"No one loves a clank at midnight."

The message was scrawled all over the room. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. In the center of the room was a clank, for all appearances in perfect working order, and yet it seemed unable to move.

Closer to the door,…

Dear Diary,

I killed a man today. At least, I think I did. I was alone in the room one minute, and the next there was a man in front of me. I'm not sure who was more surprised -- him or me. I know I was pretty shocked, but by his expression, so was h…

Harold skidded to a stop next to the girl, his mass and motion nearly carrying him over her. He stopped just in time, the tips of his front paws just touching the flesh of the girl's arm. She didn't react, didn't even flinch. Her eyes flickered to the mas…

With a thought, Carlotta's sword is in her hand instantly, both blades alight with yellow plasma. She feels the change in emotions of her entire entourage. The soldiers are on high alert, their weapons now locked into firing position. The scholars are onl…

Carlotta walks with her escort through the corridors of the capitol building toward the platform where her transport awaits. The people walking with her are eight soldiers, two scholars, a City emissary, and a furtive pet belonging to one of the scholars.…

She had a flicker of sadness as her ship pulled away from Lorentz Station.

She didn't pay it much mind though as the adventure ahead was far greater than anything she could have imagined: A posting on the USS Elena Pitjeva. It was the first Orion class s…

Klaxons. Klaxons everywhere. Truly this was it.

After months of combing through this enormous abandoned spaceship, we’ve all started to lose hope. But V’Ru kept pushing us, and she was right to do so. If we were to make any use of this monstrosity of a v…

Klaxons. Klaxons everywhere. Truly this was it.

It was the dead of night, of course. They never attacked during the day. That was too obvious, and we'd see them coming a mile away -- on a cloudless day. (And even on overcast days, they always mysteriousl…

"Telemetry from the probe has been parsed and analyzed, Captain," Lady responds. The ship's voice is a soothing alto, designed to accommodate for the crew as they recover. "The data has already been uploaded to your stations and synced with your datapad…

The Classy Lady parks itself in a synchronous orbit above the asteroid Berger-Behregen before waking and decanting the crew. The ship locates and contacts the telemetry beacon planted in the surface of the rock while the members of the crew shake off th…

"Explain what I'm looking at."

"Timestream 8496775816-AQZ-25.13.4. We pulled it from yesterday's archives when it was flagged anomolous."

"Meaning?"

"Look here. Grid 117, Segment 16, Node 135. See that curvature?"

"Yes. Explain its significance."

"Ti…

He trudged through the sand, up and over great dunes of the stuff, while the wind blasted him with even more of the fine grains. Visibility was shit, and he walked more by instinct than anything. He'd long ago lost his way. The gale-force storm did nothin…

Nellis Air Station was our first stop, the closest site to Yucca Mountain with the facilities to handle our transport plane and the little half-squadron of robotic deathbirds that had followed us.

Now we were cruising over the Las Vegas suburbs, stuffed …

The Core Systems Alliance was not a great military power.

It was the only power, which is not quite the same thing. We did not have seasoned veterans, brilliant generals, or ambitious young officers. That had all been outsourced to private security com…

An hour later, we were in the air, strapped into the cabin of a supersonic transport plane. The engine howl was eerily muted at these speeds, and we could almost talk normally.

"What are we doing, Lieutenant?" Boris asked quietly, eying the pair of mar…

What followed was not so much a mission briefing but a series of pronouncements from the little computer.

"You have both been granted code word access to ELECTRIC RAVEN, and may not discuss information under this classification with anyone except…" the P…

"Is it correct that those present are only: Lieutenant Georgia Whitmore and Chief Petty Officer Boris Nenashev?"

I tapped "yes" on the onscreen prompt.

A synthetic voice began reading along as further text appeared.

"Voice interface authorized. Lt. Whi…

Back at my desk, things only got more bizarre.

"I've retrieved the plan files, sir."

"Good. Open them, and follow instructions. Thank you for your service, Lieutenant."

The SecDef hung up. Not even annoyed at the wait?

I stared down at the file case…

Inside the safe was a rack of thin metallic briefcases, bearing coded nameplates.

Badger, Dragon, Efreet… Raven.

I tugged on the case, but it wouldn't come free. Then I noticed the warning placard inside the door of the safe.

"NOTICE: Secure Files wi…

The Office of Strategic Assets was responsible for a number of things: planetary deuterium stockpiles, mothballed military bases, and reserve nuclear weapons.

We'd all been shocked three years ago when the order came down to unseal one of the black sites…

I tapped the mute key on my terminal.

"Boris! Where's the QS-19 document safe?"

The sleepy NCO looked up from his morning tea. All our shifts had been rearranged by the crisis.

"Nineteen? Sub-basement. In the vault."

"Seriously? Okay…" I unmuted the m…

We weren't ready for the aliens, but should have been.

They first got our attention with a series of six X-ray bursts out beyond the orbit of Neptune, one for each of their massive ships. Each was so bright, it took hours to tell that this wasn't a comet…

Captain Adriana Milosovic felt the deck tremble beneath her feet. It was subtle, barely even there at all, and yet it was enough that her senses came to high alert. She glanced around the bridge at her crew, but they were all engaged in their own tasks. N…

The ooze reached the overall max limit for the container.

It could no longer be contained and I didn't know what to do next.

This could be a disaster in the making or a great scientific discovery or neither or both at the same time.

It was the luck of …

The legion is probably on its way here so we should be getting a move on or a broken space ship will be the least of our problems.

The aliens had made their purpose clear upon first contact and they were not happy with our showing up unannounced despite …