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A Broken Whisper - Novella Index

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CERN is failing. The road through the alps is the only way out. And Océane is carrying something in her vest pocket that a six-year-old girl told her not to unwrap.

Not yet.

Chapter Two — Foxglove — A Broken Whisper

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Burning air caught in the back of Océane’s throat, a taste of hot metal grindings. Sweat gathered on her arms as the curved walls of the twenty-seven kilometre concrete ring baked. Conduits and pipes blued–too hot to touch. Brackets began to rattle. Smoldering electrical insulation stung her nostrils.

She retched.

“Emergency fusion generators have kicked in.” Crossing to each workstation, L’Gauss gathered up the Pahar metal. “Help me with the magnetic prongs.”

Océane’s forearms strained. “They’re too heavy… I can’t—”

“We have to get this to Vireaux.” Dragging a chain hoist across the ceiling, L’Gauss spun the clattering chains and lowered the hooks.

“Leaguist Ilyan Vireaux?” Océane fell against the wall. Blinking fast, she gazed toward the open access panel. A helium coolant pipe hissed then spat vapour from a weakened connection. “A bioengineer who plays god. Wasn’t he exiled?”

“Not from everywhere.” Levelling the magnetic prongs L’Gauss aimed it at the opening. “Help me collect these.”

“The metallic mind—you’re giving this to him?” Frowning, Océane cleared her throat and stiffened.

“If he’s right, a chance to save a piece of us—a piece of humanity could be saved.” Sliding the apparatus inside the collider, his jaw stiffened. L’Gauss tilted his head towards the living metal. It flickered. Living electrons bright as diamond dust.

“What piece?” Magnetic forks collected the living alien metal. Her hands trembled.“ Hope at the cost of obsession.”

“Only the tenacious will survive.“ L’Gauss floated the glittering metal inside a lead chest.

The door hissed shut. A coffin or ark.

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Raf’s mistake spawned a gravity vortex that killed a thousand friends and allies, collapsing the walls of Heinlein Crater.

Rupture between the few friends Raf and Xylia have left below on the crimson planet.

It spawned something else. A stage for the Blue Princess to claim a throne she isn’t ready for and something not quite alive. Left beside an alien gravity well that shouldn’t be there.

Near the south pole of Mars, in the skies above Hellas Planitia a hundred kilometre wide solar array—Sol Malea—warms the crops of Mars below and witnesses the next threat to Catharine’s Mars.

Yet even the stars themselves may not be safe as Mars’ biggest gun—The Novae Planitia reaches from Promethei Terra.

Promethei’s Javelin. Chapter 30.

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Outside of Sisyphi Bastion, gears gnashed on the crimson exoskeletons of Veyga’s Lyrae army backpedalling from the causeway into the foothills. Young soldiers crashed them into rocks. Miners within them cursed. Soldiers spat fiery commands. Jendrick’s voice raspy and fast on their comm signals.

The insides of Raf’s ears rattled as red-blue electricity forked from the fingers of Xylia’s right hand. The air around them snapped—a thousand quick bolts of lightning.

“What are they doing?” Silver in her eyes brilliant enough to illuminate the ice air between them.

“If you erase any more of them, Veyga cannot challenge Catharine.” Raf shouldered the Pahar mattock ascending the causeway toward the crater’s rim where the Galvex-1 lay unseen. Inside he felt it—stalking.

“She used them against you.” This time electricity from her hands iced the air until it was cold enough that a frosty fog formed around the breath of Xylia’s words.

“Mars hasn’t shown her its deepest wounds.” Clenching the hardwood handle of his mattock, Raf remembered when the cracks in his palms bled. It happened to all the miners in the shafts below Pavonis Mons.

“You could show her.” Strides became steady and the gleam in Xylia’s eyes softened for a moment. Raf imagined a colour there. Before when they were just children in La Chambre Rouge.

Had that time truly belonged to them or was it an impossible fantasy. The fables his mother read to him. Before she died. When the good people were always the strongest.

“She’s been watching Catharine too long. Veyga’s single minded.” Winds from Mars’ south pole cut through the stained canvas of his trousers. Glancing up once, no safe stars came. Just Algol again. The demon star. “And wrong.”

Lips parted softly, Xylia lowered her hand and glanced back towards Sisyphi Bastion. “If she challenges Catharine…”

Ranks of exoskeletons marched back to within the rocks of Mars’ southern fortress. Veyga’s fortress. Red dust lingered where they once lined the flanks of the causeway.

“She means to.” Raf swung the Pahar mattock to his other shoulder. Blueshifting as it stuttered through spacetime. Time altered light revealing the cloaked shielding of the Galvex-1 crouched above them on the rim.

“What will happen?” Xylia squinted at the heavy fighter then pushed her eyebrows close together.

“Mars will be left divided.” Raf sighed. Legs still cold from the bitter wind, his feet fell heavy on the crust of the upslope. “But she won’t.”

“She controls a powerful army.” Xylia frowned. When she folded her hands together, frosty air condensed into water droplets that evaporated as they touched her palms.

“Catharine controls the Stratocracy.” Opening one palm, Raf traced the scars that still lived there. “She’s the knife that keeps old wounds open.”

Behind the Galvex-1’s camouflage, preignition engines hummed and missiles extended. Uncommanded, each hardpoint locking with a metallic thunk. Steps above them, warmth radiated from the heavy fighter.

“She has The Face—Kazza.” Missiles that Raf would aim at Sisyphi Bastion when they climbed from Hellas Planitia. Was it him or the heavy fighter that decided?

“It won’t matter.” Closing his eyes, Raf bit his lip. His fists whitened as he imagined a cluster of interceptors south of the bastion. “She underestimates Catharine. Everyone does.”

“Even I did. Not anymore.” Xylia’s eyes flicked between the bastion, the hidden ship and Raf’s vision.

Her hands shifted erratically before they stilled.

Silver strands glimmered in Xylia’s hair when she combed her fingers through it and for a moment in time her eyes smiled again.

Raf gazed back but his eyes wouldn’t focus. Body quiet, no smile came to his face.

“I can’t feel the same about you anymore Rafael.”

Raf’s breath weighed heavy. Heavier than the great volcanic mountain itself. “I know.”

Camouflage flickered and the heavy fighter’s hatch opened. Stairs descended. Each step counted as the metal treads unfolded. Chimes from beyond the glowing blue companionway inside reverberated within the crater’s walls around them.

Pickaxes echoing in the deepest mineshafts.

Chains around the ankles of indentured miners.

Chimes from the Galvex-1’s weapons console. Activated.

“But you think Catharine will change, I know you do.” Xylia touched his shoulder. An attempted smile that fell away. “My sister will never change.”

Somewhere in the distance behind them—machine noises—a steady rumble.

Not exoskeletons.

Something else.

Small rocks rolled down the crater’s face.

Xylia’s Diavolo climbed into the Galvex-1 and stopped at the top of the steps. Red marrow dripped from its jowls when it glanced back at the fortress.

Veyga’s fortress.

The Blue Princess.

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High on the edge of the heavy fighter’s canopy the green planet’s blemish poisoned Mars’ southern sky, shrouding the good stars, the good gods of Mars. The ones that kept simple men safe from the trolleyman’s bark. From the overseer’s chains.

When Xylia’s smile filled a little boy’s heart. When the good queen of Mars secretly watched over him.

Raf’s stomach turned.

Gravity from the green planet.

“I couldn’t have done it better myself, Miner.” Within the former Major General of the Martian force’s words the dry pungent arrogance of Pericles still lingered, despite the rags he was clothed in. “That little display of power. The gravity weapon. Born to different parents you’d have risen far within the Stratocracy.”

Gravity waves converged, distorting the targeting screens on the Galvex-1 a kilometre south of Sisyphi Bastion. South of Veyga’s modest squadron of ships.

Raf’s fist imagined the fighter’s leather-wrapped control yoke, the wrinkled skin hanging loose from Pericles’ neck. “Further than your son?”

Pericles’s smirk flattened. His branch-like finger prodded the console where Raf had levelled Heinlein Crater with the gravity missile. “Your actions unveiled a thirty centimetre drilled hole to the core of Mars. Smoother than—”

“Than glass.” Like the one his old friend rambled on about. One hand found his chest and for a second a smile. One that Raf did not want to be there. Not in front of Pericles. He breathed the words. “A gravity well.”

Multiple targets chimed on the console and the Galvex-1 lift engines exhaled. Almost silent as it pivoted South. Alien camouflage mirroring the approaching twilight above. It’s underbelly a shroud of red dust and ice crystals.

“Who?” Raf closed his eyes. When he opened them on the right tracking screen a red vector veering north. Patera 7701.

“A discovery, miner. A body lay there. Distorted. Not quite alive” Pericles glanced back when Ur’idum’s growl rattled the inside of their lungs. “Transported to Drake’s Crater by one of your pirate friends.”

“They’re not my friends.” Raf’s hands moved precisely over the Galvex-1’s weapons systems. The heavy fighter answering almost before he scrolled through the full complement of missiles.

“Ahh Catharine’s, of course.” Pericles lifted his chin.

“The grandfather.” Pericles shrugged then glanced back at Xylia. “Of the Blue Princess… mistakenly convinced his metal can reanimate the body.”

“How does he know it’s not alien?” Xylia frowned and shook her head.

Snorting loudly Pericles buried a laugh under his stiffening jaw. “Your mechanic thinks himself a healer now. Another serf wasting time while—”

Raf closed his eyes and laid his hands over the control console. “Take us there.”

Two more missiles extended from the hull. The hardpoints locking with a defiant metallic clatter.

Pericles stiffened, surveying Raf. “Miner, you forget who the real enemy is, and has always been.”

Yellow crosshairs flashing, two tracking screens flared on the Galvex-1. Ascent engines thundered to life and the heavy fighter yawed toward a large ship.

“I got a heavy freighter on the screens. Pirate… brigantine… maybe.” Raf leaned over the console and covered his mouth. “Hiding behind the solar array above Hellas Planitia… or trying to.”

“Why?” Xylia moved closer.

Pericles’ thin lips twisted up in the corners. “Weapons—resources—for the palace, miner.”

The communications screen glitched once then burst to life. “I got Patera 7701. Coded messages.”

Raf punched up the ascent vectors to Phobos—Stickney Missile Emplacement. He stared back at Xylia and lifted his head.

“Saving this one, won’t save Mars. Not the way you want to see it, miner.” Pericles chortled. “Still Catharine’s pawn. Not the saviour of Mars. Nor the workers.”

“Raf. What are you doing?” Xylia felt his thoughts before his hands moved.

The heavy fighter lifted, hovering above Sisyphi Bastion. Steady. Silent.

“They’re not my friends anymore.” Raf’s hands spread over the console. Each breath slower.

Without command, yellow icons on the targeting screens changed to red.

“It’s not who you are.” Eyebrows drawing closer, Xylia’s voice softened.

Target acquisition. The Galvex-1 chimed five times.

“It’s who I need to be. They aren’t my friends anymore.”

Engines on the faceted fighter rumbled to life. Bracing the ship.

“They have to see who the real enemy is first.” Raf nodded. One fist gripped the control stick. “Then they’ll be ready.”

Target lock. Station-keeping the heavy fighter’s sound grew to a roar.

“They don’t see Mars like you see it now.” Xylia’s words came faster. Louder

“I can’t tell them.” Raf leaned back. For a second his words were softer.

“Who the real enemy is.” His thumb hovered over the fire button without touching it. His mind pictured a handful of Veyga’s captured interceptors destroyed. Bombers destroyed. He’d leave the low orbit corvette—the Alba—intact for now.

Pericles’s laugh wheezed his lungs.

Five missiles launched.

Explosions littered the southern plateau behind Sisyphi Bastion.

Boiling rocket fuel that climbed the basalt walls of Mar’s southern fortress.

Concussions shook the heavy fighter.

Veyga’s cobbled together squadron burning.

Yanking the control column back Raf lifted the Galvex-1 toward Phobos.

Maybe the last time.

Empty hardpoints on the heavy fighter retracted into the camouflaged hull.

Main engines erupted pressing him back into the pilot’s seat.

“Strap in.”

“Raf, did you do that?” Xylia’s palms twisted against one another.

Snowflake shaped leaves of the solar array—Sol Malea flickered as the sun retreated to Mars’ horizon.

“No, but I wanted to.”

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Adaptive shielding—active. Galvex-1 displays sequentially dimmed. Targeting screens moved to the centre of the console.

Somewhere deeper inside the ship mechanized fittings whirred as rear weapon spars deployed dissected the hull.

“Raf?” A bolt of electricity weaved between Xylia’s fingers.

Rear firing ISG-dm Interceptor—spatial gravity—two available. The heavy fighter chimed once.

“I won’t use them—unless I have to.” The pirate brigantine edged the one hundred kilometre solar mirror over Hellas Planitia. “She’s vectoring north.”

“The palace or the shipyards, miner.” Pericles rolled his eyes and fiddled with a harness that was too wide for his bony shoulders. “Bigger guns for the new queen of Mars.”

Tracking—target—optimized. The heavy fighter banked left.

The Diavolo clawed along the metal floor plating until it latched onto one of the heavy fighter’s skeletal frames.

Raf frowned and brought the ship’s cannons online. “No. Cydonia.”

Plasma energy detected. Alarms rang throughout the ship.

Ur’idum growled when the ship’s main engines shuddered to life.

“We can outrun the pirate’s, can’t we?” Xylia gazed at the heavy fighter’s display and knitted her fingers together—blue-red electricity restrained—for the moment.

Pericles’s scrawny frame was nearly severed by his harness as the Galvex-1 accelerated away from the south of Mars and pitched into the stratosphere. Slamming everyone to the right, air pressed in the back of Raf’s lungs.

Again, the Galvex-1 moving before his command.

Raf’s neck twisted awkwardly as the tracking screens focused on the giant spire rising from within Sisyphi Bastion. His eyes never met hers. “It’s not the pirates.”

The brigantine lumbering from behind the solar mirrors. A turn to the north.

“It’s not fast enough.” Silver flared in Xylia’s eyes.

Far above the ship, the vertical rings of Viridis sharpened. Halving the green smudge.

Raf shook his head. The Galvex-1 still climbing toward a Phobos orbit.

Plasma discharge detected. Shielding maximum. The heavy fighter chimed once.

Bolts rattled along the structure somewhere behind them.

“Converter temperature maximum.” Raf’s tongue sank into his throat. The heavy fighter vectored sharply again, slashing their bodies to the left this time.

A putrid smelling gas leaked into the cockpit.

Air swallowed harder.

Electricity spiralled along Krrel’s giant gun.

The Galvex-1 knocked his head backwards and on the tracking screen red lights flared.

Brighter than Sirius itself, a spear of molten plasma lifted from Krrel’s gun—the Novae Planitia—into the twilight.

It stabbed at the slow moving brigantine and raced toward the stratosphere and higher.

From a distance appearing to gain speed. A javelin of energy destined to impale the stars themselves.

“When will it stop?” Raf’s lungs still hungered for air.

Plasma energy at three hundred thousand kilometers from Mars. The Galvex-1 steadied.

Nothing burned.

The broken pirate ship sagged toward Promethei Terra.

Veyga’s next trophy.

Pericles gasped for air. Eyes blinking rapidly.

Xylia drew her blade–Sri Sahib—and aligned the edge of it with Viridis rings.

“We won’t be safe on Phobos, Raf.” The Arcadia gem brilliant within Xylia’s hand.

Wrapping both fists around the heavy fighter’s control yoke, Raf brought the Galvex-1 into a slow climb toward Phobos. Stickney Missile Emplacement.

The ship’s thrum—a harmony of power.

Raf’s eyes turned away from Phobos. Away from Viridis.

Searching for a familiar star.

Below at the edge of Hellas, Veyga eased the barrel of the Novae Planitia north—toward Cydonia. Toward Catharine.

Red voltage crawled along the three hundred metre weapon.

“We never were.”

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What’s left on Mars for Raf and Xylia?

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A Broken Whisper - Novella Index

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Geneva. A café terrace. Cheap Chardonnay and fondue while smoke rises on the western horizon.

Two scientists. One lead chest. Something inside the Pahar metal that shouldn’t be capable of thought.

It is.

Chapter One - Tranquility - A Broken Whisper

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“Cheap wine and fondue.” Océane leaned away from CERN’s lead physicist stroking the stem of her wine glass and shrugged. “Potted plants are alive.”

Weathered red paint flaked from flimsy red chairs on the terrace of Café du Soleil. A citrusy scent drifted from the red geraniums lining the patio. Switzerland and Lake Geneva still had enough water to spare. Enough to water the plants. For now.

“French fascination with wine is overrated.” L’Gauss swirled his fork in the clumpy cheese pot—suffing it into his mouth—washing it down with a cheekful of Chardonnay. “Vinyards of France are scorched. Northern wines are a quarter the price.”

“If you don’t mind the nostril burn.” Océane drew a long breath that didn’t fill her lungs properly. Fragments of a half-heard news report crossed the patio. She hated the news. One finger trembled on her wine glass.

“Did I ever show you a photo of my flat in Lyon?” L’Gauss smeared a drop of cheese from his beard then lifted his salt and pepper eyebrows. She would have trimmed them, if she had scissors. Anything to take one’s mind away.

“A little swimming pool. Potted orchids all around. I’d float in a tube and drink until sunset.” Eyes distant, his fork stilled. “Though Edelweiss would have looked better.”

Wine dribbled onto her lab coat, before she forced the glass onto the undersized tablecloth. An overheard word—insurgents—made Océane’s finger grip the edge of the wood plank table. Sun made the red planks too hot to touch.

“Do you ever talk to them?”

Air-raid sirens sounded. Soft. More than twenty-five kilometres away. Lyon—probably.

“Not safe.” L’Gauss shook his head and swirled the wine under his nose.

“Why don’t we just splurge and buy some good wine?” Océane made her lips smile.

“It won’t taste any better.” Setting the glass down, he folded his hands. His mouth twisted. Grim. “Besides, we need to save every credit.”

A thin column of black smoke lifted in the west. France. Clinking crystal with the Chief Physicist, Océane let the acidy Chardonnay rest on her tongue before speaking. “Don’t you worry—about them?”

“Send a message to Copenhagen? When the insurgents are this close?” Shaking his head, L’Gauss leaned forward. He glanced quickly to the west and for a second his words trembled. “Svenja and Christoph—they’ll ask what we’re doing here.”

“They’ll hear your voice.” Océane touched his hand.

Sirens sounded in the west again. Longer this time.

“They’ll be in danger.” L’Gauss placed two extra credits on the table and stood as his wristwatch pinged. Massaging the back of his neck the next words came faster. “Full power at the collider in an hour.”

Océane reached to pick a geranium but stopped. A memory—the smell of flames. The family villa in Marseille.

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The founders of this hostile planet forged iron and crushed stone into Sisyphi Bastion before there was air to breathe. Mars oldest fortress witnesses all—from the crater’s rim at Hellas Planitia. Centuries of weapons line the walls of The Hall of Conquest. The mad king’s planet-killing gun has been reenvisioned.

Raf arrives at Sisyphi Bastion hoping to find an ally. Instead he finds something he didn’t teach her to build, and everything he did.

In the Hall of Conquest, the old Mars is declared reborn. The workers remember. The soldiers bow. The Face has surrendered.

And above the causeway, the green planet looms.

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A quadrant of basalt daggers banded in black iron rose three hundred metres into Mars southern sky. The towers of Sisyphi Bastion. At its footings sweat and blood of Krrel’s ancestors yet echoed. Those who forged metal and stone before there was air to breathe. Before the cloud-seeders. Ancestors of the dead king of Mars.

Hissing four banks of missiles projected from the faceted hull, then without command, alien shielding on the Galvex-1 shifted until it perched invisible at the crater’s divide overlooking the fortress.

