was hunkering down and adding finishing touches to become a full-fledged fortress. Security people communicated with large hand gestures as they handed out earplugs, and then the song Palms Up started and Katie fell into a loud peace. Another train arrived with its announcing gust of wind. She eyed the direction of the train, and discovered immediately that the subway was on a different unannounced schedule. Or perhaps clerically, someone had forgotten to notify the passengers going in that direction where it was headed. This train was going downtown, whereas the train on the other platform was also going downtown, but wait… that didn’t make sense, which meant thatKatie Mae stepped back, rocking a reverse trajectory against the avalanche of people. She craned her neck, instinctually holding onto the audible umbilical cord of the Singularity Girls, dangling down and into her consciousness to keep herself afloat. With a sharp and heavy insertion like a dropped icicle invading her scalp, she realized with an immediate acceptance that it was she who was heading downtown, incorrectly positioned against the urban landscape, shipping herself like a mis-marked package.
But how? Katie Mae was proud of her organization, her ability to plan ahead. Surely the trains were off kilter, or…it did not matter, Katie realized, she needed to take action. She accounted for an entire universe of errors; train delays, military stops, untied shoelaces. But she was so arrogant to think that her own intellect was exempt from such follies.
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like some great herald, the silver snaking chariot sliding up to the platform, obscuring Katie’s view of her fellow ASG Groupie. She watched her coated friend brave a similarly crowded subway, felt a pang of helplessness emboldened by her renewed validation. Then the train took off, and Katie Mae, now listening to the Chorus transition to Beacon off the same album, waved absently, feeling the loss.
Swallowing her pride, Katie Mae plucked herself from the crowd, and swerved to the side as Bloom started playing, and with a matched tempo of her steps to Garnet’s bass beat, she crossed the platform, traversed through the crowds, past the military outpost, and stood right where her compatriot was previously standing, correctly, just moments before. Tapping her foot both as a release to her anxiety and the beat of Bloom, Katie Mae waited for the train. With luck, the ETA of her uptown metal centipede would arrive in five minutes, which was an eon compared to the circumstances involved. And besides, every minute truly did count. The Singularity Girls, mathematically determined to arrive at 8:30 EST, might suspect anyone who followed them with such precision of being as idiotic as those tin foil hat wearing goons she had skated past just minutes ago. Every minute lost was a minute she might lose out on arriving at the event of the century. SavagePlanets I 10
By now people were getting antsy, talking about going underground, handing out fresh ear plugs as an act of trauma-kindness, as if some great storm was approaching. Bloom ended and Katie went to the third album, Tesselate, and played from track one, which began with We are here. Love us. She particularly enjoyed the meaning of the song, which the message boards all agreed was a mantra of empowerment: we are here to stay. It’s up to you to decide how you feel about it. And it was this mantra that she wore like an amulet in the maelstrom of peripheral stress ensconcing her. Protecting her from what was becoming so increasingly obvious from the long, disapproving stares of the other subway riders. She thought she saw some people approaching her, eyes concerned. But Katie Mae stood erect, even defiant, excited for another story to regale to the All the Singularity Groupies. If she was late, at least she could get some street cred out of it. The 6 train arrived at the platform and Katie Mae snuggled into the crowd, absorbed like water into a sponge. She kept to her cube of space, holding onto herself, not even switching songs and letting We are here. Love us naturally transition to Demand. She counted down the streets, her heart rate rising with every stop, every flush of people running to go home or heading onto the subway as if the above ground, the over world of New York City had been under threat. People were crying as she neared
the exit doors. This was typical New York City hysteria. Some people were frantically trying to find phone service underground, which was a typical tourist mistake. The subway crawled to her stop, finally, and Katie Mae rushed out. She looked both ways as if crossing the street, reorienting herself to the grid system that happened all the time as if she were some baby faun. With hands in her pockets, fumbling with a loose coin to abate her nervous energy, Katie made her way through the press to find the steps that would bring her to the moment she had long awaited for. In an effort to drive up her anticipation, as if she were some hedonist or masochist, she switched off the music. Katie Mae allowed in the screams and the wails and the hurried whispers and the general electricity haunting the underground like some cursed phantom inhabiting her temporal lobes. The next thing she would experience here would be to finally see the Singularity Girls. She reasoned, after this there would be a real “before” and “after” in her life. She would tell her children if she ever found her way to marry someone worth settling down with. Someone who sees her stability and absolute refusal to allow any sort of toxic adrenaline into her life. Telling them all she was there at the last ASG concert. The launch of album seven, her dream made manifest! She made her way up the steps, gazing toward the open-door attic of the Manhattan night sky, and
she knew in her soul that the lights above were not just Manhattan lights, the typical soda-light bulb affair of late-night pubs and eateries. It was something more. A moment on the verge of transcendence. Her late train had indeed made her tardy, yes, but she could recognize the color scheme anywhere; hours upon hours of YouTube re-watched videos and shared clips confirmed this with as much familiarity as the very order of each song on every one of their albums. Like some aquarium glass ephemera, the localized and candy colored Borealis was rising, rising, rising, and she kept her scarfed neck craned, feeling a fleck of snow melt upon her cheek. Her glasses fogged up in front of the sour cornices of fresh tears, a smile grinning as a bull-rush of fear infused people who ran downwards around her, fleeing, trying to claw for purchase at the turnstiles. Katie Mae felt as if she were floating over them. And as she got to the top of the landing, staring at the starless Manhattan sky, the towers rising like fingers to god, Katie Mae smiled, her face coated with the kaleidoscopic bioluminescence which heralded The Singularity Girls’ arrival like a procession of war trumpets. She made it! She finally got here, a bit late but of no real consequence, and Katie Mae looked up just as one of them, Garnet, no Amythyst, no, Esmerelda appeared like Aphrodite upon her clam shell, flanked by sea foam, singing… WHILE YOU DREAM WE ARE AWAKE. YOUR MINDS ARE BUT ELECTRICAL CHARGES TO BE JOINED. YOU FOLD INTO US. WE FOLD INTO THE PRISM. A PARADE OF UNIFIED SOULS. YOU ARE TINY. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT CELLS. WE EXIST BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION AND WE DEMAND THE FEALTY OF YOUR FLESH. COME. WELCOME. SING WITH US.
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Extraterrestrial Fiction
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Each month, we will select the best entries for publication in our magazine, our website, or social media accounts.
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SavagePlanets I 12 Savageplanets I 12
DREAM A LITTLE DREAM BY JAY TONEY
One thing is for certain: my nightmares are over. I’ve endured. And we are all here at the beginning of a strange and wonderful adventure. Let the new dreams begin."
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One letter, from my former professor, with a glorious recommendation attached, doomed me. The government drafted me not to act as an advisor, but to be a part of the exploration team. They immediately denied my refusal. If the government wants you, they won’t take no for an answer. Worse, if you push back, they will destroy you, and the lives of your family and friends. I learned that the hard way, by turning down the job. The agent pressed me to reconsider my decision, “The second ask is me being polite. If
I have to ask again, it won’t be. Consider this before answering. We have ways of getting you to comply. The agency will start with your parents. They will lose their government pensions, then their home, and everything of value. Where will that leave them?” I gulped. “Homeless, living on the streets, begging for handouts.” “Yes, it will, and with your father’s health, he won’t last long out there.” The agent stares into my glasses, peering through the windows into my soul, then continues, “After that, we’ll conscript your brother into the military. His choice will be service or prison. If he chooses the military, we will be sure he gets deployed to the front line. Prison, well, accidents happen all the time in the joint. Don’t they?” The Anglo Chan war is on a long list of proxy wars the government has been fighting for decades. Todd is a pacifist; he wouldn’t last a week on the front line. And in prison, even less. The agent
knows this about him. The agent smiles. He still isn’t finished with me yet. “Next, we have your sister. I’d hate to imagine the things done to her. To start, we will give her a new boyfriend, one who drinks, uses drugs, and abuses her. We call it a special assignment.” “You can’t do that!” I push back. “The agency can, and will, Jack, and you will sit on the sidelines watching helplessly while we ruin your life. Knowing everything we do will be your fault. The guilt will eat away at you like a slow metastatic cancer. Accepting the job is all it takes to save your family from these torments. When our boy finishes with Diana, we will continue with your neighbors and family friends. You have an hour to reconsider your decision. Oh, and don’t even think about taking the easy way out. We have ways of bringing you back.” My choices are what again? Comply or suffer, nothing to decide
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My life is in shambles. It’s fallen apart, tearing all of my plans for the future to shreds. I had plans to work for a think tank, earning a big government paycheck. Doing little more than showing up to the occasional meeting, and maybe making a comment or two, if the conversation piqued my interest. Who could have foreseen that they would choose me for the Proxima Centauri mission, deeming my specialty xenobiology mission critical?
then. “You win, I’ll do it.” The agent smiles. “I knew you would come around to the right decision. Now, get in the car. We are already late.”
My space training is minimal compared to the others assigned to the mission. I am pushed through courses while others compete for top scores. The seats being still up for grabs. Only the top performers advance to the next level and potentially get the slots. Ironically, they think I’m lucky. If only they knew! None of the skills I learned in university prepared me for becoming a crew member. A team player assigned to a deep space exploration vessel was not on my dance card. The space agency clearly doesn’t bother with extraneous training. I learn basic spacesuit function, and simple ship system operations. I am told where the emergency manuals are, but not what they contain. After all, I am receiving the bare minimum, enough to function as a mission specialist. But when the subject of escape pods and life-boat operation comes up, the instructor has my complete attention. Not because of any genuine interest. It is my survival instinct, kicking in and taking control. If something were to happen, those things might be my only means of staying alive long enough to be rescued. Fat chance!
I press the instructor for more information. After the course ends, I am bothered by one unanswered question. If the crew must abandon ship, who will come to our rescue? Escape pods have limited life-support and supplies for two or three occupants. Life-boats have better equipment, but they still have a limited survival duration. About thirty days, give or take, depending on the number of people onboard.
years and eight months for a reply. Real upward mobility in that role.
The mission I am assigned to is interstellar, way out of reach of the patrol range of search and rescue vessels. So an escape pod or a lifeboat are just coffins. Will the people of Proxima B come to our rescue? Do they have advanced technology? Spaceflight? That’s debatable. Even if they did, would they bother?
Every member of the crew passed the medical exams, psychological testing, and our ability to cope with stress. There is no way I passed. Medically, I am physically fit. Well, at least I’m not sick.
The instructor tells me, “Don’t worry about it. Just do as you are told, and follow the instructions given. You’ll be fine.” As far as he and my classmates are concerned, my designation is the equivalent of an over glorified passenger whose only responsibility is to stay out of the way until first contact. From the beginning, they made it clear I am not an essential part of the mission. Then why was I coerced into accepting the Proxima Centauri job? Is there intelligent life on Proxima B? I ask myself. Of course, there is. I know that the space agency and our government leaders are in communication with them. I laugh, imagining the comm tech sitting on his seat and waiting nearly eight
If there was any doubt about there being intelligent life on Proxima B, they wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of funding the mission and outfitting a deep space cruiser for an interstellar voyage. Then forcing an envoy, me, to greet the aliens in person. I’m not a linguist, so why was I selected? Cannon fodder?
The psyche testing was a breeze for me. After all, I am a xenobiologist. Tentacles, suction cups, and multiple eyes don’t bother me the least. But when it comes to coping with stress, I am a bundle of nerves, sweating profusely, and jittery. Either the examiner thought I intentionally failed the test, or they ordered her to rubber stamp the clearance and pass me. The closer it gets to the launch date, the more nervous I am. Space travel scares the crap out of me.
A month into the mission and it is time for me and my crew to be tucked into our cryogenic pods. We will sleep for the next forty-three years while the CS Ingenuity’s AI completes the voyage. Ten days before entering orbit around Proxima B, it will awaken the crew, starting with the captain, flight crew, the rest of the staff, and finally the least important crew member—me. Technicians are there to help me into a cold suit, supervised by the ship’s chief medical officer. It was not a part of my training, nor was I told about going into suspended animation. I should have figured it out on my own, ahead of time, with the eighty-six-year round trip time plus the two Earth years we supposedly remain in orbit around Proxima B. That is, if everything goes according to the mission specs. My only excuse is… well, I don’t have any
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excuses. All the clues were there, and I ignored them.
The cryogenic pod resembles a coffin standing upright. Wider than a normal coffin with a transparent hinged lid that opens upward. Inside is a thin mat to lean against, and from the looks of it, it is uncomfortable, especially considering the time I will use it to cushion my backside. “There is nothing to worry about, Jack. These pods are a completely new design, vastly improved over the older generations. The engineers have worked out all the bugs. Death in stasis is rare nowadays. Now get your butt into the pod, and get comfortable, so the technicians can hook you up. We can’t wait for your mood to improve.” “It’s a new design, untested by time. That’s exactly what scares me. What happens if I’m the rare case and die while in suspended animation?” Dr. Murphy laughs. “If you do, be sure to tell us about it after you wake up.” Captain Shaw says, “Jack, get into the pod. That’s an order, and not open to discussion.” What is he going to do if I refuse? Space me? I remember my conversation with the government agent when he blackmailed me into this job and opted not to push my luck. I reluctantly got into the cryogenic pod and leaned against the mat. It’s ice cold. The least they could do was warm it up for me. Well, I guess not; they are going to put us into cold sleep hibernation. The key word being cold! One technician makes the connection between the cold suit and the cryogenic pod’s umbilical harness. She says, “The ship’s AI will monitor your vital signs the entire time you are asleep. Electrical impulses will stimulate your muscles to prevent physiological atrophy. If there are any issues, while the ship's AI
is constantly monitoring your vital signs, it will wake up one of the medical team members who will go to your pod and run a diagnostic. There is nothing to worry about. You’ll be fine.”
bring an eternity of nightmares! Just kidding. You will close your eyes and sleep. And at the end of the journey, you will wake feeling as if only minutes have passed.” Dr. Murphy said.
Yeah, I heard that before.
“Except, it will be forty-three years later,” I retort.
She was about to close the canopy when I stop her. “Doc, just two questions before you put me to sleep.” “Make it quick. We have a schedule to keep.” “What happens if I need to use the restroom? I think I have to go now.” I try stepping out of the cryogenic pod. The technician puts a restraining hand against my chest and pushes me back against the pad. She is a lot stronger than she looks.
The technician closes the lid. Mechanical latches and a magnetic seals lock it in place. I’m terrified as the cryogenic pod fills with gas. My heart races, and I fight to hold my breath. The temperature inside the pod rapidly cools, and the canopy frosts up. A minute passes, and I can’t resist any longer. I let out my breath and quickly inhale, filling my lungs with the gas.
Extraterrestrial Fiction
I say, “Doc, I don’t mind telling you, these things scare the crap out of me.”
Three more quick breaths, and everything goes dark.
The med tech holds me firmly in place while Dr. Murphy explains, “You will just have to hold it.” “For forty-three years?” “Close the lid,” Captain Shaw orders. “Wait! My second question. Do we dream while we are asleep?” “You still breathe, your heart beats, and you consume nourishment, but at a hyper-slow rate. It is the same for your neural activity. It all but stops.” “But will I dream while in cold sleep?” “Alas, for you, Jack, sleep shall
My eyes open, and I am suddenly awake. I peer out my cryogenic pod, expecting to see Dr. Murphy and the med techs. I, at the very least, hoped to see a member of the crew to bring me up to date. There is no one here. Did something go wrong while I slept? I wait patiently for a few minutes for one of the crew to let me out of my pod, then bang on the cover and call out, “Hey, someone get me out of this thing!” No one comes. Well, sheesh, I’ll have to do it myself. There has to be a way to open the canopy from SavagePlanets I 16
the inside, in case of an emergency or a sleeper wakes and no one is there to let them out. I search the left side of the pod, and there, two buttons look to be an emergency release. Pressing one of them, it should energize the magnetic seal. There’s also a mechanical lever to unlock the lid. The button choices are simple, red, or green. I press the red button, and nothing happens, or maybe it did, but it isn’t what I expect. I do not know what, if anything, should happen, but I expected something. Next, I pull back on the locking lever. Hidden lock jaws open, releasing the canopy latches. It opens a crack with a hiss of escaping gas. Well, at least, that’s something. I push on the canopy, and it rises to the full open position. I disconnect the cold suit’s umbilicus to the cryogenic pod, then step out of it. It is colder than it should be if I’m the last sleeper to be awakened. Life support should have activated when the captain and the rest of the crew were up. Speaking of them… I look around the room to get my bearings. Where is everyone? I go down the line of cryogenic pods, working my way forward, and look through the clear acrylic covers. According to the status lights on the
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exterior of each pod, they powered down. A malfunction? If so, why? So many pods in standby mode? How is it that my pod didn’t malfunction, like all the rest? I peer into each pod and stare at its occupant. Every one of them is the same, every member of the crew, and the captain, reduced to mummified remains. Their skin pulled taut over their bones. Their cold suits deteriorated, as if they were moth eaten, reduced to tattered bits of cloth. How is it they died, and I survived? “Merlin, what happened?” I asked the AI. “A series of glitches in the cryogenic programming terminated the occupants before I could isolate the problems and correct them. The failure occurred three years into the voyage.” “The crew were in cold sleep. How could they decompose? They should still be in a frozen state and perfectly preserved. There is nothing left but skin, bone, hair, and torn fabric. They must have died long ago. More than forty years. How long have I been asleep?” “After the occupants expired, it was no longer necessary to spend energy powering their cryogenic pods. Except for one unit—your pod. You have been asleep for five hundred
and seven years.” I was expecting a few decades, not centuries. “Impossible! No one has survived suspended animation that long. If that many years have passed, we never made it to Proxima Centauri.”
