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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of science fiction short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

Science fiction Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Whether you’re looking for daring space battles or chilling “what if” glimpses of the future, you’ll find what you’re looking for in our collection of free science fiction short stories.

Science fiction Short Stories – Page 4

Persephone Girls

Elsie Becke

Weekly Contest #361

Summer was over and so were we. Persephone girls, Hades bound. What a relief. The Mother Corps barracks were aflutter with girlish delight, a renewed energy unburdened by a purpose. No more work and little to pack, Mother provided everything for us while we played our role on Demeter. The littlest girls laughed the loudest. Everyone believes the first summer is the worst. The one where Mother first picks you. Plucks you from your home. It’s strange and it’s new, but the newness is usually exciting. Before you know any better, before it all b...

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Wednesday's Child

Jeffrey G. Ronay

Weekly Contest #361

Wednesday’s ChildBy Jeff RonaySummer vacation was almost over. And in a few days, he’d be back at school. But let me begin at the beginning.Ignatius Mackelroy was, by all appearances, a normal high school freshman living in Terre Haute, Indiana. How normal? Well, he played shortstop on his Little League team, had a crush on the brown-eyed girl who sat next to him in homeroom, and had just passed his temporary driver’s license. He built model rockets and had a small refracting telescope, which he used to gaze at the moon.He lived in a modest ...

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The Letter

MATHHEW TOMPKINS

Weekly Contest #361

The wind blew over the cockpit of Jake Barnes' small ship as he entered the atmosphere. His broad forehead furrowed as he ran through the landing cycle. The triangular ship rocked back and forth as he blew through the thick grey clouds. "'C'mon Old Girl stay together," he said in his deep, rolling voice. He chuckled as he looked at the metal dashboard full of dials in front of him. A black placard was stuck in the center that said Old Girl, the very name he'd just said. "Mickey wasn't exactly inventive when he named you, was he?" he said to ...

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The Sol-Child's Former Home

Weekly Contest #361

Like a diamond. An immense and dark diamond with a diameter spanning a million worlds and surrounded by pearls that once held the eyes of billions measuring the magnanimous light emanating from it. The only way to see this grave sight now was with lights from one's own sources. A Sol-Child always provides such a light; after all, the star was his home. Doal was given his name not by the Sol-Children, but by those of the worlds that once encircled his home. How long had he been away? He couldn't recall, as memories didn't exactly come with a ...

21 likes

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The Last Light

Sean Sharkey

Weekly Contest #361

“We’ve reached the end. All that remains is to place the battery. If it works, the Neuroforge will reset. We’ll get our lives back, and all the loss on this journey will have been worth it. Entry over.” Allane’s voice echoed off the sides of the ancient cave walls as she brushed them over with her dirty, tired hands.“Diary entry placed,” the short bot with three-lobed wheels let out, following behind her.“That's the last one until we get out of here,” she said. “If we get out of here. We’re close.”Her eyes narrowed into her NightVisor, which...

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First Light

Scott Speck

Weekly Contest #361

First Light I step down off the train, onto a crowded rush-hour platform. The long line of electric lamps above us buzz annoyingly, and flicker rapidly on and off. The stroboscopic light pattern makes me feel dizzy. It’s five PM, here at the open air train station, as the mood of the commuter crowd drops from gloomy to abysmal – strange for a Friday afternoon. “Same old shit,” someone complains. “Make twenty Lux a week, and still I gotta stumble home in the dark.” Then the station lights stabilize, brighten a bit, and the crowd grumbles out ...

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Sol's Sunset

Geir Westrul

Weekly Contest #361

"It burns at midnight." Merrow held the slate tight, the fingertips of his gnarled Unedited blue-veined hands turning white against the metal rectangle. "Then I've got until midnight," Roe said. "Give it to me." Eight levels above them, four million people drowsed under the managed dusk. Forty-two years Roe had run this Board and hidden the real sky from the city, and in all that time she had asked the Office for exactly nothing. Now she'd asked for one file, and the man who'd come down with it didn't want to let it out of his arms. "I'm not...

