Of starlight and bone, p.1
Of Starlight and Bone, page 1
Praise for Of Starlight and Bone
“Packed with non-stop action, this SF adventure is sure to keep readers turning the pages!” —Maria V. Snyder, New York Times bestselling author of Navigating the Stars
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"This fast-paced space adventure kept me turning pages right up to the exciting conclusion. I wanted to run away on a spaceship and spend more time with the characters, especially the engaging and relatable cyborg lead." —Jordan Rivet, Author of Wake Me After the Apocalypse
Of Starlight and Bone
The Lost Colony
Book 1
Emily Layne
Owl Hollow Press
Owl Hollow Press, LLC, Springville, UT 84663
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental or used fictitiously.
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Of Starlight and Bone
Copyright © 2023 by Emily Layne
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Of Starlight and Bone / E. Layne. — First edition.
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Summary:
Aurelia must deal with the stigma of being part machine, which is why she’s dead-set on proving her worth. But as she uncovers an unfathomable darkness hidden in the depths of the galaxy that threatens everything she holds dear, something in the system catches her scent, and she knows it will stop at nothing to catch its prey.
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Cover Design by Les Solot
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ISBN 978-1-958109-12-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-958109-13-7 (e-book)
For my husband, Jeff. Of every love story in every galaxy, ours is my favorite. I'm yours.
Contents
1. 09 Aug 3319, 14:19:08
2. 09 Aug 3319, 16:42:56
3. 10 Aug 3319, 03:22:34
4. 10 Aug 3319, 07:55:53
5. 10 Aug 3319, 10:25:05
6. 10 Aug 3319, 12:55:03
CAPTAIN’S LOG
7. 10 Aug 3319, 22:05:59
8. 14 Aug 3319, 18:17:59
9. 14 Aug 3319, 19:00:08
10. 15 Aug 3319, 08:12:33
11. 15 Aug 3319, 10:35:02
12. 15 Aug 3319, 10:50:40
CAPTAIN’S LOG
13. 15 Aug 3319, 18:12:06
14. 16 Aug 3319, 10:55:22
15. 16 Aug 3319, 13:56:57
16. 16 Aug 3319, 15:26:51
17. 16 Aug 3319, 17:58:03
18. 16 Aug 3319, 18:23:38
19. 16 Aug 3319, 23:11:34
20. 17 Aug 3319, 07:28:02
21. 17 Aug 3319, 07:52:23
CAPTAIN’S LOG
22. 18 Aug 3319, 19:43:03
23. 25 Aug 3319, 19:43:03
24. 26 Aug 3319, 05:00:02
25. 26 Aug 3319, 05:18:57
26. 26 Aug 3319, 06:06:24
27. 26 Aug 3319, 06:19:47
28. 26 Aug, 3319, 12:49:01
29. 26 Aug, 3319, 22:08:34
30. 26 Aug 3319, 22:59:21
CAPTAIN’S LOG
31. 30 Aug 3319, 11:16:33
32. 30 Aug 3319, 18:21:05
33. 30 Aug 3319, 18:30:51
34. 30 Aug 3319, 19:02:03
35. 30 Aug 3319, 19:02:03
36. 30 Aug 3319, 19:34:01
37. 30 Aug 3319, 19:49:38
38. 31 Aug 3319, 8:53:52
Also by Emily Layne
Acknowledgments
About the Author
One
09 Aug 3319, 14:19:08
Ancora Galaxy, Planet 04: Babbage, Expansion District
Aurelia Peri had failed to stop her target from fleeing out of the alley, and now, against specific orders, she was creating a scene. Humid wind plastered tangles of red hair to her skin, renegade strands from her rope braid. She spat some out of her mouth with a grimace.
“Come on, come on,” she hissed to her borrowed ride. The cycle hummed as she opened up the throttle, bearing down on the running man meters ahead. He shoved people aside, throwing a glance behind him. Fresh blood ran from his nose and upper lip, the vivid crimson clear even through the blur of foot traffic separating them on the open-air skybridge.
“Stop by order of the DISC taskforce!” she shouted as pedestrians leapt out of her cycle’s path into the protective glass guard rails. Birdie, a lithe white poodle and Auri’s assigned partner, loped just ahead, snarling and barking at anyone who didn’t scramble away fast enough.
Auri could’ve sent Birdie to tackle the man and pin him in place, but this was her first assignment. She wanted—no, needed—to prove she was capable. Not just to her captain and fellow DISC agents, but to herself.
The man reached the end of the skybridge. Instead of taking the escalator back to ground level almost thirty stories below where the chase began, he staggered through the doors of the connected building. Birdie bounded after him.
“Kuso,” Auri swore. She reached the building’s entrance heartbeats later, leaping off the cycle. It powered down as the doors whooshed open, and she sprinted through. The suddenly cool air brought out goose bumps along her organic skin. Birdie, tongue lolling, waited in the center of a walkway surrounded by cubicles of tinted smart glass. Curious heads poked out from the tiny offices, showing varying degrees of interest and concern.
