Sci Fi
Vibrant Hope
Many among the crew of Colony Transport Daedalus were angry when Chief Hydroponics Officer Sylvos insisted on planting marigolds from seeds he’d brought with him on the journey in with the fruits and vegetables. “They’re a waste of crop space,” they said. “What good is a pollinator plant when you’re pollinating artificially anyway?” they asked.
By Darcy A. S. Thornburg5 years ago in Fiction
3
Entry log: M. Humanoid Unit 3 of 3 - Reclamation Survey 001: Planet: Earth Observation: Planet has shown no signs of life. Thick black clouds still blackout 70% of the sunlight. A 12 centimeter layer of soot has formed above surface level. 40% of this planet's water remains. The rest is crushed under corpus amounts of scraps and garbage. Automated factories still produce smog. Shutting down factories seems to be a likely solution.
By Ahmani Brown5 years ago in Fiction
Resolutions
Empress Ungus had recalled her own offspring to the mothership for this final crucial thrust of the long drawn-out battle. Now several hundred feet above Nottingham’s Town Hall they stood assembled, a panoply of hideous spawn half-fungus and half-demon but none so vast and vile as the towering parent. She remained rooted to the floor and therefrom to the bulging living tentacles spanning craft and ground beneath, and thus with her foul family clustered about her she stared out through the clear membranous view screen that encircled half the bridge. Outside were the blasts and bursts of endgame dancing their luminous dance ever on, and the din of continuing carnage was muffled background-noise echoing through the fleshy walls and upon this grim audience while they watched as one.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
The Grindotron Faction
“You should have called me in sooner,” Dylan declared. The subterranean temple on Planet Eshcaton was by its very nature a quiet place, but today sadly bereft of that mystic murmuring calm amid whose stillness the wisest men might divine whispers of destiny not yet fulfilled. Much was amiss in the galaxy’s holiest of sanctums, and the stern silence which resounded at present from its gloomy obsidian walls would have been welcoming only to forensic scientists. It was the sterile inimical hush of a crime-scene, which was what the temple had lately become.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Battleground
In the aftermath of a grim battle, Phoenix Prime’s legions had resorted to a scorched-earth rampage that would crush all beneath it and wrest victory in the only way rock-men knew. Between the bellowing mindless berserkers and the bustling nightlife of Nottingham stood the Next Four, poised half-way up the hill at whose foot lay the Town Hall. With The Chancellor and D’Carthage in the vanguard and Gala and Steam holding back they waited, staring down the horde as it thundered upon them, each knowing they must contain this enemy within unpopulated regions and turn the tide lest chaos consume the city.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Automaton Zero
Neetra turned to Dimension Borg. “So, the intergalactic war Harbin starts is somehow the Next Four’s doing,” said she. “You told us it’s what will happen if Gala’s plans are completed. That fits with the Prophecy, because the Next Four come from the Dark Advents, and the final conflict’s described as the culmination of those time-periods. But Gala showed Joe she was the saviour of the first Dark Advent. She freed Nottingham, and cured the plague that was responsible for all the suffering.”
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Search Terms
The Four Heroes, their companions and the Next Four were steadily striking out across the sprawling surface of Nottingham, while Dylan and Phoenix used their scanners and computers from the control room at home to facilitate the search. Neetra meanwhile looked deep in thought as she stood on the roof of Nottingham’s Town Hall and gazed out across the city. Beneath the tempestuous clouds lay a skyline our heroine felt well accustomed to seeing from this lofty vantage point, but at the same time she knew that because of the one she was here to find, she was really looking at new reconstructions of the familiar towers punctuated by gaps in the landscape where building work was still going on. A faraway expression was in Neetra’s large eyes, and her long tresses billowed in the stormy wind. Accompanying her was Degris, who stood close to the great clock-face on the Town Hall’s dome.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
March of the Machines, Chapter One
Dylan was glad of something new for him and Phoenix to direct their energies towards, after the harsh words and recriminations of before. They set down to their task side-by-side, and the results were immediate and mind-boggling. It seemed the unrestored sectors positively abounded with the phenomenon Neetra had identified. Coordinating at once with their comrades and Next Four members in the field, Dylan and Phoenix transmitted psychic or electronic messages guiding each operative to the signal nearest them. Presently Joe and Gala had tracked down an outboard motor that was pushing itself through the ruins, Carmilla reported a fleet of vacuum cleaners trundling on their bumpy way like a strange stunted hot-rod gang, while Bret, Amy and Max, who’d stopped off for coffee and a Danish, picked up the trail of a gas cooker full of telephone parts that was heaving itself along with its oven door. There were many others besides.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
March of the Machines, Chapter Two
In a single flare of narrow crimson eyes, an electronic relay lanced across the scene and the entire factory began to explode. Our heroes, who had been expecting a fight, were taken by surprise and forced to fall back on emergency escape manoeuvres at once. The place had been so strategically mined, however, as to cut each intruder off from their fellows, making it impossible for those who could fly or teleport to reach the others in time. Even Steam and Degris were penned in by the factory roof and unable to venture skyward, and as the last explosive detonated and the floor gave way beneath our heroes’ feet, Neetra saw she had no choice but to teleport to safety alone.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
March of the Machines, Chapter Three
Dinner proceeded as others of its kind had done. Three of the Next Four were wholly absent, leaving Joe and Gala alone by candlelight at a table for two in Nottingham Castle’s vast shadowy banquet hall. Over a luxuriously fulsome meal, Joe related to Gala as much of the news from the previous day as he and his team-mates had agreed it was safe for her to hear. To Joe’s surprise, Gala did not react with the anger he had anticipated when he told her her last Time-Shifter had been lost. She simply took the information in and asked Joe to continue, listening to each word of the story as if thoroughly absorbed, then when he was done she fell to considering it all in deep silence. For long minutes Gala was lost in thought.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Deliberations, Chapter One
Thunderclouds were gathering on Planet Earth too, and not just in the dark autumnal skies that lowered over the rooftops of Nottingham. In the meeting room at The Four Heroes’ house a far more ominous tempest was brewing, one that threatened inclement conditions indeed, as Joe, Bret, Dylan and Neetra assembled round the long table with their allies Amy, Max and Degris and Neetra’s sisters Phoenix and Carmilla. It was Bret who began the sombre discussion.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
