After its side won the space battle, an indentured robot with an uploaded intelligence finds an important refugee who makes a dangerous offer it can’t refuse.
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abusedeathwar
Space Opera
162 free-to-read stories tagged “Space Opera”
The ship hadn’t activated Bot 9 in a long time—it’s an unstable model—but in a desperate situation it needs all its resources. And how much trouble can it get into hunting down a rat?
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deathviolence
Even the ghosts have abandoned the ruins of the space station once known as the City of High Bells. All but the faithful temple cat, who sees a starship reenter the system after many long years.
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolencewar
"I have been activated, therefore I have a purpose, Bot 9 thought. I have a purpose, therefore I serve. It recited the Mantra Upon Waking, to check that it was running at optimum physical efficiency, then the Mantra of Obedience, the Mantra of Not...
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deathviolence
Until a visiting starship arrived, the other mermaids thought Essarala was silly for wanting to explore the galaxy.
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death
Alyssa seeks out the aliens who can give her an augment that will let her exchange thoughts and feelings with other humans. But why does she want it, and what is the cost?
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body-horrordeath
Anat doesn't remember her parents, but she loves her brother Oscar. They live in a wonderful world full of strange creatures and machines. The more she learns, the stranger things seem.
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deathviolence
"A ship glides through the night, behemoth mother, swollen with ten thousand human lives. Her path is a single shining vector. There has been no stopping, no rest for the decades she has traveled, and there will be nothing but void for the two years to...
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child-deathpregnancy-lossviolence
"Once a decade, a titanium-nosed shuttle plows through the rings of the planet Tartarus with a new batch of prisoners destined for the Orpheus Factory. The debris that makes up the rings is so thick that it thunders like a hailstorm, deafening the...
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body-horrordeathviolence
"Old as she was, the Kiskadee had done three full delivery runs without a single safety incident. So naturally, with the crew relaxed after a fourth successful delivery and launch, and eight cycles after Reece slingshotted the starship around Tavaco to...
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death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
A key scientist in the Dai Viet interstellar empire has died, and three people who were close to her mourn her passing in different ways.
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
A Heptarchate undercover mission lead by one of Jedao’s friends has gone missing, so Jedao goes undercover to try and rescue them.
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deathsexual-contentviolence
Mallory Iheji would do anything to watch her favorite artist’s lost movie, “The Hydraulic Emperor.” But what would she really sacrifice for it?
Thuy seeks her daughter's remains in the twisted parts of unreal space where salvagers pick over the remains of wrecked starships.
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Thuỷ stood in her cabin in The Goby in the Well, her bots arrayed on her shoulders and clinging to her wrists, and watched the heart of the nebula. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it: the Great Mulberry Nebula was large, sparsely dotted with...
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child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"Brother-Adita paused at the top of the ridge and rotated one eye to take in the shells climbing the path behind them. They gestured beyond them with a limb, a habit picked up from their young, excitable sibling. “Quarter-march, west-north-west,” came...
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deathslaveryviolence
Rhehan used to be a Kel supersoldier before being kicked out. Now the Kel needs Rhehan for a dangerous mission—offering the only coin Rhehan might consider.
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violence
People who don’t like living underground in the colony can live inside giant “whales” that float high in the planet’s atmosphere. That’s usually pretty safe.
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death
A stoner kid and his best friend attempt to move a sofa across town during an alien invasion...
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death-of-a-loved-onegoreviolence
"Start at the cleave of it, not at Zed’s meat death or Ep’s centuries-long destruction, but at the moment that Zed halves his own mind and walks away. Or as was reported in the internal memorandum, the moment when Pilot-Commander Zeta San Tano killed...
"In the cloud forests of Paek Sigma II, the inhabitants do not keep time, but stretch and slice it. The first humans who arrived on the planet were amazed by the fauna. There’s the stone-armored petradrakon, draped in twenty thousand scales each a meter...
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violencewar
"Once upon a time, a little girl had to die. It’s just math. Wrong place, wrong time. Bad luck; too bad, so sad. We’ve all heard such stories, told them, shared them, collected them. Not in the way that we collect trinkets; more like how a sock collects...
