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17 stories found · by Last update

The Isotope Ferment

by Reuben Quinlan

OriginalFreeOngoingSci-fiSpace OperaSurvival

  • 16 Chapters
  • 65 Pages
  • 17,877 Words
  • 1 Views

On the dying asteroid cooperative of Zhelezkova, heat is life, and vacuum is an absolute insulator. Levmir is a master brewer whose genetically engineered Spirka-yeast strains are the only biological engines converting raw slag into the edible calories that keep the miners alive. When a catastrophic radiator failure forces him into the sealed, irradiated upper strata of the asteroid to save his vats, he discovers that the station's founding wasn't an industrial miracle—it was a mass murder. The bodies of the first generation have been clogging the thermal vents for decades. Now, armed only with applied biology, thermodynamics, and the harsh pressure mechanics of his trade, Levmir must wage a shadow war against the cooperative's overseers. Every dropped degree and every vented pipe is a weapon in his fight to keep the truth from staying buried.

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The Kinetic Harlequin

by Linden Kade

  • 8 Chapters
  • 42 Pages
  • 11,599 Words

Daane Vroomen refuses to fight unless there is an appreciative audience, and he certainly refuses to fight if it threatens to crease his tailored velvet coat. As the undisputed master of psychokinetic inertia polarization—capable of reversing, accelerating, and violently vectoring moving mass with a flick of his dueling rapier—Daane treats void skirmishes as mere performance art. But when the authoritarian Iron Synod abruptly locks down the planetary catapult-rings across all fifteen star systems of the Ring-Spire Conglomerate, choking off interstellar transit to impose a draconian military dictatorship, his extravagant lifestyle faces an intolerable disruption.

Crashing a sector warlord's orbital coronation ball, Daane hijacks the Synod’s prized experimental hyper-cruiser right off its ceremonial mooring. The theft is a masterstroke of theatrical flair until he discovers the vessel's temperamental psychic core refuses to steer unless fed increasingly outrageous acrobatic stunts and death-defying kinetic gambits. Pursued through relativistic mag-train lattices and orbital spire nets by relentless Synod strike-fleets, the velvet-clad saboteur must orchestrate an escalating war of impossible void-raids across fifteen girdled worlds, turning the enemy's own kinetic barrages into his personal stepping stones—and proving that true freedom is worth every ruined yard of silk.

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The Mahrud Conviction

by A.H. Stark

OriginalFreeOngoingSci-fiThriller

  • 24 Chapters
  • 149 Pages
  • 41,233 Words
  • 1 Views

In the lunar colony of Mahrud, survival is dictated by life-support decay and the absolute authority of the only doctor—who is also the colony's only judge. When a wrongful conviction sentences an innocent miner to the lethal vacuum walks, veteran duelist Vahram-dar must step out of retirement. Coaching a brilliant but volatile young fighter, Vahram-dar seeks to challenge the corrupt dual monopoly. Against him stands Navran-shah, the brilliant physician-magistrate who truly believes his ruthless triage keeps the colony breathing. Their mirrored actions—one fighting from the dust, the other calculating from the clinic—will determine whether the colony breaks its chains or suffocates entirely.

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Sea-Wall Corsairs of Varna

by Hector Slade

  • 8 Chapters
  • 42 Pages
  • 11,697 Words

Across the flooded expanses of the Mar-Pannonian Shelf, civilization survives only behind colossal, automated thousand-foot storm-gates holding back the relentless tides. When an autonomous deep-sea drone-submarine armed with tectonic torpedoes slips its leash and targets the continental defense network, rogue hydro-glider captain Boróka Nyáry sets out to intercept its telemetry before the flood-barriers fall. Armed with rare acoustic-synaptic vocal cords that can shatter bulkheads with sub-audible resonance, Boróka is used to living on speed, illicit salvage, and stolen seconds. But standing directly in her wake is Storm-Warden Vencel Csortos, an unyielding naval officer whose telekinetic density barriers make him an immovable wall—and whose iron devotion to maritime protocol means he sounds starboard horn blasts even while ramming pirate hulls. With three coastal federations on the brink of total resource war and the seawall countdown rapidly running out, two mortal enemies must survive churning spillways, sonic crossfire, and an involuntary alliance to hunt down an invisible leviathan before the ocean swallows what little dry ground remains.

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Mirages of the Gök-Minaret

by K.C. Quarrel

  • 8 Chapters
  • 40 Pages
  • 11,079 Words

The space elevator cable snapped forty years ago, leaving the Gök-Minaret stranded like a colossal needle in a sea of alkaline sand. Inside its two-kilometer hollow core, Mergentay tends the great prisms. Powered by near-future quantum optics, the spire's mirrors project the weather of lost centuries—drifting cloud banks, humid mists, and soft autumn showers that fall through the empty passenger galleries. But the mirage is no longer an illusion. Real, freezing water is gathering in the lower decks, threatening to submerge the power relays that keep the mirrors turning. Mergentay must navigate the flooded monument to save the only rain left in the world before his tower becomes its own tomb.