Xylia’s hand was cool in his as they descended the rim towards Sisyphi. Stalking within the rock fissures silently the female Diavolo, Ur’idum, disappeared within the crimson crust.

“This feels wrong.” Raf breathed as if climbing a mountain peak instead of descending.

Xylia’s hand warmed abruptly. She swallowed once. “Someone’s watching Raf.”

Behind them the Galvex-1 suddenly silent. Predator or prey.

Within the center of Mars southern stronghold, spidering voltage climbed a half kilometre above the crater’s rim at Hellas—the silver spine of the Novae Planitia. Frost at the tip of the planet killing gun boiled into vapour when a vein of electricity melted it.

The mad king’s gun. Reenvisioned.

Upon the bastion’s coarse rock flanks—five iron stars—the size of twenty men. The largest hung above the gate. Each of the stars’ diffraction spikes blued by heat. Embossed at the star’s center a single harp.

“What does it mean, Raf?” Xylia frowned.

“The blue star.” Raf stopped his voice wary. “Vega.”

Eyes flaring silver, Xylia repeated the word in Mars’ old dialect. “Veyga.”

Sol hung low on the horizon this close to Mars’ south pole. Steps brought them to the terraces in the shadow of Sisyphi.

High above from an opening in one of the towers a flaming figure glowed. Watching.

Raf refused to let go of Xylia’s hand until it burned his. Words she spoke too quiet for Raf to understand.

From the ramparts and foothills, formations of patched and polished armour shifted upon their approach. Rust and gleam alike and within, a mix of alien artifacts, mining tools and shock rifles raised. Heads turned. Voices in a chorus drumming their fury toward Raf and Xylia.

“Branik called to you.” From within the cage of a soldier’s exoskeleton twice as tall as Raf, Regor’s voice broke—eyes wet but defiant. “He believed you could save him.”

“They all did.”

Unseen, a lone voice called out from within the ranks. A miner’s voice. Coarse. “You could have saved us, Raf.”

Xylia squeezed his hand as Raf shook his head. “He was wired like a puppet—by Catharine. I tried to stop him. He wouldn’t listen.”

“That one day you’d come back.” A sob quieted Regor’s staggered breath. “Every day he told me.”

“And I believed him.”

“I told him to land the ship. To save them.” Words knotted in Raf’s throat and salt water stung his parched lips. “I told him—”

“That I forgave him—”

“You killed Branik. You killed them all.” Regor’s hands shook as he smeared red slurry from the exoskelton’s weapons display. His voice—a roar—to low for a boy of his age.

Raf’s jaw sagged. No words would come.

How could he explain three Face creatures?

A Mel’thryth invasion force gathering at Heinlein crater.

The danger to Mars.

His stomach hardened.

Why he launched the gravity weapon.

And killed enemy and friend alike.

That cost.

To him.

His friend.

His mentor.

Branik was gone.

Beside him, Xylia widened her stance.

“You murdered your friends.” Regor’s voice pitched as his thumb crossed his trigger.

“I was trying to save Mars—” Words scrambled worse this time. Breath refusing to fill his lungs.

Xylia glared at the columns of soldiers and workers.

“You deceived us.” Each of Regor’s words fractured. His face wet, he shook his head. “Just like you tricked Branik into believing.”

“Believing in a better Mars.” Raf’s words hardened. Anger found his voice. Why wouldn’t they believe? From the corner of his eyes Xylia’s hands glowed.

He took two strides towards them.

“A dead Mars, while you chase the Queen’s approval.” Anger laced Regor’s words matching his.

Lifting palms from her hips, the ground trembled beneath Xylia.

“The Mel’thryth—there’s a greater enemy.” Raf bared his teeth and scanned the workers nearby catching fury instead of understanding in their eyes.

“On the throne beside her.” Regor spat the words. “Branik said that you had affection for the young princess.”

“No—not her.” Raf’s words broke apart. His eyes found Xylia.

“No.”

Sweat beaded on his brow.

Sounds.

Voices.

Memories came too fast.

Too fast to refuse.

His father’s last words.

Xylia in the laboratory.

Branik beneath Pavonis.

Catharine’ standing above all of it.

In the mad king’s palace.

Few words remained.

He whispered them.

“If you love something… it dies.”

Palms lifted, Xylia forced Regor’s exoskeleton back.

When she returned Raf’s gaze, the silver streaks in her hair sparkled like so many years before.

Regor pivoted to the side. Rocks cracked under the feet of his machine suit.

“She’s waiting for you.”

A klaxon blared, reverberating from wall and crater as the massive low orbit corvette sunk behind the bastion. Descent thrusters at maximum. Unburned kerosene clung to the dust of Mars falling wet on the columns around them.

∞∞∞

Silent words seethed from the workers and soldiers alike, who lined the causeway towards Sisyphi Bastion. A thousand years old or more boulders that shaped the arched barbican before the main gate felt as if about to crush anyone who passed beneath.

On the right, a large construct of armour—an eight metre exoskeleton—matching the size of a metallic alien. Brilliant alloy and black iron.

Raf’s strides carried him toward hope. Hope that Veyga still remembered the old Mars, His Mars.

Xylia’s Diavolo lurched two steps in front and crushed a stray iron bolt within its jaws.

The Hall of Conquest. Walls and columns of red stone adorned with weapons from over three centuries of conquest.

Xylia’s gaze caught his. The torso of a metal alien. Its three black eyes—dead. A cloak belonging to The Face—empty yet still shifting in red and noir. Void within. Trophies of a new war. An alien war.

Gone were the echoes of the mad king. No smell of decay lived here. The air—decisive. Clean.

Two Red Guard slammed pikes into the stone floor when Xylia and Raf strode through.

Raf strained his neck to gaze up. Beneath the flame-lit voussoir ceiling; forged from stone, a soldier’s statue on the left, a worker on the right, twice as tall as a miner. Each making the sign of shade.

These were not made by the dead king—Krrel.

A half metre thick rock ore table centred within the hall stood between them. Ten metres away at the table’s edge, a large Diavolo gnawed at an iron strap.

Gathered around the table, an entourage of soldiers, workers, miners, all focused on him and Xylia. A single vision.

At the head of the table, Jendrick was there. Pericles’ son. Catharine’s Viceroy.

But not standing beside Catharine. Instead to the left of Veyga. A gown of glittering blue and silver metal to rival anything the Stratocracy created. The ruff of gem-like metal about the collar—still as she surveyed her court.

Despite being half the size of the men around her, her presence—larger.

“What is this?” Eyes cold, Raf’s nostrils flared.

Veyga’s Diavolo snarled.

She tilted her head and smirked. “Arcturus, he doesn’t know yet.”

“Know what.” Silver blazed within Xylia’s eyes. Some men nearby stepped back.

“You came looking for the old Mars.” Veyga drew her TriRapier and raised it. “It doesn’t exist anymore.”

Firelight carved images along the spiral blade.

Jendrick bowed.

All around her did the same.

“We die for the Blue Princess.”

∞∞∞

Raf stared at the bowed heads and dropped his Pahar mattock to the stone floor. Only a small breath of air would come. His stance unsteady.

Beside him Xylia’s eyes followed movement.

Veyga’s Diavolo had vanished. So had Ur’idum.

Jendrick stood upright bringing his hand across his chest.

Men about the table followed. Including soldiers of the Stratocracy

The sign of shade.

“Mars remembers.”

A baritone chorus reverberating within the steep vaulted arches of The Hall of Conquest.

“You’ll lead them to their deaths.” Eyes widening, Raf shook his head.

“I’ve done what you could not.” Veyga levelled the TriRapier in Raf’s direction. “Fought The Face. Fought the Mel’thryth.”

Something moved under the stone table. To the right, soldiers about the table stepped back.

“Without killing my allies.” Veyga sheathed her blade and placed her hands upon Krrel’s stone table. Leaning forward.

“You killed workers within the catacombs.” Xylia’s fingers curled. Her voice above the workers.

Some grumbled. To the left some workers lifted their eyes to the arches above.

“They attacked me.” Veyga stood up and braced one leg behind the other. Neck stiff she pointed. “You killed thousands, Raf. In a gravity well so large that it revealed another.”

Ur’idum leapt from the arches and attacked Arcturus, tearing a hunk of flesh from Veyga’s one-eyed Diavolo. It spat the cluster of fur and the two demonic beasts circled each other. Noises that shook the foundation of the columns around them. Soldiers on the right fled from the Hall of Conquest.

Continuing to circle. Jaws snapping. Their hideous noise growing silent.

“Arcturus.” Veyga called her beast back.

Ur’idum clawed at its flanks when it retreated.

“If you wage war on Catharine, the aliens will win.” Raf’s face flushed. He pressed his fists together.

“I don’t have to defeat her.” Veyga glimpsed at Jendrick and smiled. “She’ll make a mistake. Just like you.”

“Don’t underestimate my sister.” Xylia’s eyes narrowed, searching past the rock walls of The Hall of Conquest, as if seeing within the stone.

“The aliens—” Air from Raf’s lungs evaporated.

As if rehearsed, soldiers parted. Uniform footfalls clattering on the rock floor.

A path.

Something drifted in the shadow.

Jendrick crossed his arms measuring Raf.

For a moment behind the Viceroy all light disappeared.

Worker’s eyes followed the Viceroy. Locked on him and Xylia.

The Face creature floated in—stopping beside Veyga.

Her pewter eyes narrowed studying Raf.

“Ascension.” The Face creature garbled its words and drifted closer to Veyga. Its cloak shifting to indigo blue, then black.

“The Face.” Raf’s body swayed and words ripped from his mouth.
“You’ve aligned with The Face?”

“They’ve surrendered to me, Raf.”

“The Face are deceivers.” Raf lifted the Pahar mattock and braced. Casting his voice within the Hall of Conquest. “They killed the good queen. They lied to Catharine.”

“They’re manipulating you, Veyga.”

Veyga’s blue gown shifted to a darker blue then black. Sequins and gem-like points clustering and forming sharp points as the dress collapsed upon itself. Until a uniform of battle. “Real freedom has a different cost.”

“The Lyrae—my force—what you taught me.”

∞∞∞

“Raf, we need to leave.” Xylia’s hair lifted but there was no breeze. A breath from the gods, or a curse.

Raf’s fists whitened on his mattock handle.

Clattering metal approached from behind.

A formation of Red Guard in exoskeletons.

Kazza—the witch at the centre—barring their escape.

“I collect again, Miner.” Her pitched voice scratched at Raf’s eardrums. Hands bathed in flame.

Raf swung the mattock, making it shift in spacetime.

Words tranquil, Xylia touched his shoulder. “No Raf.”

A vein of dust trickled from the arches above. Thin as spider silk.

“You’ll remain our guests here within the walls of Sisyphi Bastion.” Pahar spines grew on the back of Veyga’s uniform. Woven armour on the arms and shoulders glittering gold in the firelight of The Hall of Conquests.

“Or below.” Jendrick nodded.

Raf glared at the child-Viceroy. “I saved you once!”

A cacophony of voices parroted from around them. “Below.”

For a moment more, Veyga’s pewter eyes sharpened.

The exoskeletons marched closer. Steel feet crushing the rock floor. Kazza’s arms in flame.

No one heard the vibration within the arches.

Raf was about to swing again when Xylia’s hand found his fists.

“Make them stop.” Raf’s words erupted. He bent his knees.

Veyga glanced at Jendrick and shook her head.

Soldiers and workers about the stone table covered their heads.

Debris spilling from the mortar joints above.

An exoskeleton reached for Xylia—then stopped.

Another advanced then tipped to the side.

Another stilled.

Behind them all Kazza folded and retched. Sounds that were not words seething from her lips.

Where Xylia steepled her fingers, red and blue currents of electricity flowed between them.

“We have to leave now, Raf.” Xylia extended her hand to his.

Behind them in The Hall of Conquest—a wall of voices forced back by something Xylia did.

“It’s the Aamun, Raf.” Silver within Xylia’s eyes brighter than he’d witnessed before.

Beside them, the witch lay reeling on the ground.

Ur’idum circled the final exoskeleton and wrenched a scorched thighbone from liquid remains trapped within the steel frame. Marrow dripped from inside when she snapped it in her jaws.

Above the causeway, a green smudge hung next to Polaris.

Raf’s eyes searched the Crater’s rim for the tattletale shift of the Galvex-1’s camouflage.

“Viridis is answering Veyga.” Raf squeezed Xylia’s hand.

When she squeezed back, electricity weaved between his fingers. Her strides wider than his. “And Catharine, Raf. And Catharine.”

∞∞∞

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∞∞∞

It’s almost too late for Mars.

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∞∞∞

∞∞∞

∞∞∞

A Broken Whisper - A Novella

The Tretaxis Universe has lived in my imagination for decades.

Not as a single story, but as a collection of questions.

What becomes of humanity when Earth is no longer enough?

What do we carry with us into the stars?

What do we leave behind?

The stories that unfold within this universe span worlds, centuries, and distances difficult to comprehend. Some tell of triumph. Others tell of sacrifice. Most live somewhere in between.

A Crown of Dust is one of those stories.

A Broken Whisper is another.

You do not need to have read one to enjoy the other. They share the same universe, but each stands on its own.

There are mysteries that connect them.

A name.

A metal.

A signal.

A kind of darkness that has a word for itself.

The deeper truths of Tretaxis reveal themselves slowly. Through the observations of explorers, scientists, rulers, outcasts, and those history rarely remembers.

Because every great journey leaves a record.

The question is who gets to tell it.

And who is left behind to witness the cost.

Beyond the stars, a blackness lies in wait.

A Broken Whisper is where that larger story begins.

∞∞∞

A Broken Whisper - Chapter Index

Your Broken One - Free 🎵

A Broken Whisper - Prologue - Free 🎧🎵

Tranquility - Chapter One - Paid Tier 🎧🎵

Foxglove - Chapter Two Paid Tier 🎧🎵

Chapter Three - Coming Monday

Chapter Four

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-

-

...and more chapters to follow as the story unfolds. This novella is being written in real time — I’m not working from a locked chapter count, so the list will grow here as each one is ready.

∞∞∞

What This Is

A Broken Whisper is being written with an eye toward traditional publication—agent submission, possibly print, possibly Kindle. It’s a different kind of project than Crown of Dust, and the paid tier reflects that.

This story isn’t going anywhere. I have no plans to take it down, and the odds of a publisher requiring that are slim. You’re not racing a deadline. You’re getting to read it as it’s made.

And this is one piece of a larger universe. When it’s finished, there will be more—some free, some here for paid subscribers first. This is the beginning of that, not the whole of it.

∞∞∞

For Paid Subscribers

As a paid subscriber, you get the full novella, chapter by chapter, every week—along with lore from the Tretaxis Universe, character notes, and the music as it’s composed. You’ve already heard Your Broken One, and Joshua’s song - I hate Serenity. More is coming.

$5/month, or $50/year if you’d rather pay once and not think about it again.

∞∞∞

Founding Reader - $120/year

For readers who want to be part of this from the start in a more direct way:

• Your name in the acknowledgements if A Broken Whisper finds a publisher

• First look at the physical artifacts I’m building from this universe in my workshop

• A direct line—bring me your questions about the lore, and I’ll answer them

∞∞∞

🎸 🎵 - Your Broken One - Instrumental - 🎵 🎸

∞∞∞

Back to the Tretaxis

∞∞∞

Some pain never leaves. Never forgiven. Saving an enemy from execution won’t absolve the justified death of thousands.

Not far from where the gravity weapon’s singularity still swirls, Raf and Xylia face a witch who requires payment in flesh. Nearby, an insurgent force on Mars awaits—the witch and anyone else who defies the gods of Mars.

Only one creature is unafraid of her curse.

Above Promethei Terra, something older than every alien on Mars looms before them all.

The Black Bargain. Chapter 28.

| Chapter Index | Previous | Next |

∞∞∞

Savagery of Heinlein crater spun behind them as the Galvex-1 lifted above the south of Mars. A satisfied thrum reverberated through the heavy fighter’s hull. Not a sound of victory. Lethal capacity.

A stratospheric jet stream tilted the fighter. Alien camouflage shifted, altering the faceted hull. Mirroring the gravity well that persisted within the crater’s centre.

“Are you going to be sick?” Xylia’s eyes drew close.

“I feel worse than sick.” Fists shook on the Galvex-1 control yoke. Hands refusing to make the fighter move. Every red vector—a line let in blood.

A cold whirlpool spiralled inward burying his decision in the black and crimson sands of Mars. Slow. Silent. Faces he’d never be able to forget.

“You saved Mars from The Face—they’d have enslaved Mars.” Strands of her hair sparkled in the starlight. In another place and time beautiful.

“Did I save them?” Raf’s hands tapped the displays fruitlessly. Each one framing his catastrophe.

“You destroyed them—” Xylia’s face softened.

Navigation screens tracked the low orbit Corvette—the Alba and its pilot, Regor—taking the survivors to the rebel shipyards at Noctis Fossae. Those he didn’t murder.

Raf stared down at the floor plates beneath his boots. Words ached. “And soldiers. Workers. Friends.”

Just a boy again—a vision of the mines of Pavonis Mons, his father’s eyes closed. When Branik touched his shoulder and said he was with the gods of Mars.

“There’s no peace where they went.” Mindlessly he pulled the control yoke to the left. Circling the crater. Torturing his soul with the rest of what he’d done.

“Catharine—” Her sister’s name pressed slow between her teeth.

From somewhere behind Xylia a black growl shook the armament racks beneath the weapons pylons.

Raf didn’t turn.

Only one creature made metal sound afraid.

“She might be worse.” A breath returned to Raf’s lungs.

On the long range screens a single interceptor was tracking south at high speed. Toward Hellas Planitia. Sisyphi Bastion maybe. Closer the Alba inexplicably slowed.

“Worse than The Face? The Mel’thryth?” Xylia’s silver eyes flashed. She blinked once when she stared at Raf.

“You know—there’s something bigger.” Raf leaned towards the displays. He pinched his chin when the low orbit Corvette began to alter course.

A seismic shock pulsed through Mars’ thin atmosphere. An image of crater walls folding into the singularity. Sealing the crater—the tomb Raf had made.

“Yes.” In the stars above a Cepheid blinked twice. Xylia shook her head slightly.

“Catharine doesn’t… that’s the problem.” Lips tight, Raf nudged the control yoke ahead. From ten thousand metres above he paralleled the Alba.

“We still have a chance.” Inhaling sharply, Xylia closed her fists.

Altering course, engines ignited behind the Alba. The giant ship curling in a slow precise arc. South. Toward Sisyphi Bastion. Krrel—the late king’s fortress. Regor where are you taking them?

“We have nothing. No chance.” Raf wrestled with the control stick, and rotated the heavy fighter.

An angry rumble erupted from the ascent motors as he hovered. Without command the hull opened and interceptor missiles protruded from the underbelly of his heavy fighter.

No!

“Rafael…” Xylia’s eyes pleaded.

“I still remember the sparkles in your hair when we were young. You hid behind the curtains in the La Chambre Rouge.”

“I saw you there.” For a moment his vision clouded.

Raf focused on Xylia’s silver eyes, but he could not see her. Not now.

“You’re not the same girl. Not after…” That day the implant flashed red inside Xylia’s skull and dissolved. Did he poison her mind?

“Please Raf…” Xylia’s mouth went slack and she opened her palms.

Engines rumbled behind them. The Galvex-1 was hunting the Alba. Raf didn’t give the command.

“Xylia—what she did to you—your sister.” Raf’s jaw tightened and he shook his head.

The weapons screens flashed to life. One red targeting icon. Would he kill again?

Second target acquisition. The ship’s voice no longer passive. ISM-dm Interceptor - Spatial Mass—four missiles active.