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death
Anna’s an AI expert who’s called in to figure out what a new upgrade is causing AI-captained ships to destroy themselves.
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death
"Things began to go badly for the crew of the USFS Erwin around the time Dr. Marchere’s coffee mug spontaneously reassembled itself. Dr. Louis Marchere was not, at that moment, conducting some manner of experiment. Well, he was, only not on entropy and the...
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death
Graff just had an accident so severe that he can no longer keep the secret that he’s a cyborg from his crewmates and his lover.
After a disaster in the Oort Cloud left her family penniless, young Holly works on a farm on Earth to pay for her college education while waiting for her uncles to raise funds to put the family back in business.
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deathillness-and-pandemic
Aria just has a few days to save the whole universe from being swallowed up by Zarzak, the infinite love machine.
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deathviolence
Graff isn’t quite human. His people move through the galaxy collecting memories and experiences, recording their lives and passing them on. Then, one day, he breaks: he discovers a chunk of his memory is missing. This should be impossible—he’s never...
"At the center of every starship was a bonsai starship. It rested in the starship’s command garden and provided the magic that propelled it. Novice Kei had known this longer than she had known her own name, especially since she was the eighth Kei who...
"I’d always known Calam would run. He had all the signs. A taut restlessness, body brittle as an overstretched lute string, when we stayed too long in one place. A gloom in his eyes, as we drifted through stretches of dead space. A sullen crease between...
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deathviolence
As the last stars in the universe are dying, an entity piloting an enormous starship that used to be the Earth tries to decide what to do next.
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death
After 700 years of isolation, the colony faces invasion from fellow humans. Fleeing from the destruction of her home town, Senne hooks up with four soldiers trying to find what’s left of their unit.
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body-horrordeathsexual-violenceviolence
The Dunyshar are stranded on an outpost, but NuTay dreams of going home to Earth.
Perihelion and its crew embark on a dangerous new mission at a corporate-controlled station in the throes of a hostile takeover…
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child-abuseviolence
"We watched the stranger fall from the sky. Our daughters sent us frantic signals as they tracked her burning trail. She crashed on the beaches by the deeper ocean, her once beautiful white and silver carapace blackened and bent. Her lights flashed once,...
"There are seven hundred aliens hidden in Miko’s backpack, and the Galactic Security Agent currently studying her passport (hopefully) has no clue. The agent is an alien themselves, some tentacular species with assistive devices hooked into its uniform to...
"When the ship’s scanners first chirped in the dead of night, Sien figured it was another misfire: light reflecting off asteroid ice, solar radiation, space dust. But xe still slid from xir berth into the chilly, cramped cockpit, eyes bleary as xe ran the...
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body-horrordeathviolence
"The ghost ship Xanthic Promise sails the black, powered by the slumbering heart of a dying star. And its captain, Antimony Jones, stalks its decks in a swirl of crimson coat and fox fire lighting, dogged by voices. The recent dead, the long dead, and the...
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body-horrordeathviolence
Glenn and Vivian are Berkley students with a good thing going up until he finds out what she really does for a living, and it’s literally out of this world.
Eva and Didecus lived together happily in exile on an obscure planet, but they were important people once, and the universe has a way of coming looking for important people—even when they thought they were retired.
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deathslavery
Jeri’s ready to trade her old spaceship for a new, more efficient model, but she loved her old ship and wants to be sure she doesn’t end up scrapped for parts.
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violence
Shemesh returns from his mission on planet Kadesh to face inquisition by the Exiliarch. What really happened when he met the heretic there?
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violence
Eleven years ago, the Blue-Lily plague devastated the Empire. Now Yen Oanh attends to unfinished business with a dead mind-ship and a living survivor.
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
An aging robot, on a journey to visit a friend, reflects on their adventures together.
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death
"He told me his mother was a spacecraft. We had just made love, and our bodies were spent and sweat-slicked, the scent of our seed mingling in the stables with the sweet musk of the drowsing horses. Our lids were heavy, but his muscles grew tense in my...
