Notices by Micro SF/F by O. Westin (microsff@mastodon.art)

@FrOSCon @oneiros @c3voc Thanks! I'm a bit disadvantaged by my almost non-existent German, but the Rust talk looks interesting. It's in my list of "languages I should probably learn one of these years".

@oneiros @FrOSCon Alas, no, I am going to two other cons the first two weekends in August, and I'm not strong enough for a third. 🙂

I picked up a hitch-hiker. I always stop for them, so I pulled over out of habit. Forgetting I was on a tween road, a ghost road, a twixt road.

"I'm going to Bonn," I said.

"What century?"

"Twenty-first."

"Close enough, I can wait there."

"Hop in."

I don't pry, but I am curious.

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

@ArneBab Nicely done!

@metagrrrl I once spent a while weekend at the site and never had time to go to the visitor's centre.

@karlos I know, but I don't want to move instances again.

@tango The was a word missing - things they found /in/ the ship - which I have added in an edit. Was that it?

(I hope you don't mind me indulging in long form fiction occasionally...)

The captain frowns. "Like, things they have found the ship? Do you know what kind of things? Maybe we could try to avoid the people there and look around for-"

"No!" The client shakes his head. "That's just stuff. But what's in the mounds, that's treasure!"

The captain nods. Can't argue with that logic.
3/3

"That ship carried fighters. Small and nimble, without hyperjump capability. In this system, there are no inhabited planets or stations. With the carrier's engines dead, they couldn't leave."

"And our target?"

"In the main hangar, they bury their kings under large mounds built from debris and fighter parts."

"And?"

"They bury them with treasure," the client says.
2/3

Treasure hunters
----------------
The derelict is enormous, a galaxy-class carrier ship from centuries ago. The captain brings it up on the holoscreen, our ship a tiny dot beside it.

"There are still people there," the client says. "Descendants of the surviving crew, fallen to barbarism."

"Why didn't they leave?" the captain asks.
1/3
#FlashFiction #TootFic

@ArneBab Looking good! @mullana

** For all members of WorldCon: voting for the Hugo Awards closes tomorrow.

Go vote for your favourites, and please don't forget the fan categories!

(If you're not sure what the finalists have done, the Hugo Voter packet has samples or complete works from all, and can still be downloaded.)

See https://glasgow2024.org/hugo-awards/
**

Notice from the Admiralty

We are aware that some battlemech pilots engage in so-called "dance-offs" in their spare time. We have allowed this as harmless fun.

However, after seeing the viral clip of Jaeger-845D and Jaeger-922H do the tango we must make a public statement:

Woof!

#MicroFiction #SmallStories #TootFic

Deep in dark caverns, at the heart of forgotten barrows, atop empty mesas, the ancient spirits abide. They all guard the same treasure.

"I apologise for intruding," I say as I settle down in the cave, "but I just had to get away from everything."

/same/ the cave whispers.

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

@mullana I love it!

@ArneBab @laura Yes, of course. It's in my pinned posts
https://mastodon.art/@MicroSFF/109710856889417244

The king looked at the newborn in the midwife's arms.

"A dragon?"

"Oh," the queen said.

"You slept with a dragon?"

"No dear, you did. The knight you sent to kill me suggested-"

"He said the dragon was no more, and he found you in its lair..."

"I'm sorry, I'll go-"

"No! No. Stay."

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

@engravecavedave It was thinking about starlink that inspired this story, but I figured the astronomer would have problems explaining that to the fairy court.

"Yes," the Fairy king said, "the stars in our sky are the same as yours. Our realm parallels your world, not any others."

"Then, graceful majesty," the astronomer said, "I ask permission to build an observatory in your realm."

"Why?"

"It is hard to see past our own lights."

"Ah."

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories