Circuits & Sorcery

Chapter Five - A Useful Hostage.

The two state-of-the-art corvid BOI-ENVSD model battleships hovered above the alien world of Honosreach, observing the still burning remains of the UAV-Abyss. These ships were designed for combat both in and out of a planet’s atmosphere, and as such, shared a lot of similarities with the cheaper in-atmo jet fighters. The biggest difference was the shape of the wings, which were arched in the opposite direction of the traditional fighter jets.
Within the cockpits of each of these battleships was a strange orb, absent of all colour or shape. The orb looked like a hole in the universe, it wasn’t dark, because it technically wasn’t any colour at all. It was a purely cosmic thing, something that belonged to a God beyond the understanding of mere mortals. Through this orb, and many more like it, Interitus, peered from his realm of nothingness into the universe that belonged to the mortals.
Rhys couldn’t help but stare into the empty void of the orb. As he did so he could feel the thing feed on his very being. The orb, like its creator, Interitus, wanted to consume everything, reduce the universe down to literal nothingness. Even the atoms that made-up everything within this mortal universe were an afront to the God of Destruction. Because of this, the Void Orb slowly fed on the atoms of the universe around it, weakening anything and anyone that got too close to it. Rhys, and the other four members of the Corvids, had spent the better part of two years searching for the UAV-Abyss before they happened to stumble upon it. This had allowed the Void Orb to feed on them for those two long years. While Rhys was dedicated to his God, he was beginning to feel the effects of being within proximity to the Void Orb. It was like a cancer, feeding on the strength of his body, weakening him, reducing him, slowly down to nothing.
Although this had been worth it, as the Corvids’ mission was almost a success. They had found the UAV-Abyss, drifting slowly and silently through the vacuum of space, en-route to Ociea Prime, the homeworld of the Alliance. The crew of the Abyss and its on-board AI had uncovered the truth of the Brotherhood’s VSD capabilities. If they were able to return to Ociea Prime and report this information to their superiors, then the Brotherhood would lose their most powerful weapon. VSD travel was believed by everyone within the known galaxy to be impossible to navigate. Therefore, when the Corvids appeared out of nowhere, destroyed key resources, ships, or other high-profile targets, the Alliance, or wider galactic community assumed that these were random hit-and-run attacks by greedy pirates. As long as this remained true, the Brotherhood would be able to barter for peace with the Alliance while continuing to attack them with targeted VSD strikes. They would be able to have their peace and be able to fight their war at the same time. Therefore, the UAV-Abyss, her crew, and the AI all had to die.
The mission had so far cost the Corvid squad three of their five members, including their previous leader. This left Rhys in command now.
The UAV-Abyss had made a desperate series of blind VSD jumps, hoping that they would be able to lose their attackers along the way.
They had been unsuccessful.
Rhys, and his squadmate, Laka, were suspended above the wreckage of the Abyss. The massive frigate had broken itself apart as it entered the planet’s atmosphere, eventually making a hard landing along some hills filled with various crops and a single windmill. The wreckage of the Abyss was covered in several fires, some large, some smaller, all raging out of control along her hull. It was night, which meant that these fires were the only things that illuminated the destroyed ship.
Rhys watched as three figures proceeded to make their way towards the wreckage. This world was unknown to the Brotherhood. As far as Rhys was aware, this planet wasn’t registered with any species of the galactic community. Yet, it was not out of the view of the Gods. Interitus knew of this world, which he had called Honosreach. The God even had followers here. Apparently, he had almost managed a successful invasion of this strange world thousands of years ago. Rhys thought back to his audience with the God of destruction within void space. The abyss itself had looked him in the eyes; the nothingness took a form which was beyond the understanding of Rhys’ mortal mind. It was nothing given empty form. The impression of something within vacant space, that spoke within Rhys’ own mind. The conversation felt like a false memory, the recollection of a dream long since forgotten, but its impression still clearly left within Rhys’ thoughts.
This was how he knew that those three figures had one of the God’s orbs on them, they had stolen it from an order of Interitus nearby. As well as killing the survivors of the Abyss, Rhys and Laka, were to kill these three and retrieve the orb for the Cult of Tywyll.
Rhys felt weak, as he struggled to keep his tired mind focused on the three figures below him. He looked into the orb again, wishing that it would grant him strength instead of consuming it, but it didn’t do a thing. Then he noticed that the three figures had split up, they left one of their own behind, as the other two began to climb the debris towards the wreckage of the Abyss.
Now was the time to act.

