Bridge Across the Stars: A Sci-Fi Bridge Original Anthology

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “You want to know why, Tragedy?”

  His suit of space armor reacted to his effort by using even more artificial force to pull the metal bar. A sensor inside his visor showed that the suit was using every bit of strength at its disposal. He paused and took a deep breath. Before attempting to pull the bar further to the side, he closed his eyes.

  “The chance at being remembered.”

  With a grunt, he yanked down hard. The piece of metal in his hand bent more, then snapped.

  13

  When the flash of light faded, Tragedy saw the newly formed crater. It was roughly one mile wide and three miles long and cut a deep swath out of the rock. The rest of the asteroid was untouched.

  With the press of a button, the ship’s sensors scanned the surface for any sign of life on the Gordian’s surface. Tragedy noted the results, then sent them back to Dr. Phillips. A moment later, the android set a course for the transport to return to the Outer Rim Scientific Station alone.

  About Chris Dietzel

  Chris graduated from Western Maryland College (McDaniel College). He currently lives in Florida. His dream is to write the same kind of stories that have inspired him over the years. His short stories have been featured in Temenos, Foliate Oak, and Down in the Dirt. His novels have been required reading at the university level, been featured on the Authors on the Air radio network, and been turned into critically acclaimed audiobooks by Podium Publishing.

  Did you love this short story? Check out his other Space Lore stories. Want to receive updates on his future books? Sign up for his newsletter.

  The Trenches of Centauri Prime

  by Craig Martelle

  HOW COULD THIS SUCK MORE? Lance Corporal Riskin Devereaux thought. It’s the 24th Century, and here I am, standing in the muck. I used to drive a hover car, for crap’s sake...

  Politicians, treaties, the instruments of failed diplomacy.

  Maybe it hadn’t failed. The war was being waged with low-tech weapons, but light years from Earth, light years from the Bazarian home world. Neither populace had to worry about war coming to their homes.

  All they had to do was fight on a neutral planet.

  Because that was what the politicians agreed to. The Marines and the warriors dug in, because they had to. No one could have an advantage.

  Riskin was miffed yet again. At least his boots were high-tech, but the charge was running low. The indicator flashed on his wrist comp telling him to plug in, otherwise his feet would get wet. It needed to last another thirty-seven minutes until he got off watch.

  Watch. A good word for what they did. The Interstellar Marines stood around with their always sparkly-clean slug throwers and watched to see if any Bazarian raised its ugly spiked head.

  They used to shoot at the heads, never knowing if they hit anything. They weren’t allowed smart optics or guided bullets.

  It was like fighting in the Stone Age of old Earth. The IMs were trained for better.

  And then the reality of what they were ordered to do set them back centuries.

  * * *

  “Much suckage!” Ak’Tiul whined, clicking and whistling his dismay. He stood alone at his post in the trench. The humans were right over there. If they could only lob a low-yield nuke from their mortars, this would be over and they could go home.

  But no. The Council of Advisors had different ideas. One destroyed planet and the weasel-heads decided to talk, which meant the grunts were thrown into a swamp on a backwater planet.

  Out of sight, out of mind.

  “Hate humans,” he told the wall in front of him. “No humans, no mud. Humans equal mud,” he chuckled, looking down at his clawed feet. They were enclosed in a flexible polymer that helped keep them dry. The boots had been see-through, but that had ended three milli-ticks after he put them on.

  He carried a slug thrower. “Useless,” he snorted, slinging it over his back. “Might as well throw rocks.”

  He dug into the mud until he found a stone, hefted it into his hand, corkscrewed his body, and spun as he launched the rock toward the enemy trench line.

  Ak’Tiul had thrown it too high. It splashed down half way there. “Hate humans,” he reiterated.

  * * *

  Riskin saw the rock out of the corner of his eye. He ducked, then laughed as the projectile splashed into a puddle halfway between the lines.

  “Candy ass!” he yelled over the wall. He dug into the mud and found a small rock. He hefted it, threw it to the side, and looked for a bigger one.

