Derin Edala

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23: Execution

The ship proximity alarm went off. Something was approaching. We’d been expecting it for days. At least I figured it was days. Tension had long ago fucked up my sleep cycle. If it was the military, we’d have no hope against them. We’d have no choice but to flee, in our wrecked ship under hastily repaired shields.

I should be happy, right? This was the plan, right? If I survived, I’d be going home.

“How long do we have?” I asked Glath. He was in his human form, sitting ...

Wandering Star 13: Smon's Earth

Well, there’s one way to get more details on Smon – ask Smon. Smon had certainly wanted some time alone when she’d left, so rushing over to her egg (not egg… cart?) immediately is probably not a great idea. She returns to the hive to pass the time doing some work instead, heading underground to help reinforce the newly repaired tunnels. Once she gets done chewing mortar, she heads to the trade shed to consult the map there.

The trade shed is not connected to the main hive. There...

Wandering Star 12: Baby Blues

Smon is fascinated by the communication tower. As the pair approach the hive, she points up at it. “You see other star from there?”

“Stargazers see stars from up there, yes.”

“Stargazers.”

“Men, with job to see stars. We see some stars from ground. Easier to see from up there, up high, with men eyes.”

“Job.”

Tyk hesitates. How to explain the word ‘job’? “Job. Make or move or do for hive.” She indicates some of the women hauling dirt ou...

22: Plans

Follow my logic.

We had two systems of superlightspeed travel at our disposal. Neither could be used until we’d finished dealing with the shielding issue, but that was fine. Blue dashing we used quite often, to outrun things; it gave us little bursts of distance, and was fairly safe when the shields were working. Green dashing was dangerous and would bring the military right to us, so it was pretty useless as a flight mechanism unless things were really, really bad. The military could...

Wandering Star 11: Star Farms

The pair stare awkwardly at each other. Silence stretches, and Tyk realises that neither of them are really sure how to interact. There’s absolutely no way that Tyk would risk biting or shoving anyone with a fragile newborn boy in their care, and absolutely no way that Ayan, mindful of Keyan, would risk pushing Tyk that far. So they just kind of look at each other.

“Ayan,” Tyk says.

“Tyk,” Ayan says.

“Blessings be on Keyan,” Tyk says, which is a fairly standard...

21: Anticipation

The first thing I figured I should do was find out how far away from home I was. This turned out to be a lot harder than you’d think. For one thing, the map was pretty zoomed out, and I hadn’t been intending to film it at all so I didn’t have the clearest shot. The star maps could be zoomed in on, but the three seconds of footage I had wasn’t. For another, the map wasn’t built with the assumption that people would be using the stars to navigate; the stars were background terrain beh...

Wandering Star 10: Redstone River Hive

Explaining to Smon that she wants her to come on a small walk to see many people isn’t difficult. Smon dashes into her egg and returns almost immediately with a small bundle of silk containing… objects of some kind, Tyk supposes. She can’t see inside. She supposes that she’ll find out what Smon has when Smon uses it. Probably food. Smon takes the time to close up the hole in her egg and do something to the water tank before following Tyk off towards the Redstone River Hive.

The ...

20: The game of lies

I resisted the urge to pull the laptop apart again to find out which way the current was supposed to go, because I already knew it wouldn’t tell me. Why would it? Instead I spent a couple of days, or at least I assume I did as I didn’t have any active clocks, doing repairs to various ship systems and losing at Chinese Checkers to the ketestri. When I got bored of losing, I taught them draughts, and lost at that instead. We weren’t making any headway in terms of general communication but...

Wandering Star 9: Jaws and Arms

“Claws,” Smon corrects. “Arms, claws.”

Tyk considers this information. She has seen Smon put food in her mouth with said ‘claws’, but for a creature without mandibles, that would be expected. No; that’s not the problem with Smon’s assertion. The problem with Smon’s assertion is the frankly horrifying things it says about her already horrifying body structure.

Tyk has a very average sort of face. Her horns are prominent but not prominent enough to completely overs...

19: A failure of imagination

Queen Tatik paced restlessly. This rogue Princess nonsense was getting out of hand. She should be well into consolidating more of the outlying regions of the Empire by now; there were several minor planets near the edge of her territory that contained valuable biological materials that would be very easily slaughtered with a short war, and others ideal for forcing into the gas mines which had been lagging in production lately, but she couldn’t pull together and initiate said war while the P...

Wandering Star 8: Men, Women, Stars

Such a journey, with such company, is not a quick or easy thing to arrange. The hive isn’t going to simply send two children off towards the Northeast and pray for the best. There’s a whole caravan to arrange, of escorts and guards and scouts and doctors and haulers for the supplies to feed them all. There’s a question of weather; if they leave too soon, they’ll be racing the wet season, pushing to cross all the major rivers and plains before the rains swell them with mud and water. I...

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18: We can only try

Judging by how many photos and videos Charlie took on the Stardancer, I had expected her to have more footage of human voices from before she joined the crew. She didn’t; it was just the one birthday video. I watched it. The video wasn’t surprising; I had read enough of the human birthday ritual to understand each component and its function. I expected the cake, covered in fire for the man to extinguish. I expected the chant and the clapping and the exchange of token items concealed under...

Wandering Star 7: The Hiveheart

Different hives construct their hiveheart differently, but the Redstone River Hive’s heart is fairly average, so far as Tyk is aware. It’s made up of fourteen people, which is a little on the low side for its size but not markedly so, and the membership are a mix of those who gained their rank via mastery in some hive-critical duty that the hiveheart needs to consider regularly, and those who gained their rank by support of the people. Hetta is the former, a member by virtue of her unques...

