We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Breath of Oblivion by Maurice Broaddus, out from Tor Books on November 12th.
Beyond the Orun Gate, Epyc Ro and her elite soldiers are stranded. Capturing an alien ship and searching for a way home, they discover a stowaway who may be the key to overcoming the alien forces swarming all around them.
On board the Cypher, Captain Stacia Chikeke is struggling to keep her ship and its fractured crew together. But the discovery of an interstellar phenomenon and the opportunity to explore unites them in a singular purpose, for now.
In the slums of Indianapolis, Wachiru Adisa works to free the children of the diaspora detained in Original Earth facilities, only to be captured and sent to a nightmarish criminal justice facility, the Panopticon.
On Original Earth, Ishant Sangsuwangul is the newly assigned liaison to the corporate entity running the government there. He feels like a prisoner, but must find a way to stem the tide of conflict as animosity toward his people grows.
In the Badlands of Mars, Amachi Adisa and her new teacher Nehanda begin her training to learn from her past, chart her future, and unlock the power that is her birthright.
In the Dreaming City, the lunar heart of Muungano power, Maulana Buhari struggles with how to lead his people. Is now the time for isolation or aggression?
Together they, and all of Muungano, will guide the empire forward by any means necessary, as enemies of old and new extraterrestrial threats mount.
EPYC RO MORGAN
Beyond the Orun Gate
“We regroup. And once we’re ready, we take the fight back to the Interstellar Alliance… and finish what they started.” Epyc Ro stared into the blackness of her view port. So many stars, so much potential. She chewed on her lower lip. Her crew had to adjust. Learn who they were and what they were going to be about. They had to mourn. They had to heal. It would be a long, difficult journey.
“It’s gone.” As she monitored the incoming reports, Epyc Ro stood behind her seat on the command deck. She churned her new title, “captain,” over in her mind. The responsibility of leading their newly christened Reapers weighed heavy on her shoulders. Rank meant more when they were gbeto in the HOVA.
The Reapers were in a state of transition, from HOVA gbeto to what she wasn’t sure. This was a new journey for all of them, and they’d already been through so much. Their mission started as a military drop onto an uncharted world. Followed by military skirmishes, a first-contact scenario with the Mzisoh, and the loss of the squad’s captain, Fela Buhari. No, that cleaned up the circumstances to something nearly clinically pristine. The brutal and public decapitation of their leader, their friend, left the entire unit scraped and raw. And angry. They fought to escape their captors only to discover the remains of the Orun Gate, their only way home, destroyed.
“What is?” Having forgotten that their commlinks were active, Epyc Ro turned to see Robin Townsend picking out her Afro puffs. It was the first time she’d had an opportunity to tend to her hair in days. The look in her eye declared she was ready to stab someone for some shea butter.
“The Orun Gate. All of it. There’s barely any debris left from it.”
The HOVA was Muungano’s specialized defensive regiments, both shield and spear. The elite warrior protectorate, the closest Muungano kept to a standing military. As HOVA, they were more of a community within the community, their own cohort within the Muungano space. Believing that they had failed that mission, her unit renounced their office, now calling themselves the Reapers. The memory of hierarchy remained, and they still looked to her for leadership.
<Residual energy signatures are all over the place.> Chandra Elle monitored the scans. She rarely spoke. Becoming a member of the HOVA was akin to becoming a living sacrifice. The majority overwhelmingly women, they underwent genetic modification. Sometimes, like with Chandra, cybernetic enhancements also. She possessed a neurological Maya implant; a portion of her brain stem had been excised to accommodate it. Bioplastic covered parts of her skull and cheek. She had been modified to be a living radio, a way for Command to relay orders to them. But now there was no Command in her ears. Only her and Maya. The other Reapers could only wonder what the conversations in her head might be like. <Weapons discharge. Military class.>
“Could it have overwhelmed the gate? Created a, I don’t know, feedback cascade?” Epyc Ro asked.
<Uncertain.>
“How’s the ship?” Epyc Ro remained in vigilant appraisal of their commandeered vessel. It bore an insignia, but no name. Though the ship was little bigger than a kraal, the command deck was a largely open space with two stations near the front about the size of a rondavel. The vaulted ceiling streamed with lights, the material of each rafter a translucent metal that refracted the beams into kaleidoscopic art. Each of the twin piloting helm stations were partially sunken into the dock and partially enclosed in a bulbous partition leaving her team determined to refer to it as the cockpit. The antechamber on the other side of the octagonal entryway served as a meeting alcove.
