Challenge #03098-H190: We Already Made That Choice
A planet has a rogue virus that is quite dangerous and, for some, lethal. A vaccination has been found, but due to a dangerous quirk of the virus, it’s being difficult about combining it with an immuno-flu, so the old-fashioned shots have to do until another way is found.
Unfortunately, the “pure life” protestors are there trying to physically stop the medical ships from getting to the planet, and they’re willing to open fire to stop them. – Anon Guest
There were no Pure Lifers on Drisolkess, which had shut down all travel in an effort to contain the spread of their plague. Nevertheless, the Pure Lifers were given umbrage by the fact that the only way -so far- to contain the disease known as Yerisania was the archaic and invasive needle.
Yerisania was a flulike variant that, if combined with the barely-acceptable immunoflu, would mutate into new variants that were even more deadly. Those failures had been incinerated before they could leave the test tube. Science had done its best, but the old ways were the ones that worked best. The mistake had been announcing this during the manufacturing phase, before all the ampules could be shipped safely down to Drisolkess.
High Knomira Pauscha Diamante Jones had mobilised the fleet in instants. Despite Drisolkess’ protests, despite the celebration regarding the good news, despite the CRC’s attempts to stop them… the flotilla of Pure Life Blockaders surrounded Drisolkess and demanded to speak to the manager. What they got was vastly different to what they expected.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03097-H189: The Alliance Has Hackers Too
Look dude I set the bar pretty low, you brought a f@#$%! shovel – Anon Guest
[AN: Another one I love is, “The bar was set so low that it was a tripping hazard in Hades, but you had to go limbo with the devil.” It’s just… SO raw and so delicious.]
P.T. Barnum said it best, There’s one born every minute. He anticipated people willing to believe his particular brand of bafflegab, but there’s suckers that will fall for anything if you shovel the right horseshit. For many of them, if you just keep yelling the same lie, they will believe it. Such was life for Pundit Koltaan Virulgens, who told the people what the CEO’s said they needed to know.
This was a big event, according to a month of hype. Where Koltaan himself, as the voice of the people for Greater Deregulation Upper South-West, was leaving the safety of the libertarian paradise to expose the deprivation and suffering in the Galactic Alliance. Full livesuit, live cam, the works. Billions would be tuning in. Great for ratings.
There were auxiliary camera crews, of course, to get everything that Koltaan’s helmet cam didn’t pick up. There were teams of hackers to snatch securicam feed from “the enemy” and add it to the supercuts of Koltaan’s adventures in the depraved wilderness that was the rest of the alliance. “This is it, oh my faithful. This airlock leads to the hideous hellscape that the Alliance does not want you to see.” Techie teams had to jimmy it open, and when it moved, it squealed like a dying beast.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03096-H188: Grey Goo Economy
They seemed like the perfect set of employees. They actually begged the CEO’s of the Deregger colonies to be allowed to live there. They offered to work for almost no pay, even less than what the other workers got. Odd, the other workers were not complaining as this group seemed to do a lot more work, but for less shelter and less pay. But the other workers were getting healthier, the air seemed to be getting cleaner, the stacks were not producing as much emissions, and then…. everyone stopped listening to the CEO’s. – DaniAndShali
There were four metal people. Snappy dressers, the lot of them. Very sleek, but still obviously robots. If CEO Kleethon Fyncribb IX knew anything about history, then things might have gone differently for him. Premise one: The word ‘robot’ is derived from the Czechoslovakian for slave. Premise two: Slaves break their chains. Nevertheless, all they said they required was a space safe from rain and dust, some power to recharge with, and no food.
Even with four of them, it was a massive saving. They could do twice the work in half the time for a quarter of the cost. It was almost too good to be true. Premise three: Things that seem to be too good to be true - frequently are. A CEO of any Deregger colony never learns the basic premises of life, caution, or the patterns of time. Most of what they learn consists of I want, I get, I benefit.
So of course CEO Kleethon Fyncribb IX welcomed such an obvious profit into his corporate empire. He didn’t even mind that each of them had to have four hours off for their self-maintenance cycle. That was still less than the organic components in the rest of his holdings. He didn’t notice the rot he allowed to creep in, but then… Deregger CEO’s are trained to ignore anything that doesn’t directly and immediately benefit them.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03095-H187: Only Among Siblings
Human: We’re going to die.. it’s over, we’re done for…. I’m.. so tired.
Havenworlder: Stop that, we’re NOT going to die, you’re the human, you’re supposed to be comforting me!
