Make the universe a better place! Join Daily Science Fiction for only $15 / year.

Enter any portion of the author name or story title:

[ go to advanced search ]

SUBSCRIBE TO DSF

your email will be kept private

Get a copy of Not Just Rockets and Robots: Daily Science Fiction Year One. 260 adventures into new worlds, fantastical and science fictional. Rocket Dragons Ignite: the anthology for year two, is also available!

DSF stories are available in monthly digests for Kindle!

Publish your stories or art on Daily Science Fiction:

Check story status

Everything we've published! Click on a topic to read...

Science Fiction

Aliens (179 stories)

Biotech (108)

Clones (27)

Disaster (90)

Future Societies (147)

Nanotech (31)

Other Worlds (97)

Robots & Computers (144)

Space Travel (82)

Superhero (47)

Time Travel (85)

Virtual Reality (79)

Science Fiction (145)

Fantasy

Fairy Tales (144)

Parapsychology (25)

High Fantasy (42)

Medieval (33)

Magic & Wizardry (85)

Monsters (105)

Other Worlds (15)

Religious (79)

Modern Fantasy (103)

Fantasy (92)

Hither & Yon

Slipstream (97)

Magic Realism (119)

Alternate History (38)

Horror (1)

Humor (38)

SF/Fantasy (77)

The Alphabet Quartet (26)

The Numbers Quartet (12)

Twisted Fairy Tales (14)

Postmark Andromeda (9)

The Future of Future Planning (6)

Dear Jezzy (12)

Tasting Menu (5)

Tales of the Rose Knights (24)

Careers for Magical Creatures (10)

Captain Percina Saunders (10)

Clickbait for Paranormals (7)

Alien Salvage (5)

From Diaspora to New Jupiter (6)

Childhood at Crossroad Station (6)

Cara Watt, P.I. (12)

Maradia's Robot (6)

The League of Magical Felines (3)

Date Order

Stories by Month

Friday Features

Not just rockets & robots...

"Science Fiction" means—to us—everything found in the science fiction section of a bookstore, or at a science fiction convention, or amongst the winners of the Hugo awards given by the World Science Fiction Society. This includes the genres of science fiction (or sci-fi), fantasy, slipstream, alternative history, and even stories with lighter speculative elements. We hope you enjoy the broad range that SF has to offer.

comment on today's story, or read what others say:

Intrepid

by Andrew Bain

author bio

When he was in fifth grade, Andrew Bain wanted to see The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring in theaters. His parents, skeptical of the film's PG-13 rating, told Andrew he could see the movie if he read the book first. Andrew read the first of Tolkien's trilogy--then the second, and the third. Before too long, Andrew was reading any science fiction or fantasy he could get his hands on, and that love for world-building and deep character work stayed with him through the years. He lives and works in Los Angeles, where he's giving those whole "television writing" thing a try.

[close author bio]

Before we all boarded, they told us that it would be several years before we got wherever we were going. Wherever we were supposed to start all over after frying this planet to a crisp.

We were going to be in cryo-sleep, they said. So, there was nothing to worry about. It would feel like taking a nap. Sure, we'd feel a bit groggy on the other side, but no worse than we would after a couple hours on the couch. So we boarded and thought of ourselves as intrepid.

That was a while ago. After we got in the pods, they stuck us with a few IV needles filled with stuff to keep us alive while the cryogenics keep us pretty. They clamped us inside to keep us from jostling around and hurting ourselves. Then the pods closed, and they went away.

Enjoying this story? Don't miss the next one!

SUBSCRIBE TO DSF

Not Just Rockets and Robots &
Rocket Dragons Ignite
DSF Anthologies now available for sale!

A moment ago, the fiery red outside the blast window turned to inky black. The loud shaking has receded into the kind of quiet that seems to smother everything around it.

All the lights in the ship have gone out, and everyone around me is asleep, their faces touched off and on by blinking green light from the pods. Eyes closed. Peaceful. Intrepid.

I watch them for a few minutes before I start to wonder why my pod is taking so much longer than the others.

The End

This story was first published on Thursday, December 7th, 2017

show author story comments

I've been a huge fan of space operas for years across multiple mediums, be it television, film, or literature. However, almost all of those stories start once the journey to a far-flung destination has already been completed. I wanted to explore the idea of what happens before the journey even begins--and what could go wrong.

- Andrew Bain

[close author story comments]

BECOME A MEMBER!

We hope you're enjoying Intrepid by Andrew Bain.

Please support Daily Science Fiction by becoming a member.

Daily Science Fiction does not have a paywall, but we do have expenses—more than 95% of which are direct payments to authors for their stories. With your $15 membership, less than 6 cents per story, we can continue to provide genre fiction every weekday by email and on the website to thousands of readers for many years to come. Tell me more!

Support Daily Science Fiction

RATE THIS STORY

Please click to rate this story from 1 (ho-hum) to 7 (excellent!):

show this story's ratings

Please don't read too much into these ratings. For many reasons, a superior story may not get a superior score.

5.1 Rocket Dragons Average

SHARE THIS STORY

JOIN MAILING LIST

Please join our mailing list and receive free daily sci-fi (your email address will be kept 100% private):

SUBSCRIBE TO DSF