Start Publishing, which invited readers to vote on the top five entries in a contest to write a 500-word short story using Neal Asher’s The Departure book cover as a starting topic, has named “The Shell Game” by Bob Lock the winner. Click on the link to read the full story, which begins —

Kyle Benedict’s eyes opened and took in the scene of devastation. The colony’s control room was wrecked. A last remaining monitor flickered intermittently whilst a thin ribbon of smoke curled up from the bullet-shattered desk. The smell of burnt flesh, cordite and plasma-discharge crept its way through his ruined suit’s filters. Benedict groaned. He’d survived the Prador incursion. ‘Shit!’

Lock will receive a signed Blu-ray copy of The Europa Report produced by Start Motion Pictures (formally known as Wayfare Entertainment) and poster.