<a href='http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>A Colder War</a>
Before the second World War, an antarctic expedition unearthed
something so horrible that even Adolf Hitler's Germany signed the accord never to weaponize what was found there.
When they were defeated, the Russians carted off one of the German antarctica-based projects - renaming it Project Koschei, for Koschei the Deathless.
In return, the United States have been pointing enough megatonnage at the project, at any time of the day, always, to hopefully defeat what sleeps there.
For Project Koschei is a true horror, the high priest of the elder gods.
This is the story about the Cold War and the unspeakable, unimaginable horror added to it through the monsters sprung from the mind of H.P. Lovecraft.
And it is not the light-hearted, fuzzy Cutethulhu. This is
Project Koschei, the Devourer of Souls.
----
<a href='http://pastebin.com/aJQfubrK' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>The Road Not Taken</a>
By Harry Turtledove
It is the year 2039 on Earth, and it is a time of first contact between humanity and aliens.
The Roxolani - alien conquerors from the depth of the galaxy - come upon a perfect world - breathable air, lots of water, nicely spaced continents, no sign of any hyperdrive emissions... obviously, an inferior civilization that never even developed interstellar travel, and as such can't pose much of a threat to the fearsome invasion fleet.
The Earthlings - billions of people crowded and compressed onto one planet, kept alive only through the miracles of medicinal and agricultural sciences, hardened by millennia of warfare and wielding the miracles of military science - face an invasion fleet from beyond the stars... that never developed past the age of front-loading muskets, for they travelled the stars and conquered.
This is the Road Not Taken for Earth - the road so obvious to everyone else, the road to the stars.
