LINKDING

<blockquote>Alix Campbell is not particularly pleased to be on the list of staff for Earth's very first appearance at the Galactic Council.</blockquote> ➤ space bureaucracy! also, one of those stories where you can tell the author is familiar with the career in question, always a delight

<blockquote>Gilgamesh, legendary space general and ruler of Uruk Prime, has an unexpected encounter with a pirate.</blockquote>

<blockquote>You guys, I have a probe! Look at my probe!</blockquote>

<blockquote>1. It was my mother who first discovered the fuel leak. Or at least, that’s what we thought it was then. My grandmother, who was the last of us to have set foot on Earth, had died the month before. We had gathered in the laundry atrium, which was the largest open space without ongoing maintenance work, and made such tribute as we could: this is one of the first things I remember. My mother said it felt like a new era, like we were on our own. Although of course we had been out of radio contact with Earth for many years by then. And then, so soon after: the fuel numbers didn’t quite add up. The guardian angels of the old world gone, and we were on our own. But we had excess fuel against unplanned contingencies. It was the slowest of slow leaks. No big deal.</blockquote>

<blockquote>For the first couple of months, Nyle would get up every day before sunrise and run the spinal corridor. It’s recommended for all observation personnel to get plenty of exercise. Helps with the linkup, apparently. After a while, though, it was every other day, then only the ones that start with T. Now it’s just Sundays, and he has to stop three times to catch his breath. Nyle’s never had a problem with linkup anyway. Back at the academy, they told him his brain has a certain pliability. It doesn’t push back. Neither did Nyle, either. Not when it mattered.</blockquote> ➤ not a happy ending

<blockquote>A detective is called to a space station to solve the mystery of whether--and how--twelve astronauts are accessing the surface of a forbidden planet.</blockquote> ➤ oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh this is INCREDIBLE

<blockquote>"Even if I had the creds for a cloning unit… If I could ever have gotten the boys to make more than a partial stim download, it would be ten years at least before Mahlon and Kilion's clones would be adults and capable of," Naomi made a little gesture with her fingers, which was such pure Naomi that it made Ruth's heart ache. "It's just a thing we have to live with. Our boys are gone." Orpah started crying again. She'd barely stopped since Mahlon and Kilion died. She and Kilion had only been married two cycles and had just begun trying for a baby.</blockquote>

<blockquote>When Jeeves feels insecure about his cyborg status, Bertie must take drastic action to teach him his true value.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The Quantum Fountain pulls smoothly into the space station dock.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Change is a constant, like the seasons and the tides.</blockquote>

<blockquote> [life lesson: if some dumb-dumb actually tags you in a callout post on tumblr and says shitty, baseless things about you, don’t engage them.  write petty fic about otabek and yuri as grandpas who live on mars instead!!  you’re welcome.]</blockquote>

<blockquote>He's shivering as he emerges from the pod. No surprise, he was frozen for like a billion years. I do all the stuff on the script, all the "Fear Not! You are a welcomed citizen of our Utopia!" stuff while I'm toweling him off. Apparently he's about as good as I am with awkward silence 'cause it's not three seconds before he starts making small talk. "So, how'd you get to be a. . ." He waves his hand. "A Tour Guide To The Future?!" "Yeah." The guy smiles gratefully at me. "I imagine you had a lot of training. . . ?" "None whatsoever!" I chirp. He looks confused. "Allocator chose me because I incidentally have the exact skills and qualifications necessary for this task, and because I had one of the highest enthusiasm scores!"</blockquote> ➤ this story is weird and incredible and I was very surprised to be having feelings by the end given how much I was giggling through most of the story. I love it.