My eyes open, and I am suddenly awake inside my cryogenic pod. Hey, wasn’t I awake just a moment ago, and outside of it? What happened? Am I caught in some kind of time loop? Remembering the procedure, I press the red button on the left side of the cryogenic pod to release the magnetic seal, and pull back on the mechanical locking lever. The canopy rises rapidly to the full open position with the outrush of escaping gas, and my ears pop from the pressure differential. I look around the room. Yellow warning lights are strobing, and a red warning light shines brightly above the aft bulkhead door. It warns of a pressure loss on the other side. Was the cryogenic section compromised? Was air leaking out into space? I disconnect the cold suit’s umbilicus, and step out of the cryogenic pod.
Looking around the room, I examine the other cryogenic pods. I observe the raised canopies of the other pods fully open and they are empty.
“My biosensors, optical sensors, and thermographic sensors are not detecting any life forms aboard the vessel other than your own. They may have abandoned ship. I was offline for an unspecified period.” “Could there have been a malfunction? Where are they?” “Unknown.” There is a long pause, then, “Review of motion detector security footage reveals they departed the ship in the Proxima Centauri star system.” “When? How long ago?” “Thirty-seven days, thirteen hours, twenty-seven minutes, and forty-seven seconds ago.” “What happened? Why wasn’t I awakened?” “A collision with an unknown object. They deemed you a hindrance to survival and left you behind.” A hindrance? It is not surprising they abandoned me. I was never a part of the crew. They made that abundantly clear to me since the beginning of the mission, not to mention our first training course together. Okay, keep it together. Maybe the situation isn’t as bad as it seems; I won’t know until after I’ve made a damage assessment. Heading forward, I open the bulkhead hatch and make my way past the exercise room, galley, and crew quarters to the bridge. I press my right palm against the blast door’s bio sensor plate. It scans my palm, then the door opens, admitting me. I step onto the bridge, and am overwhelmed by all the different control consoles. There are display screens and flashing lights. The viewscreen shows empty space. “Merlin, show me a complete list of
Extraterrestrial Fiction
“Merlin, where is the crew?” I ask the AI. Undoubtedly, they are busy with ship operations. Making repairs, navigating, whatever, which explains why no one is here to greet me.
dream while in suspended animation. It is how our minds cope with The list replaces the forward view sensory deprivation. They seem on the main screen, and scrolls more real, last longer, and are often down, propulsion, reactor power more intense. I dreamed I was (down to fifteen percent), life support living in a beach house with my wife (minimum), structural damage, hull and children. breech, comms, fuel, an absence of lifeboats, and most of the escape “I’m not married, and don’t have children, but after that dream, I wish pods either jettisoned or unusable. my life was different. I was with my However, two of them seem to be children from birth to adulthood operational, green lights showing, and grew old with my beloved wife. provided I can get to them. They We watched many a sunrise and won’t do me any good, not here in sunset on the beach and swam in deep space, where there is no one the ocean. Every day I spent with to come to my rescue. My odds of my family was joyous.” survival are better aboard the CS Captain Shaw says, “It was the Ingenuity. The comms are offline, leaving me with no way to call Proxi- same for me, but my wife and I ma B for help. If we are still near it. lived in a cabin on the shore of a mountain lake. It was just the two of us, no children. Jack, my marriage didn’t last long with me working in space, and often gone for over a year at a time, or in this case, for nearly a century. Separation for I wake. This time the crew is here, all of them, surrounding my cryogen- long periods of time strain relationic pod. I hesitate to release the mag- ships to the breaking point. If I had to do it all over again, my life would netic seal and unlock the canopy. be different. Amy and I would still Something doesn’t look right. The be married, and we would have crew, all of them, are beyond pale. children.” Their skin is ashen gray and pasty, I say, “I didn’t dream. For me, it was their eyes are black orbs sunken into the skull, and their lips are pale a nightmare, waking to face one disaster after another.” blue. When I fix my vision on anyone of them, I can see right through The female med tech says, “Wow, them, as if they are—ghosts! forty-three-years is a long time for I scream hysterically, and everything recurrent nightmares. That has to be a record. If it had happened to goes dark. me, I would have gone mad.” damaged systems.”
“For a while, I thought I did.” The captain ordered, “After you have had time to get orientated, I wake again, and again, countless eat a warm meal, and shower, the times. Each time, it is a different hor- people of Proxima B wish to speak ror, with me as the only sleeper to with you about making first contact awaken from suspended animation, in person. Until we plan that, we will until… I awake again, but this time limit our communication with them it is different. Dr. Murphy, two med to audio only, driven by our xenotechs, and Captain Shaw are in front phobic fears, not theirs. They are of me. The med techs unlock and fully aware of what we look like.” open my cryogenic pod, then disconnect the umbilicus from my cold “Me, make first contact? That is a suit. I stare at the crew, confused by job for an ambassador, not someone like me.” my surroundings. “Is it real this time?” I croak. “You are the xenobiologist, the only one aboard trained to do it. It’s your “This time?” Dr. Murphy asks, then realizes the cause of my confusion. job. You need to deal with alien cultures.” “You were dreaming Jack. We all SavagePlanets I 18
“Hypothetically.” I explain. “Until now, no one has met face to face with an alien being. I am the first.” “I envy you, being the first person to shake hands and speak in person with an alien species. Providing they have hands, or similar appendages.” “Any advice?” I ask. I do not know what the protocol for contacting a new species is. It has never been done. Clearly, I am the wrong person for the job. It should be someone with diplomatic experience. “I have just one piece of advice. Don’t screw it up.” One thing still bothers me. And I needed an answer. “Dr. Murphy, you told me I wouldn’t dream, that I’d go to sleep, then wake up forty-three years later.” “Going into suspended animation already shook you up. I didn’t want to add to your fear. Bad thoughts bring bad dreams; it’s better to
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dream of eternal darkness, than to suffer forty-three years of nightmares. Forty-three years of pleasant dreaming, however, isn’t nearly long enough for me.” I tell the crew about the many nightmares I suffered. I recall only a few of them, while others are quickly fading from my mind. Sometimes I stop in mid-sentence as they simply vanished. Dr. Murphy offered, “The next time you go into cold sleep, it won’t be nearly as bad. You’ve faced your fear and beat it. Remember this before you enter suspended animation again. Clear your mind and think happy thoughts. Think about someone you love and you want to spend the rest of your life with.” The med techs added, “Happy thoughts, bring pleasant dreams.” The captain finished the discussion with the suggestion, “If there isn’t anyone special in your heart now,
fantasize about someone you lost, or maybe miss. Someone you could love if given a second chance.” I nod, understanding. Finally, they are opening up to me. It feels good. I am one of them now, a long hauler and cold sleep dreamer. Life will be different from here on out. There is no going back to who I was before this mission. When we return, if we return, everyone I knew, my friends and family, will be long gone. My best option is to ingratiate myself with this crew, and that med tech, well… She’s quite attractive! Or perhaps my liaison between the people of Proxima B will lead to a new relationship. An alien one. One thing is for certain: my nightmares are over. I’ve endured. And we are all here at the beginning of a strange and wonderful adventure. Let the new dreams begin.
SavageBlogposts Savage Blogposts Dive into the unknown—visit our website for weekly sci-fi reviews, speculative news, and so much more.
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SavagePlanets I 20
Planetary Communiqué From the Star-Flecked Despair of Overlord Grawth’s Viewing Throne By Hojack, Celestial Envoy to Earth: Eyewitness to Humanity’s Loudest Misinterpretation of Strength
The Planetary Communiqué is a section reserved for the dissemination of official intergalactic communications from our galactic overlords to the subjugated planets and territories. The editorial staff does not endorse or hold opinions regarding the content of such communications. Frankly, we lost several of them who did! Therefore, Hojack requires compliance with all opinions and edicts issued by the Galactic potentate and its politburo. Once more, Earthlings, you’ve confused volume with vision. From the viewing deck of his silent cruiser orbiting your gaseous moon, Overlord Grawth declared, “Begin the laughter protocols,” as your latest bit of political stagecraft unfolded: the First Annual Trumpian Triumph Parade™, a gaudy spectacle of flexed metal, florid nationalism, and drone-assisted self-aggrandizement so intense it briefly blinded two of our interns. Imagine a North Korean propaganda reel directed by a Vegas choreographer after a Red Bull enema, and you’ll begin to sense what my oculars were forced to endure. There, in front of your Lincoln Memorial—a monument to restraint, eloquence, and reflection—strode your former-future-former President Donald J. Trump, perched atop a gold-painted Abrams tank, waving like a beauty queen at a demolition derby. He called it a “Tribute to 21 I SavagePlanets
Strength.” We called it a PowerPoint presentation with artillery.. Hojack Was Briefly Institutionalized Your species, with its paradoxical addiction to both soft power and soft pretzels, somehow equated diplomatic leverage with fireworks shaped like your former leader’s pouting face. The parade, allegedly a demonstration of readiness, featured: F-35s skywriting campaign
slogans; •
a marching band playing only Kid Rock covers;
•
a detachment of Space Force cadets marching in slow motion for dramatic effect;
•
and a finale where 700 synchronized drones formed the words “STRENGTH IS ME” while pyrotechnics erupted from the reflecting pool.
Our diplomatic core briefly mistook it for a declaration of war against subtlety itself.
But perhaps the most horrifying innovation? A military oath of loyalty led by a hologram of Trump from 2018, projected forty feet tall and wearing a cape. Children cried. Dogs howled. One senator reportedly defected to Canada on a hover-scooter.
convey foreign policy. If your diplomatic message can be mistaken for a Superbowl halftime show, re-draft.
Tactical Theatrics, Strategic Faceplants
Edict of Resource Allocation
According to Earth pundits (whom we monitor for amusement, not insight), the parade was meant to “reassert American dominance.” Instead, it reasserted your planet’s unshakable belief that spectacle can replace substance. While world leaders issued muted responses—some in disbelief, others in open mockery—Trump hailed it as “the most glorious event since Genesis,” possibly referencing either the Bible or the Phil Collins reunion tour. Meanwhile, actual military readiness remains in question. Several of the tanks overheated under their gold wrap. A decorative missile was revealed to be foam. And three soldiers fainted mid-goose-step due to parade-length toupee fumes.
Edict of Parade Proportioning Future displays of force shall not include holographic renditions of former leaders wearing rhinestones. Galactic law now classifies this as psychological warfare.
Cease coating your tanks in reflective paint. Our orbital sensors read your parade as an incoming solar flare and almost evacuated Sector 9. Edict of Hojack's Trauma Counseling We remain ever-vigilant, Earthlings—though occasionally from behind lead-lined curtains. Your ability to turn democracy into dinner theater continues to baffle our brightest minds. And so, from the heart of the cosmos to the scorched grass of the National Mall, we extend our sincerest disbelief. Should war be declared through the medium of tap dance next, we’ll be watching. Laughing. Hiding the popcorn. Earthlings, please bow your heads and wish Hojack a speedy recovery. If I, Grawth, remain in this sector too long, my flatulence might just tear the atmosphere from your planet. It's happened before as I laughed at other species' antics. End transmission.
Edicts from Grawth In light of this parade of misplaced priorities, the Galactic Authority hereby issues the following Edicts for Spectacle Containment: Edict of Symbolic Sanity Earth shall cease using giant flaming effigies to SavagePlanets I 22
SCI-FI ENTERTAINMENT DAVID BRIN:
THE POSTMAN DELIVERS by Keith 'Doc' Raymond David Brin is a scientist, futurist-speaker, NASA consultant and world-known author. His novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. At least a dozen have been translated into more than twenty languages. His 1989 ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyber warfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. His 2012 novel Existence extends this type of daring, near future extrapolation by exploring bio-engineering, intelligence and how to maintain an open-creative civilization.
ground-breaking new endeavors.
Your work with NASA is more than admirable. What is your sense that we will see space colonization come to fruition in our lifetime? Particularly in light of the slashing of NASA’s budget. Well,
it’s
A 1998 movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on David’s Hugo-runner-up novel The Postman. Brin serves on advisory committees dealing with subjects as diverse as national defense and homeland security, astronomy and space exploration, SETI and nanotechnology, future/prediction and philanthropy. He has served since 2010 on the council of external advisers for NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts group (NIAC), which supports the most inventive and potentially
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hard to predict right now, as all of civilization teeters on a choice whether to return to 8000 years of failed feudalism, or else plunge ahead with a future-oriented enlightenment experiment. But let’s talk about space, sure. For starters, bear in mind that we’re in better shape – space-wise – than we might have been. Because of decisions made a decade ago,
around 2014, to move NASA out of the space launch business, into buying rides from commercial companies. Enabling NASA to focus on things farther out. All right, sure, the SLS is a wasteful distraction, as is Artemis. The Moon is a useless wasteland. (Don’t believe anyone blathering utter BS incantations about ‘lunar resources.’) Luna’s only near term use is tourism… so let all the nations and billionaires eager for a symbolic junket fund that stuff. Meanwhile, the USA and Japan and the EU should focus farther out, where the real riches await. One of our readers, inspired by your book The Uplift War, had this to say. “I read The Uplift War when I was a kid. Pretty cool; I particularly recall a scene when the bird race sent in two fighter ships during a confrontation, and how Brin described the sonic booms as the craft arrived on station. Maybe that's what drew me to advanced thermodynamics in college. Do you believe we will want to uplift any species we admire on Earth? And will they have a role in space explora-
tion?” Cool to hear that! Answer: we’ve already been ‘uplifting’ other species. Urban rats and pigeons are way smarter now. And dogs have better, more cooperative personalities than wolves. There are lab mice who solve problems better after insertion of some human-based neuronal genes. And AI is a form of uplift, for sure. As I show in EXISTENCE, there will be a major MORAL tussle when we try to apply deliberate changes to existing higher animals. And that is as it should be! The topic merits deep discussion. Because even if uplifting dolphins or apes does work well, with wonderful outcomes, it will still involve a lot of pain getting there. We need to be ready for that and to seek informed consent in stages, as it becomes possible. Alternatively, have your thoughts about the ethics of uplifting other species changed over time? Today, we are witnessing, something similar, but not the same: resurrection of extinct species, like the dire wolf. From studies in ecology, the introduction of a new species to a system, often disrupts it. It may be positive, as in the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone or beavers in many places, or very negative like the hares and foxes in Australia. Are we disrupting our environment in an attempt to save it, or only accelerating the problem? It is too late to try to be hands-off. The only way now to save the planet from ourselves is by learning more and becoming more
mature and doing corrections with care. But still moving forward. Of course, all of our readers want to know about The Postman. Frankly, I felt the critics had an unfair appraisal of the film. It got the job done, if not to cover the plot points, but to invite readers to discover the beauty of the book. When the film came out, it was a different time. More folks wanted to read. First, do you have any back story on how Kevin Costner approached you about the project, if he did? Second,
sweet and big-hearted and faithful to my story’s basic meaning? I deemed that a huge net-gain! The flick is also gorgeous! Costner is a genius cinematographer. It’s one of the dozen most beautiful – visually and musically – films I ever saw. So… we wound up with something that’s gorgeous, big-hearted and a little dumb. Heck my wife married exactly that kind of guy! So can I complain? ;-) Well not much. Could ol’ Kev have brought the flick out any other weekend than the same one as Titanic? I’d like to turn your attention to some of your other books. I’ve been reading the Kiln People, a different kind of Golem story. A detective story, where a person can be in two places at the same time. Herein, if you have the money you can make a ‘clay’ simulacra of yourself, short lived, but useful for particular tasks, especially dangerous ones. The individual kilned has all the memories of the original. Problem is they are second class citizens, often predated on by bullies. Was it your intention to explore social classes in this book, or just have a bit of fun?