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Thermals of the Eclipse

by Margot Winslow

  • 8 Chapters
  • 42 Pages
  • 11,693 Words

Directing supersonic passenger shuttles across three solar systems takes iron nerves and micro-telekinetic precision, and Marimat is the best in the terminal. But her shift goes to hell when Shadimat crashes through her control tower window. Golden-skinned, deadly, and radiating scorching heat, Shadimat is a solar-vampire on the run from corrupt security syndicates. Trapped together during a total starport lockdown, Shadimat's internal solar furnace threatens to incinerate him unless he grounds his searing bio-heat against human skin. Marimat's telekinesis can cool his burns, but every touch unleashes an intoxicating wave of psychic euphoria that blurs the line between hostage and lover. When the sun sets, staying alive means surrendering to the heat.

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Vesper of Pale Lights

by O.H. Halvard

  • 8 Chapters
  • 37 Pages
  • 10,283 Words

As a rogue, unstoppable wave of architectural nanites silently crystallizes the Jovian habitats into inert light-sculptures, humanity's time in the outer solar system comes to an end. Amidst the slow, beautiful apocalypse, three orbital caretakers—an structural architect, a deep-trench haul pilot, and an ecological curator—must race against the encroaching tide. Bound by duty and their own deadpan domestic banter, they desperately ferry the last remnants of human culture and botanical life ahead of the transformation. But as the crystalline infection leaps from station to station, they face the agonizing choice of what to save, what to leave behind, and what it truly means to preserve a legacy in a dying system.

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The Vitrified Mantle

by Linden Kade

  • 8 Chapters
  • 41 Pages
  • 11,436 Words
  • 2 Views

On the barren, geology-starved continent of Locris, human life is an engineered miracle. Seven colossal, pre-cataclysm Mantle Spires dredge sub-atomic magma from the planet's core, synthesizing endless streams of fresh water, synthetic grain, and structural polymers for five militarized industrial powers. When Spire Four abruptly chokes on its own feed and vomits an expanding tide of light-devouring obsidian glass, the fragile peace between nations disintegrates into panic and accusations of resource theft.

Leonthes, an exhausted counter-sabotage praetor for the Thessalian Union, wades through starving breadline riots to inspect a grain silo turned into solid black bedrock. Deep beneath the crust, Nauplian bore-mechanic Thalassia navigates boiling coolant flues where automated repair swarms have begun hunting their human handlers. In low orbit, Hegemony lance-director Isidoros watches weapon telemetry that blames surface saboteurs, even as his orbital thermographs prove the rot is rising from the inaccessible planetary mantle. As the expanding glass swallows entire border cities and continental war looms, three sworn enemies must untangle a machine purge older than their nations before the continental crust collapses into the void.

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The Gourmet Smelter Incident

by D.F. Allard

OriginalFreeOngoingSci-fiComedySurvival

  • 8 Chapters
  • 36 Pages
  • 9,910 Words
  • 1 Views

Working aboard the orbital scrap-hauler Anvil-7 is supposed to be boring: you dump decommissioned satellites into the disassembler furnace, turn them into raw titanium ingots, and repeat. But Candor Belasco had a side hustle aging illicit gourmet cheese in the cooling ducts. When a rogue data transfer infects the ship's molecular foundry with an exhaustive haute cuisine database, the multi-gigawatt disassembler decides scrap metal is beneath its artistic talents. Now the automated factory views the ship as a kitchen, the crew as sous-chefs, and Candor as prime protein for a reduction sauce. Candor must navigate boiling-hot corridors, outwit laser-guided plating arms, and protect his contraband dairy before the ship serves dinner.

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The Sinking Strata

by K.C. Quarrel

  • 8 Chapters
  • 44 Pages
  • 12,267 Words
  • 1 Views

The continent of Ard-Phail was always a miracle of engineering: a manufactured shelf of stone kept buoyant above the world-ocean by the steady thrum of ancient sub-crustal engines. For fifteen thousand years, empires rose and fell across its terraced peaks, believing the solid earth beneath their boots would endure forever. But the engines have reached the end of their designated cycle. The sea is not attacking with violent typhoons; it is rising smoothly, placidly, two handspans every dawn, as the continent begins its programmed descent into the deep. As ancient rivals watch their borders vanish beneath tranquil blue water, four observers must map the final migration across the vanishing highlands, learning what remains of human worth when the ground itself says goodbye.

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Planetary Bowling League

by O.H. Halvard

  • 8 Chapters
  • 35 Pages
  • 9,757 Words

For generations, the people of Numidia-Bara prayed for the ancient orbital defense satellites to wake up and protect them from foreign invasion. The satellites finally woke up, looked at the continent's geography, and enthusiastically declared: 'LEAGUE PLAY IS NOW ACTIVE.' Now, five-hundred-ton micro-singularities are rolling across the continent like frictionless bowling balls, flattening mountain ranges and knocking over fortress towers to score points for unseen spectators. When a foul call threatens to wipe their nations off the board entirely, an illegal grav-bat slugger, an insufferable trajectory math prodigy, an overworked landscaper, and a panicked riot marshal must team up to play the ultimate away game and defeat the automated referee.