“I’m still trying to figure out the rest of the controls.” Robin took her station at navcom.
“I hope you aren’t over there just pushing buttons,” Epyc Ro said.
“Do I look like Anitra?” The controls responded to her gestures; hard light structures moved like funkentelechy-controlled nanobots. “Comms. Transmitter. Receiver. Sensor array. Some sort of quantum slipstream engine.”
“Slipstream? I thought that was just theoretical.”
“Not according to these readings.”
“That’s…” Epyc Ro’s voice trailed off as she gestured toward the screen of the body of the ship. Enlarging the image, two figures bobbed near the surface of the hull in EVM navsuits. Their biomech suits acted as a sort of mechanical membrane partitioning them from the world, shielding them from the environment. Each suit had a built-in air-filtration unit as well as servos in the limbs to aid with movements. It filtered sound through its receivers, the noise of which became muted when navcom channels engaged. The world appeared to them along their visor, scanned and digitized, the telemetry beamed back to Command. “What are they up to?”
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“Painting over the insignia on the ship,” Robin said.
“What?” she asked, but waved herself off. “Never mind. I’d ask who authorized that but…”
“Anitra.”
“Dare I ask why?”
“So that anyone we encounter knows who they’re dealing with now!” Anitra Gouvei shouted. Unadulterated joy fueled the bombast of her voice. She reveled in life, whatever it might look like, taking it on her terms. It was what made her so devasting as a gbeto: she fought for her sisters, she fought for life. So painting the letters L.H.S.—Life, Health, Strength—on their ship made perfect sense.
“Who?”
“The aliens.” Anitra said to Ellis, “No offense.”
“Am I supposed to be offended?” Ellis!Olinger asked. Muungano scientists had designated the first habitable world on this side of the Orun Gate Eshu. But Ellis’s people, the Mzisoh, did not distinguish themselves from the planet. After the HOVA secured their people and dispatched the agents of CO/IN—the Interstellar Alliance’s version of the HOVA—who had been terrorizing them, Ellis opted to travel with the (now) Reapers in the hope of bringing the war to the CO/IN.
“Not yet,” Robin warned. “Brace yourself, she’s just getting warmed up.”
“We’re out in the home territory of the aliens. I’m not down for any anal-probe nonsense either,” Anitra said.
“Literally we are the aliens in this scenario,” Robin reminded.
“No. Butt. Stuff.” Anitra shook her head and batted away the imaginary probes.
“You a daggone fool, you know that, right?” Robin shook her head. “Although, Captain, I hesitate to say this, but Anitra raises a good point.”
“I done told them…,” Anitra echoed.
“Let me rephrase that: Anitra has inadvertently stumbled into a notion we should discuss further.”
“What’s that?” Epyc Ro asked.
“Our first-contact protocols.” A spoken-word artist in her former life, Robin could have been anything—a Master Teacher at the Thmei Academy, a ranked battle poet, or a member of the Griot Circle—with her skills.
“Everyone, let’s convene in the command deck in ten minutes.” Epyc Ro clasped her hands behind her, with neither a shrug nor a sigh, content that her team were adapting, even embracing their new adventure. They were their own, often wandering, village. They were always home as long as they had their sisters.
More an odd, metallic blue, the corridors were lit by vaguely blue light drowning the ship’s palette in something sterile and cold. There wasn’t a lot of ship to explore, but just enough to get lost in. Not a military vehicle, it retained a bulkiness that brought to mind a cargo vessel of some sort. As she wandered, Epyc Ro found that she missed gardens. Her time on research-level starships exposed her to Green Zones, but she missed the planetside feel of grass beneath her feet. The sense of peace that accompanied communing with nature.
Peace seemed like such a faraway memory.