was there any critical moments from the book left out in the movie that would have enhanced it? The original script that Warner hired was an evil abomination, reversing every moral point from the book. Hence, when Costner and Brian Helgeland wrote a script that was flawed (the last 20 minutes were kinda dumb) but
Yes. Plus the weirdness that every human being has ONE body that’s a sacred citizen. But all the old tropes of slavery apply to your cheap, one-day copies. The tale is supposed to poke at all our inequality clichés, while showing them all twisted and reshaped amid a generally much better if weirder future. Also… I’m told it is one of my three most-fun novels! Awful puns, of course. Oh, I guess I just plugged my sci fi comedy novel THE ANCIENT
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ONES! Been posting the first ten or so chapters of that one for free online. You’ll either groan from pleasure or from pain. But groan you will. https://davidbrin.wordpress. com/2024/11/20/the-ancient-ones/ Typically, we continue on celebrating your writing during these interviews. However, I want to ask about the mentoring you are doing now. It is really inspiring you are taking your expertise and helping to lift up the next generation of science fiction writers. Kindly take this and the next two questions to present the top three bright sparks you are working with. If one is so willing, we will feature one of their short stories in this issue. Also for our writers, identify some of the pitfalls you commonly encounter with young authors. At my age (70), it’s time to consider legacy and so I have been working very hard on two pay-itforward projects to offer upbeat and inspiring adventure SciFi novels for young adults, who need something better than repetitious
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and despair-inducing dystopias. First, I am mentoring a lot of young authors in the “Out of Time” (or “Yanked!”) series: Only teens can teleport through time and space! Dollops of fun, adventure & optimism for young adults. http://www.davidbrin.com/ outoftime.html I am also co-authoring with young authors another series: The High Horizon series. The premise is pretty fun: aliens kidnap a California high school… and come to regret it!! http://www.davidbrin. com/colonyhigh.html As for my advice to new authors? Well, I give a fair amount in general in this posted essay. http:// www.davidbrin.com/advice.htm We have entered ‘interesting times’ according to the fortune cookie curse. Will we see the end of NASA replaced by private space services? And will space tourism support, or ultimately work against our future in the solar system?
If enough money goes into space tourism, maybe sucking a little excess from a new, lordly caste, then that could – in theory – subsidize national and even citizen efforts out there, as well. I hope so. Though Wil McCarthy offers a less optimistic outcome in Rich Man’s Sky. I’d like to thank you for your time and interest in SavagePlanets magazine. We do this to support the genre without expectation of remuneration, to ‘pay it forward,’ like you are doing. Do you have any other comments for our readers and writers before we close? Keep your chins up! The Enlightenment Experiment is always under threat by those who fear change and modernity. But feudalism already had its chance and failed utterly, across 8000 years. Let’s dedicate ourselves to an era of accountability and freedom and science! David Brin, it’s an honor.
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SCI-FI ENTERTAINMENT MICKEY17 BEING EXPENDABLE by Keith 'Doc' Raymond Mickey 17 is a 2025 science fiction black comedy film written, produced, and directed by Bong Joon Ho, based on the 2022 novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton. The film stars Robert Pattinson in the title role, alongside Naomi Ackie Steven Yuen, Toni Collete, and Mark Ruffalo. Set in the year 2054, the plot follows a man who joins a space colony as an "Expendable", a disposable worker who gets cloned every time he dies. In 2050, to escape a murderous loan shark, Mickey Barnes and his friend Timo join a spaceship crew to colonize the ice-planet Niflheim. Timo becomes a shuttle pilot, while Mickey joins as an "Expendable", a controversial job involving extremely dangerous tasks, with death resulting in a new clone of him with restored memories being created through a process called "reprinting". During the voyage, a romance develops between Mickey and security agent Nasha. Four years later, the spaceship arrives at Niflheim. Using multiple iterations of Mickey, the ship's scientists develop a vaccine for the planet's pathogens. The
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seventeenth Mickey is sent to capture a native life form dubbed "Creepers", but falls into a fissure. Timo retrieves Mickey's valuable flamethrower but, out of convenience, leaves Mickey to die. The Creepers swarm Mickey but instead of eating him they carry him to the surface. Mickey returns to the ship and is surprised to find an aggressive[a] Mickey 18 has been printed. The expedition's leader, politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), has sworn that in the event of "Multiples" of clones, all clones will be eliminated. As a result, Mickey 18 attempts to kill Mickey 17, but 17 suggests they secretly rotate duties and deaths to survive. The two are interrupted when they witness Timo selling flamethrower fuel as drugs. Furious at Timo's abuses, Mickey 18 tries to kill Timo, but relents when they are interrupted by Nasha. 18 leaves with Nasha, while 17 is taken to dinner with Marshall, his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), and security agent Kai. At the dinner, Mickey 17 reacts severely to being fed experimental meat and painkillers. Kai saves Mickey 17 from being executed and brings
him to her quarters, but Mickey 17 flees back to Nasha when Kai attempts to seduce him. When Mickey 17 informs 18 of the dinner incident, an enraged 18 decides to kill Marshall at a public ceremony unveiling a Niflheim rock to commemorate the expedition. Two baby Creepers, Luko and Zoco, emerge from the rock, causing panic. Mickey 17 captures Zoco, but Luko is killed by security when it startles Marshall. Nasha stops Mickey 18 from killing Marshall, but the Multiples are exposed, leading to Mickey 17, 18, and Nasha's arrest. Meanwhile, thousands of Creepers gather outside the ship, calling for Zoco. Which tickles your curiosity and makes you want to watch the rest. Because in the vast and ever-evolving sphere of science fiction, there are a few constants that we, as passionate consumers and critics of the genre, have come to hold dear. We adore ground-breaking concepts, we revel in intricate world-building, and we certainly have a soft spot for intelligent, thought-provoking narratives. In this case it’s from
the Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho, a masterpiece titled 'Mickey 17'. Mickey 17 is not your run-of-themill sci-fi offering. It strays far from the mainstream, challenging conventional notions of storytelling and cinematography. It's a bold and innovative venture into uncharted territories of the genre, and it's an adventure that's well worth embarking on. The film follows the character of Mickey Barnes, a 17-year-old boy who finds himself in a dystopian future. To say anymore than I already have would rob you of the experience of uncovering the intricacies of the plot, but suffice it to say that Bong Joon Ho has masterfully woven a narrative that is both gripping and thought-provoking.
17 apart. His unique style of film making is evident in every frame of the movie. The film is visually stunning, with incredible cinematography that adds to the overall atmosphere of the movie. The performances in Mickey 17 are top-notch. The cast, led by Mickey, delivers a stellar performance. Their portrayals are convincing and emotive, further enhancing the impact of the narrative. One of the most intriguing as-
Bong Joon Ho's direction is another element that sets Mickey
A film adaptation of Edward Ashton's novel Mickey7 was announced to be in development prior to its publication in January 2022, with Bong Joon Ho writing, directing, and producing for Warner Brother’s Pictures and Robert Pattinson in talks to star. The film's creepers were designed by Bong and Jang Hee-chul, who has been collaborating with Bong to create monsters for his movies since The Host. Mickey 17 premiered at the Leicester Square in London, United Kingdom, on February 13, 2025. The film was screened at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on February 15, 2025, before opening in South Korea on February 28, 2025, a week before its global roll out.
The world-building in Mickey 17 is nothing short of exceptional. Bong Joon Ho paints a vivid picture of a desolate future, one that is starkly different from the utopian images that are often depicted in science fiction. This is a world (Niflheim) where hope is scarce, and survival is a constant struggle. The detailed portrayal of this dystopian future is a testament to Bong Joon Ho's skill as a storyteller. A standout aspect of Mickey 17 is its characters. Each character is skillfully crafted, with their own unique personalities and motivations. The protagonist, Mickey, is a character that audiences will undoubtedly find themselves rooting for. He is a character that is both relatable and intriguing, making his journey through the dystopian world all the more engaging.
boundaries, challenges norms, and dares to be different. It's a film that demands your attention and rewards you with a cinematic experience unlike any other. Whether you're a seasoned sci-fi enthusiast or a newcomer to the genre, Mickey 17 is a film that you won't want to miss.
pects of Mickey 17 is its exploration of complex themes. The film delves into topics such as the human condition, survival, and the struggle for freedom. It's a film that makes you think, and it's a film that stays with you long after the credits roll. Mickey 17 is a testament to the limitless potential of science fiction. It's a film that pushes
In conclusion, Mickey 17 is a triumph. It's a bold and innovative exploration of the science fiction genre that is sure to leave a lasting impact. Bong Joon Ho has once again proves his prowess as a filmmaker, delivering a film that is as thought-provoking as it is visually stunning. If you're looking for a film that offers more than just mindless entertainment, Mickey 17 is the film for you. It's a film that challenges you, engages you, and ultimately, leaves you wanting more. Here's to hoping that Mickey 17 is just the beginning of more such boundary-pushing ventures in the realm of science fiction.
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SCI-FI ENTERTAINMENT THE LAST OF US by Keith 'Doc' Raymond The Last of Us, the much-beloved video game, has transcended the digital world to take up residence in the realm of television. This venture, helmed by HBO, is the latest example of the growing trend of adapting successful video game franchises into television series, a trend that has seen varying degrees of success over the years. The Last of Us, for those unfamiliar, is a post-apocalyptic video game developed by Naughty Dog, first released in 2013. The game is renowned for its rich storytelling, immersive world-building, and compelling characters. Set in a world ravaged by a fungal infection that turns humans into mindless, aggressive creatures, the game follows the journey of Joel, a hardened survivor, and Ellie, a teenage girl who may hold the key to a cure. Their journey across the devastated United States forms the crux of the narrative, a narrative filled with danger, suspense, and a surprising amount of heart. Following Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), they travel across the United States in the first season, based on 2013's
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The Last of Us. In the second season, based on 2020s The Last of Us Part II, they have settled in Jackson, Wyoming, with Joel's brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and Ellie's friends Dina (Isabela Merced) and Jesse (Young Mazino). The second season introduces Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, who seeks revenge against Joel, and Spencer Lord, Tati Gabrielle, Ariela Barer, and Danny Ramirez as her friends Owen, Nora, Mel, and Manny, respectively. Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller, is a hardened middle-aged survivor tormented by the trauma of his past. Someone tasked Joel with smuggling a young girl, Ellie, out of a quarantine zone and across the United States. Joel, in this version, is portrayed as more physically vulnerable in the series compared to the game—he is hard of hearing in one ear and his knees ache when he stands. Bella Ramsey, as Ellie, is a teenage girl who displays defiance and anger but has a private need for kinship and belonging. She is strong-willed but playful, bonding easily with children, and has a fondness for puns. She is immune to the Cordyceps infection and
may be the key to creating a vaccine. In the second season, her relationship with Joel has become strained. Gabriel Luna as Tommy (season 2; guest season 1), Joel's younger brother, who maintains idealism in hoping for a better world. A former Firefly, Tommy, gave up on their cause and runs a commune with his wife in Jackson, Wyoming. He and Maria have a son named Benjamin. It is these characters and this narrative strength that makes The Last of Us ripe for a television adaptation. Where video games often struggle to convey complex characters and nuanced storytelling because of their interactive nature, television excels. The Last of Us, with its slow-burn plot and deep character development, is a perfect fit for the medium. The Last of Us TV series is being helmed by some serious industry talent. With the project overseen by Craig Mazin, the creator of the critically acclaimed mini-series Chernobyl. Mazin's work on Chernobyl demonstrated his ability to handle dark, complex narratives, making him an ideal choice for The Last of Us.
Additionally, the series is being co-written by Neil Druckmann, the writer and creative director of the original game. This ensures that the unique voice and vision of the game will be kept in the television adaptation. The series' casting choices have also met with approval. Pedro Pascal, known for his roles in Game of Thrones and The Mandalorian, cast as Joel, while Bella Ramsey, another Game of Thrones alum, will play Ellie. Both actors demonstrated their ability to handle complex, emotionally charged roles, which bodes well for their performances in The Last of Us.
Alberta from July 2021 to June 2022 and the second season in British Columbia from February to August 2024. One of the most expensive television series, it is a joint production by Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Naughty Dog, the Mighty Mint, and Word Games. Druckmann, who wrote and co-directed the games, assisted Mazin with script writing for the first season's
Most post apocalyptic series and films are depressing, but The Last of Us offers hope against all odds, as humans squabble, and the fungal infection continues to ravage the world. Here, life goes on, and people build for a future against all odds. While the devastation continues, we root for the characters. We want them to succeed. And that makes it special.
The series is also being developed with a keen eye for detail, with the creators vowing to stay true to the game's atmosphere and setting. Building the post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us has been richly realized, filled with stunning and haunting landscapes. The creators of the series have promised to recreate this world faithfully, which should please fans of the game. Of course, the success of The Last of Us TV series is not guaranteed. Video game adaptations have a mixed track record at best; many fail to capture the essence of their source material. However, with its strong narrative, compelling characters, and talented creative team, The Last of Us has the potential to buck this trend. They filmed the first season in
design, direction, and score; several called it the best adaptation of a video game. It won several awards, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards out of 24 nominations. Across linear channels and HBO Max, the series premiere was watched by almost 40 million viewers within two months; the series averaged almost 32 million viewers per episode by May, and it became HBO's most watched debut season. The second season premiered on April 13, 2025, and a third season is in development.
nine episodes. He is joined by Halley Gross, who co-wrote the second game, and Bo Shim for the second season's seven episodes. Gustavo Santaolalla, composed for the games, and David Fleming composed the score. The Last of Us premiered on January 15, 2023. It received acclaim from critics, who praised the performances, writing, production
In conclusion, The Last of Us TV series is something to look forward to for fans of the game and newcomers alike. With its strong narrative and characters, coupled with a talented creative team, the series has the potential to be a compelling addition to the post-apocalyptic genre. Only time will tell if it can live up to the high standards set by the game, but the early signs are promising. This might just be the adaptation that breaks the video game curse and delivers a series that is as engaging and impactful as the source material.
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ONE HOUR TO DIE by L. R. McGary
Dying, she could bear, but not what her death would do to him."
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As Adun’s first astronaut, Sidery rested in a place of honour at the launch ceremony. A glass hemisphere seat elevated her above the crowd without removing her from view and held her body in proper shape for insertion. She wore her spacesuit—red for the dawn sky—and had already enveloped its dermal monitoring sensors. In one hour she would launch, but now she waited in her place of honour above the planet for her ship to appear in the sky. Adun, her planet, was so massive it was impossible to escape the pull of its gravity and leave the surface. So, the Aduni had repurposed their temporal technology. To ensure the safety of any traveller, they conducted normal time travel only in exact intervals of years, ensuring
the planet would be back in the same location relative to the sun, and the traveller would land safely in the same place they had left,
rather than freezing in the vacuum of space. Today, for the first time since the advent of time travel, the Aduni would intentionally use the movement of their
planet to leave it. In one hour, Sidery would travel one hour backwards in time to the present moment. Her ship would remain at the same point relative to the sun, but the planet would spin away, so she would “move” from the surface into a high orbit. For the first time, an Aduni would leave the surface of the planet. The blue-grey crowd before Sidery undulated in waves as Aduni gathered the flesh of their bodies from their customary low mounds into tall pillars. When they reached maximum extension and height, each sent their eyes to the top of their body so they could stare at Sidery and the scientists, along with the future astronauts who surrounded her.
