The station was breaking apart around him. The enemy Walkers had fired rails inside the habitable zone, and now there was a shuttle-sized holes in the walls. He couldn’t see any other survivors of the initial assault. The station was locking down. He wouldn’t make it to an evacuation point. That left… The prototype Walker lay on its base like a broken toy. Its hatch was open. Maybe it was still functional, or at least more sheltered. But he had to move before the enemy robots came back for it. He dashed out of cover. This was his one chance.
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When the Royal Engineer was arrested, the King insisted she be allowed no visitors, paper, or tools. He knew her cleverness, and was certain she would try to escape. Nonetheless, when the guards came, she was finishing construction on an exquisite, life-sized dragonfly made from trash found in her cell. Despite the materials, it was perfect, down to its iridescent wings. “Just something to occupy my mind,” she said with a smirk. The guards hurried to unlock the cell door as she wound the mechanism and released it through the high, small dungeon window. But they were already too late.
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I wandered through a little door I’d never seen before and found my self in an enchanted glade. A centaur galloped up to me from across a field of sparkling wildflowers and stared down at me. “Passport,” he asked, holding out a hand. “Uh, I’m sorry. I don’t have it on me,” I said. He sighed. “Destination?” “I don’t know, I just saw a weird door and wandered through it.” “Anything to declare?” I blinked in confusion. Before I knew it I found back on the other side of the doorway. “Tourists,” the centaur muttered before it slammed shut again.
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In autumn, she wandered the fading woods. She was the last of her house, a relic of a faded age, like these trees. Her servants flitted about, gathering goblin fruit. They filled panniers with spice-apples and honey-berries, cultivars that had been piled in silver dishes in her father’s house. She reached up and plucked one from a branch. She took a bite and grimaced. It was over-ripe and cloying, with a hint of rot already forming. It was full of the memories of a tyrannical empire fallen. The last princess returned to the hut she’d traded for the world, resolute.
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Twenty years ago, my parents had one of those ‘gender reveal parties’ that caused a wildfire due to firework sparks. They told me when I was very young, but to this day, I’m not sure if they think it’s a sad or a funny story. I spent a lot of time growing up thinking about the people who died in that fire. I thought I owed them perfection. But I’ve learned to let them go. My parents burned ten thousand acres of old-growth forest to reveal my gender, and they were wrong. I’m still figuring out how to tell them.
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It was a familiar ritual. The magistrate would chain up the accused, list his crimes, beat him a little, and whip up the crowd to a frenzy. When he was done, they would call for the execution without the bother of a trial. Today was different. The crowd was quiet, restive. He used his usual tactics, beating the rebel while listing his sins against the empire. But the crowd was getting worse. The prisoner smiled up at him through split lips. “It only works if they’re your crowd.” The magistrate stared out at the sea of people and was afraid.
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The square in from of the college had a great spherical astrolabe instead of a fountain. He liked to sit next to it on his lunch, and watch the stars make their slow circuit. It calmed him to think the universe so orderly and predictable a place.
Until one day, the astrolabe ground to a halt. He put down his sandwich and examined it carefully. Nothing was stuck. He checked the gears and motors hidden beneath the square, but found them in working order.
It wasn’t until night fell and the stars refused to shine that he understood the problem.
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Everyone knew you couldn’t fight the Walkers, just outrun them.
But when a pair of the mechanical titans, accompanied by a platoon of Colonial soldiers appeared outside her village, Amrita decided to fight anyway. She climbed onto a rooftop and watched the lumbering mechs pass, gunners searching for targets.
But Amrita and her rebels were prepared. Two deafening explosions rattled the roof’s timbers as the Walkers hit the mines buried in the square.
She stood and raised her sword, signaling for the real attack to begin. This would be their first victory, but they still had a long fight ahead.
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She stayed up all night with the body. It was just superstition, but her family wanted it done, and everyone else was so exhausted.
Her grandmother had surely passed the night beside her own loved ones, back in the day when wakes were held in living rooms rather than funeral homes. She sat next to the closed coffin in one of those chairs that always looked more comfortable than they felt, and wandered through memories.
The lights snapped on. The funeral director stood frozen in the doorway, cup of coffee in hand.
“How did you get in here?” he demanded.
The necromancers rode to battle on the backs of skeletal beasts of war, decked in bronze barding that shone in the morning sun.
They left their silent city and passed through the great stone doors to face the enemy in fields of black wheat.
They dismounted and conjured a legion of skeleton warriors from the ground, ordering them into perfect formation.
In the distance, the enemy waited in their ranks. The commanders laughed, for how could the living fight their constructs of tireless bone?
They heard the calls of a stampede of rushing puppies. The necromancers’ army was adorably routed.
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Hugh J. O'Donnell 