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Deadline: January 22nd, 2023 Payment: New stories pay pro rate, $0.08 per word, to 10,000 words. Verse pays $50. Theme: Science fiction short stories and fact articles illustrating current and future near-Earth space-related threats The US Space Force has a PR problem. Several, in fact. It was not Donald Trump’s idea. It did not steal its iconography from Star Trek. It is not just a lunatic scheme to expand the military-industrial complex by sending battleships into space. Yet judging from social media, many think all these things and more. Space has become critical not only to the military but to the economy and all aspects of daily life, and as we stand at the dawn of a new age of space commerce, that’s only going to intensify. Several nations have already developed capabilities to deny, degrade, and disrupt access to and utilization of space–based assets, whether to degrade US military capability or as a direct economic attack. Like it or not, the militarization of space started long ago, threats are already up there, and wherever people and their interests go next, so too will go conflict, intrigue, heroes and villains, everything that comprises good stories. WHAT WE ARE UP TO Real Stories of the US Space Force will be a collection of science fiction short stories and fact articles illustrating current and future near-Earth space-related threats and dispelling misconceptions about America’s newest service branch. It will be published by Baen Books in 2023 WHAT WE WANT Stories that grab us from the start and stay with us for days. Scientifically plausible drama about people facing interesting challenges related to the US Space Force or more generally, the policing and defense of near-Earth space and related issues, now or in the foreseeable future (the next century or so). Stories don’t have to take place in space, involve the actual US Space Force, or...