  The next was good enough, halfway between a golf ball and tennis ball. He limbered up, windmilled his throwing arm, and then moved to the back of his narrow trench. He wound up, hopped forward two steps, and heaved his rock.

  It made it halfway. “Damn. Farther than it looks.” He would have sat down, but there was no place. The officers had taken the stools away because people were sitting on them and not paying attention. That was what they’d been told. Riskin never saw anyone else, only the lieutenant, but he said the order came from headquarters, HQ, so there was nothing he could do.

  Easy for him to say as he took Riskin’s chair away.

  Riskin cupped a hand to the side of his mouth and yelled, “Suck my hairy butt cheeks, spiker!”

  Splashing footfalls signaled someone was walking in his direction.

  “Did you throw something out there, Lance Corporal?” the officer demanded.

  “Not as far as you know, your sirness,” Riskin replied. No one wanted to be out here. Disrespect ran rampant, especially when you had a lieutenant. New lieutenants got people killed. Seasoned lieutenants were just as cynical as the troops. And then there was this butthole.

  “Why are you yelling?” The officer stomped his foot in the mud, sending splatters over both of them. “Damn. You know they don’t have ears, right?”

  “Makes the corporal feel good, oh sirly one,” Riskin barked, stomping his foot as he came to attention. He found the resultant wave of sloppy, muddy water to be most gratifying as it splashed against the pants of the second lieutenant.

  “You did that on purpose!” the officer declared.

  “Most likely, your premier sirship,” he replied.

  “Well,” the man sputtered, “don’t do it again.”

  He stormed off before Riskin could do it again.

  “That killed two minutes, now what?” Riskin asked the cold mud wall staring back at him.

  * * *

  Ak’Tiul saw the rock arc toward him and land short. By his estimate, it traveled farther than his. He dug into the mud to find another rock but hesitated as he heard something.

  The Bazarian auditory glands covered the top of their head, giving them excellent hearing. He tipped his head and heard the harsh human language, one of many different ones that they used. Stupid humans couldn’t even speak one language. He’d learned Chinese, as all Bazarians did since it was tonal like their language.

  But these two were speaking something different. He couldn’t understand them. Maybe they were giving orders for one of the ill-conceived but aptly named human wave attacks?

  If he were so lucky. He’d burn up the old slug thrower then.

  “Humans are stupid,” he complained. He dug in the mud for another rock.

  His officer found him bent over.

  “What is this?” the third level MarPul asked.

  “Looking for a rock, Master MarPul, sir,” he said truthfully.

  “To do what?” the officer demanded.

  “To heave yonder, toward thy Council’s enemies, who are mine enemies. And if I can be blunt, thine enemies, too,” Ak’Tiul answered.

  “You may not be blunt, Nug!” the officer sneered. “Now drop and give me twenty. I saw that throw. You’re getting weak, Nug. Maybe we keep you here until you strengthen up? Can’t send you home looking like you’ve been a prisoner of war, can we?”

  The third level MarPul laughed uproariously and doubled over, whistling and clicking out of sync.

  Ak�
��Tiul worked up a snotball and was going to hock it inadvertently onto the junior officer’s back, but the Bazarian stood up, composed himself, and stalked away.

  “Take your twenty and stuff them in your carapace crack, dickface,” the upstart young warrior sassed.

  “I heard that, Nug!” the Bazarian officer yelled from somewhere far away.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, but to those pink-skinned, meatbags over yonder,” Ak’Tiul muttered. “Hate MarPuls.”

  * * *

  “Did you hear that?” Riskin asked, but there wasn’t anyone around. He was standing on one foot. He’d shut down one boot to save power.

  “Why yes, I thought I heard the spikeheads having a heated conversation,” Riskin assumed a deep voice as he replied to himself. He peeked over the mud wall and searched for movement. He ducked down before he was through searching. He moved down the trench a dozen steps before popping up for a second look.

  He thought he saw a spiker, that is, a Bazarian head sticking up above the trench, doing the same thing he was doing.

  “You ball-slapping spikehead!” Riskin yelled.

  He thought he heard a sing-song reply.