<blockquote>On the first day of Sara's appointment as Magistra Descendant to the Assembly of Terravine, Public Works decided they needed grassroots support for the plant. "I mean, I agree in principle," Sara had tried telling him, as he gestured at his hand-annotated wallcharts. "But for one thing, I'm supposed to be neutral, and for another thing, people might be eating!"</blockquote> ➤ aww yeah sentient spaceships are the best

<blockquote>When Jainan arrived on Iskat to represent his home planet in a diplomatic marriage to Imperial Prince Taam, he was naïve enough to hope the match would work. Taam knew better. Five years later, his confidence shattered, Jainan is released when Taam dies in an accident, only to be faced with another marriage to help salvage his treaty. Jainan understands how the real world works now; but Prince Kiem - the cheerful, scandal-prone darling of the Iskat celebrity magazines - keeps breaking all the rules he's learned.</blockquote>

<blockquote>When she was four he found her in the back yard, holding a brick unsteadily above her head, poised to bring it down on a small heart-shaped clock he had bought her for her bedside table. It lay face up glass sparkling in the afternoon sun. “Sorry Baba, I wanted to see what’s inside,” she said.</blockquote> ➤ sweet

<blockquote>To the Jews of Ganymede on the question of the permissibility of selling chometz to Immortals.</blockquote>

<blockquote>"No, see, we've all been trained a certain way. The training system is traditional; it's centuries old. Nobody taught you. You ballist like it's got nothing to do with war at all." A sleepy, extraordinary smile crawls over Victor's face. "Nobody else does it like that. That's why we're going to win."</blockquote> ➤ I don't know if it quite works for me as a YoI fic, but as an origfic it's GREAT, I adore the worldbuilding, I would read more set in this world! (and in fact can and have, the sequel is Gravity, ft. arranged marriage for Otabek and Yuri P.!)

<blockquote>Often, human settlements contain layers of habitation, one built on top of the other. One site can have many unseen features hidden beneath it. People are the same.</blockquote> ➤ an archeologist from space is on a team to investigate sites on Earth, along with an earth-born cultural attache. Yay for intercultural communication and space and science and stuff!

<blockquote>Being an incomplete and entirely subjective account of the last voyage of the HMSS Antelope.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Letters from Mars to Earth, between early colonists and their loved ones.</blockquote>

<blockquote>This, Javier Navarro thought in disgust as he stared up at the tower he was supposed to fix, was not exactly the heroic and exciting thing he had imagined when he’d seen the NASA recruiting posters and, on a whim, submitted an application.</blockquote> ➤ a nice look at a day in the life of people on mars

<blockquote>It was a source of consternation to certain of Earth's constitutional bodies that the original Mars mission made landfall on Christmas Eve.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Kent was going to be the first person to die on Venus. He knew it with iron certainty the moment the railing gave way and he slipped into the acidic mist. The only question was whether he would be baked or crushed. Moments earlier he had been inspecting the floating habitat's walkway, looking for acid damage to repair. He'd let his mind wander for just a moment, replaying the morning's argument with the old man. He'd leaned against the railing and it had broken free, sending him tumbling backward into the void.</blockquote>

P31 ➤ The one with the portal to mars in the writer's cellar

<blockquote>A little girl who missed the sun suffered a terrible act of cruelty. This is what happened to Margot, after.</blockquote> ➤ this is based on a short story I've never read, but it's perfectly possible to follow this fic without being familiar with the source material

<blockquote>A young scientist is lured away by a treacherous lover. (A Vorkosigan-influenced space AU.)</blockquote> ➤ space au of the Outlandish Knight ballad (the one where the girl drowns the man who had intended to kill her and had killed 7 girls before her)

<blockquote>Esca is a prisoner on Marcus Flavius Aquila's transport ship. What could go wrong?</blockquote> ➤ the space opera rewrite of the story! the fic tags itself as marcus/esca slash but there's a few bare hints that that might be where things are going and that's all. it's functionally totally gen.

<blockquote>In 19th century New Moscow, hearts are broken as a space colony prepares for war.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Most people who have reached their eighties without raising children have every right to believe that they will go on not raising them, and Judith and I were no different until the day they turned up with the social worker, neatly scrubbed and pressed inside their vac-suits and carrying cases with all their remaining worldly possessions. There were three of them like stairsteps, their black hair cut in fringes across their foreheads and their dark eyes shining out disconcertingly familiar at me. But it wasn’t until the social worker said, “Mr. Chao and Ms. Goldstein, these are your grandchildren, Enid, Richard, and Harry,” that I remembered, sheepishly, about the genes we had given all those years ago, to that nice couple from New New Prague, before they left for the Oort Cloud.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Tybalt hadn't asked Benvolio to drag him into the escape pod, to a planet with too much sky, with people he's pretty sure mostly hate him.</blockquote>