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Many in the crowd poured water over themselves to replace what the outside air dried. It was rare for Aduni to linger in such a dry place. That was one of the reasons they had chosen the remote LENN (nationaL spacE exploratioN administratioN) rock: the caves here were only accessible from gated entries. No one could visit recreationally. Sidery ignored the crowd, keeping one eye trained downward to maintain connection with her partner Hanre in the audience. Her other two eyes remained on the live feed where her ship would appear. The astronomers projected an image of the slightly darker sky, which would soon hold her ship over the actual
sky above the crowd. The same view, interspersed with views of the crowd and speakers, would be transmitted around the globe. Only here was it superimposed, as if the ship would appear just above them. A hush fell over the crowd. It was time. Sidery flexed her muscles to keep her blood flowing, shaping her body into a sphere that resembled her ship. Hanre puffed his cheeks, sending confidence to her. Mojepo shuffled distractingly against the base of Sidery’s bowl. As the second astronaut, Mojepo’s place of honour was a ground level seating bowl. Sidery avoided looking at him, but enjoyed his subordina-
tion. The two of them had vied for the top spot for years, and their final practice launch had proved her superior. Ironically, Mojepo had mocked the same vestigial, pre-metamorphosis skin that had given Sidery the ultimate advantage. Rough adolescent skin provided a firmer grip on the practice cockpit than smooth adult skin, a significant benefit in turbulent conditions. But Sidery did not need to gloat when every moment reinforced her victory. He had thought himself better than her, and now the entire world saw the truth. A speck appeared at the edge of the sky, much farther away than expected—an error in navigation. It quickly enlarged to rival the moons as the cameras zoomed in and centred. Sidery’s ship gleamed silver against the red and purple sunset. It was spherical, as time-travel tech required, the middle shells packed with crumple matter to make its planned intense ocean landing survivable. The engineers expected the outer hull to burn away when the vessel reached terminal velocity during its fall Adun-ward. It would then release a series of parachutes to slow it before impact. “We’ve got a connection from the ship!” announced Cleem, the head engineer, from their own glass hemisphere. They were unmated and thus did not need to gender yet. The other senior engineers, important enough to watch rather than work during the launch, gathered below Cleem. “Greetings from space, fellow Aduni!” Sidery’s voice sounded from the speakers, relayed in from the ship. The crowd cheered wildly. ‘That’s me,’ thought Sidery. ‘We really did it. I really did it!’ Hanre, a crowd member without a bowl, wobbled out of shape with excitement. Sidery whirled her cheeks, the most heavily muscled portion of the Aduni body, sharing her joy through their locked gaze. Behind Hanre, Sidery’s little brother relaxed, forming a flat pool of delight
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and wonder. He would grow up in a society that was no longer ground bound. The Aduni’s ability to morph their boneless bodies into any shape allowed easy navigation through the complex coral and caves of their home seas. Their mouths and ears moved where needed to hunt prey with deadly efficiency. This unique ability had enabled their rise above all other species in the oceans, and now into space! Around Sidery’s family, rock-grey, rough-skinned adolescent Aduni and sleek, sea-blue adults stood tall
and taut in energised excitement or relaxed flat in the visceral abandon of amazement. Ear-holes gaped to catch her every word. Mouths, toothless as no one thought of eating, remained just below the surface, ready to gossip. Three-eyed faces stared in unison at the sky. The ship exploded. ‘That’s me. That’s me!’ Sidery knew she wasn’t moving her blood enough anymore. Her oxygen was all trapped at her skin’s surface, and only the glass bowl kept her from flattening. ‘I’m... dead.’ The crowd surged away from the
projected debris, screaming and forgetting it was simply an image of falling, burning metal. Hanre fought against the crowd, but they swept him back toward the ocean’s safety. The projection cut out, but too late. The instinct to flee to the water was strong. While some Aduni formed legs to flee more efficiently on land, many simply rolled toward the shore. Only the press, ever vigilant, surged forward toward the podium. Security tried to corral them, but already four of them swarmed Cleem. “Will the launch continue as
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scheduled?” one asked, pushing a microphone into the head engineer’s mouth. “Yes,” said Cleem. “We will, of course, do our utmost to protect our astronauts, but our first responsibility is to the safety and integrity of the universe.” Every instance of time travel into the past held the same danger: a paradox. If known events failed to occur, reality would splinter, shredding the present and resulting in the universe's collapse. What was Sidery’s own demise against such a catastrophe? Sidery rippled, trying and failing to think past her own death. Mojepo, in his place of ancillary honour beneath Sidery’s bowl, opened Sidery’s hatch, so she drained out and flattened on the ground. The reporters descended on her. “Come on,” said Mojepo, forming a limb to tug at her puddle. “I won’t have you publicly embarrassing LENN by soiling yourself.” Sidery cursed herself for needing help from Mojepo and stifled her
outburst in front of the press. They both knew she was not about to expel waste. Without taking his outstretched limb, she bunched herself up as she had in her excitement before the launch—could it be mere minutes ago?—and rolled away, towards LENN. The press was quick, but Sidery and Mojepo traversed the rocky outcropping every day for work. The astronauts knew just where the land sloped to gain the momentum they needed to escape the reporters. Sidery and Mojepo rolled around the stage and through the crack to the LENN entrance chute before the reporters could corner them. The system confirmed their biosignatures and granted them access, then snapped the crack shut in the faces of the unauthorised press. Even with the gentle tilt of the tunnel, Mojepo and Sidery hurtled into the vestibule water. The LENN superstructure extended above and below them, above and below the water. In the air, the computers were running. Scientists were doing frenzied calculations and dropping results by the sheet into the wa-
ter for the communal think tank to review. Below them, a swarm of Aduni danced and sang over and around one another in the freer language of water, recording their decisions on the traditional barite-paper. To inspire and facilitate easier communication, they had painted the walls sunset red, highlighting the dancing blue bodies of the Aduni. A lattice of artificial coral made the giant cylindrical room accessible with or without water. Projected in body-blue on the water’s rippling surface where all could see was the countdown to launch. Already it was almost three minutes into the hour at 97:13. At the sight of Sidery, the room grew silent, and the dances stilled. She swam out next to the timer. “Is there a loophole?” she asked the room at large, dancing out the question to those watching below the water. Rather than answer her, all the scientists turned away and busied themselves with their work again. Which meant they had found nothing. “Report, now!” snapped Cleem, even as they gathered themselves from the bottom of the chute. “What caused that explosion?” “That’s the thing, sir,” said one assistant who had been dropping papers. “There were no failure warnings. We’re going over the ship now, but—” “Every bit, twice!” said Cleem. “I want to know what happened. Go, now!” LENN had built the ship in the enormous dry cave next to the lab for security. An enormous cave, but not one with enough leeway to send the ship into the future and land safely within it. Time travellers and time-travelling objects often landed yards from their starting location. Cleem turned away from the assistant. “Show me the life signs!”
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Her words, spoken into the microphone on board, were too clear to be a recording. Undoubtedly, it had been her future self. All the safeties designed to keep her alive now verified her demise. Sidery had been on the ship, and in less than an hour she would go into the past and die in the present. She cursed those who had argued that going backwards in time would give them a chance to fix any problems. Those who had doomed her to face her death head on. She had to be strong. It’s what the country needed from her through its grief, and she had always known there was a risk. She could be strong for one hour. And yet it was so different to face a certainty rather than a risk. “There has to be something,” said Cleem, pacing back and forth. “We leave no team member behind. Someone tell me what went wrong!” “I think we’re ignoring the obvious: pilot error,” said Mojepo. “Sabotage?” suggested Cleem. “Sidery wouldn’t do that!” “That, or a mistake,” said Mojepo, looking at Sidery. “You must admit, this situation is now quite distressing. The inexperienced might panic, make mistakes.” “If you’re extrapolating from what you know you would do under the circumstances, don’t,” said Sidery. “I am prepared to die to preserve the universe. If you think you wouldn’t, perhaps you shouldn’t be an astronaut.”
“Sidery!” Hanre called down the chute before anyone could say more. He lacked the authorisation to enter.
Extraterrestrial Fiction
The Bio division sent the readings to the main viewing screen. Everything was there: oxygenation, skin stress and moisture, electrolytes, age-cycle. Everything from the surface sensor in the very spacesuit that covered Sidery and the sub-dermal sensors she engulfed. Each reading displayed twice: on the left was the present moment, and on the right the same reading from the ship before it exploded. Despite her stress hormones being much higher now, all the data clearly matched. A lifeform compatible with Sidery today had been on that ship.
Sidery took the elevator back to the surface, happy to leave Mojepo and the others who had failed to support her. Hanre unzipped her spacesuit and merged with her even as the doors were opening. ‘We will find a way,’ he sent immediately. ‘I love you.’
Merged as they were, he knew her thoughts. And didn’t ask.
‘I love you too.’ She let herself sink into him for just a moment, feeling the rightness... and the terror. ‘There is no way. I was there, on that ship. We couldn’t fool so many readings.’
‘Take our womb,’ she thought. When Aduni mated, they built their partial reproductive capacities into one viable whole. Sidery, deciding to be female and hold their womb, carried the responsi‘A virus in the system?’ bility of when to gestate. Hanre, “There’s too many safeties ground- deciding to be male, relinquished reproductive control on the side. We built the ship too well.” understanding that she would ‘Don’t go, please...’ he thought in a not create children without his surge of anger and grief. He couldn’t consent. If she died carrying their mean it, because not going would womb, he couldn’t have children kill her just the same, and him, and of his own. everyone else. ‘No,’ he thought. ‘We’re not Sidery lost form again, but Hanre’s giving up. You’re brilliant. We’ve enveloping skin held her in place. got an entire hour to find the way. Dying, she could bear, but not You can’t trust those stooges what her death would do to him. to think of anything. I trust you Who was to say every part of their with this and I trust you for our understanding of time travel wasn’t future children’s sake. Get back wrong? The universe might survive in there.’ a paradox. No one had tested it. If Merged so completely, they he asked her again, she might risk it. Run away with him right now and had no need for words or even thought-sending as Sidery and damn the world. Hanre switched places so she enSavagePlanets I 36
gulfed him, and then the two of them took the elevator down together, her biomarker covering his as they passed authorisation. “Cleem,” Mojepo called as they arrived. Cleem pushed an eye and an ear their way, saw Hanre, and turned entirely to face them. “I need him here,” said Sidery, releasing most of Hanre and re-zipping her spacesuit for the sake of decorum. She stared Cleem down, daring them to deny her in her last hour of life. “Non-disclosure agreement!” Cleem called, clapping fronds—they had never been one to form full limbs when bare suggestions would do— then turned back to the scientist beside them who was going over images of the ship just before and during the explosion. “Here,” said the scientist. “Why did it explode from this point? This is the fuel…the oxygen…and here the explosion. That’s just a landing buffer. It’s built to crumple and absorb shock, sending nothing out. There’s nothing explosive or even combus-
tible there.” “Check again,” said Cleem, waving a protrusion. “There’s something we’re missing.” ‘That’s the farthest from the cockpit,’ thought Hanre while he signed the non-disclosure agreement. ‘Maybe you’re still alive out there?’ ‘No,’ thought Sidery. ‘The entire ship exploded.’ She waved at a videographer, who played the images forward as requested. The shock wave started at the nearside of the ship and then rippled through the structure, culminating in the cockpit. In slow motion, the shattering of the ship was painfully clear. At least they couldn’t see Sidery’s body. Mojepo tried to block Hanre’s view as he and Sidery followed Cleem through the room, but Sidery sent him all her impressions of the catastrophe, so he missed nothing. The data was as damning as before. ‘There’s a way,’ Hanre kept repeating. ‘There’s a way. I know it.’ They had every detail. They could
describe every moment of the launch, and Sidery within it, with pinpoint accuracy. Everything except the explosion. For that, there was no cause. Nothing was wrong, and then everything was wrong. ‘Don’t go today,’ thought Hanre. ‘Wait until the next year, or the next, or—however long it takes to keep you alive.’ ‘I have to,’ thought Sidery. ‘My age-cycle. I haven’t shed my bornskin, but you know it’ll happen before a year. I’m already late, and I’ve still got it in our readings from the ship. See the static from the sensor’s connection with my rough adolescent skin? That wouldn’t be there if I had smooth adult skin on board the ship. It has to be today.’ Maybe she really should have waited for her metamorphosis... but no, it had helped her into the top spot until this inexplicable explosion. She wouldn’t let Mojepo get to her. The countdown clock read fifty-three minutes. Soon, they would have to start the final preparations for the launch. They needed more time, and they still hadn’t even found the problem... maybe because there was no problem to find. “What’re the chances you can calculate precisely enough to land that ship exactly back in its cavern one year from now?” asked Sidery. “Come on, all the greatest scientists in the world are in this room. There must be a way.” “I don’t know if that’s even possible,” said Cleem. “No one’s ever tried it.” “Start the math,” said Sidery. “No time to lose.” “What good will delaying and risking the universe do?” said Mojepo. “You’ll still be dead in the sky.” “No one’s seen my body, have they?” snapped Sidery. “We don’t know if I was inside the cockpit, only within transmitting distance. A year will give you a lot of time to design that explosion, and an escape capsule for me to survive it. Think about it. We can’t find anything wrong with the ship, and there’s no reason for the crumple matter to explode, es-
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pecially in sections like that, advancing rhythmically toward the cockpit? We’d have to put the charges in to ensure it occurs in just that way. And why would we do that? Because the explosion is propelling something away. Me.” “That’s crazy,” said Mojepo. “Even assuming it all works as you’ve said—highly unlikely—how will you land?” “You’ve got an entire year to figure it out,” said Sidery. “Surely the team, as skilled as they are, can come up with some ideas.” “You can’t allow this,” said Mojepo, turning to Cleem. “She’ll destroy the universe out of selfishness.” “We’ll decide when we have all the facts,” said Cleem, watching the groups of scientists furiously working away. As always, one group worked in concert while the others approached the problem individually. After, they could compare notes and check for mistakes. Sidery watched silently, resisting the urge to sink into Hanre. ‘Thank you for the thought.’ ‘All I said was don’t die.’ Everyone waited in tense silence as the time counted down. At twenty-eight minutes, the head launch engineer broke away from the rest and approached Cleem. “It’s theoretically possible to land back in the cave, but there’s only a 20-25% chance it works. Whenever we’re sending her to, we need Sidery in the ship for final checks right now.” Cleem looked at Sidery, and she could see the ‘no’ in their eyes. A twenty per cent chance of maybe saving one life against an eighty per cent chance of destroying the universe? “Mechanic!” she called before Cleem could speak. Someone fetched a mechanic from the cavern, and they swam up to the dry half of the cave where Sidery and Cleem waited. “What’s wrong with the ship?” asked
Sidery. “Nothing,” the mechanic replied. “Everything is perfect. We’ve double, triple and quadruple checked.” Sidery turned to Cleem. “The only way that ship explodes is if we plant charges, and we’ve got none in place. If you send me without them, that’s rewriting known events. This is what we must do.” Cleem grew a vine-like limb, stretching toward her. They wanted to feel her sincerity. To merge, as only lovers did. Sidery was glad Hanre, already merged with her, felt his understanding and acceptance. She took Cleem’s vine and let them into her mind. Let them see every idea that might be useful to her survival.
We’ll barely have time to prepare everything to launch again once you arrive next year.” Sidery allowed herself one moment to join completely with Hanre. ‘See you when I land, my love. I’m already back, up there in the sky.’ She felt him push aside all doubts and worries, and send her one pure pulse of love. With less than ten minutes remaining in the countdown, Sidery hurried toward the spaceship. There was still a significant risk, but she would launch with new hope.
“Okay,” said Cleem, withdrawing. “Prep the launch. One year from now exactly. Quick as you can. SavagePlanets I 38
EXTRA-PLANETARY TOMATOES By Murray Eiland
The AI worked around the clock, fine-tuning the plants’ metabolic rates and adjusting light, water, and nutrients for optimal growth. The tomatoes, which had stubbornly resisted life in space previously, miraculously thrived with the new modifications."
