Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #00965-B234: A Nice, Hot, Cuppa

More about the mentioned-once Captain’s Cup

(Prompt from CallMeGallifreya on Tumblr)

Throughout the Galactic Alliance, one common factor became well known. There is no instrument more sensitive than a cup of hot beverage next to the Captain's chair.

Captain Eloise Fortescue put things together first, and had a habit of keeping a nice, hot, cup of tea by her captain's chair. And of course it helped that humans were the only ones who had gravity generators as standard technology.

Which allowed for the cup to be an open container in the first place.

Eloise kept an eye out for ripples. One of which came, today.

"Something's up," she said. "Full diagnostic and maximum scans."

The crew were used to this, and didn't question it. "Engines aren't answering helm. Something's crosswired, down there."

"Scramble the engineers."

"Sir! Picking up an alien craft right in our projected vector!"

"Flash the warning lights! Cut the engines! All stations, batten down!"

It was all the warning they had. But it was enough to save lives.

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Challenge #00964-B233: Where Have All the Dinos Gone?

http://immaplatypus.tumblr.com/post/128003023050/bethosaurus-sunslammerdown

(Prompt from CallMeGallifreya on Tumblr)

[AN: For those of you who can't be bothered following the link, the text reads as follows:

OP: What if aliens visited Earth during the Jurassic Period, found it to be occupied with a bunch of mean, giant lizards and thought "Well, fuck this planet" and never came back?

1stReply: what if when humans went out into the galaxy all the aliens panicked because if the dinosaurs tiny fur snacks

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Challenge #00963-B232: Love and Hate and Love Again...

Dunno what this is from originally, but I saw it on Tumblr in a few places, and figured you’d make something awesome from it…

—-

“They say ‘You can’t love someone unless you love yourself first.' Bullshit. I have never loved myself. But you - oh god, I loved you so much… that I somehow forgot what hating myself felt like.”

(Prompt from ChaosWolf1982 on Tumblr)

There were days, aching days when the rain made his entire, misshapen body

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Challenge #00962-B231: Just Like Bricks Don't

On the training plane for the Space Shuttle, the gearshift had three setitings: “fly like a plane”, “fly like a brick”, and “fly like the shuttle”. Please note that “brick” was used as an intermediate step between “plane” and “shuttle”

(Prompt from RecklessPrudence on Tumblr)

"Now this," said the human in the tones of someone sharing something delightful, "is old school."

"It looks like a simple re-entry vehicle," Tarb'nathad tapped a wing. "Primitive, yet effective."

"You have 'primitive' right," Kanta, too, had

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Challenge #00961-B230: One Gloomy Evening in a Dimly-lit Tavern

Person #1: Everyone knows there are no female dwarves because dwarves reproduce through beards, stone, and beer. :p

Person #2: No, somewhere deep in the mine lies the Dorf Queen. Whale-sized, eyeless, telepathically controlling the entire dwarf species and continuously giving birth to new “drones.”

Person #3: This also explains why dwarves all act the same. They’re just appendages of the same collective mind. Which is an aggressive alcoholic miner for some reason.

(Prompt from RecklessPrudence on Tumblr)

Jolli Eskutrebe kept

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Challenge #00960-B229: One Stormy Evening in a Former Enemy's Tool Closet

“What, that? That’s a sword that shoots lightning. That one’s a giant walking disco ball that shoots lightning. That guy’s Albert Einstein shooting lightning. Look, just assume that everything shoots lightning, ok?”

(for context, Google Privateer Press’s miniatures Game Warmachine, specifically the Cygnar faction)

"I'm detecting something of a theme," rumbled Wulfenbach.

"Well, when you conquer the self-declared Lightning Lads, you can expect a little thematic monotony, my Lord."

