Tidbits of Thoughts While Watching Star Trek

I’m rewatching Star Trek: TNG’s “Disaster,” because it seemed like a fun one to help get the seven-year-old hooked on them.

Anyway, it’s making me think that a Tri-Galactic Trek story where Consul Tor ends up in charge of The Initiative would be fun to write. Continue reading “Tidbits of Thoughts While Watching Star Trek”

The Parable of My Dad and My Computer

This is a story about dealing with an abusive authority figure. Bear with me.

When I was a teen, my parents offered to buy me a computer. This was a one-time deal, so I waited until the last few months before college, so I’d have the most advanced computer possible for college. Continue reading “The Parable of My Dad and My Computer”

AOL’s Star Trek Chat Room

Somehow it never occurred to me before today that I can just search “Star Trek” on Twitter, scroll through the results, and find totally random people to talk to about Star Trek.

Twelve-year-old me — who was heartbroken when my parents quit AOL (which charged by the minute) because I’d racked up $300 in one weekend on hanging out in a Star Trek chat room before they’d realized — would be THRILLED. Continue reading “AOL’s Star Trek Chat Room”

I Am Mazillion

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in All Worlds Wayfarer, March 2020

“I didn’t want the mammals to know about me, so I kept my bodies huddled close, balled up together, wings held still, no buzzing.”

One of my scouts flies through the space station’s ductwork.  Another flies out among the aliens who are crowding through the dock and maneuvers above them, looking down, seeing where I am, what this space station is like.  Most of me clusters in a high corner out of sight, near the airlock I’ve painstakingly flown through, one body at a time, unnoticed, tiny, unimportant.  The spaceship I arrived on doesn’t know it had a stowaway, let alone a thousand, bound together telepathically.  A thousand tiny bodies, each many-legged with shimmering pairs of wings.  One mind.  I am Mazillion, and I am the first of my species in space. Continue reading “I Am Mazillion”