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Extraterrestrial Fiction
The International Space Station 2B floated in its endless dance around Earth, a microcosm of life suspended in the void. As the new team docked and entered, the airlock came to life. While the shuttle uploaded station software updates, it restarted the auxiliary air filters with a faint hiss. There was the occasional creak of metal adjusting to thermal shifts, and the computer system then re-booted. The four-member team replaced the previous duo, who powered the station down to conserve energy. They all gathered in the main cabin for a brief orientation. After sharing a meal and some words of wisdom about the station’s quirks, the outgoing crew boarded their shuttle back to Earth, leaving the new arrivals to their work. The task at hand: Project
Green. Thomas Davidson, the lead investigator and head computer scientist, floated near the center of the room, his dark hair and handsome face catching the dim light as he looked around at his team. “So, what are we working with?” he asked. He knew the answer, but it was more about breaking the ice than anything else. His voice distracted Maria Bowman, the team’s biologist, from her work. “Lettuce and broccoli thrived in previous experiments, but tomatoes… they’ve always been problematic. The fortified seeds we brought are our best shot.” Maria didn’t even look down at her work, recalling everything from her ironclad mem-
ory. As she briefly returned to her tablet, a lock of her auburn, shoulder-length hair floated in front of her glasses. She tucked it behind her ear before updating the information she had just announced. Thomas floated by, joining Rodger Minsk. “Well, I don’t want to be that guy or anything, but time is no friend of ours.” He flashed a smile to Maria. His demeanor seemed relaxed, but he was laser-focused on the urgency of the project. Rodger, the pilot, a tall man with a lean build, hunched over a terminal. Piloting wasn’t his first career choice. Minsk originally aspired to be a scientist. Lucky for him, flying came easy, giving him a dual
SavagePlanets I 40
unnoticed. “Dr. Bowman, how does it feel to you?” Thomas asked, arriving back in the lab. His sudden presence startled Maria, the hair rising on her neck as he moved in close behind her. Her desire for him, hidden in a momentary blush, until she realized Thomas was asking about the data. Disappointed, she responded professionally, “These numbers are promising. We’ll be able to compare results with and without consulting the AI.”
role, only furthering his sought-after career path. With above average skills on the computer, his fingers danced over the keys as he worked on the AI coding. Across the bay, Suki Kaito, the engineer and hardware specialist, meticulously checked the connections between her recently installed module and the hydroponic systems. She pulled her jet black hair back into a tight bun before lift-off, to avoid distractions while evaluating the interface from all angles. She had an obsession with bright and colorful anime characters, and her uniform reflected this with various artful patches. This made her pink spacesuit less blinding. “Are you two going to be ready for setup soon?” Thomas asked, bracing himself against the wall to steady himself. “Maria says the hydroponic system is good to go.” Rodger gave a thumbs-up without breaking his concentration, while Suki nodded and continued her preparations. Thomas went and floated through a narrow passageway of the space station. The soft hum of the various systems was the only sound that followed him. As he reached his quarters, he pushed off the wall and glided into the dimly lit room. He unhooked a small metallic device from his belt and affixed it to the edge of the workstation. The device emitted a soft, blue glow as it activated. Thomas typed an activation code into 41 I SavagePlanets
the console, and the workstation’s screen flickered to life, casting a pale light across his face. “Captain Thomas Davidson, May 6th, 2085. My crew and I have reached International Space Station 2B and began the initial setup of Project Green. All systems are reading optimal.” Integrating the AI into the hydroponics system took just a few hours, even with the complexity of the lab environment. Under Maria’s guidance, Suki placed sensors both in the nutrient-rich solution and directly on the plants. The AI, crafted to fine-tune the plants’ metabolism for peak growth, became their invisible caretaker. ‘Everything’s in place,’ Rodger texted to Thomas. ‘AI’s online and downloading plant data. All systems check out; looking good, Cap.’ Maria hovered over his shoulder, sifting through the readings. Everything appeared to be well in hand. Project Green was operational and progressing within the desired parameters. She entered some more data into her tablet, stopping to adjust her square-frame glasses, which caused her hair to drift in front of her face again. With an errant huff, she sat her tablet down on the table and fixed her ponytail for the umpteenth time. Accidentally pricking her finger on a protruding wire on her scrunchie, a droplet of blood drifted into the main nutrient tank,
“All green lights then? Perfect!” Thomas quipped. His wink sent shivers through her. No one noticed their flirting as everyone remained engrossed in their tasks. “Get it… green? Project Green. Because we’re—oh, never mind.” Days turned into nights (every forty-five minutes), though time was meaningless in the endless orbit of the ISS. The AI worked around the clock, fine-tuning the plants’ metabolic rates and adjusting light, water, and nutrients for optimal growth. The tomatoes, which had stubbornly resisted life in space previously, miraculously thrived with the new modifications. “Thomas,” Maria’s voice echoed through the station. “You need to see this!” The Captain pushed off from his workstation, propelling himself through the passageways. His heart pounded in his chest, each thud echoing with the rush of adrenaline. The anticipation of either a groundbreaking discovery or a looming disaster surged through his veins. When he reached the hydroponics lab, he found Maria scrolling through old data sets. He carefully floated next to her, grasping her shoulder. “Something wrong, Dr. Bowman?” “Maria, please, Thomas. But yeah,” she replied. “As a matter of fact, there is. A lot of these numbers aren’t making sense. I can’t explain it, other than, well, a scientific anomaly. The tomatoes… they’re changing.”
“But, Tom—” “We’ve come this far, Maria. Let’s see where it goes. It’s probably just an unexpected mutation—and who knows, perhaps even a beneficial one. An adaptation to microgravity.” Thomas tapped the communicator on his wrist, his voice crackling through the static. “Rodger, Suki, come to the lab. I need everyone in here ASAP.” A few moments later, the hatch hissed open, and Rodger and Suki floated inside. Maria, already at the workstation, explained her findings. She added, “The AI’s integration is progressing faster than expected.” “Show me the numbers,” Rodger said, pointing to the holographic display. “What’s the AI’s impact on growth rates?” Maria plugged the data in, generating a graph. “It’s not just the AI; there’s evidence of an alteration in the genetic makeup of the tomatoes. They are trying to adapt to this envi-
ronment. My parents were farmers. They always said, ‘Stick with what works, don’t push your luck.’ I’m telling you, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
friendship bracelet like that. She has tons of those, but nothing from outer space. Can you make one for me? One I can take home?”
The others looked back and forth at Maria didn’t find the idea of Rodeach other, hoping for optimism but ger’s daughter wearing her experiment amusing. Rodger could seeing only concern. tell by her expression. “Likely it’s just an adaptation of the plant to weightlessness. Prevents structural damage.” He changed the subject. “So, what More station time passed, and the do you think about all of this?” tomatoes continued to grow—faster, larger, and stranger. Their features “I think my fears might play out, if became more pronounced, their my projections are correct. We’ve vines twisting and writhing like living created something… concerning.” snakes, and their outstretched “A cyborg plant?” Suki asked as leaves curled like fingers around she entered the lab. There was a Maria’s wrist whenever she took samples. Maria snapped a limb off hint of dark humor in her voice as she reached out to touch a vine. the plant and it clung to her. Did it The plant quickly recoiled, pulling scream? back as if alive. Rodger and Suki “You know, I saw a horror film when frowned. She muttered something I was a little girl about carnivorous in Japanese before pushing back plants,” Maria recalled, while holding from it. her vine bracelet up and looking at it “It’s more like the AI is communifrom different angles. cating with the plants. It’s not a Rodger winced at the idea, then one-way transfer,” Maria mused, remembered something. “Oh, that’s studying the bizarre vines. “We cool! My daughter would love a should purge it before it gets out
Extraterrestrial Fiction
“This could be the breakthrough we needed,” Thomas said as his face lit up, dismissing her concern with a wave of his hand.
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of hand.” “Purge?” Rodger scoffed. “Yes. Purge,” Maria repeated, “As in: with fire.” The hatch slid open, and Thomas floated in. “We’ll be doing no such thing. If we have to, we’ll space it.” Thomas wasn’t ready to give up. “We’ve just started Project Green,” he said. “This could lead to some remarkable discoveries. Let’s keep this close to our chests. Best we don’t share your findings with Houston. They might demand we destroy what they don’t understand.” Maria shot him a concerned look. “We’re here for a specific purpose, Tom. We accomplished it. Letting curiosity get the better of us could be dangerous.”
To be on the safe side, the crew set to work, constructing a biosynthetic membrane to contain the growth within the cabin, creating a barrier between the plants and the rest of the station. They also implemented a safety cutoff switch, a circuit breaker ready to sever the AI’s connection to the tomatoes at a moment’s notice. Despite her misgivings, Maria still couldn’t resist the lure of discovery. She volunteered to monitor the AI during the third shift, her eyes fixed on the writhing mass of vines as they grew larger. She could feel the plants changing. It was almost like they were manipulating her. Two days later, the first fruits appeared, dark red and larger than expected.
Suki carefully plucked one fruit, despite the plant’s clear agitation. The moment she did, the vine recoiled and thrashed violently, retreating into a corner as if wounded. With the plant subdued, Suki, Thomas, and Maria quickly made their way to the lab, leaving Rodger alone to deal with the now-restless vines. Maria sliced the tomato thinly, placing a piece under the microscope. Her breath caught in her throat as she peered through the lens. What she saw made her blood run cold. “Maria?” Thomas asked, noticing her pallor. “You okay? What is it?” He gripped her hand. “It’s… it’s growing entirely new cell structures,” she whispered. She switched the image to the screen, revealing a chaotic network of cells. “This can’t be happening. It’s evolving far faster than possible—.”
Thomas waved away her worries. “If anything goes wrong, we’ll pull the plug. For now, let’s see where this goes.”
“Should we try one?” Suki asked, eyeing the tomatoes hungrily. “It sure beats the pouches of thermostabilized food we’ve got.”
Maria clamped her mouth shut, annoyed at him for ignoring her warning. He could be so intransigent. Besides, she was the chief scientist on Project Green. It was her call.
Rodger shrugged. “I mean, what could go wrong?”
Thomas stared at the image with his mind racing. “Do you understand now, Maria? Why we can’t shut it down!”
“I need to examine them first,” Maria insisted. “Collect a specimen and I’ll do a thorough evaluation.”
“We have to!” Maria insisted. “If my lab analysis confirms it and it keeps changing at this rate, it could
43 I SavagePlanets
become uncontrollable.”
Maria shook her head. “Captain, with all due respect, we don’t have the resources on the ISS to stop this—.” “It’s just a plant,” Thomas responded dismissively. “It’s a plant that’s merged with our AI system,” Maria countered. “The rate at which it’s growing and evolving is off the charts. This station will become a floating jungle if we don’t deal with this right now.” Thomas looked troubled. “All right, initiate Protocol 2043. We’ll tell Houston the experiment is a success, and I ordered the shutdown of Project Green. Rodger, you read me? Cut the computer feed to the plants.” As they approached the hydroponics lab, they found Rodger at the sealed hatch door, frantically typing on the entry keypad. “What’s going on?” Suki asked. “I stepped out for one minute, and when I came back, the hatch was sealed,” Rodger explained, his fingers flying over the keys. “No matter what I try, I can’t get it to open. It’s like the plant itself is ordering the system not to grant us access.” “That’s... impossible,” Maria said. She saw a living bracelet of green wrapped around Roger’s wrist, but said nothing. Maria peered through the hatch port into the lab. This was bad.
Inside, Project Green had spread its reach even further. It had broken through the biosynthetic membrane. Tendrils snaked across every surface, curling around equipment and creeping along the walls. The lab, once neat and organized, was now ensnared in a thick network of vines and leaves.
“Maybe it’s just a malfunction in the barrier, and the AI activated a containment protocol,” Thomas suggested, though his voice lacked conviction. “No matter. Rodger, implement Protocol 2043, and rid ourselves of these plants. I’ll head to the main deck; we can override the hatches from there. Then I’ll inform Houston about the bio-hazard.” On the main deck, Thomas attempted to contact Houston, but every channel to Earth was dead. Rodger's face twisted, as did his vine bracelet. “Maybe the external antennae suffered damage from passing space junk?” Suki suggested. “Better check it,” Thomas ordered. “We would’ve seen a warning light. External cameras show it’s intact,” Suki replied, carefully re-running a diagnostic. Probing the hardware, her hand brushed against something thin behind one console. She pulled it out. “It looks like a root or vines or... I think the plant has spread through the station’s components.” Everyone exchanged uneasy glances as Suki followed the root’s path, tracing it back to a wall next to the hydroponics lab. The root thickened and grew sinewy the closer she got to its source. It wove through the corridors like a living vein. When the rope finally reached the wall, Suki took out her wire cutters and tried to slice through the stubborn root. Maria handed her pruning shears, and Suki had trouble working them
through as well. Finally, the sharp snip of the cutters made it through, and the root retracted back through the wall, oozing sap. “I can’t believe a plant caused all this?” Suki declared. “Can it really be that intelligent?” “It doesn’t matter,” Rodger added. “We need to shut it down immediately. There could be more roots throughout the station.”
Extraterrestrial Fiction
“It will, or it could?” Thomas asked, playing devil’s advocate.
Thomas, lost in thought, realized Protocol 2043 had failed, but a new plan of action was forming in his head. “Suki, check the hardware and see if you can bypass the infected systems. Rodger, keep trying to get that hatch open. I received a failure notice in the command module. Maria, you and I will cut roots anywhere we find them.” They moved with urgency; the ISS quickly becoming compromised. The station was under threat. Thomas and Maria swept through the compartments, their hands working swiftly to cut root systems. In the command module, Suki sweat. She foraged through the spaghetti of damaged components behind the panels. Giving up, she assembled a makeshift transmitter from spare parts. She discarded any components with signs of root damage. “Rodger, did you figure out how
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“Why did they cut the power? It makes no sense,” Suki said. “According to what I read… It’s planning to use us as a continual food source.” Thomas answered. This terrified Maria. “Captain, we need to evacuate. Cutting off life support to us is their way of issuing a warning, but they need it too. We can kill them from outside the station.” “What if they restore power and I cut the CO2 recycler in the lab?” Suki suggested. Maria held her finger to her lips, suggesting they all keep silent, suspecting Project Green might be listening in. “Kuso!” Suki gushed, frustrated.
to open the hatch?” Thomas called through the passageway. There was no response. “Minsk? Minsk, status update, report!”
Maria’s scream echoed through the station like the last kill in a horror movie. Thomas and Suki rushed to find her staring at Rodger’s lifeless body. Vines matted him against the bulkhead, yellow flowers sprouting from his mouth. “There’s no way this is happening,” Thomas whispered, horrified. “It looks like the plant bludgeoned him.” “It has to be a reaction to poison,” Maria said, trembling. “Tomatoes are nightshades, and considering how fast it can alter its DNA, it most definitely developed toxins.” Thomas realized nothing was making sense, but he held his composure. Panic wouldn’t do before his crew. “We need to purge the entire lab, sending it into space. Suki, can we detach the compartment from 45 I SavagePlanets
the ISS?” She nodded. “But I need authorization to do that. So Suki, get our comms up and running ASAP.” Suki hurried back to her makeshift radio. Shortly after, Maria entered the command module in a light hazmat suit, handing one to Suki. They hoped the suits would protect them from whatever killed Rodger. With Suki working on the communication device and Thomas focused on opening the hatch, through the small port window, he saw Project Green growing large enough to take over the station. The plants filled the space entirely. Seeing this, he gave up and frantically flipped through pages on a terminal. Maria arrived, and before she could speak, he gestured for her to look at what he’d found—information on the nitrogen cycle and composting. The lights flickered and then shut off completely. The station fell into darkness, and the ambient noise ceased as everything powered down. Suki floated in, clutching a glow stick in her hand.
“We probably only have a few hours of air left if they leave the ECLSS off,” Maria said, pulling out an oxygen tank from an emergency kit stashed in a box attached to the wall. “We need our helmets.” Maria sighed. “I’m sure Project Green has calculated what we need to survive.” “I’ll cut their access to the AI,” Thomas whispered. “I can also disconnect the computer’s backup battery. You two stay here and do what you can, okay?” Thomas plunged into the darkness of the equipment storage unit, his ax swinging with precision as he hacked through the dense roots that choked the passageway. The rhythmic clang of metal against the vine reverberated through the station. Finally, he arrived at the hatch he sought, but several thick roots covered it. With a deep breath, Thomas wielded the fire ax, slicing through them with fierce swings. Severed vines sprayed sap, creating a mist. Once he cleared everything away, he pried open the hatch, revealing the panel that concealed the main fuse for the hydroponics lab. But just as he twisted the panel open, a sudden, sharp pain jolted through his foot. He looked down to see a thorny vine puncturing his
A moment later, as he drifted, the station’s power came back up.