Wulfenbach rolled his eyes. "Feh. I've seen someone make

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Challenge #00959-B228: Slight Technical Hitch

People’s relation to tech has not changed:

On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?“ In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

(Prompt from recklessprudence on Tumblr)

"HA! That's

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Challenge #00958-B227: Mortal Mutant Powers

(I’ve had this prompt for ages. I have to use it now, because they’re finally starting to make plugs and ports that this doesn’t matter for)

USB connectors are at least 4-dimensional. Proof: a connector doesn’t fit. You turn it 180 degrees and it still doesn’t fit. after a THIRD 180 degree turn it now does.

(prompt from RecklessPrudence on Tumblr)

Tambry had no idea why she'd gathered a crowd. All she'd done was hook up her

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Challenge #00957-B226: Obligatory Baby Adventure

http://outofcontextdnd.tumblr.com/post/127351161618

“Dwarven baby sleeps like anvil. Wait shit, that is anvil. Where is baby?”

Hroogar the Mighty removed the swaddling to make certain. Yes. It was the actual anvil that she used for the head of her war-hammer. The handle lay innocently right next to Nagdar the Sorcerer’s staff, where it would get looked over by the casual eye.

Hroogar breathed deeply and slowly, lest she fly into a berserker rage and lay waste to everything

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Challenge #00956-B225: Convoluted Jones

“[Name]? What are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story. I have a tank.”

“I kind of noticed by the way you shelled the bad guys and then drove it through the wall, Jones. One, how the flakk did you get your hands on a pre-Shattering Terran tank, and two: how the flakk did you find live ammo for it?”

“That’s… another long story. Better told inside. It’s noisy, but there’s headsets. And you can take over

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Challenge #00955-B224: Minnie Mighty

I don’t want my obituary to read ‘saved the world and was then eaten by a small dog.’

Life’s fun when your entire life runs on pure mutant bullshittium. Hi. My name’s Minnie and I have the power to shrink.

Yeah wow what a wonderful power. I can get small.

I
can hear you thinking that from here. Let me tell you a thing. I also have a little bit of a corollary. The smaller I get, the denser,

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Challenge #00954-B223: Careful How You Wish...

(Discussing being granted superpowers, Person #2 doesn’t want them)
Person #1: I’m sorry, but whether you want to or not… this is something that is going to happen. The next time you fall asleep-
Person #2: Then I just. /Won’t/. Sleep.
Person #3 (Full of cheerful sarcasm): That sounds like a solid long-term plan!

Irde glared at Bianca. “No. No. This isn’t a solid wish.”

“You did use the words ‘I wish’, said the Djinn. What she had

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Challenge #00953-B222: Millie the Conquerer

Well, I don’t think she ever seriously wanted the city. She conquered it as a stop-gap mechanism.

The line had to be drawn, somewhere, and Millie initially drew it with arsenic in Lord Pemberhall’s snuff. The man had been planning to raze her neighbourhood to put in a park, after all. He didn’t give a fig about where the people who lived there went, or if they lived or died.

Unfortunately, Pemberhall’s heirs immediately began bickering, and when

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Challenge #00952-B221: Innovative Resource Management

They outsourced a surprising amount of their ship building (that is, they had a habit of using ships captured in battle).

People think low-gravvers are weak. Let me tell you something. A deathworlder adapted to a low-G environment is still a deathworlder.

And when there’s a hive of them in chained asteroids… you do not throw rocks at the nest.

I saw it from a safe distance and under a definite amnesty. I’m not stupid enough to cross with

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Challenge #00951-B220: Pacifying Maneuvres

We haven’t checked other species yet, but it seems to be almost universal in humans that we can’t help but at least smile, and often begin laughing, when we see a giggly baby.

The Havenworlders retreated behind their safety shields as various human factions began raising their voices.

Shayde, somehow, broke out a gigantic cup of popcorn. She masticated whilst grinning.

Someone, somewhere, pressed a brightly-coloured button.

Starting at the main viewer, every screen in the Ambassadorial Meet became dominated

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