Category: Story

A Dubious Hypothesis

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Techno-Tabby Engineer, February 2026

“An entire universe of star systems and populated planets had narrowed down to a bubble of water-retardant cloth with an orange cat and white fox inside, cuddled up in sleeping bags on either side of a lantern.”

Lt. Jordan LeGuin rarely turned off the augmented data streams in his techno-focal goggles that constantly ran through his field of vision, keeping him informed and entertained, but he had a lot to think about.  The orange tabby had spent the better part of the last week at an engineering conference on Starbase 17, and he was on his way back to the starship Initiative now.  His brain was full enough of ideas.

LeGuin didn’t need anything more to process right now.  He just wanted to let all the ideas he’d crammed into his mind attending talks and demonstrations during the last week settle into place.  And besides, sometimes while piloting a shuttle craft, it was nice to simply allow the infinite stretches of void around the small vessel to envelop him.  Space is really, really big, and sometimes the tabby liked to be reminded of that. Continue reading “A Dubious Hypothesis”

Cuckoo’s Conundrum

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Techno-Tabby Engineer, February 2026

“Hearing the tone of awe in the bird’s voice, Lt. LeGuin realized he might have an opportunity here.”

Jordan LeGuin was a cat more than worth his stripes, and he had really beautiful, bright orange and fire-red stripes that only mildly clashed with the more muted tones of his Tri-Galactic Union engineer’s uniform.  He’d worked hard to earn that uniform and each of the golden pips on his collar that marked him a lieutenant.  He was a naturally smart cat, but that wouldn’t have been enough to make him the chief engineer of the starship Initiative without years of training and studying.  For better or worse, Lt. LeGuin was more comfortable reading technical papers and balancing equations than trying to navigate the uncertain waters of most social interactions, so he’d been able to sail far on the sea of intellectual meritocracy. Continue reading “Cuckoo’s Conundrum”

Bravery Lessons

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Ursine Exchange Officer, August 2025

“Only Ensign Mewly continued fighting his honey golem without any apparent progress.”

Most weeks, Grawf taught her Ursine martial arts class in one of the starship Initiative’s exercise rooms which had tumbling mats for a floor and a full-wall mirror where her students could watch their forms.  But this week’s class was special.  This week, the bear was holding her class in the lumo-bay where a grid of blue, glowing hexagons covered the walls, floor, and ceiling.  Her students — who were mostly uplifted cats and dogs from Earth — filed in and took their places standing around the much larger bear expectantly. Continue reading “Bravery Lessons”

The Trouble with a Glorious Legacy – Part 1

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Ursine Exchange Officer, August 2025

[Part 1 2 3]

“It was a point of pride among Ursines that they’d evolved sentience entirely on their own while the far more technologically advanced Earth mammals had needed to be uplifted by some furless primates in their distant past.”

Grawf sharpened her ceremonial knife until it gleamed like a crescent moon.  Then holding the curved blade lightly in her heavy ursine paws, the bear-like alien slowly, carefully sliced off a wafer-thin edge of honeycomb from the bustling, buzzing hive of bee-like insects in the corner of her quarters.  She placed the deliciously thin, sticky wafer atop a steaming slice of crusty bread, fresh from the real, clay oven in the other corner of her quarters.  She’d had to get special permissions to keep a clay oven onboard the starship Initiative, but it was essential to these weekly religious rites. Continue reading “The Trouble with a Glorious Legacy – Part 1”

The Trouble with a Glorious Legacy – Part 2

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Ursine Exchange Officer, August 2025

[Part 1 2 3]

“Grawf was surprised, in the end, that any of her zumble-bees took pity on the imposter bear and chose to join his new hive.”

Bear brains don’t zip and race from one idea to the next, constantly hurrying and bouncing around like shiny metal spheres in a pinball machine like cat brains do.  And they’re not relentlessly, doggedly focused like canine minds, unwilling to let go of an idea like it’s a particularly enticing stick that needs to be chewed on once they get ahold of it.  So, Grawf walked with Braklaw to her quarters in silence, simply focusing on the task ahead of her:  dividing her zumble-bee hive and grafting a branch of her zinzinar shrub without damaging either precious being. Continue reading “The Trouble with a Glorious Legacy – Part 2”

The Trouble with a Glorious Legacy – Part 3

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Ursine Exchange Officer, August 2025

[Part 1 2 3]

“At first, the vine cooperated… but when it realized that Fact was trying to break part of it off, the bracken fought back…”

