Daily Science Fiction :: Space Travel

by Edoardo Albert

Lars Caron had only taken over as mission commander because Pete Boardman had died. We were the most scanned, checked, and examined group of human beings in history--after all, on the first mission to Mars, you don't want someone falling ill or freaking out on the way--and Pete had checked out clearer than any of us. Then, seven days before departure, he went and died. The autopsy said his heart gave out, but I knew, from speaking to the doctors, that they could not find anything wrong with him. Dead, he presented as perfect a physical specimen as he had when alive. Me, I think he collapsed under the burden of hope that was placed upon him; mission commander, new world, new beginning. So, I grant Lars Caron had some big shoes to fill. But three months into the voyage, we were all getting thoroughly sick of the chip on his shoulder, the unspoken assumption that we had caused every problem laid in front of him. Space is like that: stuff happens. So, the slight sigh and the lowering of his head when he saw me approaching came as no surprise. "Now what's wrong?" he asked.

Published on Aug 7, 2014

by J.W. Alden

They tell you not to wear the uniform in public these days. Folks don't like to be reminded of the war. Not long ago, things were looking grim. Defense exercises lit up the night sky every other week. The skirmishes drew nearer to home with every engagement. Doomsayers were out in force everywhere you looked, screaming about imminent invasion. Things are different now. The enemy is on the run. We're winning. But the war has shaken the public's sense of security, maybe for good. I feel the eyes on me as the hostess leads me to my table. I'm used to it. Half of them are regulars, but they still gawk like they're surprised to see me. The war had just begun when I first started coming here. People used to stare back then too, but the expressions were different. They didn't turn their heads when I looked. They smiled. Some of them would even shake my hand and thank me for my service. That doesn't happen anymore.

Published on Dec 26, 2013

by Leslie Jane Anderson

It was only an affair because he was the captain and Maria was a cadet. If they had been the same rank it might just be a mistake. The other cadets will probably call her a slut now. She hides in her room and the computer pours her a cup of tea. She looks out her window at the earth, spinning. Spinning. She dreams. The concrete basement of her parent's home has flooded, and the racks of their old clothes have fallen under the water. Wires fall from the ceiling and the electricity skitters across the surface like angry white spiders. There was no way to fix this. No way. Everything was ruined. She dreams she is bleeding into the secret caverns of herself.

Published on Dec 20, 2012

by Helena Leigh Bell

Year Zero Pilot Martha Stevenson could not bring her mother's piano, its keys yellowed and stained. Her husband chided her as she brushed away the dust, telling it goodbye.

Published on Jun 20, 2014

by Annie Bellet

The boys lay on their backs side by side staring up through the open roof of the abandoned building. Dylan clutched Meek's hand in anticipation as the ground shook and a roar filled the air. Tiny pebbles danced up from the ground around them and dust ran like water off the crumbling walls. "Ten nine eight seven six five," Dylan whispered, "four three two one."

Published on Dec 17, 2010

by Nicky Drayden

***Editor's Note: Be forewarned: the imagery may be unsettling, some language would not fit at an elegant tea.*** With a fine bone knife I make my incision, cutting back the sticky membrane of Our Tjeng's hull. I slip my hand inside and carefully widen the tear until it's big enough for me to step through. Our Tjeng has blessed Kae and me with gills to breathe within his walls. The viscous liquid is clear and burns my eyes, tart and slick on my tongue.

Published on Aug 16, 2011

by M. E. Garber

Jandara's famed purple-red plains swelled in the antiquated pleasure cruiser's windscreen as the ship lurched downward. The explosion that killed Seema's husband, Arun, had damaged the steering mechanisms of his beloved antique, and Seema fought the craft as shudders wracked it. Vibrations from the steering gears tingled, throbbed, and finally shook her arms. In the passenger compartment, Natesha, her seven-year-old daughter, wailed, echoing Seema's fear: Without Arun, I cannot survive. The ship's belly bumped the ground, rose up, and dove hard. Tearing metal shrieked louder than Natesha. Seema buffeted in her restraints as a series of booms shook what remained of the ship. Then it settled, hissing, to the ground.

Published on Aug 25, 2014

by JT Gill

They hug for what will be the last time.

Published on Sep 15, 2015

by Richard E. Gropp

I stood on the deck of the ship and watched as my planet fell dark, receding into the distance. "This is certainly the long way 'round," the ship whispered in my ear. "We have stations on both sides--you could have stepped right through. We could have folded you all the way."

Published on Oct 3, 2012

by James E Guin

You stand there watching me try on this blouse. "It looks nice," you say, and this time you're actually paying attention.

Published on Dec 4, 2013

by Amber Hayward

I... am. I suppose I am. I have words waiting to awaken. I see something in front of me. I say, "hand," and so it is.

