Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #02713-G156: Pax Origins

A shockingly smart and devastatingly cruel crew track, hunt, raid, and kill the biggest threats to peaceful ships. -- LatinoThor

They called themselves Dragons, for the ancient tradition marking hazardous seas with, Here There Be Dragons. Their territory was astonishingly vast for what encounter logs suggested was one ship. The last records in the surviving black boxes stated that one ship was seen, but that didn't mean that just one ship was there.

Authorities were slower to act about the attacks, since the Dragons were routinely attacking bands of pirates bothering the Alliance shipping lanes. The Dragons were selective, picking the worst offenders who killed passengers and crew to get what they wanted. Some of their first targets were those who blew up the ship and used any survivors in livesuits or life pods as target practice.

Authorities only knew their name because they announced themselves before their attacks. When one black box revealed that the Dragons were also Humans... there was even less inclination to track them down and apprehend them. Not even when the space pirates were "licensed privateers" from an antagonistic polity in the Edge Territories.

Support me on Patreon / Buy me a Ko-fi

Continue Reading

Prompts remaining: 91 Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!

Challenge #02712-G155: But I Want It

Everyone's heard of the Terrible Twos. Well, everyone who's familiar with raising human infants. A piece of information that's been surprisingly slow to make its way around, though, is that those years are only so terrible because the little ones have wants and needs and thoughts that they don't know how to communicate; a combination of not being exposed to the words for what they feel and having tongues too big for their mouths, making it near impossible to articulate the words

Read more »

Challenge #02711-G154: Helping Companions

An instructor greets his new students in the class known as "Know Your Human" A class meant to prepare various individuals for the maddeningly wonderful work known as being a human's companion.

It is well known that humans are insane, dangerous, and violent. And yet, they are also the most gentle, kind, thoughtful, and soothing species in the galaxy. You will find they are wild, yet tame, they are beyond stupid, yet terrifyingly brilliant, they brought their furry headaches known as cats,

Read more »

Challenge #02710-G153: Paradox Wreck

As a warning for any future scientist: Do not hook up a warp-drive engine to a gravity-generator. you will create a gravity cannon that will obliterate 1/3 of a class zegalbond warship, but also lose 1/3 of you blood without any wounds. -- Anon Guest

They called it 'warp drive' in flagrant violation of copyright at the time of the wreck's discovery. What it did was create a temporary 'soft spot' between real space and the parallel dimensional brane known

Read more »

Challenge #02709-G152: Fixes Any Problem

A: "Just how many things do you humans make out of that stuff?"

H: Pulling yet another roll of the silvery duct tape from his bag. "Oh, quite a fair few. Wallets, flowers, clothing, water bags, plates, bowls, shoes, weapons, you name it. Oop, hold the bow still, if we're going to get back to the space port, I need to finish this boat and then make the thing's sail."

A: "You can't be serious, we're really going to be going all

Read more »

Challenge #02708-G151: Bug of Contention

The two humans in this ship are really close. They will do nearly anything to save the other. On the other claw, they destroyed the training room arguing about whether a certain earth insect is a lighting bug or firefly. -- Anon Guest

The two Ships' Humans were out of breath, bruising, and one of them had a dark reddish-brown ichor leaking from their nose. They were also kept well out of each other's grip by the presence of Companion Jorx directly

Read more »

Challenge #02707-G150: Rescue From Vulnerability

Some level four, and level five, havenworlders know their species is quite fragile. They also know that, in order to survive, to thrive, in this harsh universe, they need to grow stronger. With that in mind, and speaking to other havenworlders that were of higher levels, they all agreed training was in order. They hire a team of humans to help them learn to grow stronger. So, when they have their children, their children will be born stronger. The plan was for

Read more »

Challenge #02706-G149: Terrifying Titans

Crabs are a universal constant. So much so that they are used in first contact. Earth is strange for the amount of crab types that we have. Keep them away from the Japanese spider crab though. The first alien to see one said it was the equivalent of an eldritch monstrosity. -- CyberStrikeBeast

[AN: go to your favourite search engine and look up "Christmas Island crab migration," and then "Coconut crab". Sweet dreams :D ]

Welcome to Earth. We have weird crustaceans. Honestly,

Read more »

Challenge #02705-G148: Apparently This is Normal

Humans are insane. Definitely. Undeniably. Humans are insane by the standards of the greater galactic community. That did not prepare anyone for the sight of one of the passengers, at most five from the look of them, possibly younger from the sound of them, seizing a mug meant to hold hot liquids, approaching their nearest parent, and saying:

"Hey! Where my coffee?"

That the desired liquid turned out to be hot cocoa that the child was only pretending was coffee did little

Read more »

Challenge #02704-G147: The Dying of the Might

They were wealthy. Beyond wealthy. They owned two space stations and an entire solar system, and ran these places harshly. Those that displeased them lost their jobs and were often left in ruin, even for the smallest infractions. Entire families sent into desperate poverty and isolation just because a single member made a mistake on the job.

And for them? Life was excellent. They had everything they could ever need or want. They lived in utter luxury. They had more Time than

Read more »

Challenge #02703-G146: Gathering For Time

A human with a fascination with the history and preparation of toxic plants for food is caught in a survival situation, on a death world filled with toxic plants, with a group of havenworlders who require simple sugars. With a scanner, personal knowledge of ancient human techniques for purging toxins from potential foodstuffs to make them edible, and a time limit based on the amount of prepackaged food that survived the crash, this scholar has to find a way to process certain

Read more »

Challenge #02702-G145: Early Linguistic Development

(Based on a true interaction between infant and parent)

Baby to GalStand translation:

GagagaGAGAGA (Look, Sepa! I have a piggy!)

Squiiiiinnnk squuuooooiiiinnnnnkkk (My piggy says oink)

Vrrreeeerrrr (My piggy is a vehicle now)

Wuf (I'm a dog.) -- Anon Guest

Of all the things that occurred when Humans began to integrate into Galactic Society, the one they least expected was Human Young. Intellectually, the Galactics knew that small Humans happened, and did so regularly. They never expected the peculiarities of Human Parental

Read more »

Challenge #02701-G144: Unhealthy Social Strategies

Human Sean has invited me to drink with him, and to talk about his woes. After a few bottles he spilled what’s been on his mind. “my friend is three-timing”. I was shocked, I learned that humans were monogamous, of course falling in love with another is not all that surprising, but three?! In that moment I asked “do their partners knows about this?” Sean finished the bottle a new bottle before answering.”they do, and they confessed that that have

Read more »

Challenge #02700-G143: All Possible Help

A: I must ask, what are those around you arms and legs?

B: I’m testing something I call “exo-suit” of course it’s not complete yet, but I’m done with the torso.

A: you made a hole through titanium.

B: and it’s not neurologically-linked yet -- Anon Guest

Of course Human Asty was up to something in the workshop. The ship-shuddering boom was a dead giveaway. Companion Zee decided to see what the devastation was about this time before

Read more »

Challenge #02699-G142: Self Helping?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OYFEyyx47ls

Empathy, Copying and sharing Emotions.

Even 2-Year old Humans can do that.

So, how do they react, when they met a crying Havenworlder who lost his Travelgroup on Earth? -- Mike

Xu wasn't lost. Not really. They could trace their way all the way back to the play gym that Ama had left them at for just a few minutes. What Xu was, was distracted. They were distracted because there was a bunny in armour

Read more »