Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction
    Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction
    Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction
    Ebook78 pages1 hour

    Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction

    By Rhea Rose

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    From the misty vortex of Keyboard books, Star Travels is a collection of four short tales from future past and future present, stories that speculate beyond the ordinary. Between these virtual pages, you’ll find a time travelling P.I. who tries to save his wife by transporting to a future-future to end the life of a killer before he can begin a schoolboy rampage; a lemonade stand to quench your alien thirst and an extraterrestrial toy stolen once then twice; meet the future in a Christmas tale fought with genetically modified love. Four timeless stories in this compendium of the outer and inner space of imagination.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRhea Rose
    Release dateDec 18, 2014
    ISBN9781310075575
    Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction
    Author

    Rhea Rose

    Rhea is a Vancouver, BC writer known best for her short stories and many of those are posted here at Smashwords. I'm mainly a short story writer and a writer of poetry although lately, I've made a foray into novel writing. I've been nominated 3 times for the Canadian Aurora award, twice for short stories, once for poetry, also nominated for a Rhysling award for poetry. I've made the preliminary nominations for a Nebula award (did I mention I like to write "Science Fiction?") I've also made Ellen Datlow's honourable mention list 3 times for horror. Here at Smashwords, you'll find my shorts that have been traditionally published but those rights have now come back to me and I republish the stories here. As well, you'll find short stories that are published here for the very first time. These stories are ones that editors loved, held for tons of time, shortlisted, longlisted and then decided the piece couldn't fit the theme or some other aspect of their needs. Those are very frustrating times for a writer, but the beauty of Indie publishing is that you can publish them at some point and get them out to your readers. When posting my work at Smashwords I try to show diversity in writing and select stories that I think are relevant, and might surprise the reader; a good story will usually be relevant until the end of time. The work I post here has been worked on quite a bit so hopefully, it satisfies the reader. My wish: I'd love to have more reviews from readers and stars. Those are so important to writers. That's how we know that there's anyone out there...

    Read more from Rhea Rose

    Related to Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction

    Related ebooks

    Dystopian For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      When Life Bites

      Sep 14, 2020

      When Life Bites
      6 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Sep 1, 2023

      Table Talk
      10 min read

    • Article

      From Underworld Lit

      Sep 1, 2020

      (Fall Term) Browsing the criticism section of the campus used bookshop, I unearth a copy of my scholarly monograph on postcolonial Graveyard Poets, already thick with dust, misplaced between Ramazani and Ransom. “Goodnight bears,” Mira says, knocking

      2 min read

    • Article

      Spider Girl

      Feb 1, 2024

      Like part of a web, my identity is tethered to my family, in which I am one of three girls—to this day, our mom still lovingly addresses us in a single unit as “Girls.” The post Spider Girl appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      My Complicated Relationship With Cockroaches

      Aug 21, 2017

      He was in his 20s before he ever set eyes on a cockroach. Today, he's a skilled exterminator of the creatures that plague Japanese homes.

      5 min read

    • Article

      HOW fashion got FUNNY

      Nov 11, 2020

      Remember that reccurring dream you had as a teenager, the one where you turn up to school wearing your pyjamas – the daggy pair with the teddy-bear print, no less – and Kelvin Coyle mercilessly calls you Big Bear for the rest of the year? Walking dow

      7 min read

    • Article

      Nothing To Fear

      Jan 26, 2021

      Nothing To Fear
      8 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Feb 28, 2023

      I want to write a poem about abortion.I’m driving to Rural King to get a key cut.I’m in rural Indiana. Then I’m in rural Michigan.I’m in Michiana. I’m driving to Niles.I pass the neon Pegasus sign outside a gas station,always off. I pass a man panhan

      5 min read

    • Article

      Solo (wo)man

      Sep 4, 2023

      Solo (wo)man
      5 min read

    • Article

      Woman About Town

      Mar 30, 2023

      I AM LEARNING TO DRIVE.The most remarkable thing about this is that I’ve managed to get so far through adult life without doing it already — particularly given that I grew up in a village where buses were mythical beasts, to be summoned with sacrific

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Temporary Arrangement

      Oct 2, 2023

      A Temporary Arrangement
      19 min read

    • Article

      Carrie Fountain

      Mar 1, 2020

      Outside Dublin, Texas the radio stationsdisappear and I’m left alone with the faintvoice of a call-in psychologist talkingto a man in Cleveland about the voiceof the self, the narratives that voicetells, how they can be sharp and wrongand cut to the

      5 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Nov 3, 2022

      It Happened to Me…
      7 min read

    • Article

      We’re Naked Underneath Our Clothes

      May 31, 2018

      A WRITING CLASSROOM is an intimate space, and so before I tell you about this night, years ago, when I was still what might be classified as a young professor, a fresh transplant to Indiana soil from the wilds of the Pacific Northwest via the red cla

      21 min read

    • Article

      A Pacifist's Plan to Survive the Violent World of Prison

      Nov 6, 2020

      Before I even open my eyes I am reminded of where I am, by the yelling and smell of sweat in the dormitory, the hardness of the metal bunk beneath my four-inch thick mattress, the fluorescent lights burning through my eyelids, my anxiety. When I do