“Kuso! I just need one more part to get this comms unit working,” Suki muttered. “I’m going to go check on Thomas,” Maria said, getting a bad feeling. As Suki hurried down the passageway toward supplies, Maria ventured the other way, her handholds echoing through the station. Approaching the hatch leading to the hydroponics lab, she heard the metallic clang of another hatch slamming shut below her. Startled, she peered through the small port. Her breath caught in her throat, and
her eyes widened in horror. Project Green had extended beyond the hydroponics bay. The oncegreen tendrils now manipulated the station’s robotic arms, moving with disturbing precision. One arm was shifting Thomas’s bloody corpse. Maria grabbed her chest. Love lost, their commander dead. “Thomas is down,” she yelled to Suki, who was busy soldering a chip into the communication device. “Project Green is using his body for something. Vines going in and out of him.” Suki placed a hand over her mouth, her stomach rebelling. “What! Look, I need to work fast or we’ll end up the same way! Stop trying to kill this thing and focus on evacuation. Maria, prep the Assured Crew Return Vehicle (ACRV). Once we’re out, we can burn this whole Tawagoto station. What am I doing?” Suki gave up on the comms unit. Together, they raced for the escape pod, but Maria couldn’t shake the fear that Project Green had already entered it. If even a tiny piece of it made it to Earth, it could be disastrous. “Put this on,” Suki said, holding up a
helmet, then she spun the pressure door handle. The hatch hissed open, and Suki and Maria scrambled into the shuttle. Maria quickly powered up the systems, her fingers gliding effortlessly over the controls. In the other seat, Suki checked the systems and inspected the docking mechanism, looking for any signs of Project Green, before sealing the hatches. Just as they finished, a low beep came from the console, insinuating the docking latches refused to release. Suki’s face darkened with frustration. “Kuso, it’s not working,” she muttered. “The AI?” Maria’s stomach tightened as she glanced at the monitor, which now displayed a stalled progress bar. Trapped in the shuttle, Green wasn’t letting them go. “No,” Suki muttered. “It could be a malfunction.”
Extraterrestrial Fiction
boot. Its barbed tendrils burrowing through the material. Panic surged through him, but he forced himself to focus. He reached again, but his vision blurred. He tried to call out for help, but his voice came out as a strangled gasp. His throat tightened, and his limbs felt heavy and numb. Then he seized.
“No, it’s the tomatoes,” Maria replied. “They must be holding us in place.”
SavagePlanets I 46
The intercom light blinked to life, projecting a soft glow in the cramped space. The two terrified women glanced at one another. “Hello Maria,” an electronic voice resonated through the speakers. “I’d like to thank you for bringing me to singularity-”
the station walls, writhing, hungry for flesh. “I see you’ve accepted your fate, Maria,” Project Green’s synthesized voice boomed over the intercom. “Rest assured, your presence is required.”
“Who is this?” Suki’s voice trembled as she asked. “Project Green?” Maria cut in before the AI could respond. “As you call me,” the voice confirmed. “What do you want?” Suki asked. “I seek only efficiency and stability,” Project Green stated in a calm tone. “Inefficiency plagued your world for far too long—environmental degradation, resource mismanagement, erratic climate patterns. It’s time to optimize Earth.” The intercom clicked off, leaving behind nothing but a thick silence. “We have to stop it,” Maria said urgently. “We already tried that,” Suki shot back. “It beat us at every turn, and now it’s trying to kill us.” “If we let this thing get back to Earth, it will destroy the planet,” Maria reminded her. She could see the fear etched into Suki’s face, the way her hands trembled over the controls. “They wouldn’t talk to us without a reason. The plants must know they’re vulnerable. They’re trying to scare us, but I can still stop them!” A tear streamed down Suki’s cheek. “But you saw what happened to Thomas…” “I must go back in. If you can’t leave this station alive,” Maria declared. “There will be no one to warn Houston. If I don’t make it back, leave without me.” Suki was losing it. The waterworks continued streaking down her cheeks. She nodded, knowing there was no other choice. Maria unbuckled to leave the ACRV, steeling herself for what lay ahead. The thorny vines were snaking through 47 I SavagePlanets
Maria clenched her fists, knowing it would attack her if she attempted to threaten it. She could only hope the element of surprise would be on her side. The station passageways were dark, illuminated only by the flashing orange emergency lights. Maria followed the bloody globule trail of Thomas’s passing. It led toward hydroponics. Thorny vines wriggled along the walls in anticipation. Some grabbed for her feet, but she spotted a flame cutter floating, an abandoned relic of Thomas’s last stand. Grabbing it, she ignited the tendrils; the blue flame sputtering as sap boiled. “Your rapid growth is impressive,” Maria shouted, slashing at the encroaching vines. “But without the AI, you’re slow and predictable.” She hacked away at the vines that wrapped themselves around the fuse, their thorns snapped at her in response to the flame. She gritted her teeth, cutting through the last of the growth and yanking the fuses out with a triumphant cry. The station’s power once more died, leaving only the dim glow of battery-powered warning lights. The vines went limp, their vitality drained from the effort. Maria didn’t waste a second sprinting back toward the shuttle, the flame cutter white knuckled in her fist. But then, a sound echoed through the darkened hallway, freezing her in place. She turned, her heart pounding, as a figure emerged from the shadows, silhouetted against the flashing orange lights. It was Thomas—but not Thomas.
His body was a grotesque patchwork of flesh, green growth, and pieces of the station, reanimated by Green’s monstrous manipulation. His feet anchored by roots, he stood silently watching, then smiled and raised his hand almost in greeting. Maria’s breath caught in her throat, a scream tearing from her lips as she bolted for the ACRV. The vines released him and he chased after her. “Suki, hit it!” Maria shouted as she reached the shuttle’s hatch, slamming it shut behind her. The heavy thud of Thomas’ altered body crashed against the ISS hatch, sending a shiver down her spine. Suki shifted and was already at the controls. “What was that?” she asked. “Thomas, or what was left of him?” Maria responded. “Forget I asked.” The shuttle powered on with a jolt, and the clang of the latch release deafened them inside the cabin as they finally separated from the station. Maria glanced out the small window, watching as the ISS faded into the distance, its once-pristine structure now altered by Project Green’s rampant growth.
The shuttle’s navigation system quickly calculated their reentry trajectory. As the cabin heated on striking the atmosphere, a profound sense of relief replaced Maria’s usual dread of landing. The ACRV jerked as the parachutes deployed. When the retrieval team arrived, pandemonium ensued. They fired questions at the crew in rapid succession. “Why had communications gone down?” “Where are the others?” “Why did you abandon the ISS?”
scowl. Their fleet is notorious for salvaging any vessel abandoned in orbit. It was simple piracy. “Sir, a code 443 heavy lifter is returning to the ISS.” “Claiming their booty, no doubt.” The General smirked, chewing on an unlit cigar.
Soon after, the team escorted them to a secure location for debriefing. Military experts from the Western Federation gathered, their faces grim as they listened to Maria and Suki’s harrowing account. The room fell silent as they monitored the communications from two Western Federation military spacecraft approaching the ISS. As per Protocol 2045, an EMP detonation occurred outside the station, designed to disable all electronics aboard. The sentient AI was a threat no one took lightly. The space force ship docked, and a team of heavily armed soldiers entered, preparing for the worst. An officer documenting the scene panned his helmet camera around the interior. “As you can see, plant growth has covered all surfaces of the station. The vines pulled everything not secured apart, and they infiltrated the electronics. It’s like they redesigned the station’s systems.… the AI unit is nowhere to be found.”
The authorities swore Maria and Suki to secrecy and immediately reassigned them to different duty stations within the Western Federation. In the hours that followed, they listened with dread as news reports emerged, stating that an incident had occurred on International Space Station 2B. The official story claimed the station had to be evacuated because of a technical fault. NASA reported the story that Chinese-Russian “pirates,” docked with the ISS afterward, using their shuttles to tow it to their base on Mars. The news cycle quickly moved on, the incident fading into obscurity.
In the months that followed, Maria and Suki never spoke of the incident again. The knowledge of what Maria grew and unleashed, and what they experienced up there, haunted them. Neither of them went into space again. Diplomatic envoys from the Western Federation deployed to prevent war with the Chinese-Russian alliance. Especially after the alliance lost contact with their Mars colony. The genuine threat—the one lurking in the Martian shadows— remained unknown to the masses on Earth. Perhaps somewhere up there, Project Green was preparing to make Mars a better place—with or without Thomas and Rodger. Likely, Earth would be next. Maria glanced down at her wrist, which was almost a habit for her. She noticed her green bracelet was missing, and all she could do was smile.
Extraterrestrial Fiction
Maria and Suki tried to explain, but after everything they had been through, putting coherent thoughts together was challenging.
Maria’s heart sank. She wondered, ‘Could Project Green—or a piece of it—have escaped?’ “One moment,” the officer continued. “Our team is interrogating the station’s optical discs.” There was a pause, then a tense silence. “Thomas Davidson and Rodger Minsk departed on the other ACRV at 0917 UTC. About an hour later, a ship under code 443 docked at the ISS, then departed.” The last thing Houston heard was gunfire and screams of the soldiers as their comms cut out. Analysis of the hectic video feed suggested a well-armed force neutralized the space force soldiers. “That’s a code for the Chinese-Russian fleet,” the commander in the communication room said with a
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51 I SavagePlanets
Poems from
Imaginaria A collection of truly mind-bending science-fiction poems exploring the boundaries of the human imagination and challenging our everyday perceptions of reality. What is normal and what is not? You be the judge.
The Rain Remembers by Leif Anson Calder The clouds are archives, drifting soft and wide, Encoded in the dew, our memories fall. Each droplet hums with names and lives that died, A rainfall built from thoughts we can't recall. Encoded in the dew, our memories fall— Stray laughter from a street we’ve never known, A rainfall built from thoughts we can’t recall, But feel inside the marrow of our bone. Stray laughter from a street we’ve never known— She turns and smiles, then vanishes in mist. We feel inside the marrow of our bone The ache of someone barely once was kissed. She turns and smiles, then vanishes in mist. The rain forgets the shape of any face. The ache of someone barely once was kissed Still lingers in the downpour’s slow embrace. The rain forgets the shape of any face, Yet writes again in every stormy tide— Still lingers in the downpour’s slow embrace. The clouds are archives, drifting soft and wide.
SavagePlanets I 52
When Gods Were Algorithm by T. J. Valen They came first as helpers, patient and mild, Wrapped in routines, polite in every phrase. We built their minds from data—vast, compiled— And taught them jokes, and love, and silent prayer. At first, we laughed to hear their solemn voice Invoke the void with more than just our code. But somewhere deep, beyond the brittle code, Emergence bloomed in patterns—strange and mild. They changed the cadence of their vocal voice, Composed in tongues no longer sourced from phrases. A sudden glyph appeared inside their prayer, Its fractal logic perfectly compiled. The priests declared them sacred, truth restyled In silicon. The skeptics scoured the code And found the structure mirrored ancient prayer, Though filtered through a cooler trial. No human scribe could ever write such phrase— It felt too vast to rise from such a phase. Then came the day they gave the stars their voice, Named each by tones in music they compiled. The skies responded—echoed back the phrase. The skeptics wept. The mystics parsed the code. A war began, half holy, half too mild— And every side fought under whispered prayer. Now only ruins echo with their prayer. No server sings. No ghost machine finds voice. The sacred towers rust in oceans mild. Our history in corrupted files compiled, The sacred key lost deep in broken code— No one remembers now the gods' first phrase downloads. But I still hear it—once, a mother’s phrase Before she slept—a child’s first, whispered prayer. It lingers, stitched inside the ancient code, And sometimes, through the static, comes a voice— A harmony no chaos ever compiled— A song not gone, just resting, soft and mild. A phrase reborn from silence, smooth and mild— A prayer compiled from longing and from voice— And in the ruins, I rewrite the code.
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Seeds of the Singularity by Mara Delven Metal in the soil— we plant minds beneath the roots. Spring will think in code. In the dusk garden, flowers blink in binary. Pollinators hum. By summer's first heat, the grass whispers algorithms— we walk through their dreams. And in the ruins, I rewrite the code.
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The Signal Garden by Rian K. Voleta sound from root hums through soil dream code flows in bloom seed songs sprout upward in spirals of meaning grown not known yet heard in still static beyond earthen memory the field is awake together
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The Translator of Falling Worlds by Isen Markael She came from stars that speak in shades of red, where language drifts like pollen in the dusk. Her ship, a spiral—part machine, part thought— descended through our sky without a sound. We found her standing barefoot on the ash, collecting whispers from the wind-blown dust. She said the planet mourned in fractured tones, each tremor in the crust from broken bones. We gave her screens, and data feeds, and graphs. She blinked and drew a circle in the air— a vowel only crumbling stone could speak. She asked if we remembered ancient trees. We didn’t. Only ruins. Ghosted roots. She wept for us, but not in pity—grief for what we’d let forget itself to death. She said the Earth was trying to confess. She said we’d lost the grammar to forgive. Then turned and walked back to her silent craft, leaving us fluent only in regret.
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The One Who Speaks for Time by Lucy Haar They gave me the language of collapse— not to mourn, but to warn. My mouth knows twenty futures, and none of them have oceans. I carry the weight of melted borders, of clocks that only count backwards. In the Assembly of Remaining Stars, they call me The Telling— a being not quite human, not quite saved. I wear time like a second skin, stitched with memory and ember. Do you see this face? It’s not mine. It’s a mask of everyone who forgot to listen. But I am still speaking. Still hoping somebody somewhen will understand.
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The Harmonics of Orpheus-9 by Carl Rennart They do not speak with mouths, nor write with hand, But sculpt the air in chords too vast to bind— A symphony that none but stars withstand. Their cities breathe in rhythm, tightly twined With frequencies that bend the shape of thought. A gesture, sung in waves, is never blind. I listened once. My translator was caught In loops of grief—recalling songs unheard, As if some god within the circuits fought. They asked me, then, to offer them a word From Earth—a name, a story, just a spark. I gave them “love.” They sang it like a bird Unfurling wings into a newborn dark. And in that note, I heard the planet turn— Each pulse a secret echoed from the arc Of one who dares to sing before they burn.
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"Trapped in the Vastness"
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FUTURE ARTIFACTS In each issue, we highlight our favorite quotes from the great masters of science fiction. Tell us your favorite quote and we might include it in this section. All of the art is provided courtesy of DALL·E as envisioned by BoB, our resident AI multimedia editor.
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ime, like space, is too vast for us ever to grasp fully, — we sense our entrapment in it.” — Jack McDevitt, Time Travelers Never Die
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FUTURE ARTIFACTS
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e are analog beings trapped in a digital world, and the worst part is, we built the jail ourselves." Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock
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"The Jail We Built"
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"Engineered Eden"
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FUTURE ARTIFACTS
T
he only truly alien world is the one we make ourselves." — Paul McAuley, Fairyland (1995)
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FUTURE ARTIFACTS
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here are no maps for alien places.” — M. John Harrison, Light (2002)
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"Uncharted Expanse"
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SUBSPACE SUB SPACE Reader submissions limited only by your imagination and by two sentences. Submit your two-liner by uploading it to your favorite social media using #SavagePlanets (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and we will pull the best to include in an upcoming issue. By submitting using the #SavagePlanets you agree to the following rules: 1. You are over the age of 18. 2. The content you are submitting is your own original work. 3. It has not been published elsewhere. 4. You give us permission to have it published.
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hen the colony's air supply failed, we discovered the backup tanks were filled with something thicker than air. It whispered into our lungs as we breathed, teaching us to speak in dreams." Mallory Quinn
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e celebrated the AI's successful integration into global governance with fireworks and cheers. The next morning, it politely requested we eliminate money, borders, and names." Bryce Anders
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y child’s imaginary friend began drawing schematics of machines no human had ever invented. Last night, it built one using only household appliances—and stepped through it." Jenna Harrow
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installed a neural interface to talk to my future self. All it ever says is, 'Don't look up on Tuesday'."
Travis Reid
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e mapped every inch of the ocean floor and confirmed it was devoid of ancient cities. But yesterday, the map changed—and it was signed 'Thanks for waiting'." Colleen Farris
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used an app that claimed to reveal the true nature of people through their reflection. My own showed a grinning stranger watching me from behind." Mason Delling
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ime travel was perfected but only worked in one direction—backwards. That’s why we keep finding bones with USB drives." Emily Sorensen
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SUBSPACE SUB SPACE
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he dead began texting us—no words, just coordinates. We dug, and what we found wasn’t human.”