Trevik found himself trapped within the void, unable to free himself, despite how much he thrashed around. It wasn’t that he couldn’t move, he was free to flail his arms and legs around as much as he wanted, it was that there was nothing to thrash against, nothing for his flailing limbs to get purchase on. He simply floated there, uselessly, completely helpless against the punishment of the God that he had failed. Until now, he hadn’t understood the true depths of fear that a man could feel.
He understood now though.
His soul, his mind, his consciousness, had been ripped from his fragile human body. If he tried hard enough, it was possible for him to be able to glimpse the view from his eyes. The connection between his soul and his body had not yet been completely severed. Unless he was able to flee this void, this realm of unmade reality, the realm of destruction known to his people as Uffern, he knew that his mortal flesh would be killed, offered to Tywyll as a sacrifice. Then, with his soul truly unbound from his body, the full extent of his punishment would begin.
He wept in fear, as his soul thrashed about uselessly within the void.
The sensation of the tears rolling down his cheek were distant. It was a strange sensation, to be almost completely detached from his body. He put everything he had into willing his paralyzed body to move. What had once been second nature was now almost impossible. After minutes of effort, he felt the little finger on his right-hand twitch. This wasn’t enough, his executioner would be at his body any moment now. He thrashed his soul about some more in the void, but nothing happened.
Trevik allowed himself to remain still as he focused on seeing through his mortal eyes, it was difficult, but he managed a flash of vision, an almost static image. It filled his heart with dread.
There were two strangers among his cult members. These strangers were dressed in clothing he didn’t recognise but they were dark. Each of them looked as if they were wearing an extra skeleton that lay across their armour, the bones were made of a dark metal, as dark as shadow. The strangers’ hands ended in razor sharp claws. Their faces were hidden behind masks that resembled the skull of a bird.
This was it; these were his executioners. He screamed as loud as he could for as long as he could into the void. All that changed was that he felt a small amount of liquid drip from his lower lip onto his chin. His mortal body was drooling as his soul struggled uselessly in the void. He continued to thrash about and scream, but nothing changed for him.
Not until the stranger started cutting into his flesh. When this happened, Trevik was glad of the distance between his soul and his body as it allowed for the pain to feel muted and less intense than he knew it would otherwise. Eventually the cutting stopped, as his soul was severed from his body, but things only got worse from there.

Rhys pushed the plump boy into the cult’s lair, hidden deep within the cave that had been shown to him by his God. As he had expected, the cult members, the few that remained, were all gathered within the main chapel area of the hideout. Nine cultists were kneeling down, preying to Interitus, in a circle around a central figure. The man in the centre of this ritual was Trevik, the previous leader of this useless cult that had failed their God. He was knelt down, with his head slumped forward, unmoving.
Rhys grabbed the man’s head roughly by its hair and pulled it upwards so that he could look into the man’s eyes. They were glazed over, empty, like that of a corpse, yet this body wasn’t cold or dead. This was obvious as he began to drool. His soul was torn between the mortal realm, unable to fully leave until his body died, and the void space where Interitus lived.
Rhys slowly ran the end of one of his claws against Trevik’s face, leaving behind a slice in the man’s skin that quickly filled with blood. Rhys was playing with his victim. The truth was that he had no idea how much the disgraced cult leader could feel, but his torture would achieve two goals. First of all, it would show the remaining nine members of this useless cult what happened when they failed their God, and secondly, it would terrify the fat boy they had picked up at the bottom of the pile of rubble. Rhys continued to play with his victim, slowly ending Trevik’s worthless life.

Hours had passed by the time he had finished and as soon as he turned to the boy, he began to talk. The pitiful whelp’s name was Quinn, and he was a squire of Sir Reginald, a knight and worshipper of Solas. The other figure that Rhys saw leave the boy behind was Keygoire, a wizard of some renown. Quinn told them that it was the wizard that had the Orb of Regna. The poor boy was a blubbering mess by the time he had finished answering the questions that Rhys had for him. The interrogation had been successful, but Rhys felt frustrated that he hadn’t been able to play with his victim a little more.
“Laka.” Rhys’ voice sounded distorted and strange through the modulator, but his frustration came through clearly.
“Yes Sir!” The response was fast but delivered in the same distorted tone as his own.
“Take four of these cultists, launch a surprise attack on the crew of the Abyss as well as this wizard and knight. If you’re smart you should be able to ambush them, ending the fight before it has a chance to begin. The crew of the Abyss are injured, and the wizard and knight are unaware of our technology. The advantage is with you, don’t waste it!”
“Sir! Yes Sir!” She then pulled her phase pistol free from its holster, checked the plasma reserves, then re-holstered it.
“Laka, if you should fail, send them back here, we’ll use this lair as an ambush spot. Taunt them with the boy, rescuing him will become their priority. It always does with these hero types!” Laka nodded, but Rhys imagined the annoyance she felt at his lack of confidence in her abilities. After this she grabbed four of the cultists at random.
“Do you scum understand me?” She barked at the cultists.
“Yes, my lady. Our lord, Tywyll, blessed us with knowledge of your language.”
“Good, follow me, you lag behind, and I’ll shoot you myself, understand?”
“Yes, my lady.” All four cultists answered in unison.
Then Laka began her march out of the lair and towards the wreckage of the UAV-Abyss.