17: Alive, apparently

I sat in the driver’s seat of my trusty little car, brushing a stray floating camera lens out of the way to get a better look at Kate, who was sulking. Actually sulking, arms crossed, slumped forward, pouting. Everything.

“I’m sorry I got abducted and left you behind to raise a couple of orphans,” I sighed.

“Aliens aren’t your fault,” she mumbled.

“I’m glad we agree then.”

“Know what is your fault, though, dear little sister?” She glared at me. ...

Wandering Star 6: A Destiny Forged

For several seconds, nobody moves.

“Oh, come on!” Tyk ducks around her mother and heads for the egg. “She’s not going to hurt you. She’s just a baby. See?” She marches right up to Smon before her mother can grab her and sticks her head between Smon’s mandibles to make her point. Smon, of course, does not try to eat her.

That seems to be enough for the hive as a whole, who surge forward, chattering.

“That egg is huge!”

“Has this happened before? Does...

16: Blatant disrespect for the electromagnetic spectrum

Ugh. The last time I was this hungover I woke up without eyebrows. I’d fucked up the calculations somewhere. Or just drank way more than I thought.

Since it was simple arithmetic and I was supposed to be keeping a spaceship running, I really hoped it was the latter possibility. Next time, chase drinks with clean water. Guh.

I opened my eyes. It was pleasantly dark. Somebody had disabled my timed lighting system and turned the lights down very low, to the point where I could bare...

Wandering Star 5: The Echo Stone

Smon steps back out of the egg. Kesan immediately hovers, clearly wanting to retreat but refusing to leave his daughter alone. Smon stops, stares at him a moment, repeats that mandibles-up gesture of hers, and retreats slowly back into the egg, watching Kesan settle back onto Tyk’s horns.

“I have to report this,” Kesan says. “Precious, you should go back to the hive. Or retreat to the river, at least.”

“I’m not a child,” Tyk grumbles, childishly.

“You are, ...

15: Hold my beer

The problem with space is that there’s a limited supply of everything.

Not that we’re necessarily short on things. Just limited. Everything has to be recycled – water, air, organics. Recycling efficiency is time; any loss puts a limit on how long before you need to dock with a ship or a port to resupply. We couldn’t afford to resupply often. We had the Faceless Queen gripping our wings so hard it was about ready to rip us through two stages without even seeding a tree. My goal w...

Wandering Star 4: A Star Is Born

She’s the ugliest thing that Tyk has ever seen.

Tyk was right to be concerned that the early hatching might indicate problems. The larval star that stumbles out is similar to a person in some ways and different in others; she’s much darker in colour than a normal baby, but her flesh looks about the right texture, soft and puffy and waiting for a carapace to grow in properly. She’s enormous, as one would expect of a god, her head a good three times higher off the ground than Tyk’...

14: This is my crew

I told myself that I could afford the luxury of feeling sorry for myself while my body finished healing, and then it was right back to work on Project: Get Home. In actual fact I didn’t even have that long, because the thing about trying to heal from multiple injuries of unknown severity without a doctor around is that you kind of have to doctor yourself. There seemed to be no obvious lasting effects from the drake toxin, which was a bonus. It might be secretly killing my liver or something...

Wandering Star 3: A Simple Walk

The hum of dozens of wings wakes Tyk. It takes her a moment to remember why she’s outside and why the sky is full of men. Right; the tremor. Ayan.

Most of the men flock, of course, to Ayan, fussing over the new layer and assuring her that her mother and her friends are on their way, but three peel off to land on Tyk. With Kedahm are Kesan and Kepol, her father and half-father.

“Your mother’s on her way,” Kesan says, checking over his daughter carefully. “Are you alright?...

13: A call into the void

Turns out being a space pirate sucks.

Sitting there alone on the floor of my ring, naked and in pain that was only becoming more distracting as the flesh-sewing endorphins wore off, I tallied up all the various ways that my life was in immediate probable danger, and that I couldn’t do all that much about.

Infection was probably a big one. Also, potential internal injuries.

The drake venom. I seemed to have mostly recovered from that, unless the overall weakness and fatigue...

Wandering Star 2: Escape Route

Tyk feels her body slow down in automatic response to the dirt pressing in on all sides. There’s no particular danger in their situation, she knows; she’s been buried before, as a training exercise, and knows perfectly well that there’s enough oxygen in the soil for them to dig their way out if they’re calm and careful. Even if they run out, they’ll simply go into emergency hibernation, and the rest of the hive will dig them out and revive them soon enough. Bette knows where they ar...

Wandering Star 1: Rotting Rhizomes

You’re not supposed to do it, of course, but it’s not unheard of for parents to try to ensure good destinies for their daughters by timing their conception carefully. Most hatchings take place under somewhat clear skies, so the gods that bear witness to the young larvae and claim them for their paths are stars. And stars are notoriously regular in their habits, for the most part; if you want a sturdy and caring daughter born under Zimma, or a strong leader under Yorlu, then it’s all a m...

12: Trust

I had thought, hoped, for a little while, that Charlie might be immune to the drake toxin. It had held up remarkably well for far longer than anybody should with just one sting in them, let alone several. But after making its final declaration on the fate of the very drakes that had killed it, it finally collapsed.

The atil carried the body back to Charlie’s ring in the ship while I shifted my form to translate between our crew and the merchant drakes. The atil had already cleared out...

183: LAUNCH

It’s movie night.

It’s a very special movie night. A half-day marathon of all of my favourites, one year since our return to the Courageous, and the three hundred strong population of the ship necessitate the use of a proper projector to make sure that everyone can see the movie. Dandelion sits next to me, a nervous tension in her shoulders; more nervous, I think, than me. We’re both experienced with using the radio implants now, and as the heroes of Dawn of the Dead<...