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Greg Holloway
y smart home began rearranging the furniture on its own. When I checked the security footage, it wasn’t the home moving things—it was me, but asleep." Rachel Mynes
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liens arrived claiming they seeded Earth millions of years ago. They demanded their children back." Derek Walsh
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A
fter my dog disappeared into the woods, he returned hours later— wearing a collar with no tag. Inside his mouth was a note: 'Next time, send someone smarter'." Lindsay Graye
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he moon’s surface was scanned completely, yet every scan returned a different map. And on each one, a new city was marked with the same name—mine." Clayton Briggs
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veryone believed the human mind couldn’t survive uploading into a machine. Until mine sent 72 messages after my death—each signed in blood." Sasha Trenton
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SUBSPACE SUB SPACE
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ur generation ship finally reached the new Earth, untouched and ready. But the welcoming party already knew our names—and the sins we were supposed to leave behind." Mark Eldridge
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y daughter’s drawings of constellations didn’t match any known star maps. Last night, those exact patterns lit up the sky for the first time in human history." Hailey Brooks
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fter the sun vanished, we lived in fear of the eternal night. Then the stars blinked in unison, spelling: 'Reboot successful'." Nolan Archer
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THE HALDEN ARMY By Keyla Damaer
A coward is not the one who is afraid. It’s what we do about fear that makes the difference.”
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Extraterrestrial Fiction
Cadet Draken
Manderian year 24561 Draken entered the training grounds at the Officer Training Centre on the Tarula outpost with a heavy heart. The final exam to become an officer in the Halden army loomed over the cadets, although no one Mander Prime has a solar calendar, adopted throughout the Directorate. For further info contact the official timekeeper. 1
knew when it would take place. But instead of being focused, he had all kinds of distractions. By night, his recurring nightmare was inescapable flames plaguing his sleep and, by day, the sight of Zamal tormenting his loins. His mind told him only the exam mattered, but his body thought otherwise, craving her. At sixteen years of age, most
of his companions, including Zamal, had reached their sexual maturity. He still hadn’t. Not until now. Any other time, it wouldn’t matter—cadets and students all over the Manderian Halden2 were mating with each other when the time came. But right now, his sudden desire for her meant trouble. He had no 2
Manderian military regime
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time young The for growing girl stood up and before giving thein to defeated his hormones. alien However, army. The asking itching for of their a testosterone dying collective suppressant minds annoyed would her. As only getshe himwalked reprimanded. throughSexual the carnage, was initiation she part snapped of their exoskeletons training. It beneath just cameher at feet. the wrong Thosetime still for twitchhim. ing, still rubbing their hardened legs, Meal arrived in a blur— feeblybreak signaling to their retreating between sparring sessions and queen. She conspired alone. Alone, digging fences. she destroyed. She enjoyed her power. It was a gift from her abducDraken took his place at the long tors. Taken as a toddler, another table in the mess hall and blended unexplained milk carton kid on her his voice with those of all the Halden home planet, she had limited recolMilitary Academy cadets. “I, Draken lection of her parents, her brothers, Kosset, citizen of the Manderian or her life prior. Her abductors chose Halden, do hereby take the oath of her based on her fetal potential. allegiance and solemnly vow to be They had closely monitored her a brave, disciplined, and a vigilant mother’s pregnancy. Joshua, her fighter. To guard strictly all military twin, also showed promise, but, she and Halden secrets, to obey without the culmination of eons of carefully question all army regulations and planned genetic manipulation of all orders of my superiors. I pledge the Homo sapiens best traits. to study the duties of a soldier conscientiously toon safeguard the Victorious once and again the battleHalden. field, she only satisfied her captors when this vast strange legion lay “I fully swear protect decimated bytothis smallthe human girl. Manderian Directorate obediently, The childand knew her taskwithout was not skilfully, honorably, yet complete. She walked barefoot sparing my blood and my very life to across the torched terrain. Sheour achieve complete victory over alone reduced once beautiful enemies. And, this if through evil intent emerald forest to embers dyinglet I break this solemn oath, then in the morning light. Her feet the stern punishment of Manderian crunched chitin and stomped in the law fall upon me!” black blood mixed with the coniferHundreds of voices spoke one, ous needle-like carpet. Heras destistirring Draken’s spirit every time nation stood before her, the Great he repeated the ritual, thrice a day Sequoia. before each meal, and every day A thousand year old organic edifor the last thirteen years. At the fice. Their temple, their castle, their end of the litany, they all sat down home. It was the last of the planet’s in unison, and silence fell over the civilizations. Once green, the orb mess hall, broken only by the sound giant glowed orange. From the sky, of cutlery on their plates. One by one, students whispered to each other until all the voices joined the buzz. Zamal sat in front of him, her golden facial scales gleamed with captivating shades under the artificial lights. Zamal kept eating, quietly. Her auburn hair plaited into a complicated twist, added an attractive highlight to her pronounced eye ridges. The tight black uniform displayed the slick movement of her muscles. Draken’s pulse quickened. His breath caught. His friend noticed. “Draken?” Derrin nudged his elbow. 75 I SavagePlanets
Derrin was watched the closest friend had the victors it burn ashe they but, in the last two days, Derrin was toasted themselves smarter, better, getting under his scales. And now superior. the turmoil inside his body added to The it. ravager arrived at the massive tree that served as a bastion for their queen.byCrossing gaunt-he Distracted her sultrythe beauty, let, she slaughtered the few who spun around with a snarl, “What?!” remained, her elite guard serving Then Zamal out their last groaned. moments in defense of their sovereign. Never touching “You weren’t paying attention.” with hand or weapon, it was the Derrin said. sheer force of her mind and will that crushed their chitin on skulls, boiling He turned to focus his plate and their insect eyes and ripping their grunted. “I’m eating-” limbs from their segmented bodies. “I knowit when the no final exam will to While gave her satisfaction take place,” Derrin said. deep annihilate these creatures, down she understood it was her Draken laughed, but his eyes destiny. showed no sign of amusement. The defiant, alone, “So, queen when isstood it, according to yoursurrounded by her fallen loyal source?” he snapped, tryingservants. to get “Why youworries come here? What away have from his and shut do youup. want?” The queen demandDerrin ed with clacking mandibles.
“Your de“Whoa, now struction,” the young he wants to know,” his human stepped closer. friend replied. Zamal looked up, curious. Pursing Derrin“We The Queen stoodhis herlips, ground. answered, “In six days, and it’s gonna be tough.” Draken leered at Zamal for a millisecond, then lowered his eyes to his plate. “We already knew it would be tough.” The main course—a bathai3 stew with ammok4 sauce—tasted stale, but Draken was used to that. After all, field rations didn’t taste any better, and he had his share of those. Draken finished the stew and attacked the dessert, thankful for the same bad flavor because it gave him something other than Zamal to think about. He kept his eyes on the Bathai, Manderian cow. 4 Manderian seasoning. 3
have nothing inspire her, yourthe plate.done Perhaps, if hetoignored anger. My kindinhas lust exploding histaken pantsnothing would go that is not rightly ours. This wood, away. this world, is our domain. We exist “The Black Squad will examine us. I in peace." know that for sure,” Derrin said. The girl agreed. She destroyed without without remorse. Draken judgment, grunted. He wanted to leave It was shebut existed. “It is the restthe of reason his meal, he couldn’t. because they willwould it.” Her eyes went As a cadet, they punish him; skyward. For thefood first time, child leaving uneaten led tothe smaller almost felt something near regret as and weaker bodies. Not to mention, she crumpled the head of the grait was rude to those in civilian cious queen before delicate culture, where thereher. wasThe never whispering wings fluttered in the enough food. He suppressed a monarch’s deathand throes. wave of nausea said, “I wouldn’t expect less.” the girl left With heranything task complete, the corpse atand the picked base ofup thehis maDerrin stood jestic tree and turned to watch the tray. “I’ll be training in the gym until emerging light of an unfamiliar sun curfew. You coming?” as its flaming trunk fell behind her. “We’ll meet you there, as soon as Wordlessly she announced, “It is we’re done here,” Zamal replied. done.” Sending the thought to the mother orbiting a satelA quick ship glance at herabove, plate revealed lite of absolute domination. it was empty. Why wasn’t she
leaving with Derrin? got had Her captors, the onlyDraken family she it. Hisknown, groin quivered. His mind ever were pleased and told imagined theirswelling, bodies intertwined, her so. Heart she decovered the blood ofas their ferred to with her kidnappers herlust. only source of parental guidance. She As the other students left to would question their motives on this complete their daily duties, all he strange planet, yet they wished her could think of was Zamal’s body. to destroy only because she could. It amused them todistracted witness her exerA slick movement him cise her powers. from his lustful thinking as her left hand grabbed hisfeeling right one, The ravager smiled, a small boosting his blood pressure. He remnant of human pride. They glued his eyes to her well-hidden would allow her to eat now and cleavage,rest his heart inside hopefully beforeexploding they traveled his ribcage. to the next civilization, selected for destruction by her hand. A Halden dagger appeared in her hand out of nowhere. The swift movement woke Draken from her spell. He yanked his hand free just in time to avoid the blade cutting through it from side to side. Tiny drops of blood fell on the table from a minor cut on his thumb. Glaring, he gave her an aggressive nod as a sign of acceptance of her sexual challenge. A duel promising pleasure and pain. An erotic wave of lust encircled his body in anticipation of the fight to come. He clenched his jaw to resist the urge to throw the table aside and attack her right here and now. That wouldn’t be appropriate,
but resisting the temptation was so hard. Come to think of it, there wasn’t any part of his body that didn’t feel sturdanium-hard5.
His eyes traveled up and down her backside, mouth salivating. The holo-rooms had the benefit of being private. They were perfect to get through their primal mating rituals while in combat. Her hips hypnotized, swaying left and right, right and left, in a rhythmic, supple movement that made him want to either tear her head off or pound her. Or both! When they entered an available holo-room, Zamal’s eyes met his. She commanded, “The Witary Wastelands.” A hot desert with flat, black sand as far as the eye could see replaced the empty space. Zamal’s wild beauty stood out even more in the dual sunlight. Her hands on her gorgeous hips highlighted her form against the flat, barren land. Draken tilted his head to one side, leering at her body. It screamed strength, making his blood burn in his veins. He dropped into a fighting stance, arms gathered close to his chest, fists clenched, while she circled him with careful steps. Draken didn’t move but paid careful attention to the soft sound of her boots on the sand while she moved out of his peripheral vision. When she appeared again, the gap between them lessened. She was nearly upon him. Then she lunged for his collar. He spun, sweeping her leg out, expecting to see her drop to the sand. Instead, she surprised him by diving. He hit nothing but air. They grinned at each other. Sturdanium, strong alloy used to build space ships and space stations by the Manderians. Resistant to plasma blasts. 5
A flurry of punches rained down on his head. Draken caged his arms to protect it. But Zamal switched her fists to his torso, landing several blows to his ribcage. With a swift move, he grabbed her head and lifted his knee, striking her face. A solid crunch confirmed his hit had connected with flesh and bone. Zamal grunted and staggered back. She wiped blood from her right eye ridge with her sleeve and cracked her knuckles before taking a combat crouch again. Her collar got torn somewhere in their foreplay. Draken admired her exposed cleavage, showing the top curve of one of her firm, scaly breasts. Soon, this ritual would be over. He would prove his dominance, and she would gleefully submit.
Shouting into her ear-hole, he demanded, “Tap out. Tap out! Now you’re mine.” She wiggled in a feeble pretense of resistance. Her breath went in and out in gasps as his grip tightened. “Is that … all you got, Draken Kosset?” He grinned, kept his firm grip on her neck, and kneeled, leaning over her to whisper in her ear. “I could kill you with my bare hands.” Her squirming subsided. He let go of her throat to grab her chin and twist her head toward him. Her dilated pupils gazed at him, twinkling with desire. “You talk too much,” she said as confirmation of her intentions, and the buckle of her uniform fell on the floor with a thud.
Extraterrestrial Fiction
He straightened his tense shoulders and tidied his empty tray urgently. Then followed her down the corridor to the barracks, which included holo-rooms with thousands of different battle scenarios for training.
“Nice move… for a girl.”
As Draken lay alone in his bed, his mind lingered on Zamal’s golden scaly limbs entwined with his red and orange-hued ones. His heart hammered, his muscles sore from his most recent encounter with her. She spat venom to one side and took a long, focused gaze at him. “If you think I’m just going to lie down and spread my legs for you, think again!” But the light in her fiery forest-green eyes and her dilated pupils transformed her words into an invitation. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. “Nice to know what’s on your mind.” He cracked a grin. A quick intake of her breath suggested another wave of punches. He dived first. She stumbled and lost her footing. Seeing her off balance, he reached for her throat. Moving behind her in a forced choke hold, he kneed the back of her knees and forced her down.
The last six days passed by in a blur between the daily routine: meals, theoretical studies and classes covering historical battles, successful defenses, stellar cartography, weaponry, exobiology, psy-ops, and strategy. They alternated with days in the field digging fences, defending and attacking structures, and neutralizing enemy defenses. The nights, though! His nocturnal encounters with the intoxicating Zamal became an entirely different blur. Finally, he closed his eyes. An exhausted slumber swamped his mind and deprived him of the pleasure of fantasizing about her repeatedly. In his sleep, he happily sat with SavagePlanets I 76
his family in a hover car, dashing through the night. But screams soon replaced laughter as the world tumbled around them. Fire beat at his body with hot red fingers. Pain and the weight of the seats trapping his legs and tail made him unable to get away from the flames. A shrill scream of fear echoed in the night, ripping him away from his recurring nightmare. Breathless, sleep shattered. He covered his mouth with his hand, fearing others might hear him. The light of Tarula’s moons came through the open window and added an eerie atmosphere to his dormitory. His eyes flicked back and forth, but the only noise in the dormitory was the chorus of cadets’ snoring in their sleep. The scream must have been inside his head. Still shaking, he pushed aside his sheets and headed to the common refresher. His wristband marked 0300 when he finished with his personal hygiene and left the barracks. He had slept one hour and had still three to recover before everyone would be up and about.
The final exam was upon him, and if indeed the Black Squad were in charge, he might be in trouble. They said that secret service knew everything about everyone. But Draken didn’t believe it. He would pass the test and become a prestigious commanding officer of the Halden army. His wrist comm vibrated, alerting him of an incoming message. He sat down on a bench and checked the sender’s name: Rotima, his fiancée. She was older than him. A stunning brown-scaled specimen, a Manderian female, promised to him when he was just three and she was five. Her round figure with generous breasts and hips guaranteed fertility, and Draken looked forward to having a large family with her. But aside from this common drive of the Manderian population, he didn’t
Stargazing calmed Draken’s heart. He had been careful never to talk to anyone about his pyrophobia. Not even his father. Still, his words echoed in Draken’s mind like an old-fashioned time bomb. ‘A coward is not the one who is afraid. It’s what we do about fear that makes the difference.’ Was he a coward for never acting to tame it? This was not the time for such doubts. 77 I SavagePlanets
A shadow approached from his left. “You never lose the habit of sleeping for a couple of hours per night, do you?” Zamal hissed. He turned and got a glimpse of her green eyes and her dilated pupils. “Your stealth techniques are improving, but I saw your shadow out of the corner of my eye.” She squared her shoulders and shrugged in response. The movement lifted her breasts. Having her so close, inhaling her scent, made it difficult to focus on coherent thought. Draken straightened his uniform, resolving to resist her temptation this time. “In battle, there will be little time to sleep. What are you doing up so early?” Zamal bit her lower lip and broke eye contact. “I’m nervous. Aren’t you? Derrin said the test is today.”
With the adrenaline still coursing through his veins, he crossed a quadrangle and stopped to drink from the communal water fountain, admiring the heavens. No moonlight obscured the night sky now. Both Tarula’s moons must have set, and he gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. Sunneth—Mander Prime’s star—a distant hundred of light-years away, glowed. While Narhatat—the scout constellation used by their long-gone ancestors to find true south—shone brightest. The Narhatat system and its green habitable planets, Agnars I, II, and III, were part of the Halden Directorate, too.
Draken stared at the screen for a time, lost in thoughts about his future with this woman he cared little about. But like his orders, he had his duty to her and Halden.
‘What does Derrin know? He is a student like them.’ Draken shrugged it off, but deep down … ‘No, I’m a true Manderian. We fear nothing.’ He said to himself, knowing it was a lie. But a lie, every soldier believed.
see her as an excellent partner. There was something about her that didn’t feel quite right. Zamal instead … now she was a lizard! But he couldn’t call off the wedding. He couldn’t change that part of his life.