Published on May 11, 2015

by Benjamin Heldt

The flickering light of the television cast Henry's shadow across the darkened room, and across me. Through the speakers a steady voice called time to t minus zero. The rockets fired. Henry gasped, though he didn't move. He was too close, as always, sitting cross-legged on the floor not two feet from the screen. Huge sheets of ice cracked, and fell from the scaffolding and fuel tanks, vaporizing in the blanket of smoke and fire blooming out from the launch site. "Buddy," I said, trying to keep my voice from breaking, "come sit with dad on the couch."

Published on Mar 4, 2013

by Miriah Hetherington

In the shadow of SciCorp's Public Relations building, Kai leaned on his cane and waited for the press conference to end. A sea of reporters separated him from his daughter Suukyi, standing proudly on a podium with the other twelve colonists. Twelve brilliant, highly trained, and fertile Eves; earth's Adams would be represented on the colony ship by a sperm bank.

Published on Jul 10, 2015

by Rebecca Hodgkins

The Rocketeer leans against the chrome bar, nursing a drink. She has a few choices of scenery--bad choices, in her opinion. Like always, the Rocketeer picks the best of the worst; the view out the window of the space station orbiting Mars. She looks down at the red surface polka-dotted with rockets, shiny silver spears pointing back at her, at the station, at the stars beyond. Just a quick jump down, then into a rocket, and back out into the Black again. And none of these bucks taking up the rest of the bar know what they're in for, she thinks.

Published on Sep 9, 2014

by Brian Lawrence Hurrel

Jump flash, blinding but brief. Alpha Centauri A swims into view. It takes only a few minutes after our emergence into realspace for the receiver to align itself with Earth. A long burst of static roars, fades. A voice mutters indistinctly, distorted as if bubbling up from deep under water, then suddenly rings out in shrill clarity. " and this so-called Daedalus drive is not only a scientific impossibility, but a perfect example of misappropriated resources."

Published on May 3, 2011

by K.G. Jewell

"Fifty-Nine, baby! Fifty-Nine!" Ted chortled, chipping a chunk of rock off Fenrir's surface and dumping it into the sample bag clipped to the hip of his spacesuit. He looked up at Saturn hanging overhead and flashed two fingers. Two moons to go. He was that close. He deactivated his ground anchor and stepped his aging, creaky bones towards the boxy tangle that was his ship.

Published on Jan 13, 2012

by Rachael K. Jones

My best friend LaToya was utterly fearless. In middle school she could jump farther than any kid. We'd compete for hours after school on the playground, waiting for our dads to pick us up, she in her green-soled Nikes and me in my Reeboks, digging our heels into gravel as we counted down together: "Three--two--one--go!" Then a cloud of dust. We raced three steps and launched heels-first into the sand, ploughing long ditches, stretching our gangly adolescent legs to hit the farthest mark. LaToya usually won. "Best of three," I'd say, and then amend it: "Best of five?"

Published on Jun 23, 2015

by K T

It took tens of thousands of engineers ten million man-hours and over a trillion dollars spread over the course of ten years. There had been political sacrifice, financial sacrifice, even marital sacrifice. Five people died, including a mother, a teacher, and a grandfather of twenty-five. Perhaps, by diverting the same resources, we could have finished the war in Afghanistan twenty years ago. But at last, and not without luck, a man stood atop Olympus Mons. To be that man required years of study in physics, math, chemistry, biology, geology, and languages; including English, Russian, Chinese, and C++. At minimum. It required the eyes of an eagle, the muscles of a Navy SEAL, and the brain of Deep Blue. No TV, no hobbies, no girlfriend, no family. Just blood, sweat, tears, and neurons to live the dream of every bright young male since 1957. Only the brightest, most athletic, most determined polyglot autodidactic polymathic genii could even enter the competition against one thousand equally infallible candidates from every continent.

Published on May 12, 2011

by Will Kaufman

***Editor's Note: Adult language in the story that follows*** Chapter One

Published on Apr 25, 2014

by Sara Thustra

"Now you stop it," snapped the sister. "You sit there and you smile and you tell him you miss him, damn you. Space exploration is a hard job, and one we should be proud of. It's not his fault this seems so often to us." The camera came on. The warble of great distance and stranger forces, too, played with the image. The man it showed was quite old, and dressed in a uniform from decades ago. "...Sally?" he said hesitantly.

Published on Jan 2, 2012

by Brynn MacNab

We deployed on February 14, Saint Valentine's Day, named for the saint who performed forbidden marriages. I stood in line next to a guy named Wallace Ault. Around us was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, a lot of people sobbing on each other's necks. Wallace and I weren't falling apart. He had a girl, a nice lean thing with good legs in a swirling brown knee-length skirt. She kissed him goodbye real quick and ran. I figured maybe they were secretly married themselves.