Auri flashed a smile that she hoped looked confident. At the end of the hall, her target slid open a door and disappeared behind it, leaving a dripping red handprint on the glass.
She ran, Birdie at her heels, the tails of her dark green coat dancing at her back. A manager shouted, “No dogs!” as she passed his office, furnished with a sleek designer sofa in front of a curved steel desk. He leapt out of his hover-chair and jogged into the hall.
Auri bared her forearm to him, the barcode on her skin warming as the c-tact lenses in the man’s eyes processed her DISC agent badge. His reprimands shriveled into silence, though his mouth still hung open like a faulty shuttle door.
The other side of the bloodied glass revealed a flight of steps, slick with decades of dust. Smeared footprints and droplets of blood led upwards. Auri’s mechanical leg propelled her up each flight even after her organic leg began to burn with fatigue. The bang of another door opening and closing echoed through the space. She pushed herself harder, faster.
A black glass door loomed at the top of the final flight of steps. She yanked it open. Glaring sunlight burned her organic eye, oppressive humidity replacing the cool air. She blinked away tears and focused on the silhouette of her target, hunched in the center of the building’s tiled roof, heaving labored breaths.
Her c-tacts whirred with facial recognition tech available for DISC agents on active missions. Information coalesced at the left corner of her vision, adding to the identification information available to any citizen of the Ancora Federation.
Tanaka, Hiroki, DOB 14 Sep 3276
R. Loc.: Kaido, Ushi District
Cattle Ranch Hand
Wanted: Alive
Auri heaved in a lungful of air that was part relief and part exhaustion. At least she’d been chasing the right man. After all, this was an emergency transfer of a COF, a Class One Fugitive. If she hadn’t been the only agent nearby when Agent Hillsdale slipped getting into his shuttle and broke his leg, Auri might still be back on Rokuton. The Military Police Brigade, MPB, had been after Hiroki for days. He’d finally popped up on Babbage and they wanted to seize the opportunity. Hillsdale said he’d inform the captain of the transfer according to protocol and to “get the hell onto your shuttle.”
She couldn’t screw this up. For both her and Agent Hillsdale’s sakes.
“Tanaka Hiroki,” she began. “I am Agent Peri Aurelia of the DISC taskforce.” She paused midway to catch her breath. “You are under arrest for the murders of Tanaka Marie and Tanaka Hana. You have the right to—”
Hiroki gripped the sides of his face, torn and dirtied fingernails digging into his skin. “It wasn’t me. I would never… I never.” The lawn furniture and potted plants placed about the roof acted as mute witnesses to the man’s pleas. Auri forced herself to remain detached, calm.
“Mr. Tanaka,” she soothed, taking a hesitant step forward, Birdie following. “I promise you will have the opportunity to plead your innocence in court.”
But even Auri knew the judge would find this man guilty. Her brief perusal of his case file on her flight over hadn’t uncovered any other suspects.
But now that she got a good look, his current state didn’t match the violent criminal she had imagined when Hillsdale transferred the file. Hiroki wore threadbare rags streaked with blood, both dried and recent. His right forearm bore a gouge along his barcode. Crimson oozing from the wound splattered the tiled rooftop. The effort to obliterate his identifying marker, an illegal action in itself, had been a waste because he hadn’t sliced deep enough. His nose and lip, cut from a fall on the escalator earlier in her chase, had stopped bleeding but left his face a gory mess.
How this man escaped Kaido and navigated Krugel’s Curve was beyond her.
“No, no, no,” Hiroki moaned, shaking his head. Sweat and oil-dampened hair clung to his forehead. Fear burned ho
“Don’t move!” Auri shouted. “Birdie, detain!” Her partner darted forward, cutting off Hiroki’s only escape: an entrance to the nearby skybridge, this one mercifully devoid of pedestrians.
Auri hefted her disc free from its holster across her back. At her touch, the weapon grew from plate-sized to tire-sized. A hazy ring of blue electricity buzzed across its rim, the disc set to stun. She tightened her grip on the rubber handle in the center. “Mr. Tanaka, come with me peacefully. Enough running. You’re only making things worse for yourself.” She took another step forward, nerves jangling in her stomach.
“They’ll kill me. They’ll put me in the dark.” He backed toward the edge of the roof, one hand squeezing the gaping wound over his barcode. Blood ran in rivulets over dirtied skin. “Attica chokes you, breaks you, and eats you whole.”
Auri resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the familiar phrase attached to the Federation’s notorious prison. She was too concerned about the ever-shrinking gap between Hiroki and the roof’s edge.
“No one is going to kill you,” she said.
Lie. The judgment for the atrocities Hiroki committed was death. But facing this man and his malnourished body, wrinkles around his mouth, and eyes lined with blood and grime, what else could she say?
“They should’ve killed me. Monsters hiding inside human flesh. Chomp, chomp, chomp.” Hiroki broke into a strangled, manic laugh. The heels of his worn geta, traditional Japanese sandals, scraped the tile. “Bit right through them, bones snapping. Gobbled them up.”