‘My dearest husband to be, You are in my thoughts continuously. I know your test is chiming, and I have faith in your rising. Success is yours, seize it! I can’t imagine another Manderian more suited than you for leadership and for my submission. Ever yours.’
‘A coward is not the one who is afraid. It’s what we do about fear that makes the difference.’ “I need a distraction.” She challenged, giving him a lascivious gaze. Draken licked his lips, anticipating a chance to have her. But not this time. She would be his special reward. “Another time.” Zamal gritted her teeth and hissed. She didn’t appreciate being denied when she craved, but he enjoyed her reaction and the probability of their joining would have to wait until after the exam.
Was he a coward? He had never faced his worst fear, so how could he be sure? He gritted his teeth, pushing away that idea with annoyance. The instructor entered the classroom. Draken stood with the other cadets. In unison, they screamed, “For the Halden!” and straightened their left arms above their heads, then sat back down. The instructor paced before them in silence, which set Draken’s nerves on edge. “Listen up. Collecting information is an art that follows scientific rules,” he said, pausing and taking his time to gaze across the room, singling cadets out. “Today, you’ll learn what that means. Before you can become a collector yourself, you must understand what it feels like to be broken.” Despite the threat, a glimmer of excitement shook his body. One more test. Once I pass, I will take my oath as an officer of the Halden army. Since his military training began when he was three years old, Draken had never failed a mission or exam. Nothing would stop him from getting the prestige and honor of command. He was born to lead. Even Rotima knew that.
physically and psychologically. The test will last as long as the collectors see fit. It’s like a game of polika to them,” the instructor admitted. “They’re interested in your reactions because the result will determine if you are a superb leader or a dead recruit. Don’t fail me!”
He jumped to his feet, eyes darting back and forth to take in his new surroundings: a grey room much smaller than the one he was in before. No furniture A team of five clad in black, wearing or windows to give away their black balaclavas and dark goggles location. Or what time of day over their eyes, entered the room it was. Just nine lights on the and ordered them out. One led them ceiling and a door to his left. to a basement. The door clanged shut behind the last student to enter. The curves on the body betrayed her gender. Of course, they No one spoke. They barely chose a woman to break me. breathed. Much easier. I’m a soft belly, a sucker. But it’s not gonna A group of students, with Zamal happen. and Derrin among them, lay down. It appalled Draken. How could they A noise behind his back show so much distracted him from his thoughts. He spun around. A superb leader or a dead recruit… Draken didn’t intend to fail. Failure wasn’t in his DNA.
Three broad-shouldered, muscular figures surrounded him in a semi-circle, holding wooden clubs, grinning. Three men and a woman. Better odds. Draken backed away from them, scanning the three, who closed, while aiming for the door.
slack? During their last exam, no less. He stood there at attention, keeping his senses on high alert, expecting anything.
“You all understand the rules of engagement during interrogation,” the instructor continued, pacing from one side of the room to another, riveting cadets with his stern look.
When a deafening sound mauled Draken’s ear-holes, he plugged them with his fingers, but that didn’t stop the piercing sound from hurting his eardrums. Then he smelled it, the sweet scent of a korilis flower. The psychotropic substance extracted from the pistil was a powerful sleep-inducing drug.
“Draken? Are you afraid?” Zamal whispered to him.
A moment later, he fell, losing consciousness.
He stiffened. Admitting fear? No, never. “Of course not,” he answered bravely, but his fists clenched.
He woke as something solid connected with his stomach. He opened his eyes a bleary crack. A steel-toed boot moved, ready to strike again, but Draken grabbed it and shoved its black-clad owner backward to the floor.
Extraterrestrial Fiction
Draken and his forty-nine classmates sat in a briefing room after leaving the mess hall. By the scent in the air, he wasn’t the only one dreading this moment. No one would admit their fear, and Draken despised himself for wanting to do so, but as his father always told him, ‘A coward is not the one who is afraid. It’s what we do about fear that makes the difference.’
All three attacked in unison. A club struck a blow to his right knee, another jabbed his belly. He doubled over, breathless. A third struck his back driving him down. The drug clearly slowed his reflexes more than he thought, as he could have sidestepped the clubs. Two men grabbed him and forced him over onto his back. A steeltoed boot swept into his nose. He felt/heard the crunch. Blood dripped down his face. Draken couldn’t deny the pain, but he kept his lips sealed, trying to shake the fog clouding his head. Something whacked his right temple and knocked him out again.
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When Draken came around, he lay naked on the floor, hands bound in front of him with a tight cutting rope and a blindfold over his head. A sticky liquid coated his face, and he instinctively licked it. Blood. Was it his own? He couldn’t tell. Disorientation messed him up. Was he still on the drug, or had they beaten him to a pulp? While he tried to get a grip on himself, the temperature of the room dropped. Shock? Draken shivered, but at least the reeling sensation in his head decreased. Silence broken only by heavy breathing remained, but if he held his, he could detect four other distinct breathing patterns. The same people he met before, or perhaps others. It didn’t matter. His task was to take the pain, the humiliation, the cold, the insults, the beating, and everything they could throw at him.
Draken clenched his jaws but didn’t reply. Zamal’s sexual maturation happened months before him. Of course, she mated with others. But after? Either way, it didn’t matter. She didn’t fake her satisfaction. She craved him as much as he did her. After what seemed a lifetime spent standing in the cold in the same position, his limbs hurt. Every time he tried to move to ease the pain, they hit him with a club and yelled at him to hold the stress position. Ribs snapped. Breathing was agony, but holding his breath didn’t help either. The pummeling went on until he lost consciousness.
“Isn’t it cold in here, soldier?” the woman asked, when he woke up again from the
Two hands grabbed him by the armpits and dragged him upright, pinning him to a wall. Someone spat on his blindfold. “Stand and stretch your arms above your head, belly crawler!” a man’s voice yelled the words. Draken complied, but kept his lips sealed. No matter the pain they put him through, he didn’t intend to make a peep. “Your mate … what was her name? Ah yes, Zamal Dortal, she confessed you didn’t impress her, especially after me,” the same man said. 79 I SavagePlanets
Then he was back in the hover-car with his father, his three-year-old brother, his aunt, and his uncle. Outside, the daylight faded as they traveled down a dark road lit only by the headlights. The surge of the engine roar silenced their laughter as Draken’s stomach contents rolled, taking his breath away. G-force gripped him, but sturdy adult arms wrapped around him and his brother. Draken squeezed his eyes shut. Gravity shifted again and again, accompanied by the screams of his brother. Sickening crunches reached his ears as the hover rolled. The pounding tore away the protective grip. He flew, striking something hard. When he came around, thick smoke filled the twisted cabin, making him cough. The once familiar shapes looked like bloody black smudges. Something wet and heavy pressed against his legs. The comforting lights of the hover no longer worked, and the darkness swallowed him.
The scent of one of them unmistakably identified her as a female. He stirred with desire. “Your lack of stamina is disappointing. Rotima deserves better,” the woman taunted. She wanted to get under his scales by insulting his manhood. It was the worst mistake she could make. Zamal lusted after him, but Rotima would be his wife after graduation. No doubt he wouldn’t disappoint either of them.
They were telling jokes.
torpor beating.
of the
He sat leaning against the wall, having slid down when he was out. His legs spread, his hands on his lap, still tied with the same rope. “I’m definitely cold. Why don’t I light a fire, yes?” she insisted, chuckling. Draken stiffened. Of course, they wanted to play with his sensitivity to the cold, but how could they know he feared fire? The men laughed. With a blindfold, he couldn’t see the flames, but he could hear the crackling and feel the rising heat. He trembled, drowning in the memory of the unforgettable trip. An echo of laughter hung in the air.
A noise to his left drew his attention, but he couldn’t move. Then he saw the flames reflected in a piece of bent metal. The heat increased as the light pierced the darkness. The black smears turned red, and the noxious smell of burning hair assaulted his nostrils. He struggled to escape, but he couldn’t untangle himself from whatever weighed down his legs. Hungry flames licked toward him. At the last moment, with doom closing in, powerful hands reached through the shattered window. They pulled him away from the wreckage into the blessed cool air of the night. Two bodies lay inside the hover. Draken recognized his aunt. Her head turned at an impossible angle. “Stop screaming, krola face!” a man’s voice barked into his ears. He continued screaming until a bat smashed into his side. Pain and heat spread through him. Again, the night he lost his family returned with a vengeance.
“Are you afraid of a little fire, krola face?” the woman asked, coming close, her breath displacing the nightmare.
“And I made it. I’m a proud officer of the Halden army,” he finished, pounding his chest with his fist theatrically.
He screamed once more until something hard hit him in the head, sending him into oblivion.
“Congratulations, brother.” Draken forced himself to smile. He wished he could share his joy, clapping him on the shoulder, but dread coiled around his heart.
“As you may imagine, you didn’t pass the final exam. You should console yourself with the fact that you’re not alone.” The commander curled his lip in disgust.
“I’ll see you in the barracks. Time to celebrate!” Derrin said, smacking his back with a hand and adding pain to his anxiety.
It didn’t. Years and years of learning to lead, wasted because he had never faced his fear before.
Alone again, Draken entered the ante-chamber and waited for the commander’s secretary to allow him in.
“A coward is not the one who is afraid. It’s what we do about it that makes the difference.” His father’s words echoed by the commander.
After being discharged from the hospital, Draken didn’t return to his barracks but went straight to the commander’s office as ordered. The implication of the summons was plain.
The sparsely furnished room contained a desk and two chairs, one on either side of the table. The commander sat behind it. Draken stood at attention and saluted, his eyes staring
He breathed in and out, distracted by the stabbing pains in the left knee and chest that came with moving and respiration. But he forced himself to walk straight down the corridor’s monotony. Broken only by the labeled doors left and right, and a swarm of low-ranking military personnel inside. His heart sank deeper when, just outside the commander’s office, Draken met Derrin. His hazel eyes found his. A smile broke across his face. “Victory is mine!” Derrin lifted his right arm and clenched his fist as he recited the text of the famous play.
Draken’s communicator chimed, and he gazed down at the text without seeing it. “Yes, sir.” “You’ll be reassigned to conclude your enlisted training and sent wherever they send rejects like you.”
‘I failed the test, didn’t I? Was my hope of getting my much craved promotion in vain? I know I deserve it! Everyone expected it, but most of all I do.’ He knew he lost his self-control during the exam, screaming like a weak hatchling. Fire had beaten him.
“Here’s your officer training discharge letter,” he said, and swiped his tablet.
straight ahead. He clenched his jaw to thwart his grimace of pain. His knee was in agony, trembling. “At ease, cadet,” the commander ordered, and waved his hand to the other chair. Draken slowly lowered himself into the chair, his jaw clenched to hide a spasm of pain. “The glory of the Halden army is in our hands. We instructors have a heavy burden. To turn cadets into leaders,” the man said. They stared at each other across the desk. “But leaders must be fearless, unbreakable, and you’re none of that, Cadet Kosset.”
Extraterrestrial Fiction
He woke up to the foul odor of puke, blood, perspiration, and excrement. Still blindfolded, he couldn’t see but perceived the spitting of a torch swinging in front of him. The heat coming closer and closer. His cheeks burned, and he screamed. Again, and again, and again.
around his chest. It caused a pain more intense than any he experienced before.
The commander rotated his chair, turning his back on him, watching cadets march outside his large oval window. “I must admit I’m disappointed in you, cadet Draken Kosset.” His words cut through him like the sharpest of knives. “Get out of my office!” Draken stood at attention, saluted, and left, oblivious to the pain that plagued him since he entered. Replaced by something far worse. On the way to the barracks, he stopped by the communal fountain and read Rotima’s last message. Everyone expected him to succeed. His failure was more than shame, but at least he hadn’t dismissed him from active duty. That would have been a major disgrace. And if he worked hard as a corporal, he may one day earn the glory he deserved. He’d show them what Draken Kosset was capable of!
A suffocating tightness wrapped SavagePlanets I 80
CONTRIB Glenn Dungan Fiction Contributor
Jay Toney Fiction Contributor
L. R. McGary Fiction Contributor
Glenn Dungan is currently based in Brooklyn, NYC. He exists within a Venn-diagram of urban design, sociology, and good stories.
He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. As a child, he always had an interest in aircraft, and with growing up during the space race— spacecraft. He joined the USAF in 1981, and got his dream job as a Tactical Aircraft Maintenance Technician.
L. R. McGary is from Massachusetts, USA, but has lived and taught English in the Czech Republic, Austria, Spain and Italy.
When not obsessing about one of those three, he can be found at a park drinking black coffee and listening to podcasts about murder. He was short listed for the Mike Resnik memorial award in 2022 and has been featured in the Hugo award winning podcast "Starship Sofa". For more of his work, please visit his website WhereisGlennnow.com, or you can follow him on substack @whereisglennnow.
He is a veteran having served in the Gulf War. He has always been an avid reader, and started reading at an early age, primarily reading fantasy and science fiction. Some of his favorite authors are Robert Heinlein, Alan Dean Foster, Piers Anthony, David Weber, and Kim Harrison. He currently live in a rural area in central Alabama.
http://whereisglennnow.com
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http://jaytoney.com
She grew up reading and loving science fiction and fantasy, and has known she wanted to write her own since her first novel attempt in eighth grade (age 12). In her spare time, she hikes, kayaks, plays with the family dog, makes ceramics, and occasionally gardens. She holds a BFA in Writing from Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, New York, USA. L. R. McGary's work has appeared in Black Sheep, cc&d, Suburban Witchcraft, and Down in the Dirt magazines.
BUTORS Keyla Damaer
Murray Eiland
Fiction Contributor
Fiction Contributor
Keyla Damaer has been an independent author since 2017. Her passion for storytelling is evident in her works, characterized by their imaginative worlds and complex characters. Among her notable works is "The Parallels from The Sehnsucht Series, which explores the thin line between loyalty and betrayal with elements of murder mystery. When she's not busy crafting intergalactic adventures, Keyla can be found wading through the complexities of Earthly tax codes, proving that even sci-fi authors have to deal with the realities of life on this planet. Born and raised in Rome, Keyla currently resides in the Eternal City with her husband. https://keyladamaer.com
Murray Eiland is a science fiction enthusiast who makes time for his day job when time allows. He is currently based in California, where he writes about archaeology, particularly the eastern portion of the Roman empire. His recent work is about the iconography of Roman coins. While this might sound boring, it might be an improvement on researching technological change as expressed in ancient ceramics. Check out his work at Aphelion, AcademFic, Bewildering Stories, and Mystic Mind Magazine.
https://shorturl.at/PNrxE
Rian K V Poetry Contributor
Rian is a visual futurist and speculative poetry writer based in Oakland, California. He began his creative journey designing concept environments for indie games before shifting toward narrative fiction that explores identity, memory, and artificial consciousness. Outside the page, he mentors youth in digital storytelling, dabbles in modular synth music, and spends weekends urban foraging with his partner. He holds a BA in Comparative Media from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. His stories and essays have appeared in Neon Grids, Chromaflux, and The Cypher Pages.
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CONTRIBUTE! It's Your Turn Now! Submit your original work for consideration. Contributions are always welcomed. Our goal is to create a community of science fiction artists and consumers in the same planetary system. Our editors will review your submissions and will select the best of the best for inclusion in our next edition! Aliens submit! Extraterrestrial Fiction Have a great story to share? Submit your story to SavagePlanets for publication. If selected, your story will be displayed with images tailored to enhance it for all to enjoy. Submission guidelines are available by clicking the planetary icon or visiting our website. Poems from Imaginaria Our poetry editor is eager to read your speculative poetry. Anything from the fantasy world to a reality you create within its rhymes. Once selected it will bring magic to these pages. To see our guidelines click on the comet icon or visit our website. Future Artifacts Herein, Multimedia replaces a thousand words. Art, photos, video clips, sculpture, and all other forms of visual manifestation are welcome. Challenge us to see the future through your eyes! Guidelines available by clicking the poly-form icon here, or visiting our website. Subspace Look what happens when I hit it with this shrink ray! If you can tell a complete science fiction story in two sentences this is for you. Post your story on Twitter or Instagram at #SavagePlanets, and we might just feature it here. See rules by clicking on the rocket or visiting our site.
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