Star's Bridge
Science fiction. Four interlocking science fiction stories.
"Star's Bridge" - A man is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice for love of a friend.
"Above Mars" - He’s trapped with sleeping dinosaurs, psychotic killers, and a little girl.
"Alpha Proxima" - When you can see the solution to Earth's overcrowding.
Excerpt
(From "Above Mars")
“WELCOME TO SHENZHOU CITY, Dr. Thenis! Good luck!”
My emerald-dreadlocked pilot closed the door of her shuttle and beat a hasty but understandable retreat. Technically, I was still outside Shen City, where everything was shit. We’re talking about silicon dust storms, lo-oxy, lo-temp atmosphere, radiation, rusted droids, the works. We’re talking about Mars.
Scoping out the ground revealed an even shittier perspective. The writhing forms lay about a mile down. They were reptilian, embryonic, and innumerable. I’d seen something similar before, on Earth, but the person who’d shared that secret was dead now.
Inside Shen City was only minimally safer. As part of the New Earths’ Space Terraforming programme (NEST), it was a 50sq km oxygen-rich region with eateries, galleries; even lakes they called oceans.
And no one should forget its population of 5,213 sociopaths, any one of whom might suddenly end you should the urge take them. Luckily, the World Space Agency considered psychotic tendencies a decent trade-off for what a Nester could bring to the table.
In my case, it was eyes with five times the photoreceptors of a bug-eyed mantis shrimp. As a Mission Specialist Astronomer with direct visual multispectral imaging abilities, I had one critical task: the detection of terraformable exoplanets. However, following a dreadful predicament arising from my last visit to Earth, WSA had suddenly found me an endless list of ad hoc missions.
This was my latest assignment. My virtual liaison was Irena Dem, the renowned, space-phobic linguist. My physical liaison was someone called Catalina, although WSA had been very stingy with her bio. Sniffing for clues again, I sync’d Irena. She appeared, her dark fey, elfin features reminding me of everything I longed for back on Earth.
Tamping down on memories of blue oceans, snow-capped mountains, and verdant vegetation, I made my tone sardonic. “So let me get this straight. Three weeks ago, six Martian Nesters began screaming about vampires snoring beneath them.”