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Captain Stewart hated the new company rules. "We will celebrate every memorial day, no matter how ridiculous. Think of the children". Hence today's uniform. Who had the idea of a Day of Pirates? Here he was, in charge of the entire operation of the ship, while the rest of the bridge crew was entertaining the passengers. But that let him keep his true mission in secret. The cargo would be safely delivered. A working cold fusion drive. Then he would be free… #WritingPrompt
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The first test of the weapon was successful beyond the development team's wildest dreams. Way, way beyond. They used the experimental reactors meant for the ISS-2, and they used them without permission. It'd have take years to get the authorization. They wouldn't live to see the paperwork done, so they did it "by their guns", as one of the scientists likes to say. The weapon created a tornado that destroyed half of the state, by the way. That was by design… #WritingPrompt
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The Axe (capital A) is kept in a vault located 195m under the Louvre Museum. A vault that isn't part of the museum. Not even the French government know about it. Those who know like to keep things this way. They know everything about the Axe. How it was made. What it was made from. Who made it. And, most important, why it was made and how to use it. Because this is not an axe (lowercase a). Not. This is a Key (upercase K). The Key to the survival of our world… #WritingPrompt
There was a man who seemingly couldn’t die. He had survived numerous accidents, each with odds of one in ten thousand, including a ride down Niagara Falls, four plane crashes, a gas explosion at the factory where he worked, and several minor disasters with more than one survivor. After the explosion, he was fired and lived on a small compensation from his company.
When two mysterious devices landed in the middle of nowhere, inspecting them seemed impossible. Satellite images and long-range shots from planes appeared pixelated or out of focus. Several helicopters that approached the devices crash-landed, and every drone that came near disappeared from the screens. Clearly, this was a job for “Niagara Steve,” as the media had called him years ago. The army equipped him with a handgun, a camera, a radio (not expecting any of these to work within a two-mile radius of the devices), and a jeep, which he gratefully accepted.
At a distance of a hundred yards, he stopped the engine and turned off the radio to silence the static. He got out of the jeep, leaving camera and gun on the passenger seat. He slowly went to the the devices. A ramp descended, and he stepped up and entered. Seconds later, the devices vanished in the sky.
“WELCOME ABOARD. HOW DO YOU FEEL?” said a voice in his head.
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
“HOW DID YOU LIKE IT DOWN THERE? DID YOU MAKE CONTACT WITH THE DWELLERS?”
“They’re nice, but a little boring. Quite good at statistics, but lacking in imagination. Most of them, anyway.”
@VisualInspiration
—I don't get this. Why do we have to take those tanks to the ISS? There's no space for them. What are you NOT telling me?
—Sorry. That's classified. Just take them up there and let the specialists do their job. Just look the other way.
—What? I can't do that! Tell. Me.
The Commander liked this mission less every minute. Those tanks were, among other things, mobile bombs. And fusion power sources. Mixing these things with that damn creature is not safe… #WritingPrompt
Are you real? What are you, and what are you doing here?
Funny, I was about to ask you the same.
Me? I’m just a dirty n*** they wanted to lock up.
Why?
Who knows? Walking in the park? Wearing a hoodie? Ask the cops. I refused to get into the patrol car, and they gave me six years for rioting.
Bad thing.
Yeah. And you? A yellow rabbit with blue ears, electric sparks coming out of your tail. You’re just a hologram, right?
Touch me.
Touch you? Like this… ouch!
Mind the sparks.
This must be setup. They’re trying to see if they can drive me crazy.
No setup. Now listen, Charles D. Munroe: You won’t remember, but as a little boy, you helped me and my kin in a peculiar situation, and now we’re repaying you. If you want.
What? But I...
We’re getting you out of here. I’m pretty good with electricity and can override the electronic locks. I’ve already overloaded the cameras, so they might not notice your escape. But in the corridors, stay at least twenty steps behind me while I handle the guards, okay? Once we’re outside, we’ll take you to Canada, Mexico, or wherever you want.