Shoulders back, spine straight, her proud bearing owning any space she entered, Robin accompanied her to the meeting alcove. With her huge heart, being a gbeto did not come naturally to Robin. It didn’t mean she wasn’t good at it, just that Epyc Ro worried about her. She finished cleaning her talon, Busta, and with a flourish set it on the table before her. Inspecting her weapon with a meditative soberness, she decided to stow it in the series of translucent ribs along the wall she improvised into a weapons rack. She was an experienced gbeto, a sergeant in the HOVA. When the need required, she could set aside her emotions to perform her duty. When the need passed, she felt every bit of them. That practice kept her human.
Chandra was the next to join. When she removed her headgear, her white mohawk slumped to the side. Her eyes always stared toward the distance, but were also glazed with exhaustion. She’d probably seen more action than any other member of the Reapers. Though her military record stretched back decades, the campaigns and missions she was a part of were Code Black / Eyes Only.
Anitra tromped in, the last of the original HOVA Hellfighters that comprised their unit. Her sniper expertise was unmatched even among the HOVA. Her modified talon, a DMX-3000—more a tactical weapon—was a mess. Banged up, earth clogged, scarred, it would take a while to properly clean. Spying Robin’s talon, she slung hers onto the table in front of her. Within easy reach. Noting the silence, she uncharacteristically remained quiet.
Ellis!Olinger nipped at her heels. They had the physique of a champion pyramid player. Strong. Patient. Cooperative. Dedicated. Persistent.
Epyc Ro finished her assessment of her people. For now.
“All right, we all here.” Anitra sidled next to Epyc Ro. “Why don’t you continue to school everyone here on my good point.”
“Lawd,” Robin said. “I regret all of my words.”
“As members of Muungano, the HOVA were entrusted with training to handle first contact with indigenous people.” Epyc Ro circled the room, meeting each of their eyes. “We have to determine what interacting with new cultures means for what’s left of the Muungano way.”
“Real, proper-ass aliens,” Anitra said.
“Again…,” Robin began, but shook her head, not wanting to rise to her baiting. “We’ve all had cultural engagement and diplomatic training.”
“But we were dispatched as gbeto, not diplomats. With our weapons, we send the wrong message in terms of building bridges and how we want to exchange ideas,” Epyc Ro said.
“What are you saying?”
“It’s easy to believe, given, you know, all of history, that humans are wired to not like folks who don’t look like them. It’s too easy to lean into that default. I suggest that we need to adapt our protocols given the change in our… military parameters.”
“Yeah, now that we’re space pirates, not gbeto,” Anitra said.
“We’re not…” Robin waved her off again. “So what do you imagine?”
“You and Chandra take point. You because of your extensive studies in cultural analysis. Chandra because of her Maya database.”
“Let’s not overthink it,” Anitra said. “I figure first-contact protocols is like figuring out who to invite to the cookout.”
“It better not be like that because I’m a longtime advocate of us needing to keep the invite energy to ourselves, because it’s rarely reciprocated,” Robin said. “Besides, do we trust their cookouts?”
“Hell nah. That’s what I’m saying. First contact is only a couple steps away from how raisins end up in our potato salad.” Anitra initiated her DMX’s self-maintenance protocols. “We need trusted spaces to be able to talk shit about folks. Most importantly, I’m not trying to share my to-go plate. Cookout meat is a precious sacrament of family, not meant to be shared casually with colonizers, gentrifiers, and fans of Dave Matthews.”
Anitra was part of the neonik generation. They loved the late-twenty-first-century era, referring to their throwback culture as the Remember Revolution. While the philosophical intent was to never forget tragedies of O.E. oppression, functionally it boiled down to them using older slang and references.
Robin glided toward Ellis in commiseration. “We want to just get out of her way when she’s in the full throes of that LVE.”
“Do I even want to know what that means?” Epyc Ro asked.
“Loud vagina energy.” Anitra plunked her clean DMX onto the weapons rack. “Let’s set our protocols to ‘minding our own weusi-ass business’ and see how far that gets us.”
“Anyone check out the ship’s stores? I’m hungry,” Ellis said.
Chandra projected a holovid of the schematics of the ship. <Standard amenities. Protein synthesizers. Shower bay. Limited fashioning capabilities.>
“You had me at showers. I’m stowing my gear unless y’all planning on getting into a space skirmish in the next hour. I’m not coming out until I feel completely human again.” Robin stashed her EVM and other gear out of discipline, but stripped out of habit, without consideration of Ellis’s presence in the room. Shame didn’t accompany nudity for Muungano members.