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death
"Notebooks, Conchas, y Un Café con Leche Those are the items that make up your world the day the girl with the side buzz and brown bomber jacket says to you, in the back of a crowded cafetería, “Explícame pues—¿Qué sabes acerca del concepto de la...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"My cat hops up to his favorite spot by the window to observe the nebula, the pitter-patter of his paws and the low hum-rumble of the engine the only sounds in the room. Misty tendrils amble past, glimmering and cloudlike, carrying an entire medley of warm...
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death
"I have been activated, therefore I have a purpose, Bot 9 thought. I have a purpose, therefore I serve. It had a lengthy list of Mantra subroutine sets to run after its usual initialization check, and it noted the addition of even more since its last...
"I had enough time to light a fresh cigarette before my office door told the client to come in. Smoke in the air didn’t make it any easier to oil a cutlass, but it made me look badass. Same with my leather jacket, tailored to fit comfortably over my...
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deathviolence
"When the sparkling golden glow fades and my skin stops feeling like mites are crawling all over it, the Room is gone, and I am shivering in a vast bright chamber and strange people clad in orange, red, and blue pajamas are asking me how I am. I don’t know...
"Ursa Major got right the fuck out of our universe on the very afternoon she learned there were other options. It was the lucky break of her life that she just happened to be there, a short sprint from one of those points where the alien aethertrain...
An escaped droid with a downloaded human mind crashes on a hostile planet, where she finds an alien artifact and desperately tries to convince it to help her.
The Arch Hierophant of the Cooperation needs to handle the question of a dead prophet’s divinity, so he doesn’t need the distraction of dealing with an illegal civilization in a distant star system.
A half-ghost gets a premonition that the Emperor has died, and his ghost ship flies off to Homeworld because whoever gets the Emperor’s ghost first gets free wishes.
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deathsexual-contentviolence
Sahar makes a living in Titan gathering the products “Boppers” leave, but she joins a Titan-adapted person to hunt for a very special artifact, despite the danger from pirates.
Jin is a mercenary hired to protect archeologists investigating an ancient ship built by the extinct human race.
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child-deathdeathviolence
Xin’s orderly life on Eighth Colony changes forever when she ushers a mutilated body through the portal.
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deathviolence
The AIs contract Lydia to check out an unusual planet and the secretive corporation that's supposed to be developing it.
Young scientist trying to develop time travel encounters an alien intelligence that lives outside of time.
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death
Graff and his crew face a particularly nasty challenge – an opponent so low-tech they might just have the advantage in this fight.
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deathviolence
A team of pilots is trained to fly ships in a war where it’s become cheaper to send humans instead of machines.
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deathwar
"Once upon a time, on a spaceship traveling through the divide between galaxies, a married couple was bickering about whose job it was to clean the mouse shit that’d accumulated in the reactor tubes."
"Attention, please,” the Manager says over the office intercom. “The Auditor’s shuttle is scheduled to dock in one hour. I repeat, one hour. Warehouse staff, please ensure that all inventory is in place.”
"The buffet was infinite. It existed in a pocket dimension, via some sort of technological jiggering of the sort that you have heard about before and, unless you are totally anal, don’t want to hear about now. You could probably summon an explanation that...
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cannibalismgoreviolence
"Seven months since the war and two since winter should’ve ended, and Lake Erie is still frozen thick enough for me to walk out and gather care packages dropped from orbit. Soon enough, those metal husks will spill out harvests from Luna, Titan, Mirabilis;...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
"Gardener ladled dark-purple porridge into her primary digestion sac, staring absently out the viewport at black space and the distant smudge of the planet they had come to study. The simple meal and the gesture it represented soothed her after a long,...
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death
"The Starsinger, the Starsinger, the Starsinger, he sings. His histories have long been recorded—in every pit stop he has visited. In every station he has stayed. It may be just a minute of the traffickers slapping the Bini out of his mouth, or them...
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child-abuseslaverysuicide
"Hi Lisle. Hope you’ve had some coffee. The topside comms array is still glitching, and engineering hasn’t lifted a finger to run diagnostics. They say the work order has to come from your end. Shouldn’t take long once they get it. Happy simulated morning to you!"
"Ambassador Shǐ Guì Sūn Yán and Prime Minister Xiang Hu Li Yáng floated in the crystalline water tank at one side of the courtroom. Beyond the anchoring shelves for the judges, the bulbous organic diamond window looked out onto a swollen, orange, solar...