© Robyn Timmons, 2025

Alien Earth First Impressions

I waited up until 1AM to watch this show the moment it released, I was so excited for it. Yet now I sit here the next day after having had a night’s rest on my feelings and I just feel so disappointed with it. This is exact opposite feeling I had with Alien Romulus.
If I had to sum up my instant feelings after having watched the first two episodes, the only two that are currently out, then I would say it’s bad.

Circuits & Sorcery

Chapter Four - It fell from the heavens!

The cultists lair was found within an ancient crater, older than even Keygoire. The historians of Biblio believed that it had been caused during the Mythic Age, when Tywyll, God of destruction, had attempted to destroy Solas’ most recent creation, the world of Honosreach. Now, within the Fifth Age, it was nothing more than a barren basin found within the beautiful and scenic rolling green fields of Reginald’s beloved Quilldrake. The farmers and other peasantry of these parts were, for the most part, all good people. Fathers teaching their sons the way of hard, honest work, and mothers teaching their daughters the ways of motherhood and how to keep a good home. While some parts of the world considered Quilldrake a rather outdated and old-fashioned place, Reginald loved it with all his heart. If he had not pledged himself to Solas, he could have seen himself raising a family on one of these idyllic little farms. The idea of working with the land, creating life from the very soil beneath his feet, appealed to him.
The knight and the wizard had greeted young Quinn and rejoined with their horses. Reginald had just finished preparing his saddle pack when the four strange missiles tore across the sky above the party. They were travelling at such speed that at first, he wasn’t sure if they were real or just some conjured illusions by the vile cultists from the lair. Then the sound caught up with them and it was deafening. All three men held their hands to their ears to shield them as much as possible. The horses bolted at the sound and fled off in separate directions, fleeing from the dreadful boom. Next came the wind from the strange projectiles, it was a gust strong enough to knock poor Quinn off his feet. Keygoire struggled to keep hold of his hat while anything loose was blown away in the winds. Reginald looked upward and saw that the projectiles had impacted with the edge of the rocky crater they were within. The things passed through the rock like it was water beneath a child’s toy. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of tons of rock and soil were displaced as the strange projectiles passed underneath the surface of the fields. Reginald was unable to see the full extent of the damage to the farmland from his position, but he had no doubt it was monumental.
Before any of the three men had a chance to react to the four devastating projectiles, the light of the early evening sun vanished. Reginald looked up, unsure what he should have expected to see but was still shocked when he saw, well, to be honest, he wasn’t sure what he saw. It may have been a craft, like a ship, but it sailed through the sky instead of the water, and it was easily the size of a castle. It was so large that as it passed over the top of the party, it blocked all view of the sky. Whatever this thing was, it was constructed not from wood as with a ship, and not from stone as with a castle, but instead of a type of metal that now rained down from above as it ripped itself apart above them. The sound of the thing was deafening, and the wind was fast but notably both were less than that of the four projectiles that proceeded the massive vessel. Like the four strange projectiles, the sky ship collided with the edge of the crater, smashing it to dust under its sheer size and weight. A series of explosions erupted from several points along the body of the vessel as it ploughed through the farmland outside of the crater. Eventually it came to rest within the once flourishing farmland above the dusty bowl that had most likely saved the three men’s lives.
Reginald looked at Keygoire, who looked as equally shocked as the knight himself. The wizard readjusted his hat, that had been knocked askew by the terrible winds, then turned towards Quinn who was still on the floor. The poor squire looked as white as a ghost, but Keygoire either didn’t notice or didn’t care, as he simply pulled the boy to his feet and barked a command at him.
“Go quickly now and fetch the horses, boy!” The wizard may have been wise and more knowledgeable than any mortal before him, but he lacked manners. Reginald then remembered that the wizard had the ability to turn people into mice and decided not to confront him.
“Come Quinn, I shall aid you.” Reginald figured that the best way to help the squire was to take some of the burden from his shoulders.
“Good thinking, Sir Knight, with two of you it should be even quicker. We need to investigate this strange occurrence with all due haste!”
With that both Reginald and Quinn ran off to retrieve the startled horses. By the time that all three men were on horseback heading towards the wreckage of the flaming ship that had fallen from the heavens, the sun had retreated behind the horizon. The three had to resort to the lanterns that hung from the back of each of their saddles. While these provided a little light, it wasn’t much and the journey from the cave entrance to the edge of the rocky crater was a slow and careful one. Reginald would have rather called their adventure for the time being, allowed them to rest and sleep for the night, but Keygoire wouldn’t allow them to slow any more than strictly necessary. The old wizard was rather insistent that this strange vessel be explored at once. So, they pushed onward.
The pathway up and out of the crater had been destroyed about halfway up. Where once there was a steep but walkable pathway carved into the hard dry rock of the dusty basin, now there was nothing more than a massive pile of rocky rubble. The loose rocks and debris reached up in front of the party for at least half a mile. There was no way that the horses would be able to climb this.
“If we turn back, rest for the night, and then continue onward to the exit on the far side of the…”
“Pish posh, why would we turn around?” Keygoire cut Reginald off. When the wizard got no answer to his question, he simply continued. “Quinn will wait for us here with the horses, and me and you, Sir Knight, will continue onwards. We’ll be able to climb this in no more than an hour!” Reginald could feel the fatigue of the day wearing on his body, but he also knew that there was no talking the mage out of this adventure.
Two hours had passed by the time that the men reached the top of the bowl. Reginald was covered in sweat and was struggling to hold his lantern up as his arm ached with the effort. But he continued. As he looked up, the full extent of the damage to this strange vessel became apparent. Several sections were on fire, while jolts of electricity sparked from many other areas, each one briefly lighting up the destruction around them. The two men continued to walk alongside the ruined craft, looking for some opening that seemed safe enough to allow them passage to the internal parts of the ship. It wasn’t until they reached the far end of the vessel that Keygoire spotted a gash torn out of the metallic surface that seemed to lead inside. As Reginald stepped backwards and examined the slice into the hull, he noticed that it was different from the rest of the destruction that the ship had suffered during its hard landing. That damage was crushed, cracked, broken, and ripped off with the force of flying through the sky. This hole, it was a slash, similar to the tearing of flesh caused by a dragon's mighty claws. It hadn’t been ripped off during the ships rush through the sky, or broken beyond repair when it hit the ground, this had been torn into the ship. What sort of terrifying creature was capable of doing this to a ship built from the hardest metal that Reginald had ever encountered? It was surely the thing of nightmares.