Ellis canted their head in a manner filled with mild curiosity, more innocent wonder than anything else. Their gaze lingered at the string of beads girding her belly. “What are those?”
“My HOVA elekes,” Robin said. “Part of our uniform, I suppose. We receive them when we become official gbeto.”
“Do I get one?” Ellis asked.
“Do you know what I had to do to earn these?” A sniff of offense accompanied Robin’s tone.
“When will I have done enough?” Ellis had picked up a weapon and fought alongside them, but they were still thought of more as an armed civilian. And each of the Reapers found it difficult to relate to people of the civilian world.
“Oh, trust me, someone will let you know.” Transparent as ever, she didn’t want the Mzisoh to further inquire. The Reaper rituals were for them, defined them, and they hadn’t discussed what introducing an outsider to them might look like. “You okay, Captain?”
“I’m… assessing,” Epyc Ro said.
“Assessing what?” Ellis asked.
“I don’t know yet.” Epyc Ro also wondered how they would maintain Muungano culture now that they’d been cut off from it. She lacked the words to
explain what churned within her or what her emi searched for. Not knowing where to direct their energies next, she feared her people might lapse into depression and anxiety. Feeling numb. She remained alert for anyone beginning to isolate themselves, ceasing to do the things they loved to do, or diverging from their usual routine. Though there was nothing usual about where they now found themselves. “If you’ll excuse me…”
Epyc Ro longed for the luxury of a walkabout. A journey to clear her emi. So much of her preparation to transition to a HOVA gbeto involved pain. The ritual they all underwent opened with a communion drink. A mixture of sacred fruit, herbs, and a tincture of her blood blended into the initial retrovirus cocktail. Most folks rarely discussed the sense of dysphoria that accom-panied the early phases, post-t ransition. One of the reasons why gbeto were so dominated by women was that they adjusted better to the mitochondrial insertion and other genetic modifications. Honestly, she hadn’t understood all the changes made to her or even considered all of the implications of her transi-tion. All the genomic and cellular modifications, including her cells possessing dual mitochondria, led to her body’s ability to rapidly detoxify reactive oxygen species and other cellular wastes. She was faster, stronger, and her endurance lasted longer. She aged slower and healed quicker. After the transition, her gbeto sisters performed a scarification on her thigh: a welcoming ritual of carv-ing signs and symbols into her evoking strength and protection. They had to be done soon after the initial treatment because after that, her enhanced cellular regeneration would erase all scars as she healed.
The cost of the procedure required them to separate from the Muungano people. This program teetered too close to the cliff of eugenics, a hypocrisy the Muungano leadership admitted to but couldn’t always face, especially living alongside gbeto in day-to-day community. The HOVA forged a new society, their like-minded members sworn to protect and guard their people.
That was so long ago.
The existential ache Epyc Ro experienced spilled all over her sabhu, threatened to consume her. Longing for her passion to return, she wanted to feel again. Part of her had forgotten itself, how to draw people in, how to create and live within a sense of belonging. She needed to discover the things that would make her happy. Tracing her scarification with her finger, she idly won-dered what the barrel of her talon tasted like. What the energy pulse blasting through her skull might feel like. If an eternal quiet might still the voices and bring her peace.
With an interrupting cough, Robin framed herself in the octagonal entranceway. She’d fashioned her nanomesh into a loose kanzu with textured pants.
“That shower didn’t take long,” Epyc Ro remarked, somewhat irritated at the disruption.
“I rushed back to my humanity faster than I thought I would.” Robin sauntered over. “You good?”
“Yeah, why?” Epyc Ro asked.
“You just don’t seem all there.”
“Just have a lot on my mind.”
“Uh-huh. That might fly with the others, but not with me. Never with me. My love is consistent, persistent, and…”
“Insistent?” Epyc Ro forced a thin smile. “I thought you were going for a rhyming thing.”
“I wasn’t sure either. I was leaning toward ‘knowing.’” Robin peered, a penetrating gaze into her emi; deep and aware, yet without intrusion. There wasn’t much room for hiding from it.
“I’m afraid.”
“I ain’t never seen anything close to fear from you.”
“It’s about what sort of things I’ll have to leave behind, to be who I need to be in this new situation.” Epyc Ro ran her hand along the storage compartment above her.