"The simulation blossomed around Nadja Gavrić like a hypercube unpacking itself into three dimensions. The plain metal floors of the Roses’ cargo bay turned the shiny white of faux marble. The walls closed in, became a circular chamber. Display cases...
"The number one thing to remember about matchmaking on Station 9 is to keep your hyper-synesthesia under control. When the client sitting across from you huffs and purses her lips, and trails of gray and beige puffs follow her every move, under no...
"Crunches and shrieks buffeted the Magellan LLC smartship as it plunged into Enceladus’s kilometers-thick ice crust, making their way to the subsurface ocean and the rival LuxeSpace corporation’s station situated there. Warning signals flashed through...
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war
Commander Niaja vrau Erezeng is up against an enemy that doesn’t just destroy all the beings, ships, and planets in its path, but also consumes their greatest arts, scratching them from existence everywhere…
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deathwar
"Six minutes and a behemoth. That is all that stands between us and freedom. I glance at Abiola’s face. The helmet she wears prevents me from seeing her expression, but I catch the steely determination in her dark eyes. She’s ready. There’s no backing out...
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deathslaveryviolence
Emotional Resonance By V.M. Ayala Arbor’s favorite part of a mission was always the first view of a planet. Even after seven hundred years of being a giant robot, it never got old. Green and blue clouds churned over purple seas, imposing storms that...
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deathviolence
"Like their battleship, Maddox was born for war. They emerged from the nursery with one purpose alone: to expand the Consortium’s borders, a bloody mission that had lasted generations, and would last generations to come. Any civilian raised in the...
"The Grieving House rises like a lighthouse from the artificial snowdrifts, its windows blazing honeyed gold. The clean lines of it look too much like a grave marker. The House was built to give the bereaved some sense of togetherness and let them guide...
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violencewar
"This is Chapter Thirty or so in a whole ongoing saga that I don’t have time to get into right now. I’m jumping in at the point when my Machiavellian twin brother Charles decided to take over Mars, and I decided to help. My big failing is I never figure...
"The Snow Woman was away, far away. The winds that blew round the frozen world would take “days” to bear her to where Kitsune sheltered, even though both lay beneath the blue light of Ryujin, which the Chinese call Hǎiwángxīng and the white folks call Neptune."
"Mom always insisted everyone is family at Tollnacher Stimmacher, but I’m the only one she ever adopted. Twenty-five years ago, I was an orphan on the Earth colony, Lulularia. Mom raised me as her own despite my being human and her being a robot. Ever...
Graff’s official role is muscle for the Visigoth – but his personal mission is internally cataloguing all of his experiences to relay to the other beings from his home planet when they cross paths. His professional life rarely clashes with his identity,...
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deathviolence
"Let me tell you how I first met Seax-of-Peony, Empress of the Known Moons."
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deathviolence
"Start with a romance: a man and a woman who are wildly and irrevocably in love with each other. Or two men. Or two women. Or two people, because life is beautiful and complex. Just know that these Lovers are important. The fate of the galaxy rests on...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
When Astrill finds a cat-like alien attached to the outside of their spaceship, things get complicated for him and the other smugglers, and the more they learn about their visitor, the worse it gets.
"Pinander has been reciting “Song of Manifold Suns”all morning, in overgrown, forgotten garden nooks or neglected library aisles, far from the mutterings of other desperate students. Ancient knowledge comes to life within him."
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deathsuicide
On Cat station, people tell stories of a super-competent engineer, Tatter D’MaLeon. Supposedly she can fix anything, for those who can pay her price.
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body-horror
A few years ago, the Gray Sun killed millions to silence the subversion of Li Sin’s revolutionary poetry. Li Sin faked their own death to escape, but somehow the Gray Sun learned the truth, and now it hunts again.
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deathviolence
Zhang Xuan steals a starship to go hunt for her brother Kai, who went off to look for living alien civilizations in the galactic core and never came back.
Nata’s one of the best smugglers, in space and because of the war, she’s in great demand. This latest deal, though, pays so well for so little work there’s got to be something fishy about it.