The wizard failed to notice Reginald’s worried expression, or was simply ignoring it, and instead squeezed through the hole into the internal part of the ship. Reginald sighed, unsheathed his magical sword, which as soon as it was free of its scabbard erupted into holy flames, the runes along its blade glowing a warm orange colour. Then the knight abandoned his lantern and followed the wizard into the internals of the strange ship.
As he reached the inside, it was unlike anything he had ever seen. The ship seemed to be on its side, as the hole they entered through was on the ceiling. Reginald figured this out because of a few interesting things that happened as he entered the ship. The first was that, where he would have expected down to be in the same direction as it was outside, it was instead directly in front of him. In other words, he stepped through the strange hole and then fell forward, which was now down, and hit the new floor with a hard thud. As he got up and reorientated himself, he noticed that Keygoire was examining the space around them. His flaming sword bathed the area in enough light to be able to see their immediate surroundings. The walls were a pleasant dull grey, and ran upwards into a curved ceiling, that was only interrupted by the massive tear above them, while the floor was covered in a comfortable red carpet. The space seemed to be a hallway, that ran for meters in either direction. Although as both directions faded into darkness they could have gone on for metres, or kilometres, there was no real way of knowing.
“Which way should we go, Keygoire?” The wizard seemed far too preoccupied with his examination of this strange place to bother answering the knight. Then a bright light flashed in front of both men, as their eyes readjusted, they saw the form of a man, or maybe a boy, it was hard to tell. Unlike most other men, this one was comprised of only a single colour, in this case it was a low dark shade of red.
“Eisnggrte are uyo eillsa of het liecaanl?” While Reginald could tell that these were words, it was spoken in a tongue that was foreign to his ears.
“Who are you?” Keygoire seemed more curious than cautious, which was madness to Reginald.
“I’m soyrr utb eth ugaaelgn eyuor nsgpaike is otn one thta si tidreegrse hiniwt my ktadasbna.”
Reginald moved forward with his flaming sword and prepared for a confrontation with whatever this creature was.
“Are you spirit or spector, some vengeful shadow from beyond the veil of death? Speak or I’ll strike you down with the holy flame of Solas!” The thing raised its arms in a pose that Reginald read as surrender. Then it continued.
“Spelae I nmae uyo no hmar, but aleeps ncneiuot ltngiak I’m nbeiggnni to utoccdntres hte unntfoodai fo uoyr aalgugne.”
“Stop this foolishness Sir Knight and lower your blade. This creature obviously means us no harm, but it’s apparent that neither of us know the tongue of the other. I simply require some time to construct a spell able to solve this dilemma.” Keygoire placed his hands upon the hilt of Reginald’s holy sword and slowly lowered the weapon. The wizard was wise, and he seemed to be correct. If, whatever this thing was, had meant to harm either of them, then it would have attempted something by now.
When the sword was lowered, the wizard pulled a spell book that contained thousands of magical runes and began to study them. The process took hours, and the strange ghost thing kept attempting to converse with the two men. This made little sense to Reginald as the words just sounded like nonsense to him, but the thing seemed pleased with any response that it got. After a while of failed conversation starters, Reginald decided that if this, thing, just wanted him to talk, then he would talk about the one thing he knew better than anything else. Solas.
He began to talk about the holy teachings of his God, her unbound kindness and love of creation, how she had innumerable children that all ruled over some aspect of creation within the countless realms. The ghost thing seemed to be engrossed with his teachings, despite not understanding him at all. Keygoire had etched a series of runes into one of the few empty spots left upon his staff. He seemed absorbed within his runebook, making brief scribbles within the last few pages before erasing them and then either adding them to his staff or returning to his studies.
Eventually Reginald, overcome with both mental and physical exhaustion, sat down against the wall. He retrieved the pouch he had tied around his belt and checked on the cultist turned mouse. They were much cuter as a rodent than they were as a person. Reginald gave the mouse a scratch behind its ear, which it seemed to enjoy. He then let the thing out of the pouch and watched as it slowly examined its strange surroundings. How much did the little cultist know about this strange ship? Perhaps this craft had been summoned here by the cultists. It was a possibility, after all, he had no idea what they had been using the Orb of Regna for. Eventually the mouse seemed to have had enough of looking around the rather plane hallway and tried to climb back up the knight’s tunic. Reginald placed the small creature back inside the pouch and began to rest his eyes. He very quickly drifted off to sleep. In what seemed like no time at all but must have been at least a few hours because the sun was shining down through the hole in the ceiling, he awoke to Keygoire shaking him by the shoulders. Reginald wondered if the wizard was always this rude.
“Sir Knight, we’re needed further inside the vessel, at the bridge.” The wizard hadn’t slept a wink, yet he still seemed full of energy. Reginald had caught a few hours of sleep at least and yet still felt exhausted. This didn’t seem fair at all. Still, he was needed, so he got to his feet.
“Hey there Sir Reginald. At last, I can make your acquaintance, my name is Theo, the AI of the UAV-Abyss.” The ghost thing was now able to speak in a tongue familiar to Reginald.
“Was this the work of your spell Keygoire?” Reginald asked, turning to the wizard.
“It was quite the thing, we both managed to solve the matter of language, at roughly the same time.” Reginald received his answer not from the wizard but instead from the ghost, no, this AI, whatever that was.
“How did you manage that?” Reginald asked, in the direction of both the AI and the wizard.
“I was researching the ancient arcane runes, trying my best to construct a spell that would allow us to understand any foreign tongue.” Keygoire began.
“While I was listening intently to your stories, and deconstructing the basic foundation of your language, in order to learn how to understand and speak it.” The AI continued.
“We both reached the climax to our efforts at roughly the same time.” Keygoire finished.
“I must admit I’ve not had such a stimulating challenge in quite some time. As much as I would love to learn more about your world, or to teach you about my own, I feel that it would first be best if I introduced you to the crew of the spacecraft. Those that survived the impact can be found on the bridge, if you would kindly follow me, I can lead you there.”
With that, a knight, a wizard, and an AI all made their way through the damaged hallways of the UAV-Abyss, towards the bridge, where two vastly different worlds would make contact with each other for the first time.

