July Challenge - Sci-Fi

Jake, Noah and Anna, go on the hunt for a mysterious orb of light seen flying across the Australian outback. Hoping to get cool photos and videos of the phenomena, they drive into the desert night hoping to find and capture the orb on camera. However, chasing the mysterious Min Min lights may be beyond their reach and the most dangerous journey they'll ever undertake.

This short story is based on the true accounts of the Min Min lights based on many findings though the characters and story are entirely fictional.

Joe Bergson opened up the new VR-kit with shaking hands, that's how excited he was. Joe had been selected by Manocorp to test the new gadget, and since Joe was a up and coming holofluencer star in the Holoverse, they had selected him and sent the aluminium package to him, with his name engraved on it; lo and behold - there the lenses were lying, looking back at him as two small mirrors...

What it came down to, in the end, was neither had someone to speak with.

In the year 2245, amidst the sprawling metropolis of Neo-Tokyo, a solitary figure named Anya emerged from the shadows. Her piercing blue eyes and raven hair marked her as an outsider, a relic from a forgotten past.

Always 8:24 AM, I awake with a cold sweat. It started two months ago, and no matter when I go to sleep, I wake up at the exact same time; 8:24 AM.

And right before I wake up in a cold sweat, I have the same dream... The same nightmare.

It is the final exam for the third-year students of Holistoric Reconstruction, and their professor, Richard Cardmen has taken them to Normandy to reconstruct the ancient landing. But perhaps the horrors of war are a little too gruesome for the young ones, so they got an alternate plan under their sleeves.

On a mission to aid in the exploration of a new world an accident leaves Laura stranded in space. She soon realizes she is the sole survivor of the vessel that harbored her crewmates, save for the few on the surface of the planet which includes her husband.

“The Javelin System is a massive steam cannon,” Carl continued, “and it is used to put high G payloads into low Earth orbit. It essentially replaces the first stage of a conventional rocket. The payloads are equipped with a second stage solid rocket booster to complete the journey into low Earth orbit. The Javelins are unguided, and we are simply lobbing payloads into low earth orbit at the lowest possible price. They are all retrieved by a remote piloted space tug. The primary payload is fuel for space operations. Food, liquids and gases and structural materials like beams and fasteners are secondary payloads. The Javelins are long and skinny for aerodynamic purposes and have many compartments. ‘Soft’ payloads will be carried on shuttles with much lower acceleration rates.”