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deathviolencewar
1. A photograph in black and white, taken with a Zenit vintage Soviet camera. Taken outside what would much later become Tong Yun City, in the days when it was still just a cobbled-together mass of crash-landed jalopies, connected with primitive tubing...
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death-of-a-loved-one
1 Mayzelle hurried from her hab-hut, tacked shut the canvas door, and hustled down the bamboo steps. She’d sworn she wouldn’t stand for this anymore. She’d sworn. In the clearing, […]
Tell me a story where it all goes right. Say that we only ever stopped at the station with the largest wingspan and busiest fuel pipes, the fifty-something spears jutting […]
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deathviolence
This episode features "Crosstalk, Elysium" written by Carolyn Zhao. Published in the March 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/zhao_03_26 Support us on...
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deathviolencewar
Author : Jacob Seinemeier Narrator : Elie Hirschman Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 1034: “An Honour to be Nominated…” is an Escape Pod original. Mild profanity “An Honour to be Nominated…” by Jacob Seinemeier TRANSGALACTIC...
Author : S. L. Myers Narrator : Dani Daly Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 1044: Rhona’s Tavern and Spacetime Portal is an Escape Pod original. Occasional use of harsh language Escape Pod is proud to say that we have...
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deathviolence
Author : Frank Baird Hughes Narrator : Jairus Durnett Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Escape Pod 1045: The Graduates of Formost 891c is an Escape Pod original. Contains examples of animal surgical modification. The Graduates of Formost...
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animal-harmdeath
Author : Kameron Hurley Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “When We Fall” was originally published on Kameron Hurley’s Patreon, and also featured in Escape Pod 611 in January 2018. Intense, life-threatening...
“They farm starlight.” “Bullshit.” “Okay, they’re going to farm starlight. For now they’re running fusion rigs. But that’s not their long-term plan.” “No one in the sunforsaken Oort has a long-term plan. Other than slow suicide. You know what they told me,...
The only sound Zero heard in their helmet was their own hyperventilating and the gentle pings from their pegasus. > waiting . . . > waiting . . . > communication received > confirmation of countdown initiation: 30 seconds
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deathgoreviolence
CHAPTER ONE Captain Ignatius Faber’s eyes were full of halos, and each scratch in the Philoctetes’ viewscreens caught the light, bleeding across his retina like stars. His vision had weakened […]
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deathviolencewar
You know you are fucked when you see fragments of the broken radio on the floor. Your damaged ship lay nose caked into the sand, and coupled with your sprained ankle that hums an excruciating pain, and slight concussion on your head—your chances of...
Author : Matt Wallace Narrator : Mur Lafferty Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 1000: A Thousand Names for God and Infinite Mustard is an Escape Pod original. Contains some harsh language A Thousand Names for God and Infinite...
Author : Risa Wolf Narrator : Julia Rios Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Tigers for Sale was first published in Clarkesworld Magazine in July 2023 Content warnings: colonialism, implied genocide, psychological manipulation Tigers for...
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abusedeath
Author : Albert Chu Narrator : Hugo Jackson Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “When the Oracle Speaks” was first published in Metaphororsis, July 2023 When the Oracle Speaks (Part 1) by Albert Chu One year after the war’s end, the royal...
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war
Author : Albert Chu Narrator : Hugo Jackson Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “When the Oracle Speaks” was first published in Metaphororsis, July 2023 When the Oracle Speaks (Part 2) by Albert Chu Outside the warehouse, the rain fell in...
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war
The Combat Pilot's Dictionary By Arden Baker Boot Rookie pilot. See also - nugget. You called us ‘boots’ when we turned up to the flight deck that first morning I laid eyes on you. The halogen lighting shone down onto the makeshift parade ground with a...
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deathviolencewar
Baron Quits The Payloaders By Renan Bernardo This story starts with a gig. Half a million people from all corners of the galaxy, hands in the air, heads banging to our vibrant noise. You probably saw the venue on some feed already. It’s the Amplitude, our...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-onepregnancy-loss
Author : Kal M Narrators : Valerie Valdes, Eric Valdes, Dominick Rabrun and Alasdair Stuart Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Butter Side Down originally appeared in Writers of the Future (volume 40) – May 2024. Butter Side Down (Part 1 of...