  “I don’t speak Chinese, asswipe!” How dare you speak Chinese when I don’t, Riskin thought.

  Riskin turned his right boot’s power back on. It came to life, ensuring that it would keep his foot dry. He lifted the other from the water and powered it down. He wanted enough juice in both of them to help him make it back to his bunk where he could both plug in and unplug at the same time.

  Ten minutes had passed before a lazy step splashed his way.

  “About time, you slimy bastard!” Riskin called out. But it wasn’t the man who was supposed to relieve him from watch. It was the lieutenant.

  “Sir-en-dipity, would you look at that! I’m getting relieved by the brass. Nothing to see, nothing to report, it’s a big steaming pile of nothing, just like yesterday, last week, last month, and last freaking year. So, if that’ll be it, I hear my rack calling.”

  Riskin turned his second boot on and prepared to slog through the mud and back to the cave he stayed in for his barracks.

  “As you were, Lance Corporal!” the lieutenant barked.

  “As I was what? Leaving? Yes, I was leaving and shall continue since you were staying, I was leaving, or something like that, sir highness, sir.” Riskin stomped in a puddle, sending a wave of muddy water over the lieutenant’s pants.

  He didn’t seem to care. Usually, he would have danced out of the way or bitched up a storm about being dirty. Riskin was instantly wary.

  “What’s wrong?” Riskin asked.

  The lieutenant looked at him without arrogance, almost fearful. “Human wave in fifteen minutes. Every man goes. Every. Single. Man.”

  “Glad I’m not one of those, sir. I must report that I’ve been masquerading as a man all these years. I’m not a dude,” Riskin said sincerely.

  “Cut the crap. You’re going over that wall, just like me.” The lieutenant looked at his watch. “In thirteen minutes and you know what, smart-mouth? You’ll be right next to me. If the golden bullet comes our way, we’re going to take it together.”

  Riskin was done having fun. The lieutenant was serious. He suspected the lieutenant had a sense of humor, but it was buried deeply within, and even if he did let it out, it wouldn’t be in front of the lowly enlisted scum.

  “Make your peace, Riskin. This is the last attack. The survivors are the winners and they go home. This war ends today, Lance Corporal, and it’s up to us.”

  “Don’t you dare try to motivate me, you sumbitch. I don’t want to go over that wall any more than you do, but ending the war is probably the tastiest carrot you can dangle. Damn you!”

  * * *

  Ak’Tiul hiked another rock and then another. He wasn’t getting close enough to the human trench. He leaned against the mud wall, resigned with the fact that the human trench was too far away for a hand-thrown rock. In his mind, he was engineering a trebuchet to hike a boulder across the dead land and into the enemy trench.

  If it weren’t for the enemy, he wouldn’t have to be here. “Hate humans.”

  The third level MarPul strode up; he held his skinny arms behind his back as a sign of his authority. “Do you really hate humans, Nug? Want to do something about it?”

  “Your holiness, I am designing a trebuchet which isn’t a powered weapon. We could use that to lob boulders into the enemy trench, fill it and finish them. Then we go home, eh, supreme creakiness!” Ak’Tiul hated his life in the trenches.

  He rectified himself with the fact that he’d have to prostrate himself before his father and beg forgiveness for his brash decision to join the military. He had done that out of spite. His father said he’d hate it. His father was right.

  But hate didn’t quite capture the full magnitude of his disdain.

  Ak’Tiul’s body language must have given him away. “Want to do something about it and start the process of leaving this planet, today? Would you like that?”

  “The crack slammies you say! What do we have to do, dickface?” Ak’Tiul asked.

  “I heard that, you upstart. In twelve minutes, a Bazarian wave attack. Every swinging limb goes over the wall. We meet the humans in the middle, and the winner goes home. The war ends today, dickface,” the third level MarPul replied.

  “Aren’t suicide missions supposed to be volunteer only, your queasiness?” Ak’Tiul clicked, both pleased and horrified by the latest developments.

  “Volunteer does not have to start with the word ‘I,’ dickface.”

  “That word. I don’t think it means what you think it means,” Ak’Tiul countered. The MarPul checked his wrist monitor.

