Space Opera Stories

Sea-Stung Requiem

By Jamie F. Bell

The world was the colour of rust and dirty water. Millie steered the skiff with one hand, the other resting on Andy’s forehead. He was burning up, his skin clammy despite the chill wind that whipped across the submerged city. Skeletal high-rises clawed at the perpetually overcast sky, their lower floors lost to the greasy, churning swell of the Atlantic. The only sounds were the chug of their small motor, the slap of waves against the hull, and Andy’s shallow, rattling breaths.

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A Gilded Cage of Creativity

By Tony Eetak

A sterile, futuristic classroom within a space station, where the outside world is an artificial autumn landscape. Teenagers are seated in a semicircle, facing a strict professor. The atmosphere is tense, as a discussion about 'the arts' becomes a veiled interrogation of individual thought and loyalty to the Authority.

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Corrosive Rhymes and Programmable Daffodils

By Jamie F. Bell

The air in Bio-Habitat 7 tasted of recycled oxygen, ozone, and the faint, cloying sweetness of genetically spliced chrysanthemums fighting a losing battle against the metallic tang of the station. Under the simulated sun of the dome's ceiling projectors, dust motes—real, authentic dust, a constant intruder from the regolith processing plants—swirled in lazy columns. It was supposed to be Spring, a scheduled, four-week cycle of heightened UV and forced pollination before the station reverted to its default temperate state.

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An Accounting of Sub-Basement Realities

By Jamie F. Bell

The sub-basement of the new condo tower in Calgary smelled of damp concrete, ozone, and a faint, cloying sweetness like burnt sugar. Fluorescent lights, the cheap kind that hummed with a headache-inducing frequency, cast everything in a sterile, flickering glare. Robb knelt, tracing the outer salt circle, his fingers steady. The client, a terrified man named Bart in a thousand-dollar suit that was now sweat-stained, huddled by the elevators, clutching a briefcase like a shield.

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The Stone That Sings Of Static

By Jamie F. Bell

The fire spat and crackled, a small bubble of warmth against the immense, cold silence of the Nahanni Valley. Vern stared into the flames, but he wasn't seeing them. He was seeing the patterns the rock showed him, the webs of light behind his eyes. The meteorite sat on a nearby crate, a lump of pitted, unearthly metal that hummed with a low, constant vibration, a sound that felt like static on the teeth.

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All Our Hollow Covenants

By Jamie F. Bell

The fog rolled into Halifax harbour like a dirty grey blanket, muffling the world in damp silence. Thomas could taste the salt and diesel on his tongue. He leaned against a rusted piling of the derelict ferry terminal, the wood slick with moisture, and watched the man approach. The man, Chris, moved like a mouse in a hawk's shadow—all jerky movements and fearful, sideways glances.

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The Hull-Grown God

By Jamie F. Bell

The hiss of the breached seal was the first new sound inside the Ozymandias in four hundred years. It was a thin, complaining noise, the ship’s dead atmosphere protesting the intrusion. Cassian felt it in the soles of his mag-boots, a vibration that travelled up his spine. Outside, the starfield was a placid, indifferent scatter of diamonds on black velvet. Inside was only the tomb-cold and the narrow beam of his headlamp cutting a swathe through the dark.

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