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violence
Author : Kal M Narrators : Valerie Valdes, Eric Valdes, Dominick Rabrun and Alasdair Stuart Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Butter Side Down originally appeared in Writers of the Future (volume 40) – May 2024. Butter Side Down (Part 2 of...
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violence
Author : Deborah L. Davitt Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Reflected in Mirrored Skies” was published by Compelling Science Fiction (Special Kickstarter Companion issue Nov. 6, 2018) Reflected in Mirrored Skies...
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death
Author : Deborah L. Davitt Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Reflected in Mirrored Skies” was published by Compelling Science Fiction (Special Kickstarter Companion issue Nov. 6, 2018) Mentions of sexual assault...
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deathsexual-violenceviolence
Author : Alexis Ames Narrator : Eric Valdes Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Sanctuary” first appeared in Kyanite Press, Winter 2020 Sanctuary (Part 1) by Alexis Ames 1. The king of the galaxy died the day before the biggest holiday of...
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violence
Author : Alexis Ames Narrator : Eric Valdes Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Sanctuary” first appeared in Kyanite Press, Winter 2020 Don’t miss “Sanctuary, Part 1” Sanctuary (Part 2) by Alexis Ames 3. Eilan slept for thirteen...
The T-4200 (Part 1 of 2) By J. R. Johnson Carleton T. Lowengren, low-level civil servant, single twenty-something and refugee from the war-torn Outer Rim, woke to the remnants of a gaming binge and a killer headache courtesy of his interface. The implant...
The T-4200 (Part 2 of 2) By J. R. Johnson (...Continued from Part 1) Carl scrambled to follow Mango past the loading dock to the parking corral. Her T was an early model with a lot of light-years on it, but its shell still shone and its maxillae were...
Author : Merrie Haskell Narrator : Amanda Ching Hosts : Valerie Valdes and Norm Sherman Audio Producers : Summer Brooks and Eric Valdes Originally published in Apex Magazine, February 2013, and was previously published in Escape Pod 404 (July 2013)....
Author : Tony Dunnell Narrator : Bryce Dahle Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 934: The Alien in My Bathtub is an Escape Pod original. If you aren’t familiar with Locus Magazine, they’re a respected website, magazine, award,...
Author : Grace Chan Narrator : Isabel J. Kim Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu” originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine (May 2022). Contains some harsh language. Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu by...
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deathgoreviolence
Author : Rachel Meresman Narrator : Isaac Harwood Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 948: Thank You for Doing Business with the Xyb’lor Principality is an Escape Pod original. Thank You for Doing Business with the Xyb’lor...
Author : Samantha Henderson Narrator : Mur Lafferty Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Chandra’s Game” originally appeared in Lone Star Stories (2009), and in Escape Pod 373. Chandra’s Game by Samantha Henderson Joey Straphos, Papa Joe,...
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body-horrordeathviolence
Vault (Part 1 of 2) By D.A. Xiaolin Spires Chenguang hikes up her sleeves before vaulting over the pile of fuzzy moss and greets Lukas with a nod. The chloropolyurethane fabric flaps in the slight breeze and the double suns beat down onto her arms. Lukas...
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body-horror
Vault (Part 2 of 2) By D.A. Xiaolin Spires (...Continued from Part 1) “Lukas?” Chenguang’s voice echoes in this expanse of dark. A vortex of light opens to her right and she sees a warped head and legs emerge from a point in the dark. It’s Lukas. As he...
This Little War of Ours By Arden Baker SECURE PRIORITY COMMUNIQUE distribution SOLITAIRE, keyword MASQUERADE, source PENTACLE FROM: TRIPLE INTENT TO: ASPHODEL BEGIN CONTENT Even if you’re my enemy, I’m glad to hear from you.
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suicidewar
Author : Benjamin C. Kinney Narrator : Heather Thomas Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Summer Brooks This story originally appeared in the anthology “The Internet Is Where The Robots Live Now” (Paper Dog Press, November 2018). Elegy of Carbon by...