“The unknown is a risk. Chaos is an opportunity. We adapt and trust in the process. I’m excited to see the you, the any of us, that emerges.”
“I… don’t know who I am.” Epyc Ro avoided her friend’s eyes.
“The HOVA was a role, a uniform, not who you were. You are a Muungano member no matter where you go. Right now, you are simply free of the duties and obligations others had for you. That said, being a leader is also part of who you are. I wonder if it’s about trying to figure out not who you are, but rather how you can be true to that without other people telling you.” Robin’s hand fell on her shoulder in a reassuring clasp.
“I think part of my struggle is figuring out who I’m supposed to be next.”
“Anitra found her answer.”
“I’m not sure if I’m ready to become a space pirate.”
“Me either, but we’ll figure it out. There’re too many things left in life for us to do.”
“It’s all right.”
“What is?”
“To cry. To yell. To do whatever it takes to lift that burden from you.” Robin’s huge, tough, easily wounded heart betrayed her again. Epyc Ro knew that many nights her lieutenant wept, not out of fear, but to mourn all the lost lives and wasted efforts of their wartime activities. “A ritual of renewal,” she called it. “Don’t let it overtake you. Share your load. We all can help carry it. Closure is a myth. Heal and live, sis.”
Epyc Ro still found that she tried to muddle through on her own, forgetting she had people to work stuff through with. The two of them spoke of heart things. Of Fela things. Of Epyc Ro things.
When they returned to the meeting alcove, everyone else ate in silence. Their nanomesh tailored into casual wear. The air redolent with heat and moisture, though not stale. Epyc Ro took a few steps into the room, her soles nearly soundless against the floor. She cleared her throat and her gbeto turned to her.
“There was a time when Muungano needed to figure out who it was going to be and how it was going to get there. We had a choice: we could believe we would never be free of the constructs and injury of history; or we could create a new culture, a new way of being and doing, together. To bring together all of our people to forge something which hadn’t been seen before. It was why we had the Uponyaji. The act of resting, healing, and dreaming together would create an overarching wellspring we could all draw from.
“You want us to have our own Uponyaji?” Robin cocked her head quizzically.
“Sort of. We need a time of restoration. And forgiveness. Of looking back and sharing stories. We need to welcome a new member into our ranks, but to do that, they will need to hear who we are and where we came from.” Epyc Ro walked over and stood over their prospective member. “Ellis!Olinger, please stand.”
Ellis glanced at each of them. Anitra shrugged.
“The group surrounding you has a long and storied tradition.” Withdrawing a black case from her pocket, Epyc Ro clutched the box while she spoke. “We call ourselves the Reapers after a battalion of the Mino, the all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey. Before that, we took our name from an infantry regiment of the New York Army National Guard known as the Harlem Hellfighters during World Wars I and II. They spent more time in combat than any other American unit in World War I and were one of the most decorated. It was the Germans they fought who gave them the nickname ‘Hellfighters.’
“We follow the charge given by the Deacons for Defense and Justice, veterans of previous wars who charged themselves to protect members of the civil rights movement against those who would use violence against them. They swore to rise to the ‘defense of civil rights, property rights, and personal rights and defend said rights by any and all honorable and legal means to the end that justice may be obtained.’ Do you so swear?”
“I do,” Ellis said.
“Then by the power vested in me by this circle of sisters, I welcome you as a fellow member of the Reapers.” Opening the case, Epyc Ro held out a set of Oya elekes beads.
Ellis strung the beads between their fingers.
Robin’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Are you sure?”
Ellis noticed the exchanged glances between Robin and Epyc Ro. “What? I’m missing something.”
“Those were Fela’s elekes,” Anitra whispered.
“And they are now Ellis’s to guard. And be guarded by.” Epyc Ro held out another item for them to take. A flat disk.
Ellis turned the green metal circle over in their palms. “What’s this?”
“A burial disk. Each gbeto is issued one. If they die on the field, this is how we collect our own.”
“I hope to never need it, but I shall bear it with honor,” Ellis said.
“I know you will.” Epyc Ro rested her hand on their shoulder.
“Asè,” Robin said.
“Asè,” the rest said in unison. Ellis echoed them.
With a fleeting smile, Epyc Ro faced the full circle. “What do we do now?”
