First Contact, part 1

"First Contact"

a short story

Gary Baker, March/April 2013

(part 1 of 2)

Acier watched as the alien craft drew near like a god landing from the heavens to visit what it was that had been created long ago. The ship was almost virtually a polygonal tear: half-octagonal in the rear where the engines, though currently off, glimmered with a resplendent turquoise glow, with the front section slowly tapering to a spear-like point.

Just below the tip of the nose rest the ring of thick metallic glass to the main command center, appearing quite like a band of oil with innumerous colors shimmering in the rays of the Earthen sun. By design, this very ring indicated a clear sense of interstellar physics that humanity still had yet to understand.

Acier, a nonhuman living on what the Eartheans called “the Ring”, knew all there was to know of this very science and technology. He knew that the craft was built more like a skyscraper than any ship the humans had devised, that the force of generated gravity caused by such tremendous acceleration needed to propel such a mammoth creation would necessitate floors perpendicular to the course trajectory. He knew that at high velocity the heads of the beings running the craft would be closest to the nose, and that this not only made things easier overall for energy saving uses but also of more quickly-gained “space legs”.

But the Earthean Ring was enormously more peculiar than the creations of Acier's own kind.

Made up of a similarly mammoth number of “crate”-like modules, the Ring encompassed the

The Endgame, part 2

"The Endgame"

a short story

Gary Baker, April 2013

(part 2 of 3)

“Phase two,” the echoing voice came again, “begin in: three...”

Juskra turned to face the open room and the way he’d just come.

“Two.”

He flexed his fingers and light once again appeared at his fingertips... but this time it wasn’t orange and it wasn’t warm. Eyes wide in shock, Juskra looked to the yellow-green points hovering at the very ends to each and every one of his fingers.

“No shit,” he breathed.

The energy of the light pulsed happily within him, amounting to a greater sense of power hiding just under his nails, coursing through his veins, peering from his eyes. No one had ever seen this happen in all of history. Not one soul had ever seen the orange light change like this.

“What does this mean?” Juskra choked out.

The Endgame, part 1

“The Endgame”

a short story

Gary Baker, April 2013

(part 1 of 3)

Juskra reached his arms out to the sides, stretching his biceps and forearms.

“Three,” came an echo of the loudspeaker sitting at the apex of the arched ceiling. Lights set here and there flickered, then hummed to life with traces of a faint yellow glow left to streak across the placid slate flooring. “Two.”

Juskra grit his teeth and flared his fingers wide to bring about small globes of orange-cream light hovering like flies on his nails. His eyes shot to the speaker high, high above determining it to be about five stories up. Above that speaker hung the Gobosxes, a court of gods with infinite wisdom all sitting in throw pillow-covered divans drinking wine and ale, while watching the events below. These gods would judge him, they would sense his every thought as he completed the mission... and they would feel his cold embrace as he died at the end.