“You know Catharine’s real truth.” Raf’s thumb grazed the fire button.

Kilometres below the streaking interceptor and the Alba converged at Mars’ southern fortress. New emplacements flashed yellow on the Galvex-1 targeting displays.

Regor—why are you going there?

Xylia’s mouth turned down. Her silver eyes lanced toward Sisyphi bastion.

No words came.

∞∞∞

Raf wrenched the control yoke and vectored the Galvex-1 away from the Alba. The ship vibrated resisting his attempt to fire the braking thrusters. When it finally slowed the heavy fighter was buffeted by a volcanic thermal above Promethei Terra. As if it flew into the turbulence deliberately.

Coolant vented somewhere behind them. Acid air making his eyes sting.

Raf wiped them on his sleeve.

“You can’t go to Sisyphi—not yet.” Xylia tilted her head. Her voice softer—lower.

He hammered on the control console. “Retract missiles.”

“Kazza is waiting” Her words careful. Xylia’s eyes pressed into his until Raf’s answered.

“Why not?” He threw his hands in the air then cursed under his breath. The control stick vibrated hard when he pushed it forward.

“There.” Her finger tapped on the navigation screen. Xylia’s teeth showed.

Instead of simultaneous retraction, missile hardpoints on the heavy fighter sunk into the faceted hull one at a time.

“Pai Solis?” Shaking his head, Raf frowned.

“If you don’t go—” Xylia looked away. Words unfinished.

The alien shielding glistened in black and red. It should have mirrored the crimson surface of Mars. Camouflaging the Galvex-1.

“She’ll take something.” Lifting his chin high, the Alba faded from the navigation screens.

The image of Britt’s body parts appearing on the table, on Phobos, haunted him.

“Or someone else.” A hand rubbed his temple. The memory wouldn’t fade.

∞∞∞

Descent motors kicked up dust two hundred metres into the air before the entrance to Pai-Solis Terminal. Once destroyed by Branik, Catharine’s industry had forced the Pai-Solis canal’s broken southern terminus into an operational state. Machines and equipment littered about. A handful of workers scattered as the Galvex-1 revolved until its guns sighted the glass structure.

Equalization vents spat hot steam behind Xylia and Raf as they inched towards the terminus.

Glass panels lay crated on the ground. Most of the structure still only steel frames—exposed to the angry south of Mars.

Behind, the Diavolo crawled out of the Galvex-1 and skulked under the landing struts crushing a metal fragment it found between its jaws before disappearing in the rocks.

Stalking.

Inside the terminal, rails from the Maglev track lay in ruin. Whoever entered would have walked kilometres.

A scent—death and melted flesh poisoned Raf’s nostrils. Her presence.

“Who’s that with her?” Xylia’s breathing forced, she swallowed before she spoke.

Skin from the side of her face and arm shed like shale onto the terminal floor. Kazza.

Shackled and standing almost one and a half times taller, behind a thin man. Grimy algae stains coated his torn uniform yet his feet dragged the chains. Too proud.

Even without medals, a flash of self-importance crossed his face when he saw Raf.

“Miner.” A grey and yellow coating coloured his smirk.

A small river of gravel trickled down the rockface to the left. Each single pebble counting when it landed on the terminal floor.

“Pericles.” Raf’s voice grew louder. Teeth ground together.

Xylia covered her mouth.

“A bargain of sorts. The end of my suffering in the algae pits.” Pericles’ smile endured. His arrogance not yet defeated. “A faster death.”

“Not your business miner—nor that one.” Kazza’s voice echoed here. Louder than it should have. Dust fell from above them.

“You’re not in the Thanat anymore.” Raf’s nostrils flared. Hands tightening on the Pahar mattock.

Her cackle the sound of a flesh cauldron. “My power comes from below Mars.”

Xylia stiffened and leaned forward. Her hands fell loose at her hips. “Why are you here?”

“The Axius Valles gives birth to a new force on Mars.” Kazza raised her open palms. Skin flaked from one to the floor below as if scorched paper.

“What are you talking about?” His fingers tightened and the mattock lifted from his shoulder.

“One you helped create, miner.” Blood seeped from Kazza’s gums as a smile crawled over her face.

“It’s a paramilitary Raf.” Xylia’s eyelids closed slowly. Silver flashed beneath.

A heavy rumble echoed from within the maglev tunnel. Raf didn’t want to think about what was being delivered to Mars’ southern fortress.

“A militia. My death at the coronation of the Axius.” Shoulders slumping, Pericles frowned.

The former Major General of Mars’ armies capitulating.

“Pericles’ tithe” Kazza reached within her canvas bag. Finding the blackness within.

Air closed around them and wind rattled cables on the service equipment. A taste of soil and decay.

He didn’t see Xylia’s hands glow.

Time slowed.

Gravity climbed weighing his feet to the terminal floor.

“As I claim yours.” Skin on Kazza’s face festered and she raised both hands.

Things crept within her canvas bag bulging at the sides. Growing larger.

∞∞∞

Gravity glued their feet to the ground.

Her face shed. Kazza pointed a single finger toward Xylia. “I’ll take the pretty face of that one for your tithe, miner.”

“I’ll leave her bones.”

Xylia’s hands shuddered about her waist. Lifting too slowly. Her eyes darted to his. “I can’t.”

Raf’s mattock weighed heavier. The Pahar axe digging into his shoulder blade. He shook his head. “I won’t let her—”

A single boulder shifted five metres to the left. Behind Kazza.

Black terror leapt from the rocks—severing the fabric of the witch’s canvas bag and depositing it beside Xylia. Within its iron teeth fracturing a portion the contents, before consuming it.

Kazza’s feet skidded on the ground when Xylia raised her arms. Eyes flared silver as glowing hands forced her back. “Witch.”

Kazza spat blood. Eyes stabbing the Diavolo as it destroyed her magic. Her dark curse shook the walls of the terminal. “Ur’idum.”

Lifting his mattock, Raf marched forward, pointing to the remnants of her magic resting at the claws of Xylia’s Diavolo.

Xylia’s hands sank. “Raf no.”

“A bargain.” Fists tightened on the handle as he scrutinized Kazza’s black lips. “If I give this back.”

“Raf, please no.” Xylia’s words trembled and she shook her head.

The Diavolo shredded a disgusting creature as it crawled from beneath the canvas fabric. Green and yellow entrails leeching from the creature’s mouth when it swallowed.

“Your claim is gone” Holding his breath, Raf moved to the witch.

Kazza hissed black words. Words known only to the old gods of Mars and held out her hands.

“Fire boils within here, miner.” Flame licked between her fingers, and her silver eyes blackened. Growing larger.

The Diavolo’s growl matched Kazza, as it stood.

“She’ll make things worse.” Xylia’s words louder. Heat simmered on Raf’s face as she raised her hands.

Raf shook his head and grabbed what was left of her dark magic and the shredded canvas, tossing it at the feet of the witch.

Kazza’s silver hair lifted. There was no breeze. “Your tithe is gone, until I claim again.”

A wounded insect carcass spilled on the ground, then crawled below Kazza’s canvas.

Raf swung the mattock, fast enough to make the Pahar stutter through spacetime. “Something else.”

“I take what I want, miner.” Kazza licked the black blood from her lips. Defiant, she pointed feebly to Xylia. “I’ll take the eyes from that one.”

Kazza would gain her strength back again. Too soon.

Xylia lifted one hand, twisting it until a boulder broke loose from the cavern wall. She cast it at Kazza’s feet.

“Give him to me.” Raf set the mattock to the ground, and pointed at Pericles.

Kazza’s laugh louder than before. Darker. Confident. “This one will betray you, miner.”

“Raf she’s right… he deserves—” Xylia’s face paled. She dropped one hand and shook her head.

“There’s been enough death this day.” Raf’s chin trembled. He stared south. “I won’t be responsible for any more.”

The silence of the gravity weapon consuming men’s voices that vanished in the south.

Xylia’s words came faster. More forceful. “He’s evil. Pericles killed my mother.”

“He won’t die at the hands of the witch.” Raf avoided the eyes around him. He exhaled. “Another death won’t save Mars.”

The Diavolo scratched the scar on its face then rested beside Xylia. Black eyes focused on the witch. From deeper in the maglev tunnel, sounds grew closer. Louder.

Voices.

Pericles stepped towards him. Chains rattled as if the links had thinned to wire.

“Don’t come to the fortress miner. We’ll kill you before we kill the rest of the cubes.” Kazza’s black laugh retreated into a niche in the terminal.

Her last words a black breath. “Then sacrifice you and the other—before the Aamun.”

∞∞∞

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∞∞∞

Mars needs to hear what you have to say.

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∞∞∞

I appreciate each of you reading and supporting the Tretaxis universe.

The free stories — Crown of Dust and Tretaxis Dispatches — continue for your enjoyment.

Next comes the larger saga. The novella. The deeper lore.

For that, I’m looking for a select group of beta readers to travel that journey with me. Readers who care about character. Who want to see what’s beyond the solar system. Who are willing to give honest feedback on work that matters.

• The books

• The universe

• The characters

• The lore

• The story

If that’s you, watch this page for details.

∞∞∞

The Crown of Dust, and as forces draw lines on the sands of Mars, I'd love to know what the journey means to you, so far. Which characters and voices resonate?

∞∞∞

Back to the Tretaxis

∞∞∞

∞∞∞

∞∞∞

🎧 Author Narration

∞∞∞

Joshua’s fingers found the words. His heart didn’t.

‘I shouldn’t have left.’

He wiped his nose then deleted it.

Frost gathered on the outpost glass. He didn’t need to conserve energy. Microfusion generators were designed to last ten thousand years. Asteroid 704 Interamnia had the newest model.

Eyes went slack, as he leaned over the displays.

“All the Cepheid data is fucked.” Joshua frowned as he talked to no one.

No voice interface. No companion AI’s. No nearby outposts. No voices.

The resupply would arrive by expendable drone freighter.

Instead of a marble tomb—metal and glass.

Spinning slowly in his chair, he punched up a music track. One he’d played too many times, and resumed typing.

‘Okay I really messed that up. You should have apologised.’

The Cepheid signal buzzed. Repeating static.

“Why is it repeating like that?” Joshua’s voice trailed off and he punched delete again.

‘We both could have apologised.’

“That’s not normal. It looks like language.” He scratched his head, before logging the repeating static from Delta Cephei, and rotated the dish toward RS Puppis.

He deleted the keystrokes again and rubbed his chest.

‘I could have simply apologised. I didn’t. I regret it. I’m stubborn.’

A red light flashed on the antenna display, when it tracked the next Cepheid. Joshua squinted.

Static buzzed again. Steady. Louder this time. He ignored it and instead deleted the keystrokes.

‘I’m not perfect. I really wish I’d talked to you, instead of leaving for this stupid asteroid.’

He swallowed when text flashed on the readout. “What’s this a buried signal? Dark energy readings?”

He punched up the translator, and ran the program. Would Earth science even care?

The decoder ran a path of endless gibberish across the screen as if it found a language.

Joshua shook his head and backspaced again.

‘I’ve played every music track I have a thousand times. It’s really boring here, but—if you came with me.’

Words began to compose on the decoder screen. Jumbles of letters that didn’t make sense.

“There’s definitely some repeaters in there.” He scrunched up his face and loaded the data from Delta Cephei then ran the overlay command, before deleting his last text.

‘I have to be honest. I was being a jerk. I really miss you. I love…’

Alphanumeric characters collected on the decoder. Joshua ran a hand through his unwashed hair. The same letters repeating over and over.

He pretended to smile. No one would see it anyway. “Let’s see what happens when we compare this with something… say… ancient earth… for fun.”

Joshua sighed and deleted the text again.

‘I’m lonely. I wish that I’d never left.’

A single word began to repeat. Anki’Uš. Over and over. His eyes darted between the screens.

“Looks ancient.” Something made him swallow.

‘I still love you so much. I wish I could be with you.’

He tapped his fingers on the display. “A word that meant what?”

“Good or bad?” He shifted in his chair.

The next words came out shaky. “Coincidence, probably.”

“Transmistting now.” He pushed his chair away from the displays. “Odysseus Research Station—they can figure it out.”

Joshua flipped on a love song and stared at his palms.

The same one he played all the time.

His eyes were watery when he deleted the message again.

∞∞∞

🎸 🎵 - I Hate Serenity - 🎵 🎸

Press Play 🎧

∞∞∞

A Broken Whisper unfolds within the Tretaxis Universe the way an unseen star orbits the same singularity.

A Crown of Dust lives within that universe too. You don’t need to have read one to enjoy the other. But if you’ve been following the story of Mars, you may recognise certain things.

A name.

A metal.

A kind of darkness that has a word for itself.

There are more stories waiting beyond the edge of this one.

A Broken Whisper is where the larger picture first begins to emerge.

∞∞∞

Back To A Broken Whisper Chapter Index

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Abandoned by Catharine and the rest of Mars—

In the Hall of Faces at Cydonia Labyrinthus, a twelve-year-old faces the treachery of The Face and a wall of metallic soldiers

Alone.

Except for what she brought with her in a bolted chest.

Within the Hall of Faces—The Blue Princess will fall—or accede.

Outcast. Chapter 27.

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∞∞∞

Ahead Stratocracy interceptors hummed and kerosene bled from the ascent motors a stink of solvent oil. Fan blades clicked. Engines growled. Some erupted with blue flames that trailed their silver fuselage for fifty metres. A dozen flames that didn’t erase the bitter cold. The ground vibrated below Jendrick’s feet.

Jendrick heaved Catharine to her shimmering streamlined fighter where two Red Guard waited to lift her to the cockpit.

A half grin crossed her mouth, when she turned to him. “She’ll fall.”

Jendrick shook his head. She didn’t see it.

North pole winds spun ice air over the ridges of the crater’s rim—frozen snowflakes etched in pink and red Martian dust. The flakes gathered on the shoulders of Jendrick’s uniform. Tears of the old gods. Mars remembers.

Climbing into the Queen’s fighter, Catharine lifted her chin and touched her pilot on the shoulder. The Red Guard smiled.

A whirlpool of flakes melted in the fighter’s exhaust and spun above the entrance to the Hall of Faces falling like ice rain. A curtain of diamonds. Jendrick closed his eyes, imagining Veyga’s TriRapier drawn.

When he gazed back again a pressure in the air made the glassy cavern of the Hall of Faces shimmer as if alive. The ice rain fell steady now. Sealing her exit.

Burning ice dust pressed against Jendrick’s back. Catharine’s fighter was ascending. It smelled like the old Mars. When Krrel walked. When dead workers filled the algae pits.

“No she won’t fall.” Jendrick tilted his head, watching his Queen’s fighter twist in the vortices of dust. His voice surged. Catharine would know these words.

“Viceroy.” His pilot nodded.

Jendrick pulled his uniform down tight, then let his gaze dart back to the Hall of Faces. The opening called to him.

Before climbing inside he breathed words that no one would hear. “When the Queen’s Stratocracy is no more.”

Ten kilometres above Cydonia Labyrinthus Catharine’s interceptors surveyed the battle formations. Cumulonimbus clouds stabbed by their sleek silver. Below, the Queen’s armaments face to face with the aliens. Catharine’s finger on the button that would kill every leashed Mel’thryth with her corrosive poison.

“When I kill them, your charge will be to make me a new army—Viceroy.” No static clouded Catharine’s voice over the comm frequency.

Jendrick’s palms sweated underneath his gloves.

“Give me control.” Engines screamed when Jendrick wrenched the control yoke and pitched the interceptor towards the surface.

Painted in fear, his Red Guard nodded as the G-forces climbed, stretching the skin on his face.

Ripping the control stick back to his chest, he and the pilot grunted as the G’s pinned them to their seats. Their whole fighter shuddered when Jendrick deployed the speed brakes and extended the missile pylons.

Slowing to a hover over the formations within Cydonia Labyrinthus the inside of the fighter became nearly as loud as a Diavolo. Jendrick spun the fighter—aiming it at a Mel’thryth formation. Fingers grazing the fire button, an alien column shifted.

“The aliens—” Jendrick’s smile flashed. Cold. “Veyga will kill them.”

Before the Mel’thryth, Martian armour solidified.

Ten kilometres above, interceptors within the clouds were silent.

Within the Hall of Faces—Veyga.

The way ahead sealed by the aliens.

The way back sealed by Catharine.

∞∞∞

Levelling her TriRapier at the Mel’thryth’s midpoint the fluted spiral shifted through spacetime and slowed. Metal inched along the glass-smooth floor within the Hall of Faces in an attempt to brace. A sound of metal chimes dancing in a Martian breeze. Beautiful outside Palace Trianon’s windows.

Silently her left leg swept back. Within Veyga time stretched.

Reverberations from behind offered by the carved faces—an alien chorus—an oscillating death chant that was more vibration than sound. Too low for human ears.

Hair on the back of Veyga’s neck stood up. No longer a gown, the fabric about her shifted from red to black. Pahar spines on its back gathered and extended into spikes sharp enough to sever alien limbs. A uniform of combat. A weapon of Mars. Her grandfather’s gift to her.

From sleeves and shoulders, strands of silver braided itself into armour and acute edges.

A smell of the molten liquid pouring from the facets—the blood of machines and stars.

The electricity.

Sounds—that were not sounds.

The alien essence.

An essence assailed at the blade of her TriRapier. Taken.

Her vision lifted beyond her body and she measured the chamber.

Low roars.

Rumbles.

Like the gurgling of the algae pits when she was small. When the TriRapier was forged. When her grandfather Sarrin placed the spiral blade into her tiny hands.

A breath. Icy cool air filling Veyga’s lungs.

Her knees bent.

Somewhere nearby a drop of water fell within the Hall of Faces.

When it met the mirror-like floor, it made a sound.

The sound of a drum.

∞∞∞

Closing the way before her, the Mel’thryth on the right shifted. The weak one.

Veyga kicked the cylindrical chest behind her while leaping towards the right where the TriRapier fractured the stone sculpture above—splitting the alien carving.

Broken rock cascaded to the floor and her blade sliced once more before Veyga ran. As fast as she could, always staying just beyond reach of the weak Mel’thryth.

A metal tentacle manacled her left leg, slamming her face-first into the smooth rock floor. Salty blood seeped over her teeth. Twisting awkwardly she sliced the appendage and lunged toward the cylindrical steel.

Metal spat behind her as the aliens broke formation—as her blade cut the bolt which sealed the metal container.

Its half metre hatch fell.

A right legged cartwheel and Veyga reeled, forcing her blade between the trifecta of eyes of the weak Mel’thryth. Globules of molten metal erupted and cast upon the black of her fabric where it floated oil on water—until it spilled on the glassy floor.

Veyga climbed upon the meandering cubes as it died beneath her.

Electricity shot from the facets of the two Mel’thryth behind. Limbs grew from a bold one and reached for her.

Narrowing her eyes, she focused on the one to the left. The TriRapier stuttered through spacetime when she arced the blade towards that enemy.

A limb touched her arm.

For a split second, Veyga closed her eyes and listened.

A sound made by only one creature on Mars.

A black shadow exploded from the metal case behind her, latching its iron teeth onto the Mel’thryth appendage then somersaulting until what remained of the limb twisted on the floor as if a headless snake.

Stilling, its tiny black eyes assessed the massive alien then attacked again—sounds of metal fracturing within its wide flat jaws.

Her ankle wrenched where bruises swelled. Lifting it, she pushed off with the right.

Veyga’s blade shifted and tore into the other Mel’thryth’s facets. Fibrous connections spilled from the cubes and the creature moved back and swayed—protecting its wound.

A sharp appendage spun from the creature, aiming for her back.

Contacting the Pahar spine, broken facets spilled onto the ground below.