<Permission to begin extended scans,> Chandra said.
“Permission granted. What are you looking for?” Epyc Ro asked.
<Any nearby signals which may indicate a culture with the technology necessary to provide us safe harbor.>
Epyc Ro said, “We looking for a place to call home?”
“No such thing. Not out here,” Robin said. “Not after the CO/IN killed Fela.”
“Unless we create it.” Epyc Ro’s words were more prayer than whisper.
<Network detected.>
“So soon? Can you trace it?” Epyc Ro asked.
<Working.> Chandra projected a holovid arrangement of the surrounding stars. She highlighted a portion of the field.
“That’s close. Plot a course there. Everyone find a station.”
Chandra and Anitra hopped into the helm hemispheres. Ellis remained near the entranceway, assuming a tactical security position. Epyc Ro rested her hands on the back of a chair at the center of the command deck. Circling it, she wondered whether it was truly hers to take. If perhaps someone else, like Robin, would be better suited for it.
“Have a seat, Captain.” Robin drew up a series of data streams at her sta-tion. Science ops.
Brushing back her jacket, Epyc Ro sat down. “Sitrep?”
“It looks like a ship of some sort. In geosynchronous orbit with the planet below it. It’s issuing a distress beacon.”
“On screen.”
The ship vaguely resembled a beetle with its wings extended. Two tubular cells extended along the section of the ship connecting the wings to its main body. Protrusions like mandibles at its front and legs unfurled from its rear. Scorch marks seared the hull. Much of its exterior appeared damaged. Several holes, like ruptured pustules, spewed debris. A trail of flotsam orbited the ship.
“Any guess about what happened?” Epyc Ro asked.
“Main reactor breach, maybe? It’s taken a lot of damage,” Anitra said.
“Self-repair systems?”
“Minimal. Like trying to do surgery on yourself while taking a nap.”
<Message coming through on commlink bands,> Chandra relayed.
“Can you translate?” Epyc Ro asked.
“There’s a series of arrays scattered about the ship,” Robin said.
“They might as well have a giant sign that reads ‘Stay Away!’” Anitra said. “Those appear to be weaponized satellites,” Robin said.
<It’s a repeating message.>
“Stay away,” Anitra repeated.
<It’s a warning message.>
“When will y’all stop doubting me?”
“Some space pirate,” Robin said.
“I’m just saying we have to be reasonable. It’s my personal piracy assessment protocols,” Anitra said.
“Your vessel violates Morawi space. You will leave this vicinity immediately or we will open fire,” a voice intoned with the tenor of an automated message.
“We’re being scanned,” Robin yelled.
“Plotting course ‘Alpha, Gamma, take our ass outta here.’” Anitra punched in stellar coordinates.
“People are this suspicious and unwelcoming for reasons. Or…,” Epyc Ro said.
“Aliens,” Anitra said.
“I’m done telling you that we’re the aliens in this scenario,” Robin said.
“No, we’re space…”
“Any evidence of piracy will be dealt with strictly,” the voice continued along its script.
“…circus. We’re the space circus.” Anitra held a finger to her lips. “You never know who’s listening.”
“Thoughts?” Epyc Ro asked.
“Someone’s worried about attacks. There’s a damaged ship out there. Sounds like this region may already have raiders targeting vulnerable ships,” Robin said.
“Do you suspect this is a legit distress signal or a trap?”
“I have a suggestion for our new prime directive: Leave that shit alone,” Anitra said. “Any situation we come across, we start with ‘Leave that shit alone.’”
“Do you think you can dock with that ship?” Epyc Ro asked.
“Captain, if you ask me to, I can land on a pinhead.” Hunching over her console, Robin fashioned a docking column and altered their trajectory.
“I’m going to need a boarding party.” Epyc Ro stood up, pausing to see who would join her.
“You already know.” Robin eased out of her seat.
“You sure?” Epyc Ro asked.
“I just got clean, so I’m not happy about it. However, you need to sit down, ma’am. Your place is on the ship. You’re the captain now. Someone’s got to watch the kids.”
Epyc Ro locked eyes with her, just shy of a glare. Robin met her gaze and rolled her eyes. The discussion was over; she was so right there was no arguing to be had, and all that was left was posturing and acceptance. She headed toward the weapons rack.