Human: I can’t do this anymore.. I want to go home, this is hopeless it’s over….it’s over.. it’s over…
Havenworlder: I beg forgiveness in advance for this! - gives the human a sharp slap! -
Human: – startled –
Human: Sorry… sorry… yeah.. needed that… c'mon, little brother, let’s go home together.
Havenworlder, sad they did that: “I’m sorry, too. I love you too, yes, let’s go home alive, together.” – Anon Guest
Neither Grof nor his Human sibling Parb mentioned the fact that the slap was more of a shock to Parb than a pain. Grof’s hand stung, but it was not worth mentioning. “Remember,” he said. “Look at the problem, think about the problem, solve the problem.” It was an old mantra, from the time that they were both very small and confused and welded into a patchwork family.
Parb started chanting the word, “Okay,” to themself as they looked around, assessing the situation and what they had to hand. Grof braced himself for an act of inspired desperation at its purest. When necessity caused invention, it was inevitably a mother. A final, “Okay!” was triumphant.
Parb had a plan. Grof could almost relax. When a Human had a plan, the odds of everyone getting out alive increased. However, the phrase “getting out alive” often had painful caveats. The good news was that a life of being sibs meant that Parb had laser-guided accuracy as to what Grof could tolerate. What was coming to shape under Parb’s rapid hands was not a weapon, but some form of PPE[1].
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03094-H186: They Will Write to Each Other
A human child, hearing a loud bang, finds an alien who looks, at least to the human, like a medium sized dog that’s hurt. The child picks up the alien to bring them home and then gives them a bath since they were covered in mud and sticks. The alien wakes up realizing they’re now wrapped up in bandages, stuck in what looks like a makeshift “hospital gown”, and the child is rocking the small bed they were put in, reading them stories in a children’s “my first” storybook. – Anon Guest
Go hiking on Ruggedia, they said. It’s a sparsely-populated Deathworld, they said. All of them are isolationists, but they’re relatively friendly, they said. And then they said the worst thing they could say: “What could go wrong?”
The universe hates questions like that. It is very willing to provide answers. Painful, educational, and above all demonstrative answers. You want to know what could go wrong? This, that, some of this, and a whole steaming pile of excrement in your face. It started with an earthquake, then there were bats, snakes, and a strong wind that the data services insisted was not a hurricane.
Poflid Leez remembered falling down some unstable scree. The world turning about and losing coherence as she lost consciousness. She had not gone out into a wilderness unprepared. There were alert systems in place in case of medical, emotional, or physical distress. This event counted as all three. Leez could only hope that someone heard the automated call and arrive before another disaster struck her.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03093-H185: The Wait for Travel Services
The Humans were sitting around the fire with several of their Havenworlder friends. The winds outside the shelter were howling loudly and they were still waiting for the rescue vessel to bring them the rest of the parts they needed to repair the ship enough to limp it to a spaceport for a full refit. It was a stormy night so the Humans decided to have fun and tell ghost stories. – Anon Guest
It was a dark and stormy night. The winds howled and rattled the very temporary shelter on a small, nondescript planet just off from the major shipping lanes. They would have made it to Pinkus East if only someone patrolling the lanes hadn’t been napping and missed one high-velocity paint fleck.
Space travel. It makes even the most insignificant debris into a life-threatening hazard. Alas, in high-traffic shipping lanes, the ships’ micrometeor defense systems[1] had to be turned off. Smaller ships and short-hop vessels looked an awful lot like asteroid hazards to defense system AI’s. Which was why there were patrols in the first place. Which should have worked. One had not, and now they were here because they were here.
On a passive planet that was set aside as an emergency landing for people like the crew of the Therinbak. All they had to do was wait for a patch kit and a tow back up into space, and they could resume their travels. This, of course, meant that the Humans were already bored. The one with the guitar had run out of songs to show off with[2], the one with the card tricks was still trying to work out what had gone wrong with the last one, and one of the Humans was sitting upside-down. Always a bad sign.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03092-H184: Ozymandius Syndrome
“Yes, I was a CEO. Yes, I am, was, the richest person on my home-world. So why am in this cell? I surrendered myself. Why did I do that? After what I saw, how they helped me, I grew something I didn’t know existed. I gained humility. I hurt them. It’s time I faced justice for my crimes. I deserve it. I’m so very sorry.” – Anon Guest
A wise man once wrote that it is often considered criminal to live in slums, it is never considered criminal to own them. Words like that often miss the person they’re aimed at. And yet, there are always the statistical outliers whom the others wish they could not count. They make denying the possibility of change so difficult.