  “Ten minutes, stinkhole. Make your peace. You and me, we go over together. We survive together, or we die together. Since I have no desire to die, I will need you to fight like the very Fire Demons of Bal Sagoth.”

  The MarPul thought he was encouraging, but Ak’Tiul was instantly depressed. He didn’t feel like checking his slug thrower, which he’d never fired on this planet. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cleaned it. No one ever inspected them.

  Ak’Tiul thought about loading up on rocks. His arm felt limber, and he was sure he could hit something with a rock, not so much with the slug thrower.

  Ak’Tiul started backing up slowly, looking for a place to run and hide.

  “Get back here, Nug! For the glory of Bazaria, we meet the enemy on the field of battle, gladiators for all Bazarkind!” the MarPul shouted, thrusting a twig-like arm in the air with a maniacal look on his face.

  “Okay, crazy MarPul, whatever you’ve been snorting, you need to stop. There’s no fonking way I’m going over that wall!” Ak’Tiul thrust his chest out defiantly.

  The MarPul slapped his shock stick against Ak’Tiul’s thigh and stabbed the button with a pointy finger.

  Ak’Tiul screamed as his muscles contracted violently and the pain shot through his whole body. “Dickface!” he yelled.

  “We’re going over that wall, because you’re more afraid of me than the pink skins. Ha!” the MarPul ended with a fanatical scream.

  Ak’Tiul was unimpressed. “Sir, yes, sir! I’ll be behind you all the way,” the young soldier offered as a way of compromise.

  “At my side, dickface! You will kill the enemies as I point them out. We will sow death and destruction like a harvester clearing a wide swath across the great plain.”

  “Truly magnificent, we will be, my lord,” Ak’Tiul quipped, unsure of what he would do.

  Maybe it was time to make peace with his creator, because he couldn’t see a way out.”

  * * *

  Lance Corporal Riskin Devereaux stood there. One boot had run out of power and the water seeped in. His discomfort seemed insignificant at that point in his life.

  The second boot flashed and cycled down. At least he’d have two wet feet. Balance would be restored in his life, at least in the arena of discomfort.
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  The lieutenant had moved down the trench and was haranguing someone else. At least he was doing it with the level of zeal that he’d shared with Riskin.

  Soon, the two joined the lance corporal. Riskin had seen the other man before but never talked with him. He’d made it a point not to get to know anyone. He reasoned that if he liked someone, then he might not hate this place so much and Riskin wanted his hate to fester in the hellhole that he’d been condemned to with the other Interstellar Marines he was certain were in the trenches somewhere.

  “Hate spikers,” he murmured before adding, “and lieutenants.”

  “What did you say, Lance Corporal?” the lieutenant asked, trying to stand tall and look down his nose at the junior enlisted. The other man was only a private, probably newly arrived, Riskin thought.

  And least he wouldn’t be stuck in the trenches for an indeterminate, interminable amount of time. Riskin had no idea how long he’d been there. Maybe he was new too, and didn’t realize it.

  “Your penultimate sir-ness, I said nothing offensive and hold you in the utmost of contempt,” Riskin stated firmly, nodding once with pursed lips when he finished.

  “Righty-o, then.” The lieutenant checked his watch and looked up at the sky as he counted out loud. “Three minutes!” he bellowed, making the two IMs jump.

  “What the hell? Didn’t you ever hear of OPSEC, Operational Security, you wank spanker?” Riskin whispered, trying to get the lieutenant to stop yelling.

  “Didn’t I tell you? They are coming out to meet us. This is a fight to the end, right out there in no man’s land. Ha! Now we’ll take the fight to them. If I only had my family’s ceremonial sword, I’d show them a thing or two.”

  “Like what it means to be a psychopath in a hurry to die a bazillion miles from home in a fight over nothing. Absolutely, sir. That would really show them.” Riskin shook his head, then offered his hand to his fellow Marine.

  “I’m Riskin, pleased to meet you and to go out there and die with you, I guess, because that’s our orders, aren’t they, oh sir-upy one?”