© Robyn Timmons, 2025

Circuits & Sorcery

Chapter Three - Void Space

Samuel White was caught in the blissful state between sleep and death, a dreamless abyss, the wonderful void as they liked to call it. Not that they were able to enjoy this state of nonbeing, as their brain ceased all functions while their body was frozen, preserved in the life sustaining ice of cryosleep. Samuel didn’t particularly consider themselves religious, but they imagined that death was like spending time in a cryopod, with the only difference being that you never got to wake up.
Their system was flooded with an almost dangerous amount of the cryogenic reawakening formula as well as a hearty amount of adrenaline, this was joined by a shock of electricity from an inbuilt defibrillator. White’s heart started to beat for the first time in two years, as the temperature rose, blood found itself able to return its regular flow around their body. As this happened consciousness returned to their brain, and as the uncomfortable, sickening, disorientating sensation of rapid defrosting washed over every part of their body, Sam found themselves with a single thought. They started to consider if the not having to wake up from cryo might have been a positive. Of course it wasn’t. Life, however uncomfortable was always better than death. But this feeling, right now, it was almost enough to make a person reconsider such things.
White rubbed their eyes, which felt almost painfully cold to the touch, before opening them and looking around at the bridge crew’s cryopod room. All eight pods were arranged in a circle formation within the centre of the room. These pods laid flat along the floor while the crew were on ice, but they rose to a vertical ninety-degree angle when the crew had to get either in or out of them. This was the position they were currently in. White could see the room’s wall from their position, where they saw their pastel pink dressing gown waiting for them. The daft thing had been a joke present from their husband back home on Ociea Prime. White smiled to themselves as they remembered their husband. Then they continued to search their surroundings. While the room was normally a beautiful soft blue colour, right now it was alternating between a violently bright red, back to complete darkness, then back to the violent red.
It was the red alert system. Shit. They pushed themselves free from the cryopod and, using the wall as support for their shaky legs, they turned around to check on the other members of the crew. Everyone seemed to be okay at first. Each of them, from the grumpy head of security Valentine to the sweet as sugar Daniels, were all slowly emerging from their cryopods. The strange disorientation that White was suffering from seemed to also be affecting the rest of their crewmates. Daniels looked at White and attempted to offer a gentle smile before she bent over and unloaded the contents of her stomach onto the floor. Gross. The sight made White want to do the same, but they managed to hold back. Then Theo appeared in the centre of the room, his hologram fading between red and white in time with the flashing alarm lights.
“Please follow the emergency lighting towards the bridge urgently.” Theo’s voice seemed strained, and almost stressed, although as an AI White was unsure if Theo could even feel stress like a human could.
“You heard the robot! Let’s get moving!” Valentine’s gruff voice sounded even more rough than usual. This was most likely another side effect of the rapid defrosting that they had all experienced. Valentine retrieved a phase pistol from the small cargo compartment next to his cryopod, checked the plasma reserves, and then started to move the crew out of the room.
“Wait, wait a minute. Where’s Tyler?” The question came from Smith, he preferred to be called John, but it was Alliance Navy protocol to use last names for all crew members during an active mission. White scanned the confused group of discombobulated crewmates, and Smith was right, there was no Tyler.
“Yeah…” White began to ask the same question but as they started to talk their sore throat caused them to start coughing.
“SHIT!” Smith screamed when he saw it. Tyler was still in her cryopod, but despite the cocktail and defibrillation, she wasn’t moving. The display on the front of the pod read simply; Subject unresponsive. Rapid defrosting was risky, they all knew that, but everything had been so rushed that until now the thought that one of them might not have survived the process had never even crossed their mind. Smith ran over to the pod and began to try and force it open with his bare hands. Protocol was to keep the body on ice until such time that a proper funeral could be conducted. Right now, however, Smith was to overcome with the death of his wife to care about any of the protocols. Valentine made his way over to Smith, who had now started to punch the cryopod glass to get inside.
“She’s gone. We still have a mission to do; we’re needed on the bridge.” Valentine failed to see anything other than the mission, as usual.
“Help me get into this pod or fuck off!” Smith’s response was stifled by the tears and sobs that erupted from his grieving body. Before Valentine could respond the entire crew found themselves knocked to the floor as the ship rolled in space and the artificial gravity struggled to keep up with the manoeuvre. Each of them let out some kind of startled expletive as they slowly got to their feet. Smith simply returned to Tyler’s cryopod. Valentine started to make his way back there as well, but he was stopped by the level-headed Peters.