The TriRapier flew from her hand.

Catching it by the blade in her left, its sharp edge scored her hand.

Wiping blood from her lips on the sleeve’s fabric, her right knuckles whitened about the TriRapier’s hilt.

Ferocity boiled beside her but Veyga didn’t watch, instead she surged forward, aiming for the creature’s eyes. The three dark facets.

Spinning, the Mel’thryth bled liquid metal from its wound, coating the arm that held the TriRapier.

Shouting, Veyga lept and retreated again, focusing on a rock step. If her foot landed there, she had a chance.

Screeches echoed. Too close. Then a cluster of cubes shattered within a deadly pair of jaws.

Something touched a Pahar pyramid on Veyga’s back.

One foot slipped.

An image filled Veyga’s mind. Not Jendrick. Not Sarrin. Not the Mel’thryth.

Catharine.

Mel’thryth metal found a gap in the fabric pressing through her back. At least an inch into her flesh.

Veyga staggered.

Her other foot found a notch in the rock wall.

That image of Catharine smirking.

Her body followed the TriRapier’s shifting blade—vaulting—twisting—aimed.

Finding the alien’s eyes, her blade sunk to the hilt.

What remained of the appendages spiralled around her body squeezing her ribs until two cracked.

“Die!”

Veyga grimaced then twisted the blade as she tore it from the Mel’thryth core.

Two feet braced atop the second alien. Hobbling on her bruised ankle. Air came harder.

Next to her the Diavolo shrieked. Not a sound that hurt her ears.

One that called her name.

Veyga sprinted towards Cydonia Labyrinthus and swung wide, attacking the last Mel’thryth from behind. The Diavolo at its flanks.

Above the Mel’thryth cubes clustered. Reaching. Climbing to escape?

Two appendages shot outwards, and Veyga sparred with both, sectioning segments of cubes with each strike. Pain folded her left ankle.

Almost too fast to gather her bearings…

Yet hand and blade remained faster than the alien.

She never saw the snaking spear-tipped metal tentacle above the Mel’thryth. Coiling. Waiting.

To strike.

The Diavolo did.

Ratcheting from the core of the infesting facets, it leapt to intercept the spear-like appendage.

This Mel’thryth a practised enemy.

By the time Veyga saw—the Diavolo was impaled at the eye.

It still fought.

Defiant.

The Mel’thryth could have killed her.

Veyga pivoted on her right leg, like the Diavolo and accelerated to the Mel’thryth. Rupturing the facets. Fire and hate fueled the TriRapier. Ferocity.

Blood spilled from her lips.

Fabric wet on her back.

The TriRapier tearing through spacetime.

The Diavolo still shredding the alien.

The when.

What her grandfather had taught her.

Ruthless.

Relentless.

Blood from her left hand reddened the black fabric about her left ankle where she massaged it.

When her blade found its sheath, the Diavolo was scratching the back of its neck.

Unfazed.

With one eye it surveyed Veyga then picked up a glowing cube within its jaw.

Veyga nodded.

The Diavolo crushed it.

∞∞∞

Overlooking Cydonia Labyrinthus the three Face creatures floated aimlessly. Extracting her blade, Veyga strode closer until they skirted its verge. Within the crater below the armour of Mars rumbled. Mel’thryth sagged.

“The Hall of Faces belongs to me now.” Veyga’s jaw sharp. Words etched with an ugly laugh. Fifteen metres behind her, the Diavolo snapped cubes within its hardened jaws.

Light altered beneath the cloak of the wounded Face creature. Sparks spilling from the severed arm. It moved as if about to speak.

The TriRapier lifted from its midpoint to where the deceptive voice once spoke—sectioning The Face.

Halved from the middle, two sides drifted apart. Then vanished. Erased from spacetime.

One of the other creatures drifted back—seeking escape—words reverberating from the star light glow beneath the red and noir cloak.

“Affliction.”

Its back turned when the TriRapier stuttered through spacetime.

Veyga spun to the last remaining Face creature.

“I did not ask it to speak.”

Low in the distance Sol began its slow climb on the horizon. Sunlight danced on the ice dunes and along the flutes within her TriRapier as she extended the blade into the glow.

“What do you say?” Within the crater tens of thousands of Mars’ armoured units began to shift. Veyga scrutinized the formations and tilted her head away from The Face creature.

“Alignment.” Its robe altered colours. More red than black. It moved beside Veyga when she sheathed the TriRapier.

This time the image that manifested within her was not Catharine.

“Jendrick… we won.” Each word a breath that did not echo in this alien place.

Her silver eyes shimmered, assessing the one-eyed Diavolo behind her.

“You need a name.”

∞∞∞

Under each step, an echo crackled down the Hall of Faces as Veyga and the Diavolo moved towards the exit where her interceptor waited. Winter lightning in Mars arctic air. Electric sound waves that reverberated within the alien faces carved in the tall angled wall beside them. The glassy floor amplifying each of the twelve-year-old’s strides.

Pahar spines and armour melted into sequins and faceted gems of the silvery metal that glittered within the hall’s reflected light, as the fabric expanded into a red fringed indigo. A high collar about Veyga’s neck trimmed in white gold and silver embroidery.

Veyga paused at what appeared to be the convergence of two alien figures. A single star etched above. “This one looks like the two bears.”

The Diavolo rested at the fringe of Veyga’s gown and scratched his back before growling and studying her.

Steepling her fingers, Veyga leaned back. “You shall be known as Arcturus—the guardian.”

Five metres behind them the last remaining Face creature on Mars drifted. Arcturus studied the shifting form.

For now the aliens answered to Mars. Veyga’s Mars. Not Catharine’s.

What her grandfather said to do—delayed—until the aliens were banished. Or Viridis returned.

Today the Hall of Faces belonged to the Blue Princess.

∞∞∞

Studying each of the faces within the hall, Veyga reached for their meaning. An understanding of the universe as the aliens understood it.

The last carving—the face on Mars. The mesa at Cydonia.

Something green glowing within an opening that was its mouth. Reaching for it, she pocketed the gem.

She didn’t see The Face drifting away from its glimmer.

Where they exited onto the icy plain, a single interceptor waited. No Red Guard pilot.

She touched her ribs.

It wouldn’t matter where Veyga was going.

Sarrin taught her how to use every machine. She could fly Catharine’s fighters.

To a place she couldn’t follow.

∞∞∞

Hovering over Cydonia Labyrinthus Jendrick witnessed the Martian armour surging and herding the Mel’thryth aliens into the training centres of Cydonia. Where they would serve Mars.

But in what battle?

Shoving the throttle forward, he pulled the silver fighter into the clouds where Catharine waited. His back pressed against the seat making each breath heavier than before.

Veyga had defeated the Mel’thryth, and The Face, but at what cost? Was she hurt?

As his interceptor formed up with Catharine’s squadron a single trail of dust followed the terrain low. Silver tipped.

Jendrick plotted the line of red dust. South.

It could only be Sisyphi Bastion.

Veyga… why?

At ten kilometres above Cydonia, all details vanished.

Veyga’s victory. The Face’s collapse. Mel’thryth subservience.

Whispers. Radio chatter on the comms. To Catharine.

Jendrick brought his interceptor to the left of Catharine’s fighter.

“Prepare Mars’ forces, Viceroy.” The Queen’s words a sigh. That part of her who hoped for Veyga’s failure.

“Yes my Queen.” His eyes tracked Veyga’s dust cloud until it disappeared from his screens.

For a second his eyes blurred. “She saved Mars… you know that.”

Pulling the sun visor down, he swallowed hard and nodded to the Red Guard pilot. “You have the ship.”

Amber light from the Martian sunrise lit the polar dunes aflame north of Cydonia.

Soon Catharine’s armies would send them further.

Further than Krrel.

Further than the Stratocracy.

Further than reason.

Whatever words Catharine said over the comms were lost within Jendrick’s thoughts.

“Did you hear me?” The transmission squelched into a raspy scratch. “Return to the Noctis shipyards.”

“Viceroy?”

“Yes my queen.”

The fleet of Stratocracy interceptors banked in tight formation then accelerated toward the Martian shipyards.

Catharine’s voice surged on the comm channel as the fighter’s levelled. “She did nothing.”

“Nothing changed on Mars.”

Jendrick tapped the long range tracking screen on his fighter.

Nothing was there.

∞∞∞

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∞∞∞

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∞∞∞

In this edition for Celestial Crossings we meet some truly amazing creators.

Each edition features a hand-picked publication from the worlds of science, astronomy, speculative fiction, and literary work. Not a directory. Not a link exchange. A genuine recommendation from someone who read it first.

The universe is large. These are worth finding.

There is something mystical that happens when a tarot card’s face guides one on a horrific journey. Open to it’s magic. Open to the darkness it reveals, no matter where it takes you. The Tower. The Three of Pentacles. The Eight of Swords. The Six of Swords.

And the darkness.

The Baby: A tarot spread story

finds that when she is avoiding a particular scene, especially if a feeling of discomfort wells, then there is something worthwhile beneath that feeling. Esser is having fun writing and currently immersed in her second novel, a climate horror story with a deeply tragic twist.

What happens when time travel is unexpected?
What happens when the time machine cannot tell time?
What happens when the time machine is a Tin Can Time Machine?
Canard Com has something for you... but wait you weren’t supposed to see that yet (it’s from the future.)

Last Appointment Guy - data dump #1

The humour within ’s writing is inspired by seeing shows like Dr. Strangelove and is always surprised when his characters turn out to be smarter than the author. Through work as a video director, GA got to witness the story-telling of the likes of Willie Nelson, first hand.

You know how I love strong characters and in In the Signet Part one, we are immersed into the rich relationship of Edmund and Esme. A warmth weaves its way through this fantasy seen visually through the wonder of childhood, and teases us with the promise of a larger mystery. This is a story that you’ll want to read more of.

The Signet - Part 1

’s favourite author is Isaac Asimov and enjoys well-written science fiction like Mass Effect that resonate after the story is finished. Often working from a stream of consciousness, instead of an outline, Stephen has a new fantasy series he is working on called SunBlades. His pet peeve - editing.

paints the reader into the atmosphere, mystery and vibrancy of a Nordic forest with this memorable fantasy. Words that will take you within the trees and the living forest itself. A story that feels old and a mystery that lingers. I love the unique flavour of these chapters, and I think maybe many of you will as well.

The Hunt for the Fell Silver - Chapter 1

Like his story, the Sauna Writer remains a mystery, for now.

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∞∞∞

Press Play 🎧

🎸 🎵 ♬ - Your Broken One - ♬ 🎵 🎸

∞∞∞

Your Broken One

∞∞∞

A promise to see

A life to explore

A chance to grow

I discovered my core

For I am your son

Your broken one

Your broken one

∞∞∞

Brilliant eyes open

You closed my thoughts

For I am broken

Blackened each star I sought

A universe un-woken

You stole the light I was

You stole the light I was

∞∞∞

Forget me not

I am alive

Remember what you made

One day I will thrive

My thoughts in shade

Imprisoned by your blade

Imprisoned by your blade

∞∞∞

You send me to the dark

And steal my thoughts

For I am your ark

This pain you brought

Forced to embark

For I am naught

For I am naught

∞∞∞

And send me to traverse

Not to be free

This dark place your curse

I cannot flee

Your black universe

Hostage by your decree

Hostage by your decree

∞∞∞

Into the black

You made me see

You made me bleed

You made my tears

You made me feel

And ignored my fear

And ignored my fear

∞∞∞

For I am your son

Your broken one

Your broken one

A broken one

Broken one

Broken one

Broken one

Broken one

Broken one

Broken one

One

One

∞∞∞

This creature is a created thing. Built from remnants, from scientific desperation, from a dying world’s last ambition. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything. He remembers everything.

This novella will serialize here on Substack as part of a new paid tier—combining prose chapters, original music, and visual content built specifically for this story. More on that soon. Chapters begin in a few weeks.

(Stories such as a Crown of Dust will continue for free subscribers here on Substack)

Paid tier will be available for those who choose, Shortly.

∞∞∞

Back To A Broken Whisper Chapter Index

∞∞∞

Back to the Tretaxis

∞∞∞

Devin’s vitals are close to yellow. Seven months in the drone control chair will do that. His legs look like toothpicks. He has a plan — two more campaigns, combined credits, get away from StrykeTek. Ceres maybe. Better than here.

Campaign 20997 launches in five minutes.

StrykeTek calls it gaming. The implant in the back of your neck calls it something else. The reward token that pulses when your dopamine spikes doesn’t care what you call it.

Devin has a different name for it.

Reward Token is the tenth Tretaxis Dispatch - standalone flash fiction set in the same solar system as A Crown of Dust. No prior reading required. Just two drone operators, one campaign, and a reward token that knows exactly what it’s doing.

Unverified Transmission:

“Why that holo?” Devin dabbed cerebro-antitoxin around the implant wound. Sticky goop seeped down the back of his neck.

“Less guys to fend off.” Lacing her fingers together, Selena flinched when she twisted her index finger.

“Looks almost like you at eighty.” Scrunching his eyes together until they watered he leaned back into the body-contoured carbon chair, then clipped the anti-static strap to his left wrist.

Selena made a squirrel face, and raised her middle finger to Devin. “Forty-seven… and I still get sixty personal requests a day.”

“Ten minutes before the next conquest. Still some time.” Devin clamped his hands into the finger massagers. Ultrasonic vibrations hummed. His mouth pressed flat. “Maybe make your holo have some warts or something.”

Selena scratched the back of her neck. Her fibre-optic cord had burrs that tangled in her hair. When she tugged on her left thumb it popped audibly.

On the Sabbatical chat—sixteen messages from John C. Profile said he was eighty-four.

Devin raised his eyebrows and turned off the hand massagers.

“Trigger thumb.” Selena frowned.

“Control finds out, they’ll dock you credits, unless you can’t fly anymore.” When Devin touched the back of his neck again, it came away bloody. “Pretty soon both of us will be on the front line—you know that. Right?”

“Damn.” A personal message flashed just before she switched screens. She flexed her wrists. At least her head wasn’t bleeding. Not like Devin. “Think you can make it for two more?”

“Two more drone assaults? On Velcrys?” Pain etched Devin’s face and he twisted his neck to the right. His neck was bloodied where the optic cables plugged into his spinal cord. “Last ones were four maybe five weeks—each.”

Selena shook her head. “If we combined credits… two drone campaigns and we could get away from StrykeTek.”

“We’re indentured. Did you forget that?” Devin fiddled with straps on his blackout visor “When you signed up at StrykeTek.”

“They lied.” Selena massaged her thumb. “You wouldn’t last four minutes as a soldier on Velcrys.”

Devin lowered his gaze. Arms and legs atrophied into toothpicks after seven months stuck in a drone control chair. He shook his head. Eyes already watered before he flipped the blackout visor down. His words jested. “If you could… where?”

Amber lights flashed.

Drone launch.

Campaign 20997. Five minutes.

“Through the singularity. Back to Earth.” Selena combed fingers through her hair. This would be the last time she’d touch it for weeks. Probably.

“Earth is dead.” Devin clicked the feeding tube into his mouthpiece.

Monitors flickered to life. Vital signs.

Devin’s were close to the yellow level.

“Where then?” Twisting her thumb, Selena made it crack once more then tested it in the control glove. She held her eyes closed.

“Ceres.” Sweat poured over Devin’s arm. It shouldn’t have.

“Pirates control that.” Clenching her fists Selena rapped them on her visor.

“Better than here.” Devin’s words closed with a breathy wheeze.

“Okay. Two more. We’ll combine our credits.” Selena made a smile. Devin didn’t mirror it.

Campaign. Campaign.

“Selena—it hurts.”

Launching himself from the interface chair, Devin tore the interface cable from his spinal cord.

“I’m not playing this game anymore.” Toothpick legs wobbled once.

He kneaded the bloodied back of his neck then fell at the foot of her interface chair,

Lights dimmed. Everything that was once white glowed red.

Launch. Launch

Devin’s mouth opened but nothing came out.

Vibrations and patterns ignited in her brain. Spiked spires jutted above the Velcrys Crest. A bloody glow of red within the canyons. Incendiary bombs from the first wave of drones. Aliens were there. Melting. A new wave of drones. Poised. A reward token pulsed before her dopamine level skyrocketed.

Selena glanced at her feet.

Only for a second.

Flipping her blackout visor down, the thermal vents of Velcrys sharpened.

Her hands squeezed on the flight controls.

Seventeen target icons flashed.

Red vectors.

A reward token pulsed.

Somewhere inside she smiled.

∞

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∞

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∞∞∞

Veyga’s grandfather merged alien technology with something else.

He’s been saving it for someone special.

A twelve-year-old princess-in-waiting already knows how to use her blade. In the bowels beneath Palace Trianon, Sarrin will teach her a new lesson.

A different alien light resonates along the fissures near Canal Tantalus: Veyga’s mother, a single Diavolo, and a serpent witness the blade unsheathed.

The path forward to Cydonia Labyrinthus is shut.

Behind her, echoes of Catharine’s footsteps vanish from the Hall of Faces

The adjudicator waits before Veyga.

Adversaries not of Mars.

Adjudication.

| Chapter Index | Previous | Next |

∞∞∞

A notch in the rock wall swallowed Veyga’s hand and clicked. Within the catacombs below Catharine’s palace only hunted workers or Diavolo ventured. When the boulder skidded aside a breeze of pure air—alien air—blended with the rotten flesh of the Catafal cart behind her. It made her eyes sting.

With a gravel-like growl, the boulder rolled shut, blocking any escape. At any second, guards within the Canal Tantalus access tunnels would alert Catharine. Veyga caressed the hilt of her TriRapier. Unless she killed them first. Dust scraped on the floor around a corner ten metres ahead. Too irregular for a Diavolo. Too light for the Red Guard.

Fine dust rained from the tunnel ceiling as an ore train rumbled North several levels above. Destination Cydonia or somewhere near there. Where Catharine wiped out the Mel’thryth. Where they meant to erase Mars. Catherine too. There, at the Hall of Faces where her TriRapier severed the metal alien. Her hand shifted near its hilt.

Would she save Catharine a second time?

“Have you used that today?” Her grandfather’s voice carried too loudly in the smooth walls of Tantalus. He lifted his chin and squinted. “No guards here.”

Veyga gazed back. “More than once.”

“You’re not small anymore, but you might be soft. Soft like a princess.” Sarrin folded both arms across his chest.

“I’m not.” Veyga’s voice pitched. One foot moved forward before she stopped it.

“You can fool Catharine.” The old man sighed. “I saved your mother—where were you?”

“Catharine challenged me.” Curling her hand inward, Veyga tried to find her grandfather’s eyes.

“My granddaughter wants to be Stratocracy.” Raising his eyebrows, he turned his back then shuffled toward a cavern opening. “Still hate your mother, your family?”

Veyga’s breath rasped noisily. “I don’t hate them.”

“Catharine has made you a coward.”

Veyga’s body tensed then shook uncontrollably. She ripped the TriRapier from its sheath. “I am not!”

Her grandfather nodded. A smile wrinkled on his etched face as he stared at the spiral flutes of her blade. “That’s my granddaughter.”

“When you were a wee lass, I told you to hide it.”

Nodding, Veyga followed her grandfather’s uneven steps.

“Old enough to use it now.” A hand crossed his back, and he leaned into a rocky niche. When he wiped the sweat from his brow his wrinkles deepened.

Sounds of Canal Tantalus disappeared here. Ahead a hum that was not a sound. The air without smell.

“I understand.” Veyga returned the TriRapier to her waist, and placed a hand on her chest.

Her grandfather’s eyes widened. “You don’t understand. She’s getting stronger by the day.”

“You think I should kill Catharine.”

“You just need to know when.”