I must be going mad. I’m imagining breaking out with the help of a plush animal.
—You won't actually go to space. You only need to be on that spaceship that day and flip a switch. Then you'll be a free man. But you have be a convincing astronaut. We'll train you on the basics. Ok?
—Just flip a switch?
—Yes.
Prisoner 31416 knew about the new spaceship. He knew the president would be there. The one who didn't sign his pardon.
The mission commander was more scared than surprised. He had seen these creatures on TV, on the tournament shows his kids loved. A spaceship full of supplies and nuclear fuel for the ISS was NOT the place for this.
—Don't worry. He's nor dangerous. He has a control system attached. He will obey you.
—I don't want it in my ship.
—It's our ship, commander, and you'll need him up there. Trust us… #WritingPrompt
@VisualInspiration
He is the Chosen One. Selected among the many candidates to be the pilot of "The Bumblebee", the newest spaceship of the fleet. He won't go to the Moon, but he likes to ask her blessing before every mission. Call him superstitious, but this is something his mother taught him when he was a kid. And he believes in this silly ritual. But most important, the Moon believes in him, and that's why she has always blessed him… #WritingPrompt
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A very rich merchant in Edinburgh fell ill. Every step he took exhausted him, his heart raced, he had headaches, and his back ached. He consulted several doctors, who gave him powders, pills, potions, and lotions, but none of them helped. Desperate, he wrote to the famous Dr. Ironbeard, who lived many hundreds of miles away on the south coast of England. Dr. Ironbeard replied, asking the merchant to list precisely what he ate and drank throughout the day. The merchant responded with a long letter.
In his next letter, Dr. Ironbeard wrote, "Sir, I am quite certain I know the cause of your unwellness. Unwittingly, you have swallowed a tiny lindworm egg, which is slowly growing inside your stomach. I can remove it, but you must come to my home. To prevent it from hatching and releasing the lindworm, you must not ride a horse or travel by carriage; you must walk on foot. Furthermore, you may eat nothing but dark bread and raw vegetables."
So the merchant began his journey south on foot. In the early days, he needed to rest after just five miles, but each day he covered a longer distance, and his illness gradually disappeared. When he finally reached Dr. Ironbeard’s home, he was completely healed. Smiling, he handed the doctor a pouch full of money. Then he turned around and walked back home. #writingprompt #microfiction
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Whoever designed the successor to the Space Shuttle should get a medal. And at least six months at the nearest psychiatric hospital, too. This thing shouldn't possibly work, yet there she is, doing a vertical lift-off. She won't get to the moon like the president wanted (cheap bastard), but now all the private space companies are out of business. "Space is ours, again", the president said in a speech. No one understood what he meant at the time… #WritingPrompt
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Eight years late, Ferris Gawalkow returned to Earth. The logfiles didn’t report anything special from orbiting Uranus obviously without using any oxygen, water or energy. The pilot himself couldn’t tell what he had done or what he had seen. He didn’t tell about slipping through spacetime and entering the Nandaii system, about making contact with the Fisaf, a peaceful and advanced cicilization of shapeshifters. He didn’t say a word about falling in love with A’Galsig and living with him for quite a time. He didn’t report being shown around on the Fisaf’s homeworld and seeing fantastic garden-like cities. He didn’t talk about their culture that had no word for possession at all and was founded on absolute respect for every individual. And he didn’t tell that he asked them to wipe his memory before they brought him back.
A’Galsig himself did it with just a spell and he made good job of it.
When Gawalkow returned, he had forgotten everything of the voyage. He didn’t know why he was aboard a spaceship or that he was an astronaut at all, so, traveling back to Earth for six months, locked in a narrow vessel, seriously traumatized him. The rest was done by the authorities’ efforts to find information in his dreams, later in his head. They tried it with hypnosis, neuroleptica, narcotics, electroconvulsive therapy, finally with brain surgery. He died in a mental hospital four months after his return. #writingprompt #microfiction #scifi