The Truth Hurts by Adam Francis Smith

High Movility Infantry by Shabazik on DeviantArt.com

“One way out,” she said. I know now that she meant death. I thought she had meant this gauntlet.

I leap into an alcove. Flashes and bullets. I dive, sliding to the next door. I stand, decide not to wait, push off the wall, run.

Finally, I’m huddled beneath the window. Ten feet more and then freedom.

I take a breath, hold it, skitter across the floor and a bullet slams into my thigh. A laser burns my neck. I drop and exhale. Another bullet hits my knee. A laser blast burns the truth into my gut; she was right.

Who’s Right? by Adam Francis Smith

Headshot by Sanpondera on DeviantArt.com

Gorak swings his helmet and connects with my head. I’m stunned and he kicks me in the stomach. I crumple and he pounds an elbow into the base of my neck. Laid out, I finally realize he means to kill me. “You tight-assed, xenophobic, piece of shit!” he screams as he stomps on my back. I aim my blaster and take two of his legs off at the first knee. He falls and I fire again. There’s a sizzle and his furry face is gone. I had been warned about arguing politics with a Jankhali. I wish I had listened.

PSA: Intergalactic Sexual Safety by the Despot

Red Mantis Leader by nJoo on DeviantArt.com

Osculating an octogriff’s pedipalps. Bucket list, check!

However, its butyraceous secretions mimicked pheromones of its prime predator, a hermaphroditic mantoid. After ingesting the octogriff (and my chelipeds), the mantoid mounted me. Its mandibles nibbled my neck, stimulating my coiled embolus, which I thrust in its bursa. We copulated violently until my apical sclerite broke off – ensuring I’d be its sole mate!

It spun me, its claspers roughly gripping my uropods, and penetrated my cloaca with spined hemipenes, depositing millions of fertilized eggs in my abdomen.

Now parasitoid embryos gnaw my swollen insides for breakfast.

Practice safe mating. Cloak your embolus.

Hero Rising by Adam Francis Smith

Bug Hunt by OtisFrampton on DeviantArt.com

Behind a rock I hide, praying for a miracle. It’s one against eleven.

I see but cannot hear the ricochets, gray puffs erupting in vacuum. Soon it’ll be red puffs joining the gray.

Nothing to lose …

I pop up in near-zero gravity and fire as I rise, unerringly taking out one bug-eye after another. I’m hit and pirouette, and the spin helps me see. Crawlers die, sun-hot fires in their thoraxes. I’m a spinning pillar of white, shedding red beads like a spiral fountain. I shove a gloved finger into my wound and my jet pack flares, taking me home.

Victory in Ursa Minor by Adam Francis Smith

Harpy by telthona on DeviantArt.com

We form up and charge across the docking bay, hoping to force the Skrebs through the shield, into space. We smash into their mass as if we’ve hit a wall. It’s all about our makeshift weapons against their glass-sharp talons.

I swing my wrench, breaking Skreb limbs. Now and again, I’m sliced on my shoulder, back or arm. There’s feedback from my communicator, and I see the Skreb before me flinch. It doesn’t like the sound. Finally, a real weapon! I shout an order and soon the Skrebs are leaping into space, escaping the sound. It’s a song of victory.

Experiment 001 by Brittany Pomales

The Dancer by triatholisk on DeviantArt.com

She looked over at the blood bag used for the infusion—alien’s blood. “What did you do to me?” she yelled, walking towards him. She used her two newly acquired tentacles and placed them on the sides of the doctor’s head. He began to scream as his skin started to burn from the slime. Using the suction cups, she lifted the doctor, shaking him harder and harder until she heard a snap. The screaming stopped and the doctor’s limp body fell free from her grasp. The scientist should have known better than to experiment on his own daughter.

Dull Hull by Pandora’s Key

Collision Course by madfox43 on DeviantArt.com

I sigh.
Francine pops out of a waste disposal unit with a freaky alien mask.
I choke.
“Did I?” she asks.
“No,” I say.
Francine tells me a joke, a good one. I feel thirsty.
“What’s with you, Jack?”
“I must actually be dying of boredom.”
She smirks. “So even dying’s boring?”
“It might be the only exciting thing left.”
“I’ll cheer you up!”
Rolling my eyes, “Please, don’t try.”
She smiles. “Let’s—”
Alarms!
Our hands touch.
Boom! The sound of roaring metal!
I watch another ship tear into ours. It’s about to obliterate my face!
The hull looks dull.

Blood Feast by Austin Malcome

Monster by Disse86 on DeviantArt.com

I hate artificial gravity. Blood tastes best in zero-g. I love watching the wet globs twirl in the air; I love slurping the hot crimson beads as they float by. The thought of it makes my stomachs growl.

I can smell them now. They reek of sweat, and I wonder if they have showers on this freighter. They come into view, three pink fleshy dinners, and without warning my son leaps past me.

I curse his foolishness. He’s undisciplined. Still, my heart swells with parental pride as he slashes them open. Wasted blood paints the decks; I hate artificial gravity.

Bogie by Austin Malcome

Golden Interdimensional Serpent Redux by GuthrieArtwork on DeviantArt.com

“Bogie on your six, Slick!”

“I see him.”

Slick dropped his speed and rolled into a dive. He maneuvered the enemy into his crosshairs and fired.
The enemy ship exploded.

“Not bad, Slick!”

“Thanks, Jules.”

Alarms blared; the cockpit blazed with warning lights. Jules’ voice crackled through the intercom:
“… unidentified …”

“Come back, Jules. I do not copy. Jules?” Something slammed into the side of the fightership. It spun in frantic circles. The engines bled plasma.

Slick saw the thing now, and his mind broke. It was too big, too hideous—and its tentacles reached for him.

Mootiny by Adam Francis Smith

Soldier by Orpheus7 on DeviantArt.com

“Do you even know if this prison ship is space worthy?”

“We’ll find out,, McTish,” smiled Geener.

Smilt and Bern mimicked the grin.

The doors opened. Guards rushed in. Bern’s face exploded. I knelt behind him, taking cover.

Geener threw a chair. When he went down, I could see into the hall through the hole in his middle.

Smilt was the first to surrender. Captain forced him to his knees and executed him on the spot.

Six more after Smilt until it was me remaining.

Captain whispered, “Thanks, McTish, but don’t think you’ve won any favors.”