by Michael Kingswood Ray knew he was in trouble the instant the lights came on. It wasn’t the two grim faces staring at him, round cheeks and narrowed eyes so similar the two men had to be brothers. No, it was what Ray saw past them that clinched it. A broad window through which he…
Tag: Sci-Fi
Drilling For Gold
by Michael Kingswood Autonomous Drilling Unit Seven detected an overspeed condition on one of its drill motor drivetrains. Motor number six was approaching the upper limit of its allowed operational speed band, and the monitoring speed sensor flashed an alert. This prompted a series of diagnostic algorithms, which ADU-7 performed in the background while it…
Heaven’s Gate
by Michael Kingswood The central marketplace in Theomor, the capital city of Heaven’s Gate, extended for a kilometer in every direction, and housed merchants of all kinds, and without much in the way of rhyme or reason that Manolo could figure out. A sparkling clean, brightly lit, three-story store decorated in the latest modern flash…
Terra Infirma
by Michael Kingswood It was Sunday afternoon, and I was sitting under a peach tree atop a hill overlooking the bay. The sun bathed the land in a warm radiance, unblocked by all but a few tiny puffs of clouds that hung in the sky, moving lazily if at all. A gentle breeze carried in…
On The Road To Hopefell
by Michael Kingswood The sun rose slowly, gradually sending the night’s shadows scampering away like hoodlums fleeing the sound of the constable’s approach. As the hours passed, the few lingering shadows shrank, pushed back against the burned-out or simply decayed frames that cast them as though to make way for the the clouds of dust…
Finding Bobby Jenkins
by Michael Kingswood Pan blew away steam that was rising from his coffee mug, then lowered his nose over it to catch the fragrance without getting his nostrils scalded. Deep, dark, and thick said his scent neurons to the rest of him, and he smiled slightly in approval. What was it his first captain said? …
Terran New Year
by Michael Kingsworth Why on God’s green Earth did the New Year always have to fall on the exact date and time that Terra had set for it, centuries ago? It would have been one thing if Persephone’s orbital revolution and rotation had matched Terra’s. But it didn’t. One day on Persephone was 1.0498576 Earth…
Playing for Scraps
by Michael Kingswood I was just tallying up the invoice for my latest case, an easy job for a little old lady down on the station’s third level, when Jason commed for entrance to my office. I’d known Jason for a couple years, and when he commed the image of his face popped up into…
Caledonia
by Michael Kingswood Saul looked through the scope on his rifle and grimaced. In the viewfinder, five times normal magnification, he saw a dozen grey-brown scaled and armored bodies, each with eight legs and four manipulator arms below an oval head with external mandibles and at least four visible eyes. They were moving in seemingly…
Wire Runs
by Michael Kingswood The ship rocked, and Karl felt himself hurled to the side. He clenched his teeth and rolled his shoulders in anticipation of the impact, but still he ended up grunting out a half-shout when he struck the bulkhead across from where he had been working. The unexpected g-force left as quickly as…