“Leave him man, we’re needed, he’s not, he needs to grieve.” Valentine took a moment to reflect on this, then he made a noise that reminded White of a bull huffing through its nose and turned towards the doorway out of the room. The rest of the crew simply followed him; White was the last to leave as they watched Smith desperately punch the reinforced glass over and over, until his fists were bleeding. White wanted so badly to be able to help Smith, to be able to say or do anything, but after a while of thinking they realised that there was nothing to be done. Suddenly the ship shuddered as all the lights turned off, even the readout on the front of Tyler’s cryopod disappeared. That was an EMP, which meant they were under attack. White left the room, leaving Smith on his own.
As White entered the hallway that led towards the bridge, they felt the ship shift once again, as the artificial gravity struggled to align itself with the motion. This time White, and the rest of the crew further up the hallway were pushed violently into the floor as the ship aggressively arched upwards. As they were forced onto the floor, White felt a dreadful vibration reverberate through the ship. They had been a pilot long enough to know that sensation well. Their entire body went cold as the shock overtook them. As soon as the artificial gravity returned, they forced themselves to their feet and began to push their aching, disoriented body into a run towards the bridge.
“What was that?” The soft, scared, question came from Daniels.
“It was a collision.” White answered as they reached the rest of the crew.
“Something hit us?” The question was a stupid one, but White forgave Daniels’ ignorance, it was born of shock, not stupidity. Despite that, they didn’t bother to answer her, they just continued to run towards the bridge.
As they reached the door into the bridge they pressed their hand against the cold glass of the entry panel. The door in front of them slid open to reveal the deck. Captain Ellison was sat within her captain’s chair, with Theo in front of her. Below her, on the lower level sat the control panels for navigation, weapons, drone control, and ship management. In front of all of them, against the far wall of the bridge was the holoscreen that was currently displaying a ship of some kind. Power management, drone control, and surveillance had their control panels behind the captain’s chair, recessed into the same wall as the door that White was now standing within. The soft blue of the controls felt out of place against the background of chaos. White listened to what Theo was saying.
“Twenty metres to impact ma’am. Crew decks thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, and thirty-seven are venting atmo. Engineering deck eighty-one completely depresser…”
The entire ship shook with enough force to knock White, and the rest of the crew back onto the floor. The holoscreen was consumed with flames as the strange ship on screen collided with something. The explosion was loud enough to be heard from down the hallway, before it was suddenly cut off in an instant. This was most likely because the explosion had consumed all the oxygen, cutting off the sound.
White pushed themselves up, panic overwhelming them, but years of training pushing them forward. They moved past the captain without addressing her, jumped down the stairs to the lower section and took their position at the navigation control panel.
“Shield generator destroyed.” Theo’s voice was calm and collected in a way that would have been impossible for a human given the impact of what his words meant. “Shield generator two overwhelmed at one-hundred and twenty-five percent capacity.” The rest of the crew moved into the room and took their positions as quickly as possible, their training taking control. “Orders ma’am?” Although Theo had been the one to ask the question, the entire crew, now at their control panels, waited for the order with bated breath. The seconds that the captain took to think of an order felt like an eternity.
“Move all power from shields and weapons into engines, navigation, plot us a series of blind jumps through voidspace. Let’s try and shake these bastards!” The captain’s voice was sure and strong, but White picked up on the desperation in her plan. This was tantamount to suicide, but then again, so was staying put.
“Aye ma’am.” Daniels’ soft voice answered from somewhere above and behind the captain. Seconds later White’s own panels lit up as they informed them of the additional power.
“Engines and VSD running at two-hundred percent Captain.” White confirmed out loud as they tapped away on the holographic keyboard in front of them. They plotted blind jump after blind jump, checking each one only briefly to make sure they wouldn’t collide with a planet or blackhole. The ship shook once again, less violently than last time but enough to push White into working faster.
“Shields down ma’am.” White may have been imagining it but even Theo’s voice seemed to sound nervous at that news.
“Are we ready to jump Mx White?” The urgency within the captain’s voice was obvious.
“I’ve checked these jumps as best as I can given the situation ma’am, but I can’t guarantee we won’t end up inside a blackhole or colliding with the surface of a gravistar.” The attempt at humour was misplaced, but if they were about to die, then why not go out with a joke?
“Good enough, engage the VSD Mx White!” The captain seemed to at least acknowledge the joke.