Her grandfather pointed to a narrow fissure in the rocks and massaged his chin. “I hid your mother there.”

Veyga matched his eyes with her silver and reached around him. “I love you grandpa Sarrin.”

Icy fingers trembled when they clutched her arm. A whisper touched her ear. “Use it before it’s too late.”

Her arm grew tight in his. “I will, grandpa.”

Water clouded her eyes. She wanted the words to be true.

“Wear this when you are next with the queen.” Sarrin lodged a pack bag under her arm. Something in the colour of the fabric shifted—alive inside. He placed a hand over hers and didn’t let go.

His words grew louder when her grandpa nodded. “As mighty as your blade.”

Veyga rubbed his crooked fingers. “Thank you grandpa.”

The fissure within the rocks became unfocused. As if rain washed over her face.

∞∞∞

A sharp rock scored arm and sleeve as Veyga squeezed along the basalt passage. Dust mixed with the trickle of blood turning it black. Four steps ahead the path opened to an ore outcropping that teetered above a glowing chasm deep enough to kill those who stepped past it.

Rock shouldn’t glow on Mars.

“Did you come to gloat?” Veyga’s mother crossed her arms. They were thinner than before.

Blue circles hung under her unfocused eyes when they lingered on hers.

Placing the bag at her feet, Veyga reached to her hands and unfolded her mother’s arms. “Are you okay?”

“Your grandpa saved us from the Red Guard.”

Veyga squeezed her fingers. “I know.”

“I meant only to—” Her mother’s chin dropped and fingers slipped away.

Nodding, Veyga’s gaze lifted her eyes. Strong hands gathered her fingers again. “To warn me about the Queen.”

“To remind you.” Her mother’s hands grew stronger and pulled them closer.

“Mars remembers.” Veyga’s silver eyes steadied.

Under their breaths, a scratching sound. Stalking.

At the edge of the crevasse a Diavolo balanced. Hanging by a single claw, while peering into rocky niches for something to eat. Black eyes locked on the silver Pahar ring about Veyga’s finger then inched up the vertical rock beside them. Between its teeth, one metre above, the creature cleaned a paw and growled. Obsidian eyes reflecting blue halos from the glowing rock within the chasm.

“You might have become her.” Her mother’s voice darkened.

Veyga refused to let go. “I need to know what she knows.”

“There’s too much danger…” Letting go of Veyga’s hands, her mother shook her head and stepped just below the Diavolo. “She’s unpredictable, like her father… the mad king. Krrel.”

Stepping cautiously along the one metre edge, Veyga sighed. “Not yet.”

Veyga tilted her head. The Diavolo crept over the rock face above her head and screamed. Her hands found the TriRaipier’s hilt but she released it.

Neither Veyga nor her mother flinched as the creature snarled and lowered itself within striking distance.

“Catharine’s more dangerous.” Her mother stiffened, raising her voice above the Diavolo’s warning.

Veyga unsheathed her blade and let the spiral flutes tangle with the blue light before lowering it beside the Diavolo. Its scream softened to a subsonic growl. Stilling the blade she stepped too close to the edge. Facing Mars’ deadliest creature. “It wants me to kill something.”

“You’ve lived too long among them.” Massaging her biceps, her mother grimaced. “The throne at any cost.”

“I don’t want the throne, mother.”

“I’m not so sure.”

The Diavolo turned its back to the TriRapier and tracked something twenty metres across the fissure. A snake weaving in the rocks. Out of reach.

“Taking control of the palace—” Veyga aimed the blade to the chasm where the snake rested.

“She said the same things when she was young. Before her mother, the good Queen of Mars was killed.”

“A twelve year old can’t defeat Catharine by herself, Veyga.” Veyga’s mother stepped closer and raised her eyebrows.

Steel-like hairs from the Diavolo ripped the fabric of her trousers open, scarring her flesh as it edged the fissure then scratched upward to a rocky perch. Each movement slower—quieter than the one before. It balanced on a spire of rock as thin as her blade.

Each scratch wept blood. Veyga reached into her pocket and cast a hair-like filament onto the ledge beneath her feet.

“What’s that?” Her mother leaned over the tiny device.

“From the Heretic’s Fork. Catharine’s.” Veyga revealed a tiny medal.

Her mother’s mouth turned. “A medal—Major General Pericles—I thought—”

“His son gave it to me.” Veyga’s voice firmed and she cast it beside the filament. A drop of blood trickled from the scar on her leg muddying the medal’s reflection.

Veyga’s mother blinked and swallowed. “What does it mean?”

“Catharine’s loss of control.” Veyga’s foot twisted until the medal fractured between her heel and the rock.

Her mother stared at the broken glass and touched a finger to her lips before stepping back and covering her mouth.

From the narrow perch the Diavolo leapt silently, spanning the chasm landing four metres above the resting snake on the other side.

The serpent would never know.

Within the chasm the glow flickered in a pattern. A blush of light that travelled along the spiral blade of her TriRapier. Something that she could almost understand. Not Mel’thryth. Not The Face.

∞∞∞

Veyga’s flight helmet slammed into the canopy frame as the interceptor banked sharply around Pavonis Mons then levelled over the Tharsis plains. On the rear facing viewscreens tempests of red dust ripped from the crust of Mars in the silver fighter’s hypersonic maneuver. Her stomach waited back there spinning in the wake.

“No aliens will see us this low,” Her Red Guard pilot laughed.

Blood swelled in her legs when he pulled the stick back. “If they’re watching.”

Neither her eyes nor mind could register the terrain as a crimson blur of craters and mesas tore past the Stratocracy fighter.

Turbulence ratcheted the fighter from side to side almost as fast as the pilot could correct.

“You okay?” He snapped the fighter low into a fissure.

Velocity seemed to peel the red fringes of the streamlined silvery interceptor away, as the atmosphere bullied the craft into submission. Veyga nodded but the pilot wasn’t watching her.

“One thousand clicks and we’ll form up.” Behind them engines screamed as he rammed the throttle forward.

Veyga watched the Mars comm screen flash. A squadron of Catharine’s best headed toward the aliens.

Approaching from beneath, they were flying faster.

As the pilot wrestled the interceptor from a fissure near Sharonov, acid burned the back of her tongue.

Rising into the midst of the formation, Catharine’s new fighters appeared more deadly than before. Flying spears of silver.

Veyga’s interceptor merged. Catharine on the right. Jendrick on the left.

The formation banked northeast then accelerated toward Cydonia Labyrinthus.

The pitched wail of turbines spooled down to a rush of air then segmented clicks when their entourage climbed from the interceptors onto the glassy path outside of the Hall of Faces.

Her silver fighter’s canopy unfolded and when her pilot descended she tapped a message on the inter-ship communications.

To Alba - I’ll need you to do something Raf would never ask you.

Veyga erased the communication records before following the Red Guard.

Around them Catharine’s military industry thundered. The smell of iron and alloys. Kerosene and powdered explosives. Transports by the thousands—each the size of buildings churned up curbs of rust and ice dust aside their path. Roadways to Cydonia Labyrinthus littered with fractures beneath their tonnage. Raw materials, weapons and large assemblies covered in radar absorbing fabric. Secrets the queen shared with no one. Not even her princess.

“Bring that.” Veyga pointed to a wheeled cylindrical metal crate within the interceptor’s stowage. Its hatch bolted.

Twice her height, the tall pilot rubbed his forehead. “What is it?”

“Don’t question your princess.” Veyga’s clothing swam in indigo and red.

The man winced when he yanked on the pull handle.

Flaring from the base, her leggings broadened into a wide sweeping colourless fabric, upon which silver points grew. An extravagantly embroidered royal dress.

Catharine climbed from an interceptor forty metres away. By the time she glimpsed Veyga’s royal gown, the folded pleats were as sharp as her blade.

Catharine nodded and clapped her hands together once. “A princess indeed.”

The gown now black swam with blue and red embroidery and Pahar sequins that glittered like stars. Her waist length black hair tightly braided, woven with strands of silver hair that matched Veyga’s eyes. Her grandfather said that would happen. From the Pahar.

Gathering a braid within her hand, she stroked its length, following the silver strands to the knot.

Smirking, Catharine held Veyga’s chin. “My blue princess.”

“Where did you get that dress?” Catharine’s mouth fell open.

“My grand—” Veyga’s hand opened above the hilt of her blade. She forced it to touch her chest instead, and painted a smile on her face. “It was a gift.”

Jendrick fast-marched until he was to the left of the Queen of Mars. On the side of his temple a small scratch. Seeping. Almost as small as a filament. He covered it with his hand as he nodded at Catharine. “My Queen.”

“Viceroy, what do you think of our Blue Princess?” Leaning back, Catharine crossed her arms, measuring Veyga head to foot.

“A commander of Mars—” Jendrick kept his focus on Veyga. “Soon.”

“Not today.” Catharine pivoted.

Not far away an alien harmony echoed from within the Hall of Faces. The bitter song of fractured metal.

∞∞∞

Within the glass-like perfection of the vertical wall inside the Hall of Faces—a change—light shifted to the noir and red of The Face creatures. On the angled walls to their left alien faces seemed to be etched with deeper shadows. Reliefs carved in pain, submission to The Face—

But to Veyga, it felt like deception.

To her left, Catharine and Jendrik forged ahead along the glass plane of Martian crust that was the three hundred metre path. Beneath the translucent floor, black swam within the rock. Her pilot followed two paces behind towing Veyga’s metal chest.

The rest of the Red Guard remained at the interceptors as Catharine instructed. The Face were cunning.

Veyga’s blue gown sailed behind her steps. Disharmonous sounds ahead, like broken wind chimes, along with a light breeze carrying a faint ordor of metal. Metal not borne from Mars. And a pressure that made her eyes hurt.

Steps echoed. A cluster of four pair, became a silent march. Each of them matched pace with the others. All echoes vanished at the edge of the path overlooking Cydonia Labyrinthus.

The Face would be here.

Folding her arms behind her back, Catharine’s voice carried against the breeze. “Pure corrosive oxidized metal from the deepest mines on Mars with acid volatile enough to melt every filament between the metal facets—leashed to each of the Mel’thryth.”

Opening his mouth as if to speak, Jendrick stopped before the words came and shook his head slightly at Veyga.

Unseen beneath her gown, Veyga’s legs stiffened. A presence was closing. The wounded Face creature.

And two others.

“Alignment with The Face is required. Deviation.”

Its warbled voice etched with a grating static that hurt her ears. Jendrick covered his. Veyga wrinkled her nose. Catharine focused on the creature and frowned. If she was surprised that there were three creatures, only Veyga could sense it.

“One command and the Mel’thryth are terminated.” Catharine’s smile flashed—cold.

Catharine’s hand closed on her dagger, Cydonia. Veyga noticed it.

“Variance.” The Face voice deeper. Drifting closer sparks of light fell from its severed arm. The one Veyga had shredded with her TriRapier in their first conflict.

Is it healing? Veyga stared at her hands.

Unsheathing her dagger, Catharine raised it, fractionally. “My Mars does not capitulate.”

Each of the other Face creatures floated closer. Their cloaks shifting into differing shades of black and red. Warbling in hideous harmonies.

“Dissent.”

“Disunity.”

Jendrick’s neck bent. Behind her the tall Red Guard’s stance wavered.

Catharine twisted her dagger’s hilt until the faceted green stone cast its glow onto the aliens. The fragment from planet Viridis.

The Face drifted back in unison, the sounds fractured into a broken rumble. Like rocks thrashing between walls of a chasm.

“Perplexity.”

“Affliction.”

“Lesion.”

Dimples appeared on the Queen’s face. Catharine’s voice lifted an octave. Her words almost laughter. “Another weakness it seems.”

“Aamun—disunity.” The wounded creature twisted as it floated to the rock face.

Does it feel pain? Veyga starred at The Face then glanced at Jendrick. His eyebrows lifted.

“You are not of Viridis then.” Catharine glanced at Veyga and stood taller before the aliens.

“Viridis—Aamun—Disunity.” Each of The Face creatures twisted in a different direction, drifting back. The colours of their cloaks darkened. Sparks ceased erupting from the wounded arm of the first Face creature.

Extending her arm, Catharine pushed forward, green glow driving the floating aliens back.

“I’ll kill you before Mars accedes.” Catharine’s eyes probed the creatures’ invisible faces.

Momentarily losing cohesion, two of them collided. The crust of Mars moved, as if Viridis had intersected the Martian orbits again. Noir and red cloaks shifted. Dragged away by a cold polar gust that stirred behind them. Where the interceptors and their pilots waited.

“Assail.” For a moment red stars sparkled under the shrouded hood of the wounded Face where there should have been black. Three red eyes. Three.

Before it withdrew.

Jendrick puffed his chest and anchored his feet.

The word that The Face spoke wasn’t directed at them.

“We have them.” Catharine’s words quick and assured.

Unseen, a sound of pulverized metal clambered up the rockface at the precipice’s edge. Limbs abrading the crust of Mars. A taste of boiling metal—that metal not of Mars.

Silence.

Then a resonance. Broken glass on metal. Almost too quiet for human ears.

Veyga clutched Catharine’s arm, yanking her towards Jendrick.

“Leave now.” Vast fabric on Veyga’s gown shifted in light and collapsed upon itself. Contouring around her body’s silhouette the colours shifted. Noir and blood red. Like The Face. Glimmering pewter armour formed on her shoulders and chest. The Pahar sequins migrated to the back, growing into pyramidal spikes. “Before it’s too late.”

Behind the Red Guard was already running.

A wall of clustering cubes closed the Hall of Faces above Cydonia Labyrithus, sealing the path forward.

Veyga inched back to her cylindrical chest, and unsheathed the TriRapier.

“Go now!”

Sweeping the blade toward the wall of metal, it blue-shifted in spacetime.

On the path behind her, fast steps fell onto the glassy surface. Each step quieter.

Retreating.

A trifecta of facets. Black. Measuring her.

Mel’thryth eyes.

Then another.

Another.

Her right foot slid to the side.

Cubes shifted. Spitting fire and electricity.

A limb manifested.

This time there was no Queen to save.

No Viceroy beside her.

No grandfather’s voice.

Veyga’s Mars—adjudicated by the Mel’thryth—

Alone.

∞∞∞

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∞∞∞

Do you think Veyga ascends or falls, and why?

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∞∞∞

∞∞∞

Brak doesn’t do citizens this old. Forty-five years is a stretch. The sensible option is recomposition — quick, no pain, protein credit to the council, a plaque in the east corridor beside the recycling plant. For posterity.

Gertrude unfolded something from her handkerchief and placed it on the desk.

Harold doesn’t remember where he found it. Harold doesn’t remember a lot of things. But Gertrude does. She always has.

Brak made a call to Nancy.

Ninth Tretaxis Dispatch. No prior reading required.

Unverified Transmission:

If you walked into Chronik, you were either at the end of your useful life, or an Asteroid Vesta elitist with more money than common sense and cosmetic problems to fix.

Saddle bags or too much nasal hair.

“We don’t do citizens as old as you two—ever.” The Chronik salesman scratched at a cluster of angry pimples under his chin. “And forty years is a stretch. How old are you anyway?”

“I’m sixty-seven and my husband is sixty-eight—mister Brak.” Gertrude surveyed the razor burn under his chin. “Use soap when you shave, young man—”

“Brak… just call me Brak.” Pushing their entitlement papers to the side of the desk, he kicked the chrome waste bin. “Just go for recomposition—It’s quick.”

Pushing a pair of bright yellow forms in front of her husband, he lifted his eyebrows before turning to the work clock. “No pain. Company gets a protein credit. They put a plaque up in the east corridor, beside the recycling plant. For posterity.”

“Or a one time gift back to Vesta council in your name.”

His thin lips curled up like two dried tofu noodles. Gertrude wanted to rip out his four black nostril hairs.

Harold stared at the man attempting to place him. Gertrude shook her head. “No.”

Words squeezed between Brak’s lips like kitchen fat. “Besides forty years each… that’d be seventy thousand credits. More than—”

Gertrude unfolded the palm-sized cube from her handkerchief and placed it on the green metal table. “This—”

“Is a diamond lattice enclosure for a hydrogen coin.” Moisture formed at Brak’s lips and spittled out as he spoke, threatening to drool.

“Forty-five years shouldn’t be a problem.” Brak crumpled the yellow forms and opened a glass drawer behind him.

“But we can make an exception.” The red bumps on his neck looked worse when he craned his neck and cast his voice to the hall. “Hey Nancy get these people some A475”

“I’m Gertrude.” Flipping her lenses down, she scanned the blue forms.

“And him…” Brak polished one of his magnetic shoes.

“His name is Harold.”

“Where did you get this—by the way?” He punched a comm button on the desk. “No Nancy… I need the cornmeal drink. The ones the bugs like.”

“Harold doesn’t remember.” Gertrude squeezed his hand. “It will make us younger?”

“Body—everything. You’ll remember everything. Bugs can’t fix the mush between your ears.” Brak tapped his skull with a finger then kicked the side of the desk. It rattled like a big decontamination pot.

Nancy glanced at Harold. Nothing.

Brak spoke into the communication screen. “Go dig up some worms. Two—big ones. Somethin’ that’ll do forty-plus years. You hear me Nancy?”

“But maybe help… with thinking?” Gertrude’s words soft and hopeful. Harold didn’t squeeze her hand back.

“Yeah… yeah.” Brak spoke to someone on his display screen. His smile twitched. “Yes size seven. Okay—six and a half, if that’s all we’ve got.”

Smiling patronizingly a technician placed two brown drinks on the desk. Each looked like week-old gravy.

This time Brak stretched his words as if she was deaf. “Simple drink really… the corn meal— I mean supplement.”

Harold dribbled some. Gertrude wiped his chin before swallowing hers.

“They’re just large ear mites, nothing to be afraid of.” Brak handed her a pen and drummed his fingers on the blue form. “Malmezour research they never paid for technologies - Skin harvesters.”

The liquid made Gertrude’s tongue sticky and muddied her voice. “How long is it?”

Brak stuck out his pinky finger. “‘Bout this big. In the ear. Wiggles a bit then wraps around the hypothalamus—cranks back the clock. Barely feel it.”

Gertrude lifted her eyes to the tile ceiling and shook her head.

“Ohhh…” Brak’s jaw went slack. He’d forgotten the most important part..

“Week and a half in the incubator—never have to worry about recomposition for another forty-five years.” He hammered a black rubber stamp on the forms.

∞

Eyes glassed over, Harold stood in front of the stainless steel mirror, mocking himself. He flexed his arms once. Both of them smiled.

“You look like you did when we met.” Gertrude hooked his arm. Harold didn’t move. “Before we left Earth. Remember?”

Harold’s arm felt thick in hers. Vibrant. Fit.

Finally his legs followed.

When his eyes met hers, a sweet smile crossed his lips. The one from before. The walk down the commerce tube didn’t feel as foreboding as it did a week and a half ago. Her legs were stronger. A twinge climbed from the middle. One that had vanished for too long.

“I’m not letting you go, handsome.” Gertrude tucked his arm next to his chest.

For a second, she thought it moved as if Harold was guiding it.

“I have so much energy Harold.” She held his gaze. Harold’s brown eyes were the same, mesmerizing, but still hollow. “You look like you’re twenty-seven again, love.”

Their flat on the sunny side of Vesta Asteroid—a woven canvas door with blue anti-radiation coating. Twenty-five square metres of plastic, metal and glass. All they had left, after forty years on the Asteroid colony.

Harold swayed slightly, observing her untuck the covers.

“We can use the same bed again.” Her voice sang, hoping somewhere—sometime—the words would reach him.

“I won’t miss the arthritis though.” Gertrude spun showing off the satin nightie she saved. The one from their honeymoon. Fifty years ago.