“I’ll go.” Anitra transferred her system to the captain’s station.
“Wait, what happened to our prime directive of ‘Leave that shit alone’?” Robin paused by the doorway.
“I just wanted it firmly on record that I denounced the idea of holing up with aliens or, for that matter, entering dark basements. That’s just a matter of principle. After that, a mission’s a mission.”
“And you’re ready to take everything that’s not nailed down.” Robin slung Busta over her shoulder.
“In the name of research.” Anitra joined her at the weapons locker. “Besides, we do have to eventually open communications. Won’t be too long until I’ll need an interstellar weed connect.”
“Anyone else?” Epyc Ro asked.
“I’ll go.” Ellis’s gaze tracked Anitra. They might be a problem. The mission field was not the place to indulge one’s crush. But that same energy made them fiercely defensive of the squad.
“All right, suit up. Ready to deploy in ten. Chandra, finish docking,” Epyc Ro said.
<Range 014 and closing.>
Her clothes fashioning back into her tactical nanomesh, Anitra stepped into her EVM. Once secured, she hefted her DMX-3000 like a long-missed friend.
<Primary couplers engaged.>
Robin kissed her elekes before morphing her nanomesh for combat readiness. Slipping into her EVM, she slung Busta over her arm.
<Drop stations secured.>
Ellis tucked their burial disk into their vestments.
Epyc Ro studied the viewscreens. “Take us in low over the ship. Let me know if any of those satellites start acting up.”
<I won’t keep it to myself.> With a mild jolt as clamping assemblies locked them into place, Chandra docked the ship. She deployed a gangway tube, the apparatus extending out like a prehensile filament. Its seal steadied the ship’s orbit.
“Stay on stations. Prepare to deploy.”
Epyc Ro created holovid displays for each member of her boarding party. Swallowing, she dug her fingers into her armrest. She desperately wanted to be alongside them on their mission. She hated the sense of remove she experienced, all of the action occurring thousands of kilometers away. That she was no longer in the thick of it. At the same time, the action popped off at such speed, circumstances gave her little time to think, only react.
“Deployment dispersal on my mark. Anitra on point,” Robin ordered.
“Today’s a good day for a good day,” Anitra yelled, and dove down the docking tube.
Ellis stared down the shaft and back to Robin, not sure what to do next.
“Are you out of your rabbit-ass mind?” Robin leapt after her.
“Every time you use a phrase like that, you’re another step closer to officially becoming an elder,” Anitra said.
The three plunged down the artificial umbilicus, their EVM thrusters guiding their descent. The sensation a mix of weightlessness and free fall. Landing first, Anitra jacked a Black Caesar into the ship’s door ports. By the time the other two joined her, the panel on her break box lit green. She nodded. Ellis pressed their back to the ship’s wall, watching their ship’s tether. Smacking the hull, they signaled their readiness. Anitra opened the hatch. The walls buckled as if punched by a large invisible fist but rebounded. With the hatch behind them, they activated a seal, creating an artificial air lock, but the drop in pressure swept through in a rush. Anitra moved deftly despite the heavy navsuit armor.
“Hull integrity appears solid. There’s power.” DMX at the ready, Anitra plunged in. “We have atmosphere and pressure.”
<No visible activity.> Chandra initiated a tactical display at her station before projecting it along the command dock. Sensor sweeps mapped out the ship as they went.
Anitra’s light illuminated the receiving bay. She held her position until Robin flanked her and Ellis sealed the doors behind them. Robin nodded and joined Anitra in forcing open the next set of doors. The ceiling above them had been shorn through, as if a single claw raked along the inner lining of the ship. Fluid leaked along the ruptured metal. Minimal power sputtered the occasional light to a dim glow. Air filters scrubbed away any lingering odor. The walls had a loamy, moldy quality to them, a curtain of bleakness, which pained Epyc Ro’s emi. The gentle plinking of water echoed in the distance. Their boots, magnetically clamped, clanged along the walkway.
“Analysis?” Epyc Ro asked.
“Evidence of small-arms fire. Blaster burns, that sort of thing.” Robin examined the scene through the scope of her Busta. The telemetry readouts hovered along the command deck chamber.
“I don’t know what kind of fecal fiasco you done got us into…” Anitra’s whisper trailed off as she shifted into business mode.