Grawf was largely able to return to her usual duties while Braklaw was confined to his quarters by the pain and fatigue of his gene therapy treatments.  Though, she did check in on him twice a day — once in the morning and once in the evening — to see if he needed anything.  She felt a strange sense of loss with her role as a teacher of Ursine studies suddenly suspended.  So, it was with a certain twisted delight that she heard from Lt. LeGuin that the ship’s engines were struggling against unexplained interference with their power and they’d have to decrease their speed, drawing out the length of the voyage to Ursa Minuet by an additional week or two. Continue reading “The Trouble with a Glorious Legacy – Part 3”

In Practice

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Arctic Fox Android, July 2025

“Once again, Melody stood very still, not wanting to be distracted by her own physicality as she sifted through the information stored in her brain, slicing through it at the right angle to think specifically about the ideas her parent had just highlighted for her.”

The android arctic fox, Fact, drew back the privacy screen zhe’d placed around zir portion of the engineering laboratory where zhe had been diligently working away for months on a secret project.  Inside the cubicle-sized space, a second, slightly smaller android stood, looking markedly similar to Fact with its snowy white silicon fur, dressed in a simple yet tastefully neutral outfit.  However, this android had longer ears, a more rounded muzzle, and larger back legs with longer feet than Fact.  Instead of a fox, this smaller android was a rabbit.  An arctic hare to match the arctic fox.

Fact looked immensely proud of the long-eared android which stood with its head tilted at a slightly awkward angle.  It hadn’t been activated yet. Continue reading “In Practice”

Time is a Double-Edged Sword – Part 3

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Arctic Fox Android, July 2025

[Part 1 2 3]

“The tools I would need to move the other end of the wormhole back to our own time would be available on the starship Initiative,” Fact said, “and the knowledge I need would require — at least — several decades of processing power for me to calculate.”

For all that the wormhole had looked impressive, Fact’s experience of stepping through it felt like nothing more than stepping through an open doorway.  One moment, zhe was in a dimly lit cave with stale, musty air; the next moment, golden sunlight constricted zir pupils and fresh, green-smelling air tousled zir silicon fur with playful zephyrs.

Fact looked around in surprise, having expected to find zirself in another cave, albeit in an entirely different set of time-space coordinates within the universe.  Instead, the fox seemed to have found zirself in a field of wildflowers, beside a copse of deciduous trees.  Birds sang among the trees, and happy children’s voices shouted in the distance. Continue reading “Time is a Double-Edged Sword – Part 3”

Time is a Double-Edged Sword – Part 2

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Arctic Fox Android, July 2025

[Part 1 2 3]

“I used to tell stories about the… other timeline,” Galen said. “When I was little, my parents praised me for my creativity, and their friends said I made the days of work go by more lightly with my fanciful tales. But as I got older…”

Stealing a shuttlecraft from a Tri-Galactic Union starship isn’t easy under normal circumstances.  It’s a lot harder during wartime in a highly militarized timeline.  However, Fact and Consul Tor had some unusual advantages on their side.  Between the arctic fox android’s ability to think faster than anything else aboard the Initiative — including the ship’s computer itself — and the photosynthetic green otteroid’s ability to sense and even mildly affect the emotions of everyone around her, the two-man team made surprisingly quick work of freeing a small shuttlecraft from the shuttle bay and zipping away from the Initiative as fast as they could, concealed by a burst of cogiton particles to scramble the ship’s sensor readings. Continue reading “Time is a Double-Edged Sword – Part 2”

Time is a Double-Edged Sword – Part 1

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Arctic Fox Android, July 2025

[Part 1 2 3]

“It felt to Fact as if zir crewmates wanted zir to be upset by the discovery of zir defunct, disembodied head. Like they were looking for a performance of grief that Fact simply didn’t feel and didn’t want to provide for the benefit of others.”

Gold-flecked yellow eyes stared into gold-flecked yellow eyes.  The gold flakes were real, twenty-four karat.  The yellow eyes, artificial.  Even so, one pair of eyes was animated with a simulation of life so perfect that it raised deep, philosophical questions about the nature of life itself.  For if an arctic fox android with snowy white silicon fur and a protonic brain can narrow zir eyes in concern at the discovery that zhe too will die someday, causing all the uplifted cats and dogs watching zir reaction to fight back tears, what more is required of a simulation before it becomes the thing itself? Continue reading “Time is a Double-Edged Sword – Part 1”