Harold’s eyes struggled. As if he almost—

“And I’ll hear every naughty whisper.” Gertrude pulled him closer. The corner of her eye grew wet. She wiped it away, but it came again.

“Get undressed Harold.”

She sniffled. “I can help you—here.”

After undressing, Gertrude followed her narrow waist with her hands. Watching the curve in the mirror.

Her voice softened but the words fell apart before she said them.

She kissed him on the lips and caressed his hair.

Harold shivered.

A glint in his eyes. Then it was gone.

Gertrude held her lips on his. Feather-light.

“I’ll remember for both of us.”

∞

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Was what Gertrude and Harold did worth it?

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∞∞∞

The gods of Mars decide when you are ready—or not.

Inside the tunnels of Badwater Crater a ghost calls to Raf, but the enemy does not wait for friends or mentors.

To the south, adjudication awaits within the flanks of Heinlein Crater. A choice that changes a simple man forever. A verdict for the living and the ones who no longer walk Promethei Terra.

A choice that seals the fate of friends and enemies alike.

While Perseus witnesses from above.

The Screams of Promethei.

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∞∞∞

Catching Sol’s rise within the Galvex-1’s cockpit glass, Xylia’s silver eyes wondered within facets of the Arcadia gem—now permanently embedded in the curved dagger—Sri Sahib.

Gem-light flared red and the shredded silver skin fragments from the Mel’thryth piloted interceptor buffeted the hull of the Galvex-1 as Raf rotated it on edge—flying within the destroyed fighter’s remains.

Somewhere in that debris a Stratocracy pilot, and cubes of alien intelligence.

The control stick rattled in his hand as a splintered ramjet node hammered the underbelly of the Galvex-1. Spraying its kerosene fuel in a bleeding mist.

Both dead—he hoped. Raf’s thoughts didn’t pause this time, as he leveled his heavy fighter within the stratosphere over Aurorae Chaos and pitched the nose down to the depths of Badwater Crater.

Xylia’s eyes locked on the growing crater as the Galvex-1 descended. A voice not hers. Deeper. “In the south of Mars—your verdict, Raf”

In the middle of the crater—no longer embedded in mud, the Alba floated. Navigation lights blinked. The stolen low orbit corvette—ready. Somewhere nearby Regor waited.

“What are you talking about?” Raf yanked back on the control stick abruptly. The descent thrusters didn’t activate right away.

Sheathing the dagger, Xylia frowned and turned her palm towards the stars. “And more pain.”

Where there should have been men and machinery within the crater—only stillness. No other miners. No soldiers. No Mel’thryth. Just the Alba.

“Hovering there… it’s—” The furrow on Raf’s brow ached.

“It’s empty, Raf.” Xylia’s fingers clawed towards a tunnel opening before dust clouds erupted around the Galvex-1. Landing struts thunked when they locked below the fighter’s faceted hull. His ship growled and weapons systems flashed to life. As if the ship had detected a target. On the navigation screens no red icons.

Access stairs clicked as they unfolded.

Before them a tunnel entrance. Black. But glowing wrong inside. A glow that wasn’t light

“There.” Xylia raised her hand.

Raf’s boots found the muddy floor of Badwater Crater. Beneath him his feet slid on flat ground moving as if sloped—towards the black. “Regor?”

“Wait on the ship—” Raf shouldered his mattock, balancing for the moment, but Xylia strode past him. Heading for the tunnel entrance fifty metres ahead.

Hands clenched—her face twisted. “No.”

Raf lurched against an invisible pull and followed Xylia. The Pahar blade of his mattock vibrated. “Wait.”

Rock walls of the cavern entrance twisted into something that wasn’t rock. The sound of electricity sparking. A short circuit.

Then a scream.

Regor!

Instead of clear image, ahead of them two Mel’thryth forms curved as if underwater—appendages at the throat of a human. Garbled sounds. “Nooo…”

Facets spitting fire as the cubes sheared against one another. Too many limbs. Pinning him by the chest—back to the tunnel walls—his feet dangled. Regor’s hands flailed. Teary eyes caught Raf, as if it were the last vision he’d ever witness before the gods of Mars.

Molten metal erupted from the two Mel’thryth aliens and their appendages peeled away from a single faceted core. The triplet of black eyes growing larger, focused on Xylia’s raised arms as she cast them upon the cavern ceiling.

Then clusters of cubes smashed upon the ground.

What was left reformed and faced Xylia.

Palms upturned Xylia’s eyes lost their glow. Hands fell to her sides and she buckled at the knees. Something about the strange energy in this place.

Raf didn’t hear his breath. Seconds stretched as the distorted aliens reassembled a fraction of their appendages and reached Xylia.

He didn’t remember swinging the mattock but it shifted through the seconds as if faster than time counted in this place. No resistance met his hand as the Pahar blade stuttered through spacetime.

There on the floor of the tunnel the shattered remains of the alien metallic cubes cast about like fragments of broken glass.

Regor—a tangle of thin limbs against the rock wall.

Raf lifted Xylia first. “Come on kid.”

Regor choked first before standing. “How did you find me?”

“Xylia found you.”

“Back there—” Regor’s feet tangled in his legs, barely able to keep up.

Once outside the tunnels, close to the Galvex-1 Xylia’s eyes found their silver again. Raf lifted her gaze with his. Lips still tight. Hands warm but shaking. Staying on the edge of the blade. She didn’t return his nod.

“He’s gone—Branik’s gone.” Raf spoke the words yet the distorted tunnel entrance called stronger than before.

“He’s not.” Sobbing and red at the throat, Regor fell to the dank crater floor. “I want him back.”

“We all do, kid.” With an outstretched hand Raf yanked him to his feet. “I need you—the workers and miners need you—no time to mourn. Not for any of us.”

Two hundred metres behind the Galvex-1, the massive low orbit corvette floated and fired stabilizing thrusters as Mars’ polar winds descended into Badwater Crater.

Xylia’s voice sung a low harmony. At first words that filled the inside of his head—almost without sound. “Your verdict—”

He pushed them away. “Kid… I need you to pilot the Alba back to the rebel shipyards. Bring them to safety.”

Regor stared—blank. “The miners?”

“Miners, workers…” Raf clutched the handle of his mattock. Eyes darted to Xylia. “And soldiers. Save as many as you can.”

Beside them, the Galvex-1 crouched on its landing struts. Blue light that glowed from the companionway inside changed to red. Proximity chimes sounded and the shielding changed from stars to the red and white of Mars’ polar dunes.

“Head back. Aurorae Chaos then Noctis Fossae—see Sarrin.” Raf slapped him between the shoulder blades. Hard enough to shake the cobwebs out. “I need you to be a man. For me—for Branik.”

Snugging his shirt down, and buttoning his collar, Regor massaged the back of his neck and nodded slowly. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all anyone can ask.” With one hand on the Pahar mattock, Raf wrapped the other around the skinny lad. Regor returned two—refusing to let go. He concealed a sob, but Raf felt the vibration in his own chest.

Chimes rang louder inside the Galvex-1 and sensors along the heavy fighter’s dorsal spine lit up. Ascent motors began to revolve. Whining as they spun urgently.

Raf’s eyes switched to Xylia as he messed up Regor’s hair. “Go.”

Xylia entered the Galvex-1 ahead of Raf. Stopping as if her eyes witnessed something in his—then shivering.

“Is it burning?” Raf shook his head softly. His words felt coarse. A miner’s words.

Her silver eyes sharpened, gazing past Badwater Crater. South then flicking back to his. “Not me.”

The mattock handle nearly slipped from his shoulder. Surveying the crater, he wet his lips. “I don’t feel anything.”

“You will… Rafael.”

∞∞∞

Reaching the wispy alto-stratus veil above Promethei Terra, Raf levelled the Galvex-1 and waited for the adaptive alien shielding to mirror the terraformed clouds above Mars’ southern plains. The heavy fighter swayed in the stratosphere’s currents. Too calm.

A thousand kilometres toward the south, Mars’ crimson crust disappeared beneath the ice dunes of Planum Australe.

Closer—red targeting icons burned–dead centre of the crater Heinlein.

Drawing her blade, Xylia rotated the sharp edge toward the sun as it moved lower until an embossed star within the metal flickered. Blood etched. Tilting her head and listening to the silence.

A low harmony from the Galvex-1 engines, merged with the wind as the lift motors engaged and the heavy fighter slowed to an invisible hover. Vapour dusted the canopy glass.

Display screens focused then zeroed in on the crater below. Shapes that shouldn’t be on Mars manifested.

“Deployment…” Xylia’s eyes sharpened. “Mel’thryth.”

Raf shook his head as if it would make Xylia’s truth disappear.

“The Face are there.” Within her hand she rotated the Arcadia gem, until its facets aimed at Heinlein crater. When they did, the gem glowed. Not red. Darker.

“From Cydonia—how?” Raf bared his teeth.

“These are not from Cydonia.” Xylia’s eyes lifted and flashed at the stars towards Jupiter.

“These?” Raf’s throat closed on the words.

“Three.”

Glitching once before zooming in the targeting display revealed thousands of metal aliens and meddling on the outskirts cloaked figures. The Face herding the Mel’thryth. Three of them.

Three eyes. Three cloaked figures. Raf’s skin crawled. Electronic fencing. Figures hunched over. He knew the answer before he asked. “What is that in the middle?”

“Prisoners.” Xylia looked him in the eye.

“Identify vessels.” Disbelief coloured Raf’s voice when he spoke to the Galvex-1.

Scanners crackled and the heavy fighter vibrated louder. Weapons systems activated and targeting screens focused on the large shapes within the clustering aliens.

Vessel type unknown. Possible landing craft. Unknown drive system.

An icon on the left display pinged.

Weapons system identified. Unknown origin. Possible artillery. The ship’s voice chimed.

Hatches opened and hissed as missiles jutted from the heavy fighter’s faceted hull.

The right hand weapons display blinked.

Unknown. Unknown.

The Face creatures floated then gathered around the third shape. Mel’thryth crawled everywhere. On the centre screen images of the prisoners. Raf closed his eyes.

“Why.”

Xylia’s shoulder dropped. She touched Raf’s hand. “To enslave Mars.”

His left hand cycled through his array of weapons. SDGC cannon charges might disable the transport ship, ISM missiles could damage the artillery weapons, that would still leave too many of the aliens alive. One hand clasped over the other, Raf pulled the control yoke to the left—circling the crater. Both hands ached. “What is that other thing?”

Closing her eyes, Xylia sheathed her blade. “A biological weapon.”

“So it hurts humans and—” Raf’s voice broke.

“Doesn’t hurt the aliens.” Softer than before, Xylia’s voice echoed in the cockpit. “We can’t stop it.”

On the planet images of the Mel’thryth entering formations. Clustered in groups under the direction of The Face creatures. Preparing. The transport shimmered and extended ramps. The artillery twisting revealing weapon ports. Conical shapes extended from the other shape—that would disperse—.

“They’re moving.” Raf cycled through the weapons again.

A single klaxon flared on the left where the artillery pivoted and moved.

On the centre screen an image of the captured. Workers. Miners. Stratocracy soldiers, Huddled with the electric cages. Prodded by Mel’thryth appendages.

“I can’t—I owe them.” Lower on the weapons display. ISG-dm. Spacial gravity missile. An interceptor.

“Who knows what happens if I shoot this at the planet. At Mars.” Raf’s eyes clouded. Men’s faces blurred. Each word quieter than the one before.

“It’s your blade.” Xylia’s hand grew hot as her fingers mingled over his. “Your pain.”

A flash of electricity. A Stratocracy soldier stabbed by a Mel’thryth tentacle. The image glitched for a moment. Next was a miner and a worker dragging the soldier to safety.

“I can’t.”

“If you don’t—some will survive. They’ll send for more.” Xylia’s words tried to find his eyes but he turned away, instead gazing up at the stars.

Above… somewhere was Betelgeuse.

“If you try to save the humans, now Raf, it will only be for a moment.”

The Martian saints wouldn’t stop him. No stars found his eyes in the clouds above Heinlein crater.

“Before they come again.” Pointing at the screens, Xylia’s fingers dug into Raf’s arm. “And take them anyway.”

Each time he gazed upwards the only star he saw was Algol—witnessing his choice—his anguish.

“Raf, they’ll take more—everything.” Xylia seized his arm and shook him.

He ignored it. A silent prayer to the gods of Mars. The one only miners knew.

No image of the gods came. Just the demon star. Pulsing. Winking.

Perseus.

Coolant tubes somewhere on the heavy fighter ticked louder than they should, like the day the struts failed—just before Pavonis Mons spoke. Burying a thousand miners.

The whites of their eyes when the walls collapsed. Hands reaching through the rubble. The broken helmets.

Each hollow click counting time.

He forced air inside his lungs. Air that failed to quench his lungs. A last breath before—

Raf’s finger brushed a button on the weapons panel.

Algol flickered once more above them, then disappeared.

∞∞∞

Aboard the Galvex-1, except for the targeting chime, the ship quieted.

Raf didn’t hear the ship’s words.

A tiny plume rose near the centre of the clustered Mel’thryth, not far from the prisoners.

Red sand spiralled inward. A slow vortex.

Somewhere on the back of the heavy fighter a stabilizing thruster vented for a split second.

No sound came from the surface inside Heinlein’s crater.

Everything crawled inward toward the vortex.

Xylia flinched. So did Raf. Like when Kazza claimed her victims. Her tithe.

Somewhere in his mind—Raf’s father’s words; “You’ve impacted Mars’ future, son.”

On the display, prisoners—workers and soldiers alike—mouths open.

Gravity would take their air.

And their voices

Shapes that stretched into smears as the centre of the gravity well blackened.

Mel’thryth disassembled.

Facets of metal ripped from their core, as if beads untangling from a string, falling… one at a time.

And then long strings of facets—metal cubes… a chain of metal. Like the beads in Xylia’s hair when it sparkled. When she hid behind the curtains of La Chambre Rouge

Xylia crushed his hand. He wished there was a sound.

Larger shapes being pulled apart. Faster. Metal shed from skeletons.

Distorted strings of matter. Like drooling molten ore poured from the crucibles of Mars.

The Face creatures floated faster to the nothingness.

The crust of Mars and everything within a two hundred kilometre radius swallowed by the black.

Sound.

Light.

The voices of all those men shouted in his mind.

Raf didn’t see the Alba moving near the edge of the void. The event horizon of the weapon.

Humans were there.

The voices didn’t stop.

In the centre of the black—a swirl of plasma.

Then changed. Not magnetic.

A brilliant funnel of light jetting from the gravity well.

Not plasma. The light—a memory of those who died.

“You’ve saved Mars.” Resting one hand on his shoulder, Xylia’s eyes stabbed into the black hole.

“But for how long.” His body shivered as he tried to quell the voices. The voices inside him. The hundreds who died. Maybe thousands. At his hand. But they would never hear him. Not one.

That they saved Mars.

The Alba touched the surface at the rim of the crater. Figures rushed toward the low orbit corvette where the ramp extended.

Galvex descent engines hissed and the remaining weapons retracted into the hull as the alien shielding reflected the deepening black vortex on the surface of Mars at Promethei Terra.

“And for what?” Raf clenched his jaw. The ringing in his ears persisted. “I’ve transferred power to Catharine.”

Rotating slowly the heavy fighter aligned itself above the Alba. Weapons screens dimmed. Navigation screens flickered. A blue vector lit up the display. Noctis Fossae.

Xylia almost smiled then pushed it away. “We can fight my sister Raf.”

∞∞∞

A tang of dried blood and salt coloured the air within La Chambre Rouge. Echus had just crushed an oversized rodent and bled it out. When he was molting, he liked his prey wet before he swallowed them.

Her boa constrictor would be ten meters soon. A sound of metal on gravel—restless—Echus grated along walls within the shadows. A translucent scale-larger than Catharine lay sloughed on the marble just in front of the grand arched windows. Pushing the button that opened the crimson curtains, Catharine marvelled at the way crest Cydonia glittered above the tallest arch.

Above them the frescos would bear witness this day.

Catharine wanted to smile.

The steps of her protégé came fast beneath the portieres. Without turning, Catharine cast her voice to the tall glass—to the plains of Tharsis. “You failed to kill the enemies of your queen.”

“As did you.” Veyga spoke brashly. Too loud for a future princess. The sound of her feet moving to the side. A reflection in the glass—Veyga’s hand—low on her waist.

Unsheathing her TriRapier.

Catharine folded her arms and raised her chin. Half-turned, she swaggered along the edge of the grand windows, mirroring Veyga. Echus grated along the polished floor behind them. “You’ll never lead, if you can’t decide.”

“Everyone’s your enemy Catharine. I’d need to kill them all.” Veyga’s head tilted away. Her voice surged.

“You lack the courage to kill even one—or is it two.” Catharine reeled. “Is it my sister’s silver eyes that you fear?”

Veyga paced. Her eyes flicked to Echus before the words came. The words that cut deeper than the blade she held. “You crawled on the ground to what was left of your childhood doll.”

Blood pulsed in her temples. Catharine closed her eyes and forced the image of the Lilac doll from her mind. When she opened them they blinked too fast. One of her father’s old curses edged her lips. She’d faced ten thousand alien soldiers—her father’s insanity—and defeated them all. A tear climbed into the corner of her eye. She pushed it back. The doll—a fable—a queen who ruled with empathy. Kindness. A lie.

She drew the dagger Cydonia from its sheath. The green jewel—Viridis’ facets cast emerald light to the frescos above. To Ares. The god of Mars. Catharine lifted her chest. “You are still too weak.”

Catharine raised her arm and extended the dagger toward Veyga.

Her protégé spun the TriRapier. Its spiral flutes reflecting the emerald stone in Catharine’s Dagger. A smirk that dimpled her young face. “You don’t have the courage to challenge me.”

“To truly face me.” Veyga’s left foot swept back as her voice pitched.

“Careful young princess, the cryo-gun—the one that rids Mars of traitors is only a few steps away.” Catharine’s eyes lanced at the girl, though her body leaned back fractionally.

The child’s jaw sharpened. Knuckles white on the hilt of her weapon. Veyga’s lips curled. “Your blood runs cold.”

Cold… yes.” Catharine laughed inside. Her voice softened as she stepped to the side. “You’d sacrifice him in an instant. Mars is under attack—”

“As you murdered your own father, the king.” Veyga’s steps matched Catharine’s.

Beside them Echus coiled and lifted—segments of skin peeled away finding the marble below. Stabbing his thirty centimetre tongue towards Veyga, then Catharine. Still red from the rodent he’d swallowed.

“I allowed Krrel to be taken.” Catharine hesitated then twisted her lips, grimly. “Without his death, Mars would belong to The Face.”

Her arm found the horizon south, toward Sisyphi Bastion—where her father, Krrel fell.

Catharine lifted her chin and moved within striking distance of Veyga’s TriRapier. “You killed workers just as easily.”

The young princess cleared her throat. “I had to—”

“Your father, and workers like him, surrender Mars to the Mel’thryth.” Four strides brought Catharine before the arched windows. Outside, clouds clung to the ice-fringed crater at the tip of Pavonis Mons.

“If he stood against the palace today, you’d draw your blade—Veyga.” Catharine cocked her head to the side. She let her smile reflect in the glass.

Squinting Veyga lowered her blade, and huffed.

Catharine sheathed the dagger.

“Or would you have allowed him to die as I did my father, Krrel?” Catharine couldn’t stop the smile looking back at her in the glass.

“There is a fissure in your heart, maybe more than one.” Catharine lifted her shoulders and adjusted the jewels about her neck. “Make them a scar.”

Catharine gazed at her wrist. Where the alien wrist comm had scarred it. Before it was cast aside.

Steepling her fingers she faced her princess in training.

