An Extract From This Month's Release: The Ants of Helical 9

I've decided to celebrate each release with a series of extracts that run for the month it's released in. This month saw the second edition of 366 Days of Flash Fiction released. Links to the collection can be found at Books2Read at: https://books2read.com/u/b6MrN0. Today's extract is:

The Ants of Helical 9

Written on October 17, 2015, for the March 9 entry of 366 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece of science fiction explores another potential intelligent lifeform that might be encountered.

The ants of Helical 9 were the strangest creatures we’d ever seen. When I say ‘ants’, it was the closest we could come to what they were with their tri-segmented bodies, two antennae, and three sets of limbs. From what we could tell, they had the same spiracle system for breathing, augmented by pumps to drive the air deeper into their bodies than insects were able.

  Harriman’s Mining Consortium had entered into a bargain with them for asteroid mining, said they were the most reliable of employees and partners—until the Incident at Neva 357. The ants of Helical 9, it seemed, were not averse to the concept of a hostile takeover.

 

Cover art is by Jake at JCaleb Design, and links to 366 Days of Flash Fiction can be found on Books2 Read at: https://books2read.com/u/b6MrN0