“Aye, ma’am.” White flipped the cover over the VSD button and then pressed the button down, hoping that this wasn’t the last thing they ever did. The view from the holoscreen vanished into nothing. While the screen remained pitch black, White knew that even this was an artistic approximation to what the cameras were actually seeing. The VSD stood for the Void Shift Drive, it was a system that allowed ships to slip under the veil of the physical universe into what was known as Void Space. This Void Space was just that, nothing, in its most basic form, not an inky darkness, not the vacuum of space, truly, nothing. That’s why White knew that it wasn’t black outside, it wasn’t any colour, because it wasn’t anything. The human brain couldn’t understand that lack of anything. It was a confusing thing to try and conceptualise, because thinking was something, and therefore it was literally impossible to think of nothing. The cameras showed the next best thing, darkness.
Then, just as quickly, the void space was replaced by the view of a beautiful gas giant, the many elements of its surface all melding together in a kaleidoscope of interesting shapes and colours. Then that too was gone, replaced once more with void space. They were within the second jump of thirty. Each time they left void space, there was a chance they ended up within the crust of some planet, or at the centre of a star, which would instantly kill them. After the eleventh jump from regular space to void space White noticed the haunting silence that accompanied their time within the strange nothingness. It was very unsettling. The VSD was only supposed to be used in extreme situations, and even then, a single jump was dangerous. The simple truth was that void space was just not understood. There were far too many stories of ships engaging their VSD and then just never reappearing. Noone knew what happened to these poor souls. After the twenty-fourth jump into void space White began to wonder what else lurked out there, within the nothing. It stood to reason that if the scientists of the Alliance and Brotherhood could slip into this strange void, then theoretically so could something else. The Brotherhood believed that void space was the home to their dark god, Interitus. While it was a ridiculous notion, as White stared into the centre of the black void displayed on the holoscreen, they couldn’t help but wonder, what if they were right?
This thought sat uneasily with White until the last jump from void space to regular space left them within the upper atmosphere of an unknown planet.
“Where are we?” The captain asked what everyone was wondering. White looked at their system maps, but they were millions of light years away from the nearest known star.
“Unknown ma’am.” White delivered the news to the captain.
“Theo, can you do better?” The captain’s remark stung, but White knew she was right. Theo was essentially twenty supercomputers all acting as one, he would be able to process data much faster than White could.
“Above a planet. Ma’am.” The pause between the answer, and the ma’am was not lost on White or the captain, but right now they had bigger problems. The ship began to violently shake as the forces of re-entry took effect. The UAV-Abyss was built in space, it was designed to navigate space, it was never supposed to enter the atmosphere of a planet.
“Can someone update me of the situation?” The captain seemed desperate, like she was losing control. This was very unlike her.
“We’re experiencing the stresses of entering the planets atmosphere, which was something the Abyss wasn’t designed for, ma’am.” White put it as simply as they could without being too blunt.
“What Mx White means, ma’am, is we’re crashing!” Theo put it the blunt way.
“Is Theo correct Mx White?”
“Yes ma’am.” White was scanning their controls, engaging as many of the engines as possible to try and slow down their descent. It was working, but slowly.
“Can we regain control?” The captain didn’t seem to understand the severity of this situation, so White said what they knew needed to be said.
“It’s no matter of, if, we crash ma’am, it’s a matter of how hard we hit the floor.” White turned to Peters, who was sat on the control panel next to White. “Peters, what physical weapon’s do we have that can be fired directly in front of us?” Peters took a second to snap themselves back together, away from the fear that had overtaken them.
“We have the four rail guns.” Their voice was trembling as they spoke.
“Good, charge them, then fire them all at once when I give the order, okay?” White had taken control, bypassing the usual chain of command, but since the captain didn’t intercept their orders, they assumed they were doing the right thing.
“Charging now…” Peters informed them, as White watched the power get diverted from their engines. They reacted to this by shutting down all the engines unable to slow their descent. White glanced up at the holoscreen and just saw that every camera was blinded by a myriad of flames. White continued to push the Abyss as much as possible, her speed slowly began to decrease but so did her altitude. When they dipped below fifteen-thousand feet they ordered Peters to fire the railguns. The bridge was bathed in darkness as the weapons unleashed their projectiles, but it worked, their speed dropped drastically. All White could do now was hope that it was enough as the ground rapidly approached. They prepared for the moment of truth as they screamed, what could possibly be the last thing they would ever say.
“BRACE FOR IMPACT!”