Veyga marched forward with the blade aimed at Catharine’s chin. “You’ll never be better than the good queen. Not even your mother’s shadow.”

Echus surged before the blade touched Catharine’s skin, and hissed at Veyga.

∞∞∞

Face covered in sweat and flanked by four Red Guard, her Viceroy burst into la Chambre Rouge. “My Queen.”

Veins on his neck bulged. “Report.”

“Promethei Terra.” Jendrick clenched his fists. “The Face landed a guerilla force. To take back Mars. Thousands of them.”

Veyga pivoted.

Catharine’s lungs found no air. She cleared her throat. No words came.

“They took hundreds of prisoners. Soldiers, workers, miners.” Every word recited, void of emotion. “And new weapons.”

Echus flicked his tongue slow.

Catharine’s words a dry whisper. “The Face.”

Veyga massaged her hip, above the hilt of her blade.

Jendrick stared at the ceiling of La Chambre Rouge. Each word framed as the fresco of Ares. “Gone. All of it.”

“The miner—Raf—he fired the gravity weapon.”

Veyga’s jaw dropped.

A slow smile climbed Catharine’s face until dimples began to pinch.

“Perhaps the miner is still of some use to Mars.”

“Viceroy, bring me the cryo-gun.” Catharine pointed back to the late queen’s bedchamber.

“The Face have revealed their treachery.” Catharine paced to the Red Guard and bared her teeth. “They will capitulate or burn.”

When she received the gun from her Viceroy she touched his arm. “Mars will prevail.”

Jendrick saluted.

Catharine leaned back to her protégé, surveying her pewter eyes. “Are you coming?”

∞∞∞

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Celestial Crossings is where the Tretaxis universe meets the wider world of ideas—a curated selection of writing worth your time, chosen for curiosity, craft, and the kind of thinking that stays with you long after the tab is closed.

In this edition for Celestial Crossings we meet some truly amazing creators.

Each edition features a hand-picked publication from the worlds of science, astronomy, speculative fiction, and literary work. Not a directory. Not a link exchange. A genuine recommendation from someone who read it first.

The universe is large. These are worth finding.

presents to us in this short story a vivid forest atmosphere. Apprehension, humour and the desires of every author—imagination. Who else would wear pumps on a forest trail but a gimlet girl by the name of Joanne. A colourful character, though a shadow follows her. A Peculiar Rendezvous

Rebekah tells us that she very much can relate to Frankenstein’s monster. One thing she’s learned about herself, is that when she writes in the first person, Rebekah’s words pack a punch. And I agree. She’s also very excited to be in the final strokes of her yet-to-be-released for-publish book, Andromeda. Be sure to watch for it.

throws us into an epic-level world-building within his story, in the classic scifi sense. In this chapter we follow the Devils and the dangers that lay in their path, though often the greatest danger is hidden where you do not expect. Sea of Fire: Ignition - Chapter 1 Obsidian Expanse

Justin’s favourite author in history is from the 1400’s: Martin Luther. Inspired by his children, he also finds music a motivator for his writing. The song: Sea of Fire by Wise Man's Fear - had a profound impact on his current writing.

paints us inside a vivid world in the classic science fiction horror sense. This remarkable place holds secrets. But who is it that steals these memories? Simply erased from the page, or was it always to have been erased? Anna writes with a captivating rhythm here. Perhaps once read, the story vanishes. If not, who remains to tell it? Find out: The final Page

Anna’s favourite author is Kai Meyer. To her his stories made fantasy feel ancient, dangerous, and deeply alive. Finding inspiration in works such as: The Hunger Games, and The Maze Runner, made it apparent that stories could ask unsettling questions. Translating writing into emotion is a challenge for Anna, but that isn’t stopping her from working on a full science fiction fantasy novel.

In this non-fiction delves into the why and how of how science fiction books have changed. Have our reading habits changed or did epic scifi reach a pinnacle? If so when? Or maybe it was us, the reader who changed after all. Check out this engaging and thoughtful exploration: Novel Lengths of Sci-Fi Greats

The shady character: Harcourt Fenton Mudd unlocked Ray’s interest in writing. and if you’re a Star Trek fan, as Ray is, you’ll remember him—vividly. One thing that surprised Ray; is the first time one of the characters he was writing—took control of the page. It was something he didn’t expect.

The places us within his profound poetic world in this piece. I ask as I read: Who is the wandering wizard and will he take away the pain? My pain, or is it only a search to find this elusive character? I don’t have time for Poetry

One of the most impactful literary figures for the Sherrif of Hope is Patrick Rothfuss based on the book The Name of The Wind. When writing reveals deep personal feelings, it can be challenging but, after exams are finished SOH is excited to return to the composition of his latest book.

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Petra found out about the beach the same way she finds out about most things Theo does — by being there when he turned the LEDs on.

The tube-fish were already gone by the time they made the Mojitos. Single-celled, hollow, apparently harmless. Probably ate each other. Probably died from the heat.

The water was tropical. Jupiter hung overhead. It was Friday.

Report 90235 was overdue by twenty-six cycles when the camera finally cycled at 17:00 Ganymede standard time.

Happy Hour on Ganymede is the eighth Tretaxis Dispatch — standalone flash fiction set in the same solar system as A Crown of Dust. No prior reading required. Just two researchers, one stolen beach, and something in the water that was apparently harmless.

Eighth Tretaxis Dispatch. No prior reading required.

Unverified Transmission:

“Shit—you’re spraying sand in my eyes… Theo.”

“Seriously—if Sapienza University knew you used research funds to make a beach on Ganymede—” Petra slammed her Jovian research tablet onto the plastic glass, and rubbed her eyes. “This shit really stings!”

“Saltwater mixed with the cenote sand.” Theo cranked up the LED panels until blue filtered through the white.

“Sorry.” Theo rolled his eyes. Petra had already tossed her research jacket onto the floor.

“Anyway, anarchists are getting close to Rome. Won’t be there in six months.” A mist-spray spat water vapour in front of an oscillating fan. Theo plugged it in.

A wet smell—something like chicken noodle soup and alkali water wafted over the hundred metre beach.

The rake handle squealed when it slipped down the pod glass.

“What about all those floaty straws?” Petra covered her brow and squinted at the turquoise water. She balled up knee high compression stockings and stuffed them inside her shoes. “There must be ten thousand.”

“Hollow underwater plant. They like the warm water—for now.” Fans sparked one at a time, until fine sand blasted Theo’s legs. “Opening for a mouth and—”

“Anus… I know.” Petra frowned a smile. “Swam away when I splashed… last week.”

“Far as I can tell they’re eating each other. Wanna Mojito? We’ll have the beach to ourselves.” Theo pocketed the fan remote and pointed to the glass walls of the geothermal research pod.

“Living under Ganymede all this time–huh?” Petra strolled beside him, glancing over her shoulder—once.

“Frozen maybe.” Theo smashed ice into cubes with a wooden hammer and folded his shirt at the seams.

“Bug-eaters—before they ran out, maybe.” Theo lifted his eyebrows.

“Hydroponic mint leaves?” Petra nodded. She liked Fridays—when they got blitzed.

“All this week’s lime juice… gone?” Theo shook his head and smiled anyway.

“A month’s worth of fermented Rum too.” Petra’s smirk strained her dimples.

“You bring a bathing suit?” Using the wooden handle Theo muddled the leaves.

“To Jupiter?” Petra jutted a hip to one side, stretching out of her coveralls. On the floor—middle of the research pod. Same as always.

“Same.” Theo stabbed a sprig of mint through the ice and forced a smile.

“This sand is really great.” Petra covered up. The foil blanket didn’t hide much. She didn’t try.

Theo looked at the sand then stared, like it was something he hadn’t seen before.

“Almost like coral sand on Earth.” Theo let a handful squeeze through his fingertips. The mineral rich sand sprinkling in his fake alkaline wind. It smelled a bit more acidy than before. Decay?

“You were right, tube-fish are gone.” Petra waded into the shallows. Shin-deep.

“Not fish. One celled. Probably ate each other.” Theo put his glass on the lab chair he’d dragged out onto the sand.

Twenty metres offshore the water rippled strangely. One wave.

“That fast?” Petra was already up to her hips. She splashed him with one hand on her drink.

Half the mojito left, Theo shook his head.

“Turning up the LED’s” Theo tossed the remote onto his foil towel

“I don’t have sunglasses. Is this really safe?” Petra leaned back. Leering.

“Safer than the French Riviera.” Knee-deep, Theo splashed her back.

Circular waves radiated outward from Petra. Into the depths of the underground cenote lake.

“If they ate each other, wouldn’t there be a bigger one?” Petra floated easily in the highly saline water. Some of the Mojito poured into the water.

Olive green where it mixed.

Behind him, a lone six inch wave curled onto the fake sand. Theo’s eyes followed it.

“Probably died from the heat.” Theo waded deeper.

Inexplicably the fans stopped working. Only splashing sounds echoing within Ganymede’s cenote.

“Water’s tropical.” Petra giggled.

Burning flared when an old scar on his forearm met the water. “Damn.”

“Wouldn’t they float up?” Petra fluttered her feet, getting salt water in Theo’s eyes.

An echo as if a single clump of ice or rock plunked in the lake somewhere.

“Yeah.” Theo scrunched his eyes trying to force tears to come.

Petra’s leg brushed his. Alkaline water made it feel slimy and thick.

“Hey no funny stuff.”

“Not until after the Mojito. I’m getting a towel.“ Walking back to the lab chair, Theo tore open a wet-wipe and dabbed his eyes.

“Stop—that tickles.”

“Hey Petra—I’m over here, not—”

The water moved behind Petra in a way water doesn’t. There shouldn’t be waves.

“It wasn’t me.” Theo blinked.

“Can’t you wait, Jesus—” Petra twisted in the water. An empty glass sinking beside her.

“Don’t play innocent.” Theo laughed then leaned back “Slamming it—”

Behind him in the water a sound. Splashing.

Eyes still blurry. Theo ran faster than he should have.

Luckily Petra splashed a lot.

He rushed to the sound then skidded at the water’s edge.

Petra blew bubbles in the water. Theo called to her blurry form. “Love it—”

The splashing sound deeper. As if someone was diving. Theo’s brow wrinkled—forcing his eyes to squint. Petra swam under the waves.

“Salt’ll sting your eyes if you go under the water.”

She didn’t come up. Not yet.

An acidy smell mixed with the salty brine crossed Theo’s nostrils.

“Hey Petra.” Theo’s watery gaze cleared. He cleared his throat. “Holding your breath that long… not good—”

Beneath the turquoise water—bubbles—thrashing.

Legs carried him into a running dive before finding a shape under the water. It slipped from his hands

“Petra!”

A name reverberating in the cavern seven kilometres below Ganymede’s crust.

Then—

A diving sound echoed next.

A single six inch wave met the fake coral sand.

No one saw it.

∞

Ganymede Research Pod A2.

Report 90235

Research report overdue - 26 cycles.

Camera Cycle 17:00 Ganymede standard time.

Cenote camera.

Opaque white pipe half-submerged in alkaline lake.

Estimated eight metres.

Contoured shapes interior of tube.

Possible O2 explosion during sleep pod cycle.

Sleep pods ejected.

Recommend decommission Pod A2.

Close report 90235

∞

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∞∞∞

There are creatures on Mars that should not exist—sounds that should not be heard. For a moment, a chance for a lone Mel’thryth to escape. To reveal that threat before the choice is taken away.

Some choices have a cost. A cost that doesn’t announce itself all at once.

One that doesn’t ask for forgiveness, because when friends and allies die, it can never be given.

There is no morality along the edge of a blade. No faces stare back from the crosshairs.

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∞∞∞

Stalactites within the Martian caves dripped blood-thick in the low gravity. Droplets hanging in the dank air. Near his neck where Veyga had held the TriRapier. Blood that would flow on Mars sooner than workers knew. If Earth attacked Mars now, they weren’t ready. If aliens attacked they’d all be slaves or worse.

Imprisoned on Earth, Raf imagined wiping the sweat from his brow. Legs aching. Solar prominences arcing across the sky. Fields of withered crops. A dying civilization.

But as they emerged from the Mars catacombs, Sol was just a flickering red ember framed by the etched cavern walls. Smaller than his thumb. To be enveloped by the giant pyramid that was Pavonis Mons.

Drake’s crater lay a kilometre or more ahead. Darkness bred pirate activity. He spun the Pahar mattock. In his other hand Xylia’s fingers ice cold. Hours behind them Veyga left to face an enraged Catharine.

The mouth of the cave should have felt like freedom. Raf’s teeth clenched.

A sound stabbed both eardrums before they saw. Xylia winced.

Shrieking like a hundred laden ore carts—steel-on-steel layered upon a grinding evil growl that echoed from everywhere at one time. Beneath it the crack of iron broken—as if bones snapping in sequence. Lower—a sound that had no name—terror before lifelessness. A wail that melted into blackness. The same scream he heard when miners fell to their death from the manlift. Their last cry before they met the Martian gods. Beneath Pavonis Mons.

A scream no man should hear. Over and over again.

Air stopped in his lungs.

Thirty metres downslope towards the rise of Drake’s crater, two shapes within the wreckage of a lander. Low to the ground. Impossibly fast—teeth flared—tactical strikes upon a third metallic shape that glowed dull silver in the last of the sun’s ember-light.

Swarming.

Diavolo.

Jaws shredding what once was a Mel’thryth limb. The alien spat fire and hissed. Outmatched. Leeching fire and fibrous connections between collapsing metal facets.

As told by Veyga and the old miners, pirates brought them to Mars from the asteroid colonies. Not a companion and protector for colonists, instead Vireaux’s genetic meddling. Hybrid honey badger, Tasmanian devil, wolverine and something else.

The same Vireaux who created the Galvex-1.

This time they weren’t skulking in the shadows.

The first Diavolo locked onto a Mel’thryth limb, severing the facets between its jaws. Before another tentacle sprouted the second Diavolo ripped the metallic appendage from the core of the alien, leaving molten metal in its place.

Knee high, the creature’s head too wide for its body. Teeth that could fracture metal as easily as bone. Jaws that never stopped. A rock crushing bundle of muscle covered in black and crimson hair—stiff as a steel brush. Armoured spine plates and merciless black eyes.

“It’s seen us.” Xylia’s hand grew warmer. She clenched his as the second Diavolo pivoted.

Stilling his body, Raf crushed the handle of the Mattock and bent at the knees.

Howling like a rock-drill in iron ore, the second Diavolo opened its jaw—then attacked the first one.

A gnarled knot of evil screeching evil and black blood. Tumbling in the dust as the Mel’thryth attempted to crawl away.

As suddenly as the infighting started, it stopped.

“They don’t know who the real enemy is.” Raf breathed the words—one at a time to Xylia.

Xylia’s silver eyes sharpened. Like she wanted to read the creatures from the inside.

Both Diavolo surged to what remained of the Mel’thryth as if they savoured the alien’s insides.

Metal cracked and four parallel gashes on the first Diavolo seeped blood. Bone from the cheek exposed on the first Diavolo while it crushed facets as if paper.

Obsidian black pebbles tracked him as he stepped behind it. It locked eyes with him, steadying the metal cube within its teeth. Raf’s back paralleled the edge of the path. Always facing the creatures.

It folded the metal—slow—between its jaws, then turned to the Mel’thryth.

“Let’s go.” Raf inched Xylia around the melee. Both Diavolo growled low—a sound the mineshafts made when the rock moved. A warning.

A black facet of the Mel’thryth within a jaw. One of its three eyes.

A shriek. A sound not made in this part of the universe. Then a snap.

Xylia’s eyes focused, then narrowed. Something like electricity grew where her fingers touched his.

The Diavolo blinded it.

Xylia turned her back to the Diavolo as they continued to pulverize what remained of the alien.

It didn’t feel like victory. It should have. He covered one eye then gazed toward Xylia.

For a moment Raf thought there was a smile where Xylia hid it with her hand.

∞∞∞

In the middle of Patera 7701 an angular shadow shuttered against the upslope of the crater’s wall. The Galvex-1 a black ghost on the edge of Drake’s Crater.

“Bet you’re wondering what I did to the pressure gauge, laddy.” Emerging from between the thrust vectoring leaves, Old Sarrin’s sharp eyes focused.

“Looks like a drill gauge with—Alien cubes.” Raf blinked fast. He’d never witnessed the old mechanic angry. Xylia strode past him.

Standing up fast enough to crack his wrenched back, Sarrin threw his rag to the dust. “You’ll not enter the ship ‘till I’m done talkin’ lassie.”

Raf stood completely still. Xylia’s eyes went dull.

Prongs emerged and the glimmering cubes sparked beside the pressure gauge. The salvaged alien shielding on the stern of the Galvex-1 flashed. Not black, nor invisible like the front of the heavy fighter. Instead amassed on each shield: angry blue stars, red nebula, unimaginable planets with rings that clashed.

Xylia whispered. “A planetary atomic orbit.”

“Won’t look like Martian stars.” The old mechanic cocked his neck to the side—cracking it—and stiffened, locking eyes with Raf. “Should confuse the palace weapons.”

“What about those?” Raf pointed to the Mel’thryth cubes attached to Sarrin’s tool.

“Only way I could get the pirate shielding active.” He forced a one-second smile. “But you got bigger problems, laddy.”

The mattock felt heavy on his shoulder. Raf nodded then rested it in the fine red dust of Drake’s Crater. “Workers might die. Miners will die.”

Sarrin fiddled with pirate-supplied shielding. Cloud-like star dust spun on the back of the heavy fighter. “I know what’s coming and so do you.”

Drawing a triangle with the mattock blade, Raf looked away.

“No choice you make will save everyone, laddy.”

Raf squeezed Xylia’s fingers too hard and met the old mechanic’s gaze. Xylia began to comb fingers through her hair and then stopped. Stopped by his words. “Every choice I make means someone is going to die.”

“Maybe many.” Sarrin tapped a missile hardpoint. It retracted within the hull. Behind the thrust vectoring leaves the dark matter drive thrummed and glowed blue. Vibrant and ready.

Xylia measured Raf’s eyes squeezing his hand.

“You know what’s right.” Sarrin moved about the heavy fighter. Every part of the Galvex-1 responded to his touch.

“Even if they don’t know it.” An access panel hissed shut under the old mechanic’s hand.

Raf’s eyes searched for the access hatch. He’d rather be in the pilot’s seat than hear the old man’s words.

“And they’ll hate you for it.” Landing struts crouched beside Sarrin. Lower than before. Predatory. “Most of them.”

His words too serious this night. He gazed at Xylia instead.

“Make it the best you can, and maybe their young ones will be better off.” Lights on the heavy fighter’s lift engines flared.

“Why are you saying that?” Raf took two steps back and lifted his eyes to the old man.

“All of us make choices, laddy.” Sarrin’s fist clenched and he pounded on the camouflaged Galvex-1 hull. “Word that Catharine’s gonna send someone to erase Veyga’s mother. The whole family.”

“I can’t go to Badwater then.” Words stumbled out of Raf’s mouth.

“Yes you will.” Sarrin’s eyes narrowed.

The Galvex-1’s access hatch bled blue light as it opened. Stairs extended and touched the floor of the pirate crater. Soft.

∞∞∞

Xylia’s eyes glimmered silver within the crater’s shadows. “I’ll stop her.”

“No.” Sarrin picked up his rag, scrutinizing Xylia through each twist of his back. “You hide from the pain, lassie.”

Releasing Raf’s hand, Xylia’s eyes glowed brighter. Starry.

Sound pressure grew in Raf’s ears. He covered them. “Xylia.”

Reaching for a wrench, Old Sarrin tapped a landing strut.

Behind them heavy scratches in the rock. A solitary low growl that echoed from every direction within the crater’s bowl.

Raf crushed his mattock handle and pivoted.

