space travel

Twitch Stream Story: Dear Ceri, Please do Tricks

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

There were only six modules left on the Neptune4 space station, currently orbiting Earth’s moon. Mankind hadn’t gotten much further than that, so their interests in space had branched out. There was one station run by genetically modified chimpanzees in order to test the limits of animal astronauts. That station, Bananabunch3, had been such an incredible success, despite one or two acts of ape cannibalism, that they’d branched out even further.

Bananabunch3 had been filled with hydroponic and botanical experiments, providing plenty of natural greenery to keep to keep the apestronauts healthy and sane. Neptune4 housed modified cetaceans, so it was full of perfectly balanced salt water and bobbing colorful toys. Continue reading →

Phages of the Free Radical

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

In a distant dimension where inner and outer space are one and the same, cell-like beings must abandon their lung-like planet before it is struck by wandering debris.  One among them is not what they seem, entranced by the dancing fluids inside each of them, hungry to understand it…

(reading time: 1 hour, 31 minutes)

I do not grant you permission to see this lightly, but I tire of your begging and pleading.  I have real work to do.  If you want to waste your time, go ahead; I won’t stop you.  I guess you’ve proven I can’t anyway.

Put it back when you’re done, as if nobody ever touched it. Continue reading →

Labor of Ruby and Pearl: Finale

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 11 minutes)

Raiding the Nest

It was no trouble getting under Proplay’s atmosphere.  They were afforded all the same privacies as other guests and residents outdoors.  Security systems were concentrated on individual buildings and varied with the affluence of the owner.  Everyone but Dana was shocked by the number of private guards posted at each doorstep.  Some buildings had two or three watchmen seated at the top of thin towers that had big steel-rimmed binoculars built into their edges. Continue reading →

Labor of Ruby and Pearl: Part Six

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Kissing Bugs

Though his father had ordered a retreat, Shem didn’t dare face him empty-handed.  When he fled from the clinic he simply set the ship down in a wooded area and disguised it with branches.  He wanted to go that night, but the equipment he had ordered had not arrived yet.   He spent a day cooped up in his metal ball watching grasshoppers and centipedes crawl across his viewing glass.  He checked his dash screen regularly to make sure it still tracked the pearl. Continue reading →

Labor of Ruby and Pearl: Part Four

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 43 minutes)

Labor of Love

A rickety shack of a house buzzed with activity.  Like most dwellings on Mavercree, there wasn’t another one for miles.  Sixteen vehicles were parked all around the home, with two being bigger than the building itself.  People moved in and out of the single door; they had to turn sideways for two to fit.  The wooden cabin shuddered with everyone’s steps and the light rain dripping over the clogged gutters looked like nervous sweat.  The poor building had never seen such a flurry of bodies. Continue reading →

Labor of Ruby and Pearl: Part Three

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 4 minutes)

Emzara

The hug was uncomfortable.  Her fingers opened and closed, waiting for it to be over.  Her mother’s pregnant swell forced her to lean back.  Emzara could smell her mother’s hair; it reminded her of all the other hugs she’d gotten over her thirty years.  There was the one when she announced her own pregnancy at fourteen.  Her mother had been so happy that she cried.  Emzara cried as well.  She cried because of fathers and mothers.  She cried when she hit herself in the stomach with a closed fist; she did that for hours and tried to think of it as a workout.  One two three punch, one two three punch, okay just ten more, and then I can be done for the night.  More tears than punches. Continue reading →

Labor of Ruby and Pearl: Part Two

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 2 minutes)

Shem Knarkid Needs his Mommy

Nestled in the heart of the Cosmic Collective, the planet Maymow slowly waltzed its way around its sun.  Under the blanket of its cool atmosphere, great mountain chains curled around each other and poked through the clouds like the intertwined knees of giant sleeping lovers, some of whom must not have cared to shave their legs given the thick pine forests across most peaks.  Some referred to Maymow as Carnal Rock, others as the Sinner’s Stones.  It was a modern planet full of civilized kitchens, bathrooms, studies, terraces, gardens… but not bedrooms.  No the bedrooms of Maymow were places of exploration.  Places where people set out to discover new passions with old flames. Continue reading →

Labor of Ruby and Pearl: Part One

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

(blurb)

A pact struck in the distant future, after mankind has colonized dozens of worlds and diversified into engineered subspecies, saw the death of guns and missiles.  With the new stigma of ‘farcoward’ weapons comes a return of the sword, shield, and bow.

Dana Rudolph is a grumpy travel writer hopping world to world, keeping to himself until date of publishing, when he is pulled into a vast, and surprisingly icky, conspiracy where he must do his best to protect the ‘appearl’, an anomalous learning gem that formed on its own inside a supercomputer.

Follow him and his sword as he teams up with an amazon and a leprechaun to dismantle the supposedly divine, forcing him to confront his traumatic past.

(reading time: 45 minutes) (reading time for entire novel: 6 hours, 11 minutes)

Labor of Ruby and Pearl

by

Blaine Arcade

The Prosecution’s Best Witness

A man, mostly hollowed, took his seat at the witness stand.  It was time to present the blood ruby left to him by his captors so it could be admitted into evidence.  That way justice could prevail. Continue reading →

Marathon Discovery

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 4 Comments

The law says you can only claim territory on new planets by physically exploring it with your own two feet.  It doesn’t say you can’t wear special equipment, train in oxygen chambers, and store your own blood for later infusion, or compete with representatives of other countries in vicious races for dominance…

(reading time: 52 minutes)

Marathon Discovery

by

Blaine Arcade

A metal-wrapped bubble of oxygen drifted through space like the last deep breath of a time capsule before being buried in the dark. The letters N.A.C. were printed on the bubble’s side as if there was someone to look at them. Within the bubble’s skin, members of a human crew went about their daily business. Continue reading →