“So you see,” I said to the monster under my bed, “it's the last day of the school week. If I survive today, which includes detention, I'll have two days to recover and prepare for next week and the rest of my detention.”

Cassady stumbles out of her bunk and walks into the small kitchen. She could hear the rain hitting the top of their tour bus and realized as she is fixing her coffee. That the tour bus wasn’t moving at all. She looks out of the nearest window and noticed they were stuck in traffic.

She walks towards the front of the tour bus and notices Marty was driving. She learned that Marty was an actual cowboy. He used to be a bull and bucking bronco rider, but had to give it up after barely surviving a life-threatening injury.

It was my sixteenth birthday and all my dreams were coming true. We were in my uncle's spaceship, traveling at Warp 8.5 to the famous pleasure planet Risa, where I was scheduled for a miraculous makeover in a modified transporter that would make me a real girl at last!

The 24th Century was a wonderful time to be alive. Trans people like me were understood and supported, medical science had advanced to a point where changing your sex on a genetic level was possible; and all the wars, famines + bigotries that had plagued Mankind since the dawn of history were a thing of the past!

But the Universe was still a dangerous place. And unbeknownst to my two mothers and I every lightyear we traveled was bringing us closer to an unscheduled encounter with the greatest menace anyone in the United Federation of Planets had ever faced... The Borg!

Keir knelt on a cushion surrounded by runes carved into the asphalt. Most of them where fairly ordinary, similar to ones commonly placed on weapons, tools and buildings. Others were far more complicated, done in a pattern that was so detailed and intricate it was nearly impossible to follow.

Playing Marbles for the Big Blue

11 Learning to Mother

By Jo Dora Webster

Will Amaza escape slavery at the hands of the Alvians?

Trixed
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Todd

Todd was a sexual predator but probably would have considered himself the complete opposite of that. He might well have styled himself as prey – bait to tempt the cougars. He cultivated that image. He was not aggressive in picking up women. He was not physically imposing so he had found a style which he prided himself made him irresistible to women. He was charming and polite and almost innocent – the kind of young man a woman would like to take home.

Saved by the Bell
-3-
The Son of God goes forth to War

I don't think one signal word passed between the three of us as Jamie guided Daisy out of the lunchroom and toward the headmasters office. Jamie and Daisy walked ahead of me, and I trailed a little behind the two. Then something happened, as we drew closer to the headmaster office. Daisy paused and took a deep breath. And then in a light, airy tone of voice he started to sing a cappella. The sound of his voice seemed to echo down the hallway. 

I glared at her, “It’s the only thing we got that has pockets!”

The Light Between (Part 5 of 8)

by Erisian

Book 5

Chapter 16 - Sins

Countless nights spent staring into a fire’s dancing flames or into skies darkened by midnight’s gloom flooded everything, twisting as a barbed arrow within the chest. Abandoned by a father whose infinite radiance had turned as cold as the snow he’d left her in, a young girl had wrestled with inner scars which seeped anew from every self-perceived failure. Even her uncle - though he had at least stayed - always bore into her soul with hooded eyes of penetrating and absolute judgment.

Only Siabh had held her tenderly. Only the fae priestess had softly offered words of love and support.

But some nights those hadn’t been enough. And as the long hours crept towards dawn the child had whispered the same questions over and over:

Does my mother also think me worthless? Is that why she never came for me?

Is she ashamed of me too?

The barista called to me from inside the sidewalk window, asking whether I liked the scone.

"I think it's more of a concept piece than a breakfast item," I replied.

My name is P James O’Neill. If anyone asks what the P is for I tell them to mind their own business. Because of a few generations ago Irish ancestry my parents lumbered me with the name Patsy, not Patrick, Paddy, or even Pat, but Patsy. All through school and college that had caused me no end of problems, Most of my classmates deliberately called me Patsy to annoy or bully me, even though they were corrected time and time again, and I lost count of the number of times that I was made to associate with or sit with the girls, as the boys either ridiculed or ignored me.

I thought that when I left college that I would be free of all that nonsense and that the name PJ O’Neill had quite a cool professional ring to it. When I was drafted however the US army however had a totally different agenda for me.