Category: Short Fiction

Vignette: Directors and Malcontents by Torn MacAlester

Direc­tors and Mal­con­tents by Torn MacAlester
“I’ll say it one more time. John­son and Carmike are not com­ing back!” the Direc­tor said. “They left the space agency. It’s over. Why are we even hav­ing this con­ver­sa­tion about them? I can’t believe I will spend my Sat­ur­day mak­ing a case for us to try lur­ing back two mal­con­tents that have no desire to be part of our mis­sion. What con­ceiv­able use do we have for them?” The Assis­tant Direc­tor said, “They have flight expe­ri­ence and are qual­i­fied. They’ve both been to the Moon and done all the things we asked of them.” “The deci­sion is out of […]

Vignette: Another Plot by Torn MacAlester

Anoth­er Plot
“Milt,” said Mary, tired of the con­ver­sa­tion. “You didn’t real­ly want to be an astro­naut?” “No, it was a means to an end. Noth­ing more.” “I wish you wouldn’t antag­o­nize our broth­er. He scares me.” “Mor­ris is a fool,” Milt said. “A dan­ger­ous one. “True, we can­not under­es­ti­mate him.” “Then why all this mess­ing around with the fake iden­ti­ty and the trip to the Moon?” Mary asked. “I took some­thing that he didn’t deserve to have.” “The arti­facts?!” “Yes,” Mil­ton said, nod­ding slight­ly. “They dis­ap­peared from his vault a lit­tle over two years ago.” “Broth­er, I real­ize you want to […]

Vignette: Decisions by Torn MacAlester

Deci­sions
Deci­sions Y+13 Nils heard Katie enter the room as he fin­ished typ­ing the let­ter and sent it to the print­er. He’d been using the back bed­room as an office ever since they had moved to Hous­ton. He’d set up a com­mu­ni­ca­tions cen­ter in the room so that Katie could keep in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him when­ev­er he spent some time in space. At one time, he thought it would not have been nec­es­sary. It turned out it became unnec­es­sary, but for a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent rea­son than he imag­ined. “What are you doing?” asked Katie with her heavy Texas drawl. “I’m writing […]

Vignette: Commander by Torn MacAlester

science fiction vignette from Torn's timeline of events: Commander by Torn MacAlester
Com­man­der
Image by Torn MacAlester using Open­Sim By Torn MacAlester   The events in the crater weighed heav­i­ly on Nils Carmike. He near­ly killed his com­man­der, Mose. It was an acci­dent. Though, he felt defeat­ed as he stared out the Moon-ship win­dow, look­ing at the crater where it occurred. “I need to put you on this new mis­sion,” said Mose. “I’ll need some­one expe­ri­enced and you’re the one that I will choose.” “What are you talk­ing about? We can’t go back down there.” “Yes, this mis­sion is over. What don’t you get about that? We made it. Now, you need a […]

Short Story: Golf and Outgassing by Torn MacAlester

Golf and Outgassing
Graph­ic By Shan­nan Albright A six­ty-year-old Moon mys­tery prompts Colonel Annie Mac­turn­er to make a risky deci­sion. Intrigued by an inter­view designed to manip­u­late, Mil­ton John­son, a can­di­date that con­flicts with her high­ly dis­tin­guished mil­i­tary back­ground, is select­ed as her crew-mate. Can Annie solve the land­ing site mys­tery and unrav­el Milton’s enig­ma before a life-threat­en­ing col­li­sion with the past occurs? Join Annie on every bound­ing step of her jour­ney as she tra­vers­es the Lunar sur­face and keeps you on the edge of your seat! Golf and Out­gassing by Torn MacAlester Annie Mac­In­turn­er glanced at the space-suit­ed fig­ure mov­ing toward her […]

Vignette: Y+1 by Torn MacAlester

science fiction vignette
Y+1
by Torn MacAlester This morn­ing on the Night Watch Live AM, we are speak­ing with Nick in Mon­tana, who’s been liv­ing inside of the blast zone of Yel­low­stone since the explo­sion last year. Nick, we have a caller on line two, are you ready for ques­tions from the audi­ence? “Go ahead Sam,” I said, pour­ing myself anoth­er cup of cof­fee. “I’m ready.” I’ve got Coot­er from Texas on the line. Coot­er, you’re live with Sam Dean on Night Watch AM and Nick from Mon­tana. “Hey yeah Nick, this is Coot­er. Ya doin’ all right?” “I can’t com­plain Coot­er, what is […]

Short Story: Morgan’s Road by Torn MacAlester

Mor­gan’s Road a short sto­ry by Torn MacAlester
Morgan’s Road, a short sto­ry by Torn MacAlester Graph­ic by Shan­nan Albright Mak­ing a liv­ing on the Moon is not for every­one, but Nel­son Carmike actu­al­ly pre­ferred the air­less basalt plains over Earth’s windy prairies. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, three years of Moon prospect­ing left him pen­ni­less, and with­out funds for sup­plies he was doomed to face a forced flight home. Out of options, Nel­son had all but giv­en up until a prospec­tor, pre­sumed dead for twen­ty years, arrives on his doorstep with a secret. Can Nel­son fig­ure out how the man sur­vived on his own, and learn to do the same before […]

Vignette: The Soldier by Torn MacAlester

The Sol­dier
By Torn MacAlester Image gen­er­at­ed by Torn MacAlester using GIMP 2.10.2 with Sta­ble Dif­fu­sion AI add on. The Sol­dier Y+0   Granger real­ized that the whirl­wind month had end­ed as he head­ed to the Grey­hound bus, hop­ing to see if he could get a trip. Accord­ing to the sergeant in the dis­charge bar­racks, his chances of get­ting a home trip to Wyoming were next to noth­ing. He had the Army trav­el vouch­er and four hun­dred bucks in cash–enough to last maybe two weeks, if his luck held. In the hazy twi­light, he made note of the lim­ou­sine pulled up along […]

Vignette: The Mountain by Torn MacAlester

The Moun­tain
By Torn MacAlester   Orig­i­nal Pho­to by Jose Vega from Pex­els. Mod­i­fied to grayscale and blurred using GIMP.     I sighed, look­ing at the grey land­scape, try­ing to esti­mate the direc­tion to the cab­in. I aban­doned the moun­tain, like every­one else, when the ash fell. They didn’t expect us to get a lot, but they encour­aged every­one to move south if they could, and I could. I loaded the jeep and head­ed down the moun­tain and head­ed south to New Mex­i­co with a rel­a­tive. After about six weeks, I’d worn out my wel­come, and I returned home. Now I […]

Vignette: Sins of the Son by Torn MacAlester

Sins of the Son
Pho­to by Brett Sayles from Pex­els Sins of the Son By Torn Macalester “Did you hear it?” The patient asked over the cacoph­o­ny of emer­gency equip­ment as the doc­tor worked on him and six oth­er patients that were near­ly as bad. “Hear what?” The doc­tor asked, plac­ing the gauze pads over the burns. “Make sure we clear his lungs. We need a scope in him as soon as pos­si­ble.” “She’s singing to us.” “What is she singing?” Doc­tor answered, look­ing at his eyes. One seemed burned, but the oth­er remained clear. Triage put him in the urgent cat­e­go­ry, but the bil­lion­aire made everything […]