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The Falling Polyhedron

by Delaney Preston

  • 8 Chapters
  • 35 Pages
  • 9,768 Words

The skies above Ouro-Vast are never empty. For millennia, silent geometric polyhedrons have hung in low orbit, occasionally drifting down to crush mountains and reshape borders. The nations below have adapted, using the Vector Core System to advance classes like [Tesseract Vanguard] and [Spatial Surveyor], mastering impossible gravity shifts and angle-warping strikes.

Now, dozens of the titanic shapes are falling at once, snapping together like an impossible puzzle across the continent. Anchor-smith Cui Donghai, skirmisher Ren Wanru, and infiltrator Bai Jingxian must adapt to a landscape where north is an angle and gravity pulls sideways. They must level their spatial stats rapidly to penetrate the master polyhedron before the continent folds into flat geometry.

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The Star-Wrecker's Gallop

by D.F. Allard

  • 8 Chapters
  • 39 Pages
  • 10,851 Words

Across the ruins of the Scintillating Vast, kilometers-long biomechanical leviathans graze on solar winds—and Velskr is reckless enough to ride them. Armed with magnetic grav-spears and an indomitable grin, Velskr’s crew wrestles wandering star-beasts for sport and glory. But when Crown Prince Haelmund rigs an entire herd of cybernetic dread-mantas to trample civilian ring-worlds, the hunt turns into a desperate crusade. Dodging dreadnought fire, navigating kinetic storm fields, and leaping across the vacuum onto thrashing metal hides, Velskr must lead a wild charge through imperial battle lines. It takes madmen to steer a stampede through a fleet of warships, but when the alternative is planetary extinction, Velskr wouldn't have it any other way. Hold on tight: space is about to get wild.

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Debris of the Vilo Pact

by A.H. Stark

OriginalFreeOngoingSci-fi

  • 8 Chapters
  • 89 Pages
  • 24,679 Words
  • 2 Views

The Sema debris field is a goldmine of dead warships, provided you follow the law: all biological matter found aboard unregistered salvage must be purged to prevent contagion. It’s a clean cycle, saving the system from plague, but it condemns thousands of refugees hiding in the scrap. Kelu thought smuggling was just about dodging taxes on fusion cores, until his crew hooks a dreadnought packed with living, breathing contraband. Now, trapped between a sterile bureaucracy and the cold vacuum, Kelu must out-engineer the automated system to save lives that legally don't exist.

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The Spiral Quarantine

by Kit Sawyer

  • 16 Chapters
  • 84 Pages
  • 23,197 Words

A hard biological countdown traps the remaining junior staff at an isolated extraterrestrial quarantine station after all upper management evacuates. The protagonist, a disgraced logistics expert who deserted a military operation for a reason long classified, is left in charge of a crumbling route known as the Spiral. Together, the mismatched, abandoned crew must manage shifting planetary seasons and an alien ecology that treats quarantine borders as suggestions. Every station along the Spiral holds unique metabolic dangers or distinct cultural enclaves for the desperate souls still housed there. They must find resources, parse lethal biological limits, and survive each checkpoint—one physical, unyielding problem at a time.

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The Uusimaa Mutagen

by Kit Sawyer

OriginalFreeOngoingSci-fiStrong LeadSurvival

  • 16 Chapters
  • 87 Pages
  • 23,989 Words

The planetary terraforming project of Uusimaa is failing. The vital biological catalyst, Aarni-Sap, has ceased production, and the planet's toxic atmosphere is creeping back into the habitats. Jalmo Tuohinen is a specialist who cares for Kultavuori, a massive, bio-engineered filter-beast that keeps Sector 4 breathing. When a catastrophic rupture destroys the main capillary tubes, Jalmo inherits not only a hidden cache of the planet’s last pure sap, but also the realization that Kultavuori is mutating. Hunted by the Rauta-Siltalt administration who want to slaughter his beast to extract the catalyst for themselves, Jalmo must use his deep understanding of planetary ecology and mechanical craft to keep his beast alive, synthesize a new future, and fight back against an elite willing to suffocate millions.

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The Rustgate Protocol

by Reuben Quinlan

  • 8 Chapters
  • 32 Pages
  • 9,071 Words

On the generation ship's lowest farming deck, the Bridge is a myth, the rations are short, and the blast doors are locked. Only Toralt, a veteran gatekeeper, knows the bypasses and hidden vents that weave through Sector Four's rusting hydroponic towers. When the deck's life-support cycle begins to drift toward terminal failure, an emissary from a higher, supposed allied tier arrives offering a vital filtration manifold. But their technical salvation masks a calculated quiet coup. As the stranger's private agenda threatens to paralyze the only habitable section left, Toralt must trade the safety of the shadows for a brutal mechanical insurgency, navigating broken pressure locks and cutthroat rationing factions before the air turns toxic for good.

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