Such as Howell Troyus IV, who encountered a change of mind via a change of fate. When one practices the Faith of Prosperity[1], it’s easy to believe that the poor are naturally evil. After all, they are obviously being punished for the sin of not having money. However, all it takes is one terrible accident to reverse one’s fortunes.
He has encountered such a fate, and not violently. All he had to do was encounter bigger sharks than himself, running a more corrupt enterprise than he had ever dreamed. The next thing he knew, he was spending the last of his ready finances on fees, charges, and fines that he should have been able to skate away from. And then somebody rolled him for his suit.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03091-H183: Pause Button Broken
bkf48a day ago:
I’d love for wraithvine to meet this guy! :-)
internutter73a day ago:
They’d for sure bump into each other via other shenanigans.
WV: Whoa! That’s one heck of a Destiny you’ve got there. What do you have up your sleeve.
A: Well I have this weird bell, these passive qualities, and I can [ABILITY] once a day.
WV: Cool. I can teach you how to be clever with that.
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-03050-h127-fate-destiny-a-basket – DaniAndShali
[AN: Whoops I stole that thunder a bit early. So this has to be adjusted more than a smidge.]
Wraithvine set up a dummy in the middle of a rocky area most folks in Paxdale used as a source of ammunition[1]. Little could be harmed there. With a sending spell and safe distance from the Chosen One, Wraithvine the Eternal told Amatu, “All right, lad. That dummy is a bad evil nasty person. What’s your favourite weapon?”
Typical of a farmer’s boy, Amatu readied his sling and picked up a rock. Most people would laugh. Wraithvine watched with a critical eye. There was a distant cry of, “Stay away from my Mama,” as the rock flew. Then the dummy… was a cloud of splinters.
Pondermoore summed it up with magnificent eloquence. “Whoops.” She looked up, and caught the pumpkin head before it could cause an even bigger mess. “Pondermoore glad we good guys.”
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03090-H182: Baby on Board
A Human toddler is flying for their first time with their parents. They’d never been off-world before and they were excited. The toddler was being brought to a medical facility on a station for a surgical procedure, though as active as they are people would never realize they were sick. With them were several Havenworlders including one who looked for all the world like a large, fluffy, bipedal canine in basic ship’s skins. Problem is, the toddler would not stop trying to pet the furry head. The embarrassed parents did their best to teach boundaries. – Anon Guest
Babies on flights were rarely welcome. They cried at the changes of air pressure, they got sticky, despite their parents’ best efforts, and they had yet to learn how to sit still for extended periods of time. Screen toys have helped with this, but only so much. As evidenced by the very small Human Seth as ze was working out hir zoomies.
In the anti-inertia realms of Hyperspace[1], this meant swimming about through the cabin declaring, “Me fishie!” Ze periodically bounced off of bulkheads, laughing as ze slowed to a halt in seeming midair. Or, as ze was doing now, swimming up to an air vent and letting the breeze push hir back along the aisles.
“Okay, Seth. Time for settles,” cooed a parental. “No more. We have to sit for transfer, now.” He moved to intercept Seth, arms spread wide and ready to snag the child. It was at that moment that things went quickly wrong. A chance movement of a fellow passenger drew Seth’s attention to something a child would find irresistible.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03089-H181: One Confounding Morning in an Off-beat Security Office
The time Havenworlders trained in a dojo run by humans, defeated and imprisoned a human who was a pirate. They delivered the pirate to the other humans, who were, to say the least, rather impressed! – Anon Guest
A large number of things are inadvisable to the boundary of impossibility. A number of other things are inadvisable - like telling a Human what’s impossible. Humans tend to take these things as a challenge, and there is inevitably fallout as a consequence. Current in the list of impossible things, to Security Officer Lun’s mind, was, you can’t teach Havenworlders to succesfully defend themselves from Deathworlders. He should have known. In an infinite universe, nothing is impossible[1].
Three beaming Havenworlders escorted a float pallet full of bound and gagged Human to the admission’s desk. They were Ledopteri and, by all accounts, should have been easily squished by a Human. Nevertheless, this was real as verified by the securicams and not an elaborate hologram. “We are here to collect the reward,” said the spokesbug, wings flared and talons proudly displayed.
“Dangerous pirate,” said their second, who had steered the float pallet. “Much Time offered.”
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)