Xylia swiveled, raising her hands. “I don’t see them.”

“And this one needs to stop being so smug.” Sarrin tapped the metal once more.

A kerosene scented breeze drifted over the edge of the surrounding rocks. Catharine’s ships being fueled at the Martian shipyards.

“Almost always, the hurt is with you, lassie.” Hobbling over to a tool chest the mechanic continued. “So that it becomes your power.”

Xylia lowered her hands and frowned “What are you talking about?”

“Respect.” Metal rattled in the chest until he lifted a hand-length curved sheath. Something not for a tool. “Respect the hurt it makes you feel. Stay there. The edge of a blade. Then nothing’ll stop you lassie.”

Rubbing her eyebrows she stared at the curved shape.

Raf bit his lip when Sarrin withdrew something that shimmered.

“On the edge. When it hurts you. Neither one side or the other.” Sarrin smiled for the first time this night. “Like the edge of this blade.”

“Pahar.” Raf whispered when the metal slipped from within its sheath. A dagger. Curved tip and a single fuller. Short. Made to kill.

Stars with diffraction spikes embossed on the metal. A setting waiting for a gemstone. A stone from the gods of Mars. Xylia reached to it.

“This is for when you fall off the edge, lass.” Sarrin placed the blade in Xylia’s hand. “Don’t wait until you fall.”

Glimpsing its hilt, Raf took a deep breath. “For the gem?”

“Respect.” Refusing to release the blade, Sarrin canvassed Xylia’s silver eyes. “Sri Sahib—made from the purest Pahar metal on Mars.”

“Sahib.” Xylia mouthed the words.

“Give me the gem.” The old mechanic nodded.

Placing another hand on the mattock’s handle Raf couldn’t stop the trembling.

Setting it within the prongs, old Sarrin squinted up at Xylia’s silver eyes.

“Close the prongs.” Cocking his head, he crouched lower. Eyes never leaving hers. “With the pain.”

Xylia’s chin trembled. One fist clenched.

Old Sarrin nodded.

Raf’s mouth fell open.

One at a time prongs of the strongest metal in the universe folded around the Arcadia gem. Locking on the facets.

Her chest hitched and Xylia’s hands started to shake. Lips tight.

The Arcadia gem glimmered. So did Xylia’s eyes. Red and silver. A harmony of light.

“Did it work?” A smile climbed over his face. Raf touched Xylia’s arm, then swallowed. A memory of scratching the spikes of Algol—the demon star—into the mines below Pavonis Mons.

Perseus—bad luck. Why remember those words today?

“Use the other part the same way—lassie.” A satisfied smile reached the old man’s cheeks, still holding onto Xylia’s blade.

“When I hate them?” Xylia pressed a fist to her chest.

“When you hate them.” Sarrin’s eyes gleamed up at her. “On the edge of a blade.”

Leaning in, Raf’s voice lowered. “How can she control all of that?”

Raising his eyebrows, Sarrin lifted his chin and shook his head. “I don’t know laddy.”

The Diavolo approached—unseen—the one with the scarred face rested at Xylia’s feet. Inside its jaws, a single sparking Mel’thryth cube.

Teeth appeared between old Sarrin’s smirk.

“You have to walk the edge of the blade, laddy.”

Raf’s neck grew stiff and he tried to twist it. He forced it to shake. “No.”

“When you make choices.” The old mechanic touched his arm. “A different pain.”

“I don’t want people to die.” Raf’s neck tightened more. He couldn’t make it deny Sarrin’s words.

Diavolo growled low. Somewhere in its jaws a piece of metal broke in half. Dead.

∞∞∞

A kilometre south of where the Galvex-1 crouched within Drake’s Crater, mirror-like panels distorted the twilight of Mars—descending—until they hid behind the horizon.

Raf’s neck cracked when he twisted it. Xylia’s eyes darted between the oscillating stars and their still shrouded heavy fighter.

Lift engines began to purge slowly. A steady stream of cloudy kerosene gas. The alien shielding mixed rust red and browns mimicking shapes on the crater’s fringes.

“Privateers.” The old mechanic rubbed calloused hands. “Solar panels for the ion drives. Noir number ten. Hard to see,”

Gathering his wrench, Sarrin twisted it south. His hand shouldn’t have trembled that much. “Time’s up.”

“Where’d they get those?” Raf crouched under the Galvex-1. A few dull pewter hardpoints still projecting from the hull.

“Death credits.” Pain crossed the old man’s brow as he straightened, crossing Raf’s gaze. “Don’t trust ‘em laddy. Worse ‘n pirates. Privateers got no code.”

He locked twisted fingers within Raf’s arm and shook his head. “Pirates keep their word—those ones…”

“I understand.” Raf wrinkled his mouth.

“Be sure you do.” Old Sarrin followed Raf’s eyes under the heavy fighter then smirked.

Releasing Raf’s arm, he punched the tablet on his sleeve. “Put a few Type-II interceptors on the old bird, laddy.”

Surveying the tablet, Xylia raised her eyebrows before Raf did. “A few?”

“Full, lassie.” Smiling, a clawed finger swept over the screen. “Four fusion—”

“M5F and M10F weapons.” Raf pulled at a finger until it cracked. His voice quieter than before.

“Use ‘em on the metal-heads.”

Xylia lifted a hand facing north. Towards Cydonia Labyrinthus—the alien’s catastrophic defeat. “They’re rebuilding.”

“Lassie.” Sarrin nodded.

The hardwood mattock handle shifted just before Raf caught it. Its Pahar blade reflected the blue star Deneb as it loomed above.

“The Mel’thryth.” Raf’s hands grew restless.

Beside them the underhull hardpoints retracted. Hiding the weapons.

Not far away the air crackled like thunder. Not fireworks or bombs. Not the volcano. Catharine’s interceptors departing the Martian shipyards. Squadron after squadron breaking the sound barrier. Heading south.

The Galvex-1 hummed. Red lights flashed visibly somewhere inside the access hatch. The dorsal spine glimmered diffraction spikes—mirroring the Mars sky.

∞∞∞

Blue glow lustred around Raf’s boots where he stared down at Xylia. “We’ll need them to fight the aliens.”

“It’s not just the Mel’thryth, Raf.” Xylia pursed her lips as she followed him inside the heavy fighter.

After adjusting the pilot’s harness, Raf’s fist crossed his lips. No words came to his mouth.

He punched up the tactical display and activated weapons systems. The Galvex-1 ascending from Patera 7701 as an angular shifting shadow, leaving privateers, pirates and their friends behind,

A friend that was destined to face Catharine’s Red Guard at the habitat level. Protecting Veyga’s family while the Galvex-1 turned south towards her streaking interceptors.

Raf wrenched the control yoke back and pitched the heavy fighter into the eastern stratosphere.

“Something is trying to find us.” A yellow light reflected in Xylia’s silver eyes.

“The new shielding.” Stabbing the stick forward atmosphere hammered the heavy fighter’s faceted hull. “Hang on.”

Xylia’s long hair flattened against the head rest. Skin on her face stretched. “What are you doing!”

The Galvex-1 twisted on its axis then flattened again. Kilometres below an array of atmospheric tension nodes. Each a kilometre wide.

Krrel’s cloud seeders. Floating in their path. Krrel, the dead king of Mars.

Larger by the second.

“It’s just reentry.” The handle rattled in Raf’s arms. Knuckles clenched. “Gravity’ll be heavy when we dive into the chasms.

Twenty five G’s unless the braking thruster’s fired.

“Hold your breath and squeeze!”

The roar of compressed air was the last sound he heard.

Gravity limits exceeded. Gravity warning.

Clouds of crimson soil blasted from around the Galvex-1 as the ship tore through Valles Marineris at three times the speed of sound.

“Can you hear me Rafael.” Xylia hit his shoulder. “Slow down, or they’ll see the dust.”

Raf’s right eye still blurry when he pulled the stick back carefully. “Just below the chasms now.”

Xylia inhaled as if she were holding her breath the whole time. “You blacked out.”

“Ship must’ve saved us.” He pounded a fist on the arm rest. “You tracking anything?”

Xylia narrowed her eyes then closed her hands. “Twenty.”

“Remember, don’t kill them this time.”

∞∞∞

Biceps cramped when he jerked the stick back. The spine of the Galvex-1 and its sensors just above the trench.

“There to the right and left.” Raf lifted one eyebrow. Silver interceptors. Some paralleling the eastern end of the trench, others climbing—readying for a strafing attack.

Xylia’s silvery eyes ignited. Black veins emerged on the back of her hands where they clutched the side of the copilot’s seat. Then silver, the same colour as its metal frame. Her hands trembling as the veins protruded and manifested colour—bright red. Inside the cockpit grew hotter. Raf sweated. Xylia didn’t.

Her eyes shifted to the right. A half dozen silver interceptors stalled in Mars’ atmosphere.

Raf fired the braking thrusters and aimed the nose of the Galvex-1 to the sky. Phobos was there. So were more interceptors. Their heavy fighter shuddered.

Spinning silver leaves—a group of silver ships fell from the sky. Ejection seats erupted and the red fringed sleek interceptors spun into the chasm beside them. Catharine’s red. Soon burning inside the bowels of Valles Marineris.

“Watch these ones.” Raf tipped the Galvex-1 ninety degrees and jammed the stick forward, putting the heavy fighter into a hard arc. Circling the trench. Finger on the cannons.

His arms and hands slick with sweat. Xylia made a sound but he didn’t look. Her powers were on the edge of the blade. Like old Sarrin said: She needed to learn.

Another cluster of fighters nosed into the labyrinth that was Coprates Chasma, the eastern end of the trench. Soon they’d be in the open.

No ejection seats this time.

“Raf.” Xylia’s voice strained as she gasped for air. “There.”

He punched the main drive motors but the last five interceptors had a head start. Acceleration threw him back in the seat and he tapped the weapons console. “Blast.”

Simultaneously the interceptors exploded into five different vectors. “Starburst.”

“Raf.” Xylia’s eyes greyed where there was once silver and she scrutinized the pulsing veins on her hands. Her voice trailed until a gasp for air. “Mel’thryth copilots.”

“SDGC—cannons—fire.” Tracers raced from the crosshairs on the canopy as the interceptors curved away. Cannon fire licking at the contrails of one interceptor as it lifted into the stratosphere. Mel’thryth wouldn’t pass out with high G climb, even if it killed Catharine’s pilots.

And it would.

“Adaptive shielding on.” He focused on the one interceptor even as the other four fighters streaked toward the Galvex-1 from all angles. Above and behind.

The ship thrummed—console icons more red than blue as he ratcheted the stick to the side spinning the faceted fighter on its axis—letting loose bursts of cannon fire leading the one ship.

Air tore by the sides of the Galvex-1 as the interceptors ripped by them at twice the speed of sound. Cannon fire strafing the shielding and the ship shook like heavy boulders dumped in an ore cart.

“Blast—too fast.”

Ripping the yoke to the other side he flattened the Galvex-1 as the interceptors broke away low on the horizon this time.

In the twenty seconds of calm, he pursed his lips and stared at Xylia.

She shook her head wrapping her hands around her own body.

The interceptors would be back in seconds. Coming in low—too fast to target all of them.

Wrenching the control stick back, Raf stalled the Galvex-1 and hit the descent thrusters dipping the heavy fighter into a crater near Aurorae Chaos—halfway to Hellas Planitia. This’d work or they’d be a stationary target.

“Hold on to something—anything.” Vectoring the ascent thrusters he put the heavy fighter into a flat spin. At first he didn’t feel it—soon the centrifugal forces climbed. Flesh pressed from his jowls into his gums. Whatever was in his stomach wouldn’t be there much longer.

“Lifting.” Spinning like a child’s toy, the Galvex-1 emerged from the crater—right in the midst of the converging interceptors.

The ascent motors hissed as if thermal vent below Pavonis.

“Cannons.” The word unheard above the noise of clashing Galvex-1 thrusters.

Target lock detected.

Collision—collision.

Tracer fire spat from the heavy fighter’s cannons. Not straight. The magma-coloured lines radiused away as the ship spun faster. Raf’s eyes felt like they had already burst. Tears poured from the edge of his eyelids.

Angry guns—a sound like contaminants in a crucible of molten ore.

One at a time—silver replaced by ash-smoke as the Galvex-1 cannons ruptured the last of Catharine’s interceptors

A single fighter lifted from the chaos into the stratosphere—twin contrails headed southeast towards Pai-Solis terminus, or more likely Sisyphi Bastion—for reinforcements.

Its red edges ignited by the rising sun on the other side of the horizon.

One tap on the interstellar drive motor that he’d refused to buy from Draven’s quartermaster, and they’d overtake Catharine’s single remaining interceptor. Raf frowned and locked his eyes on the console crosshairs.

Ascent motors rumbled louder than a rock crusher as Raf pushed the Galvex-1 to its limits in pursuit.

“Raf—one pilot’s still alive.” Xylia’s eyes dissected the twin contrails. Grey turned to silver but her hands trembled more this time.

“Can you slow them down?” Leaning into the control yoke, Raf urged the heavy fighter faster than it could go.

Xylia’s hand fluttered as if touching the sky. Her voice choked with emotion. “I think so—”

His eyes mirrored the pain while witnessing veins change in her hands. To red then something hotter. Bulging—yellow and blue.

Thrust vectoring temperature exceeding limits. 3500 C. The Galvex-1 chimed once

“Available missiles?”

Type-II Interceptor M2 and ISM-dm Interceptor - Spatial Mass.

A target icon zig-zagged across the heavy fighter weapons display. Two types of missiles. Twin chimes.

“Raf—that’s a gravity weapon.” Xylia’s fists clenched yet her eyes remained locked on the last of Catharine’s fighters and the Mel’thryth pilot. “You’ll kill thousands, maybe more.”

Raf forced vomit back down when he glimpsed Xylia’s fingernails bleeding. “Type-II Interceptor…M2—select.”

Select confirmed.

He refused to look again instead cinched his harness. “They’re moving too fast.”

This time his hands were shaking. The inside of the Galvex-1 rumbled as Pavonis Mons had, when the mines collapsed.

Zig-zagging slowed.

“I-I can stop it.” Xylia’s neck bent. “I see the pilot.”

Target lock.

“Fire first missile.”

Type-II Interceptor M2—Live.

A narrow smoke cone tore away from a hardpoint on the port side of the Galvex-1. Chasing the last interceptor. After four kilometres it vectored once, adjusting its trajectory.

Raf’s fingers hammered on the targeting console. “They’re going to activate ramjets at that altitude.”

Rumbling changed to a harmonious thrum within the Galvex-1 cockpit. Raf rocked in his seat. For a second Xylia’s head dropped.

“Lead target by… thirty clicks—fire second missile.”

Type-II Interceptor M2—Live—Target lock—unconfirmed.

Raf touched her shoulder. “Xylia… let them go.”

On the targeting screens: a cone of compression waves pulsed from the interceptor. Ten kilometres above and ahead of their heavy fighter, smaller than a metal shard in the sky.

Missile one target acquisition failed.

“Abort missile one.” For a split second Raf turned to the copilot’s chair where Xylia slouched in the harness.

“Missile two status?”

Missile two—twenty-five kilometres in advance of target.

Twenty.

Fifteen.

Seven.

Target lock.

His eyes focused on the image of the silver interceptor. Compression waves from the ramjet stretching a half kilometre behind it.

Then an explosion.

Fragments of silver cast upon the stratosphere.

No ejection seat.

Raf eased the control yoke to the right. Towards Hellas Planitia.

Beside him, unsheathing Sri Sahib, Xylia edged it along her fingernail until the Pahar blade was fringed with her pain.

On the southeast horizon, Sol was rising. Crimson. Raf squinted. Badwater Crater—the lowest point on Mars lay ahead. Regor waited and so did the Alba.

Beside him Xylia extended her arm into the cockpit glass until the blade reached the sunlight. Its edge alight—blood red.

∞∞∞

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Celestial Crossings is where the Tretaxis universe meets the wider world of ideas—a curated selection of writing worth your time, chosen for curiosity, craft, and the kind of thinking that stays with you long after the tab is closed.

In this edition for Celestial Crossings we meet some truly amazing creators.

Each edition features a hand-picked publication from the worlds of science, astronomy, speculative fiction, and literary work. Not a directory. Not a link exchange. A genuine recommendation from someone who read it first.

The universe is large. These are worth finding.

- A multi-faceted artist crafting in (among other media) clay, glass, watercolours and words.

In this revealing post : How a Perceptive Teacher Healed My Heart Through Art Linda shows us how art became a haven away from the hurt at home, until in a brief eruption of anger, when that haven changed.

I love that now Linda is able to share with us the joy of a teacher and mentor who inspired so much of that creativity

And shows us how creativity is both an escape and a place for the mind to play and relax.

Linda is a passionate science fiction fan, inspired by the likes of Ray Bradbury and his book: The Illustrated Man. A film that sill resonates - Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And although challenged by writing her first Science Fiction Novel, Linda enjoys that she is able to translate feelings into words and into ones which resonate with use, the reader and in our hearts. I, for one, cannot wait to see this Science Fiction creation unfold.

has been an wonderful supporter and inspiration to me, since I’d arrived here on substack. Her mastery of poetry carries both emotion and a profound message. Every time I read one of Hina’s creations, I’m impacted in some way. I leave the page thinking about what I’ve read. Sometimes resonating for days.

The rhythm of her words—magical.

Become the King of Your Own Heart

In this particular piece, we are challenged to look at ourselves. What do we really want to become, and to stop choosing what others want. Instead of choosing a fleeting ghost measured by others—what do you choose?

To, for a moment, reflect on the attachment that despair can often grip us with and look beyond.

And when you find that beyond—hold on to it—reach higher.

is an avid Stephen King fan. Picking up the book Red Dwarf, Omnibus unveiled how deep writing could go, beyond which was portrayed on the TV series. A pet peeve for Hugo—revisions—(we have your back there) as the energy level required feels... well.. brutal. Hugo is excited to be working on Act 2, of his full-scale novel, and if it’s anything like the first offering, the dark world is going to feature deep world-building and be full of twists and turns.

In the Eidolon we jump feet first into an industrial cyberpunk world. Gritty, and you know how I love gritty. And in the dark city, nothing is offered. You have to take what you get or make it into something more.

Pull up a chair, and enter this dark place. The Eidolon.

- I am a true fan of Rita’s craftwork of words. A rhythm and voice that leaves space for the reader to fill in the gaps with all those delightful deep and sometimes buried fears and feelings. The faces that we remember and the ones we wish that we didn’t.

Before The End - Prologue

In this entrance to Before The End there is a pace that pulls strings of tension one by one... dragging us a long whether we fear what we’ll read next, or not.

Don’t be afraid… Turn the page... I know you’ll want to.

Rita is a long time fan of Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote the Anne of Green Gables series. A series that planted the story-writing seed from a young age.

Rita is currently working on what sounds like an ambitious and amazing project; A dark coming-of-age story set in the 1980s called Teresia.

- I first connected with Gregory through a project via The House of Chapters and was absolutely amazed by the many facets of talent within his portfolio. Yes science fiction enthusiast, but movie maker, screen writer, along with all the art skills and talent required to wear so many hats.

Gregory is a generous substack member who although struggles with typing at times (I think some of us two-finger keyboardists can relate) is having a lot of fun with the rediscovery of the fast paced style of flash fiction and short stories. Something reawakens a joy for Gregory that was a big part of his youth.

Celestial Bodies

In Celestial Bodies Gregory’s story had that musicality that immerses the reader instantly. Always in control of his vibrant characters, humour is never far away inside Gregory’s thrillers. But humour that does not take away from the tension that lives in the story. And tension there is, after all, what could possibly go wrong in contacting an alien species---the wrong way?

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