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violence
Author : Julia Rios Narrators : Abra Staffin-Wiebe and Tatiana Grey Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “To Catch a Flieff” was originally written as a bonus for backers of the Bridge to Elsewhere Kickstarter (an anthology of stories set...
Author : Julia Rios Narrators : Abra Staffin-Wiebe and Tatiana Grey Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “To Catch a Flieff” was originally written as a bonus for backers of the Bridge to Elsewhere Kickstarter (an anthology of stories set...
A Cosmonaut's Guide to Talking to Your Parents By Adriana C. Grigore You have (3) unopened voicemails on your personal line. Last received 31 minutes ago, Aurea Minor Time. > Read? > No. Switch to broadcast. > Engage deep space satellite? > Yes. On, say…a...
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illness-and-pandemic
Author : Lavie Tidhar Narrator : Kyle Akers Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks This story first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (December 2020) Wild Geese by Lavie Tidhar With rustling wings the wild geese fly Round...
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deathviolence
Bishop's Opening (Part 1 of 4) By R.S.A. Garcia Old as she was, the Kiskadee had done three full delivery runs without a single safety incident. So naturally, with the crew relaxed after a fourth successful delivery and launch, and eight cycles after Reece...
Bishop's Opening (Part 2 of 4) By R.S.A. Garcia (Continued from Part 1...) Bishop was alone in the Grandmaster's Penthouse suite when the call came from the Kingston. Once it was over and his Grandmaster's virtual form had dissipated, Bishop cursed under...
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violence
Bishop's Opening (Part 3 of 4) By R.S.A. Garcia (Continued from Part 2...) The Pawn was seated at the table with arms outstretched along its surface. Metal restraints held their forearms and wrists immobile. They had been stripped naked and their mask...
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goreviolence
Bishop's Opening (Part 4 of 4) By R.S.A. Garcia The attendants set little bowls shaped like flower petals in front Sebastian and Olly. Steam drifted upward, redolent of fresh herbs and a hint of lime. Bits of white flesh speckled with green seasonings, and...
Author : Maurice Broaddus Narrator : Cherrae L. Stuart Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Itoro fe Queen” was originally published in The Sunday Morning Transport, May 2022 Itoro fe Queen by Maurice Broaddus “It’s all gone.” The ethereal...
Six Ways to Get Past the Shadow Shogun's Goons, and One Thing to Do When You Get There By Stewart C. Baker 1. Dust 'em "Listen, little lady," the guy in front of the door is saying with a sneer. "There's two types of swordsman..." Chiyome's already heard...
Fourth Nail By Mur Lafferty Regina Phillips’ job on the orbital station God's Eye was that of a nighttime systems engineer. She had to warm her desk chair and make sure nothing broke. It was the highest paying, most boring job around. So she sat in shocked...
Content warnings 1
violence
Author : Kristen Koopman Narrator : Sofia Quintero Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 826: This Is Our Get-Along Brainship is an Escape Pod original. Contains harsh AI language This Is Our Get-Along Brainship by...
Vi'hun Heal By Michelle Tang The entrance panels, currently assuming the appearance of Earthian saloon doors, slid open. I rippled a welcoming cadence of light beneath my skin, and then, seeing the newcomer was human, made my best approximation of a smile....
Content warnings 3
goreslaverywar
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
Content warnings 1
war
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
Content warnings 3
child-abuseslaveryviolence
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
Content warnings 3
slaveryviolencewar
Author : Jordan Chase-Young Narrator : Justin Thomas James Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks This story appeared in the Fall 2020 issue of The Colored Lens (October 15 2020). The Vaulting Vandals of Termina Celeste (Part 1) by Jordan...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
Author : Jordan Chase-Young Narrator : Justin Thomas James Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks This story appeared in the Fall 2020 issue of The Colored Lens (October 15, 2020) The Vaulting Vandals of Termina Celeste (Part 2) by Jordan...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
An Incident on Ishtar By Brian Trent Her family tried very hard to never use the word “crazy” with her. So therefore, they didn’t say it was crazy that she was applying for a Venusian post as Tier 3 Balloon Specialist. She tried explaining her reasons to...
Content warnings 1
violence
Pickled Roots and Peeled Shoots and a Bowl of Farflower Tea By Chaz Brenchley there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me Just that morning, she’d had a novice shave her head for her. He was a promising lad - no, more than promising, he was a promise...