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Not-Stars

Zeeshan Mallick

Weekly Contest #361

Fern grunted as she wheeled one of the library’s six power banks into place beside her desk at the center of the main hall. It clicked in with a satisfying shnnnk to the hall’s A/V station, lighting up the monitor and communications board.One of the junior librarians darted into the hall, looked around frantically, and upon noticing Fern sitting down at the A/V station began wringing his hands with even greater intensity. Fern smiled and beckoned him over.“Hey Fern - I’m so sorry, the kids from San Martin are on their way through the tunnels...

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Sun and Shadow

J R Duncan

Weekly Contest #361

The pilgrims had been travelling for many days, and at last were beneath the crumbling terrace, its steps worn smooth with the feet of thousands who had travelled before them. Reverently, they presented their gifts, kneeling humbly before the silver form outlined in the light of the morning sun. They began their chant. Serida. Consort of the Sun, we pray you always return with the light. Five hundred years earlier, the morning pressed hotly against the earth. Serida, clothed in an ethylene glycol silver suit, sat upon the stone terrace over...

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Mornaro

Weekly Contest #361

Mornaro. Tomorrow it slides back, again. Every nine years, Arnon catches up to Mornaro, and again, darkness falls over Arnon for months. This cycle is no different. Well, it is different in one interesting way. Tomorrow at 5:12 PM will be the first sunrise of cycle 6. It has been 54 years since the asteroids slammed into Mornaro, slightly slowing it. For eons, Mornaro flew in a perfectly matched orbit between the star and Arnon, blocking all star-light from Arnon. When the asteroid, or more exactly the series of very large rocks, struck Morn...

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Bringing Back the Glow

Bob Faszczewski

Weekly Contest #361

For hundreds of years residents of the Northern Hemisphere had romped throughout the summer wearing as little attire as possible in their local lakes and the world’s oceans. In 2929, though, the sun left the planet midway through the season and disappeared behind the haunting and oversized shadow of the Earth’s moon. Solar eclipses had happened frequently, often more than once a year, several times during our home base’s long history. This time though, earthlings had the sickening feeling the cyclical change was turning into a p...

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Moonlight

Alexis B.

Weekly Contest #361

How does anything get anywhere in the universe? An ocean of black. An endless sky. A universe perpetually growing. I may not know everything, but I do know my story. I know where I’ve been and I’d be happy to tell you how I was a lost moon until one day I wasn’t. It all began during a summer solstice which also happened to be a lunar eclipse. Just as my planet, Cyrene, was passing between me and the sun, an asteroid entered into our gravitational pull and made direct contact into me. I was knocked out of orbit and began to spin in ways I nev...

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Wardens of Legend - The Dragon, The Bear and The Shadow

Ryan King

Weekly Contest #361

This tale takes place in a world plagued by the spawn of the darkest plane, and by creatures once men but now beings of terrible power. Three allies, warriors of untold strength, ready themselves to face a foe unlike any the world has ever seen, save for these heroes. Torinn Rhogar, a dragonborn and the purest paragon ever descended from his race, has looked the demon prince Cryonax in the face and lived. It came at a price. Cryonax lives within Torinn now, and day by day he must fight an inner battle to keep hold of his own mind. Ulrich, so...

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Thin-Skinned

Teresa De Roulet

Weekly Contest #361

“Tony’s coming in today.” “You’d better not let him hear you call him that.” Several other employees in the lab look up. Brian asks, “He’s coming? When?” Jennifer says, “I don’t know, Michael told me. Michael wants to be left alone to finish the progress report on Komnaremab before you-know-who gets here. Sheila, you don’t have a lab coat on. You know how he hates that—unless you’re wearing a gown.” Komnaremab, the drug they’re developing, is designed to correct recalcitrant eczema. Tony Sabatier, Ph.D., Senior Director of Biologics for Ma...

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The Noble Thief

Weekly Contest #360

Ask any art thief which would be worse, reaching the trophy room only to find that the treasure they came for was already gone, or being caught red-handed after successfully obtaining the said treasure, and you’ll get a split response. It all depends on their motives. Are they doing it for the thrill? For pride? For clout? Or are they doing it because they’re desperate for the payout? The ones who want the glory would choose the first answer. Those in need of cash would no doubt go with the second. But what if the reason behind a heist was...

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