      4 min read

    • Article

      Jenni Spangler: Bringing Bad Dreams To Life

      Dec 2, 2021

      ‘When I was age ten or eleven, I adored spooky and mysterious books. I think if you read enough of something it seeps into your brain and becomes part of your own thought process. Maybe on a subconscious level I’m working out all my childhood fears a

      2 min read

    • Article

      By Edmund Burke

      Aug 1, 2017

      The space underneath my house is fitted out like a low-rent nuclear shelter or an Anaconda store a few months into the zombie apocalypse. A six-man canvas tent, a two-man ‘pop-up’ tent and an ensuite tent snuggle up to a chemical toilet and assorted

      3 min read

    • Article

      Retriever of Souls

      Nov 25, 2021

      What they don’t say is that, sometimes God will call you to the wilderness, gesture toward the trees, and then, hang back and wave you on alone. —“Prayer for the Wretched Among Us” from The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded At nig

      18 min read

    • Article

      From Wage Labor to Writer

      Aug 9, 2018

      From Wage Labor to Writer
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction - Rhea Rose

      INTRODUCTION

      Welcome to the first Keyboard Books collection, an imprint of RainWood Press. In this collection Keyboard Books offers four short tales from future past and future present, all from the field of science fiction. Eventually you will find Keyboard Books that are dedicated to fantasy, horror, ghost stories, superheroes and more. These short stories speculate beyond the ordinary. Between these virtual pages you’ll find a time travelling P.I., a lemonade-stand to quench your alien thirst, an extraterrestrial toy, and a future, if somewhat sinister, Christmas adventure. Four timeless stories star in this issue. At the end of this compendium, you’ll find the author’s biography and a little more about Keyboard Books. Thank you for travelling the story telling universe with Keyboard.

      Press Enter,

      Rhea Rose

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      1.Jack Sprott Continuum Cop

      2. The Lemonade Stand

      3.Shadow Hunter

      4.Chronos’ Christmas

      All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This collection is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Keyboard Books, Book 1 Star Travels

      Amazon Edition Copyright © 2018

      Author: Rhea Rose.

      Cover Images Pixabay.com

      Cover designs by RainWood Press.

      Jack Sprott

      Continuum Cop

      I started smoking again after some delinquent bastard from the future had followed me back to my twenty-second century home and killed my wife, Marie. She was a real woman. A fresh breath of partnership in a polluted world of shallow women, all of whom I’d had the unfortunate luck to date until I’d found her. Before she’d died, Marie had purchased a surprise birthday present for me. She left it wrapped on the top shelf of the bedroom closet, where I’d found it the day after her funeral.

      A time-P.I.T.C.H.

      The acronym stood for Portable Incremental Temporal Chrono Hopper—the gadget became my last link to Marie. She’d given me the top-of-the-line model for my P.I. work; it had programmable voices. With it, I could move freely into different time-zones without having to wait months or even years to book a turn inside a time-tank.

      It was 2420. I was locked inside a time-tank. Two minutes to maximum mobility, baby, said Rhonda, the voice programmed into the pitch. I see that you didn’t remember to wear your time-fog glasses. I can’t save you every time you forget to put those on. Now you’re immobile for transfer.

      After Marie’s death, I’d found Rhonda’s voice a nice distraction. Lately, though, she wouldn’t shut-up, but she was right about the time-fogs. If I forget to wear the glasses during a time-transport then I slowed right down, unable to move at all until the transfer completed.

      Don’t look now, baby, she said, warningly, but someone’s entering your time-tank." I freaked as I realized someone had entered the rear of the tank. Who the heck dared step into a running time-tank in the middle of a transport? Whoever it was, their molecules would be entangled beyond recognition. I cursed myself, cursed my luck, and cursed the intruder as I stood immobile. I remained helpless while a hand slipped around to the left inside liner pocket of my black leather duster and stole my time-pitch.

      Rhonda disappeared and so did my chance of getting home.

      *

      When the time-tank finally released me, I stepped out into the hallways of Lincoln High school, pedagogy for the underage criminal. I was disguised as a teacher. The slick eyeballs of the security cameras observed me. A bantam-bot, about the size of a house cat but resembling a crab, skittered up to me and squeaked, Halt.

      I lifted my foot, safely protected inside my Doc Martian, and anticipated the delicious crunching sound the little bot would make when I crushed it, but the robot scanned the ID on the sole of the hovering boot and scuttled away. Tucked up under the black, leather sleeve of my duster, I carried an automatic syringe dispenser loaded with nanobots, each cartridge seething to create mayhem. Now, I didn’t care about any of that. I needed a coffee and a smoke, or I was going to lose it, and then I remembered that this century had banned coffee.

      I wanted to bite something.

      I eventually found my assigned classroom, the only one in the school. Slowly and cautiously, I slid the protective metal shutter back into the wall-pocket to peer through the one-way viewing door.

      While I stared out across the faces at time’s worst future criminals, (these kids hadn’t even been born yet, in my time-zone, not even their parents had been born.), I thought about Marie’s words of encouragement on the day I’d told her about my desire to take on a second job as a time-traveling, private investigator. Being the wife of a cop is never easy, but she hugged me until I couldn’t breathe, and then pulled me into our private boudoir. We’d dreamed about the extra cash I’d make as a P.I and the travel that we could do; travel to hot, warm places where we’d soak our bodies in rum and roll in the sand, and soft kisses.

      My assignment worked like this: The

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1