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violence
The Princess, NP By Brian Hugenbruch I sat in the Commander’s office at Hexa Station, in clothes that stank of subspace, and the only polite thing I could do to drown out the universe was compute obscene sums in my head. It didn’t stop the sounds from...
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abuse
(Continued from Part 1) Pen Pal By Grant Canterbury August 8, 2005 Meliari Thulissia General Delivery Tharsis Station Dear Thu, Well I officially graduated from high school! And I have been itching to get out into the world for a long time but right now...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
Author : Patrice Sarath Narrator : Tatiana Grey Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks The Way of the Laser (Vernacular Books, May 2020) Some harsh language Spider by Patrice Sarath Bifrost Mining Station, June 2063 The plan I knew the two...
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mental-illnessviolence
Author : Patrice Sarath Narrator : Tatiana Grey Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks The Way of the Laser (Vernacular Books, May 2020) Don’t miss Spider, Part One Spider (Part 2) by Patrice Sarath Nguyen “Attention. Attention. Stay in your...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Author : Derrick Boden Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 766: The Unrepentant is an Escape Pod original. This story has content notifications for language and violence. The Unrepentant...
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
Balancing the Equation by Justin C. Key June 18, 2031 Lauren led her two-year-old son, Sean, slowly to their car while carrying three full bags of groceries. "Up," Sean said, showing her his palms. "Up, Mama, up!" "Ask one more time and you're getting a...
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child-deathdeathracism
Author : Merc Fenn Wolfmoor Narrator : Justin C. Key Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 778: The Machine is Experiencing Uncertainty is an Escape Pod original. The Machine is Experiencing Uncertainty by Merc...
Content warnings 1
violence
The Call of the Sky By Cliff Winnig The army hospital’s underground floors reminded me of Pluto Base, a place I’d never actually been. I’d never even been off-world, but I remembered those claustrophobic beige corridors. Two years before, I’d synced with a...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathwar
Report of Dr. Hollowmas on the Incident at Jackrabbit Five By T. Kingfisher The following report is from the Jackrabbit Colony, Five Tau, regarding the incidents occurring during 7-5-11-8881, fifth rotation, involving Marine Midwife Unit Eleven-Gamma....
Tiger Lawyer Gets It Right By Sarah Gailey Vladislav Argyle rested his head on the cool titanium surface of the defendant’s table. It dipped a little under the sudden weight of his skull, then hummed as the antigrav lifts adjusted their power to...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
Author : Lina Munroe Narrator : Joniece Abbott-Pratt Host : Brent Lambert Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 808: Win Again is an Escape Pod original. Win Again by Lina Munroe “I want a do-over!” Zira crumpled her opponent’s collar...
Author : DaVaun Sanders Narrator : Laurice White Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in the Dark Universe anthology (November 2015) Contains violence and harsh language The First Doom (Part 1) by...
Content warnings 1
violence
Author : DaVaun Sanders Narrator : Laurice White Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in the Dark Universe anthology (November 2015) Warning for violence and gore The First Doom (Part 2) by DaVaun...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
Author : DaVaun Sanders Narrator : Laurice White Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in the Dark Universe anthology (November 2015) Contains violence and harsh language The First Doom (Part 3) by...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
The Sun From Both Sides (Part 1 of 3) By R.S.A. Garcia Once, a woman loved a man, and a man loved a woman. They lived in a forest, in a small stone-grey hut, set far enough back from a river to escape the seasonal floods. Every day, they woke on a too-soft...
Content warnings 2
slaveryviolence
The Sun From Both Sides (Part 2 of 3) By R.S.A. Garcia (Continued from Part 1 - Escape Pod episode 757) Once, a man left his home to find his home. It was not an easy journey, but going home never is. He gave up all that he was, and all he knew, to...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
The Sun From Both Sides (Part 3 of 3) By R.S.A. Garcia (Continued from Part 2 - Escape Pod episode 758) "Grandmaster Lucochin." He started awake, his hand tightening on something. Someone. The Knight hung motionless over him. He had it by the throat, his...
Content warnings 2
slaveryviolence