The way the Reapers could stop midchatter and stand ten toes on business never ceased to amaze her. As natural as breathing. Her emi tightened and she took a tactical position to cover Robin and Ellis as they advanced.
“Ship looks relatively intact. No structural damage. Definitely a cargo vessel,” Robin said.
“What sort of cargo?” Epyc Ro asked.
“Can’t say just yet,” Robin said. “No motion detected. Live signals from forward.”
“Any reaction from the satellites?” Epyc Ro asked.
<Nothing.>
“Proceed with caution.”
“Ellis, you’re up,” Robin said.
The ship wasn’t under thrust. It was as if power was present, but no one had turned anything on. Anything not stashed away or locked down floated. Robin brushed aside the occasion cargo box or spanner, bobbing ghosts of engineers past. Anitra and Ellis flanked the doorway while she attended the controls. The ship rumbled to full life with its reactor core powering up. Once the drive core was online, the ship thrummed and the objects collapsed to the floor with the suddenness of cut strings. Locks hissed and disengaged as the emergency pressure doors released.
Ellis assumed point position. Stalking up the catwalk, they swept the room. Robin seconded them, waving her hand for the Black Caesar so she could jack into the main computer. The comm station had been powered down specifically. A few sensor logs streamed innocuous data, hull-integrity readouts, shield status, life-support levels. They had data logs, none of which Robin paid particular attention to. Her intelligence training assumed that whoever piloted and crewed this ship would have scrubbed the memory core of any sensitive data and locked down the station. Perhaps overlaying logs with prewritten logs to mask their true mission and activities. Emergency protocols in case they fell into the wrong hands.
“Records intact. Downloading data logs through firewall protocols.” Robin unplugged from their system. “Anitra, what you got?”
“A couple sealed-off compartments. Heading to what I’m guessing is med lab.”
“On your six,” Robin said.
Coming alongside, Ellis rushed forward.
“Hold.” Anitra raised her fist for everyone to halt. “I have a life-form reading. Ahead.”
“Close on Anitra,” Epyc Ro said.
Ten storage rooms lined the deck. Robin descended a crew ladder to access the deck below. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she bolted ahead, not giving Anitra and Ellis enough time to clear the deck. This must have been
what passed for the lower deck, the crew level of the ship. Personnel cabins around a tiny hub presumably meant to be a commissary of some sort. All manner of disaster scenarios ticked through Epyc Ro’s mind about what could have caused them to abandon the ship so suddenly. Radiation leak. Mutiny. Hull breach. But her mind kept coming back to raiders.
The CO/IN operated that way.
“Robin, rejoin your team, I don’t want you all separated,” Epyc Ro said.
Robin held her position long enough for Anitra and Ellis to secure the room. They passed wall panel after wall panel, and none flashed any warnings. Weapons at the ready, they crept toward med bay. The dimly lit hallway and the obtuse angles of the strange architecture played with their perspective. Medical tools were scattered around on the ground as if doctors dropped them mid-operation. Ellis stepped on one. Its slight metallic clatter made Robin and Anitra stop to stare at them. Ellis glanced up, sheepish. They were new to the field and lacked the expertise of the rest of the team. Epyc Ro made a mental note to double down on their training.
The far side of med bay was a labyrinth of shadows. Anitra swung her light along its edges. One of the shadows shifted. A figure scurried along the corridor.
“I have a lock,” Anitra said.
“Hold your fire,” Robin yelled.
“Target acquired.”
“I said hold your fire.” Robin rushed after them.
Hidden by the shadows, the figure reached a grate, their small fingers scrambling for purchase. Before they could tug it aside, Robin caught up to them. She grabbed them by the shoulders. The darkness shifted, the stranger slapped her hand away. Her back obscured Anitra and Ellis’s line of sight, though both drew down on her position. The way Robin’s cam was angled, Epyc Ro couldn’t make out anything.
“Wait, what now?” Robin shouted into their commlinks.
“Robin, what do you have?” Epyc Ro jumped out of her seat. Her heart pounded impotently waiting for her officer’s report. Robin’s health telemetry remained unwavering.
Spinning her light to provide a visual, Robin held a little girl.
Excerpted from Breath of Oblivion, copyright © 2024 by Maurice Broaddus.