“Gobbled them up?” she repeated, shivering despite the heat. A copper tang tainted her mouth, and the world darkened at the edges. Faraway echoes of hungry snarls and terrified screams made her muscles tense. Pain burned deep in the socket of her right armpit where her robotic limb connected to muscle.
Birdie’s growl freed Auri from the clutches of the phantom cries. She tightened her grip on the disc, thankful her prosthetic hand couldn’t sweat. Hiroki stared at her, chapped lips slightly parted.
“They will come for us all,” he wheezed.
Auri shook her head, fighting the urge to retch. Her focus splintered between Hiroki and the strange hallucination she’d just had.
“Listen,” she began. “I don’t—” Hiroki straightened as if he’d reached a decision. “Wait!” She darted forward, her boots sliding on the smooth tile. “Stop!”
Hiroki took a step back into empty air. He appeared to hover as Auri ran, fighting against the viscosity of time to reach him.
She shouted his name, abandoning her disc as she leaned over the ledge, stretching out a hand. He was already too far. His eyes seemed to meet hers as he fell: limbs splayed, fingers curled. His lips moved, but Auri couldn’t hear him over the roaring in her ears and Birdie’s barking.
Hiroki hit the water roadway thirty floors below with a bone-breaking smack.
Two
09 Aug 3319, 16:42:56
Ancora Galaxy, Planet 04: Babbage, Expansion District
News drones zoomed overhead, controlled by cameramen back in cushy studios. No doubt the networks’ viewers would get a lovely picture of the hologram MPB line do not cross tape and the massive crowd gathered behind it. Policemen loitered about the sidewalk lined with blooming trees and iron benches, and a hover-boat dredged the canal in front of Auri…
Hunting for a broken body.
As Auri rushed down thirty floors after Hiroki’s suicide, passing boats had shoved the man’s body deeper into the canal system. She could’ve commissioned a gondola driver and retrieved the corpse herself, but that would’ve taken too long. Within hours, Hiroki’s body would drift out of the district’s canals into the darker waters between Babbage’s floating cities, anchored like enormous ships. Impossible to recover. For the sake of time, she had called in the local police. An embarrassing admission of incompetency in the hope of fixing things as best she could.
When Auri boarded her shuttle yesterday, she never imagined her first mission would end in such a spectacular failure. The eager excitement of seizing Hiroki and returning to her captain’s praise and Agent Hillsdale’s appreciation had bled away. Now she was trapped in a living, humid, media-filled nightmare.
But at least the officers around her seemed to be enjoying themselves. They chatted to the drones as the operators relayed questions through the machines’ tiny speakers. Those on the boat snacked on melting watermelon popsicles while a specially designed crane combed through the trash-lined bottom of Expansion District’s waterways.
Auri’s skin was covered in a slick sheen of sweat and murky water droplets, courtesy of the boat’s kickback spray. The DISC-mandated short-sleeved blouse and bow around her neck clung to her, revealing more than she thought appropriate with her vest unbuttoned. But she was too hot and too upset to put her coat back on or button the vest. Her body felt painfully small for her soul, the aching, squirming thing longing to curl in on itself and hide. What would Agent Hillsdale say when he found out? And the investigation to follow…
If it wasn’t for Birdie at her side, she might have submitted to her desire to run. Instead, she knotted her fingers into the soft white curls atop the dog’s head, hair cropped short per regulation.
“We’ve got something!” An officer clenching a popsicle stick between his molars leaned over the boat’s bow. The crane emerged, its three-pronged claws wrapped around an object, liquid streaming into the water below.
Yes, Auri thought, swallowing around the lump in her throat as a limp form was dropped onto the sidewalk a few meters away. Object is the correct term.
Hiroki’s corpse met the bare requirements of being called “human.” Chunks of flesh and extremities had been sliced away by passing propellers. His dark eyes remained whole, still open and staring.
Staring at her.
Hiroki’s words, his pleas for understanding, replayed in her mind: “It wasn’t me. I would never… I never.” Why would a man choose this fate over Attica? Over a painless, instant death?
Auri caught herself before she could ponder his proclaimed innocence further. The evidence in the case file was clear, and her emotional response would be pointless.
The drones surged forward, snatching close-ups of the massacred corpse. Auri released Birdie, scrunching her hands into fists. She could almost hear the newscasters’ commentary as the live footage played: “We warn you that this video contains graphic content that may be disturbing for some viewers.” And all the viewers at home, instead of changing the stream, would lean forward, intrigued.
Small faces peered at her from the crowd, children sneaking peeks around their parents’ legs. One little girl with dark skin, hair a beautiful halo around her head, waved at Auri excitedly, as if the whole situation was such fun. The parents seemed too preoccupied trying to see what the crane dredged from the canal’s depths to think that the sight might not be appropriate for their children.
“Thank you!” Auri shouted to the officers who clustered around the body. She was barely loud enough to be heard over the crowd and drone of the motor. “I’ll take it from here.” She yanked her uniform coat off the bench where she’d draped it and shouldered her way through the gawkers. She gently spread it over Hiroki’s corpse. The jacket’s tails were long enough and the man’s body small enough that his entire form was covered, except for the bloated, discolored tips of his toes.