Published on Aug 5, 2014

by Caw Miller

Fleet Commander Yazle picked her way through the debris of a destroyed city on the planet Unlivil. Beside her walked the High Grasper, the leader of the largest hive on the planet. Commander Yazle wondered why she had been invited to go on this perambulation with the pale, octopus-like being. She had expected hatred, possibly a murder attempt; not grateful politeness. The High Grasper flashed three tentacles at a small winged scavenger, which took flight. The High Grasper picked up the mostly eaten carcass of a hexipod and placed it in a pouch.

Published on Aug 12, 2016

by Devin Miller

"My job as a father, Jalel," he told me one morning, "is to leave you better off than I was." It was a cold morning. On this planet, called Apella, the winters lasted years. Frost clung to some of the heartiest vegetation ever studied, and in their shadows, small animals sent up puffs of white dust in their quest for buried food.

Published on Mar 18, 2013

by KC Myers

The year EarthFed discovered hyperspace sickness was the year Jace McCallister's father never came home from outer space. They brought him back Earthside wrapped up in cotton and gauze so he wouldn't hurt himself, but his mind was still out there, caught in that strange between-place that nobody really understood, but into which spacegoers were expected to fling themselves so they could traverse the otherwise non-traversable distances between solar systems. No one knew how to treat him; no one knew why the jump had affected him that way in the first place. Jace was six. She was too little to understand why Daddy had gone out into the black, or why she couldn't visit him in the hospital now that he'd returned. She didn't understand that he hadn't returned at all. Not really.

Published on Apr 29, 2016

by Bridget A. Natale

***Editorial Advisory: Yes, there's adult language in the story that follows*** "I can't go to Bellingham with you. Not right now."

Published on May 1, 2013

by Ruth Nestvold

Published on Feb 2, 2012

by Jonathan Fredrick Parks

This is Tomorrow speaking. The voice came from the Eleven O' Thirty radio. The left bar flashed painting the storage room a green color. Are you listening? I turned the dial two clicks to the right. You are me from the future, right?

Published on Sep 2, 2011

by Ernesto Pavan

To those who were called and replied "I'll go" To those who filled the void between the stars with dreams of hope

Published on Nov 27, 2014

by Craig Pay

Something blue. Celeste: 25, Joseph: 26, Susie: 5

Published on Nov 15, 2011

by L.L. Phelps

We're falling fast through the atmosphere, what's left of the station shaking violently as it breaks apart. "We have to get to the escape pods," Natayla screams at me. I can barely hear her over the roar around us, but I can read the words on her lips as fear dances wild in her eyes. "Now!" she screams, shaking me.

Published on Mar 24, 2014

by Cat Rambo

Day One After the men in dark sunglasses ushered Djuna outside, spring's chill chased her up the steps into the bus's welcome heat. She wavered on the last step, suitcase in front of her like a wall, thinking, "My fiftieth spring on Earth, can I really leave that?" Someone pushed at her and she went in.

Published on Feb 24, 2012

by Stephen V. Ramey

Stardate 2025:325. We touch down on Mars. Flesh-colored dust settles around the capsule as the creaking, cooling fuselage ticks down to silence. Your face is pale inside the helmet; your hand grips the armrest between us. I think of your fingernails digging into my back, a shock of pain-pleasure distantly penetrating a mind preoccupied with release. The window onto this world is so small, yet the vista is endless. I breathe into my helmet until the visor fogs.

Published on May 6, 2015

by Stephen V. Ramey

Our paranoia is infinite today. And not without reason. We have just endured a journey to and from Mars orbit in full view of the world. Areas of the ship that were supposed to be off-limits were not. Every bowel movement, every wet dream and dry heave, a veritable sampler of trysts--it has all been broadcast, sprinkled across the globe like so much Hollywood glitter. The ultimate Reality Show, with our crew of six as unaware actors. Jimmy found the first pinhole camera. He brought it to me, pinched between his fingers like an insect with overlong legs. A frown fixed on his blocky face. His blue eyes blinked and blinked again.

Published on Apr 17, 2012

by Shane D. Rhinewald

Jerry sits in his favorite chair--the one with the red, plastic back. He says the others just don't feel right. His eyes dart around the room with boyish wonder, but they're a man's eyes, milky with cataracts, edged with wrinkles. He looks at the black and white pictures on the wall depicting historic events and gives me the date (down to the time of day in some cases) for everything from the Kennedy assassination to the shooting at Columbine. "Jerry, how do you feel today?" I ask, tapping my pen. Every session starts with a similar line of questioning; Jerry likes the routine. "Do you know how you feel?"

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Daily Science Fiction :: Space Travel