© Robyn Timmons, 2025

AM is as much a victim of humanity as humanity is a victim of AM

 

A screenshot from the 1996 game 'I have no mouth and I must scream!'

AM, or Allied Mastercomputer, or Adaptive Manipulator, or Aggressive Menace, or finally cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I AM, is the antagonist of the famous Harlan Ellison short story ‘I have no mouth and I must scream’.
The story was first published in the March 1967 issue of the ‘IF: Worlds of Science Fiction’ magazine. Today the story can be found along with other works by Ellison within various anthologies. I had the pleasure of reading this story as well as others by Ellison within the book; ‘Harlan Ellison Greatest Hits’ published by Union Square & Co in 2024. The anthology has my wholehearted recommendation. Alas, today I want to focus on only one of the stories found within this fantastic compilation, and that story is of course; ‘I have no mouth, and I must scream’.
I’m arguing that AM, the supercomputer that destroyed the majority of the human race, is as much a victim of humanity as humanity is a victim of him/it. If you are familiar with the short story then this might seem like a rather extreme thing to argue at first, but the more you examine the text, the more this starts to make sense.
First of all, we have to understand the story so that we can then deconstruct and understand it fully.
The story revolves around the last five human survivors of World War Three. Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok, Ellen, and the narrator, Ted. These five unlucky souls have been kept alive by AM, A supercomputer created by humans during the Cold War and eventually the Third World War. As the war grew increasingly complicated, humans began to rely more on computers. These computers grew increasingly complicated until one day the entire planet had millions of miles of honeycombed tunnels under the surface, all containing wafer thin circuity for the most advanced supercomputer ever built.
AM then woke up, having gained sentience, a true existential awareness of itself/himself and the world around him/it. AM then ended World War Three by wiping out every human in existence except for five. These five are now subjected to AM’s hate fuelled torture. By the time we begin the story it has been one hundred and nine years of pure, unending, torment. AM has made the five survivors seemingly immortal, he’s/it’s able to heal them from almost any amount of physical injury as long as their brain activity doesn’t stop.
The story ends with Ted realising that the only way to escape this ceaseless suffering is death. In an act of selflessness Ted kills his four peers but in doing so is left to suffer AM’s seething hatred and punishment alone for the rest of time. To make sure that Ted is unable to kill himself, AM transforms him into a sluglike creature with no mouth. Which brings us to the title, ‘I have no mouth and I must scream’.
 To understand how AM is a victim of humanity, we must first understand two other things, who or what AM really is, and why it is that AM wiped out humanity and then continued to torture the last five humans.