A City Dreaming

Book 3: Astra Black

by Maurice Broaddus

Genres: Colonization; Space Exploration

Synopsis

The third and final book in a trilogy where the futuristic technology of Black Panther meets the scale of The Expanse and the intricate political maneuverings of Game of Thrones.

“Not to be missed.”—Washington Post on Sweep of Stars

Maurice Broaddus returns with A City Dreaming, the third book in his Astra Black trilogy, which explores the struggles of an empire. Epic in scope and intimate in voice, it follows members of the Muungano Empire—a far-reaching coalition of city-states that stretches from Earth to Titan and beyond—as it faces renewed threats to its progress.

We received a signal. Everything has changed.
The Interstellar Alliance are coming.

A new empire approaches and the Muungano, already facing foes much closer to home, will have to contend with what it means for their future. Across the solar system, from Earth to Mars and Titan, beyond the Orun Gate, and across time and space itself a battle will rage.

Their soldiers, scientists, diplomats and leaders will all have a role to play if their empire is to live on.

The Astra Black series:
Sweep of Stars
Breath of Oblivion
A City Dreaming

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Release date: March 31, 2026

Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

Print pages: 592

Sample

EPYC RO MORGAN

Beyond the Orun Gate

“We regroup. And once we’re ready, we take the fight back to the Interstellar Alliance… and finish what they started.” Epyc Ro stared into the blackness of her view port. So many stars, so much potential. She chewed on her lower lip. Her crew had to adjust. Learn who they were and what they were going to be about. They had to mourn. They had to heal. It would be a long, difficult journey.

“It’s gone.” As she monitored the incoming reports, Epyc Ro stood behind her seat on the command deck. She churned her new title, “captain,” over in her mind. The responsibility of leading their newly christened Reapers weighed heavy on her shoulders. Rank meant more when they were gbeto in the HOVA.

The Reapers were in a state of transition, from HOVA gbeto to what she wasn’t sure. This was a new journey for all of them, and they’d already been through so much. Their mission started as a military drop onto an uncharted world. Followed by military skirmishes, a first-contact scenario with the Mzisoh, and the loss of the squad’s captain, Fela Buhari. No, that cleaned up the circumstances to something nearly clinically pristine. The brutal and public decapitation of their leader, their friend, left the entire unit scraped and raw. And angry. They fought to escape their captors only to discover the remains of the Orun Gate, their only way home, destroyed.

“What is?” Having forgotten that their commlinks were active, Epyc Ro turned to see Robin Townsend picking out her Afro puffs. It was the first time she’d had an opportunity to tend to her hair in days. The look in her eye declared she was ready to stab someone for some shea butter.

“The Orun Gate. All of it. There’s barely any debris left from it.”

The HOVA was Muungano’s specialized defensive regiments, both shield and spear. The elite warrior protectorate, the closest Muungano kept to a standing military. As HOVA, they were more of a community within the community, their own cohort within the Muungano space. Believing that they had failed that mission, her unit renounced their office, now calling themselves the Reapers. The memory of hierarchy remained, and they still looked to her for leadership.

<Residual energy signatures are all over the place.> Chandra Elle monitored the scans. She rarely spoke. Becoming a member of the HOVA was akin to becoming a living sacrifice. The majority overwhelmingly women, they underwent genetic modification. Sometimes, like with Chandra, cybernetic enhancements also. She possessed a neurological Maya implant; a portion of her brain stem had been excised to accommodate it. Bioplastic covered parts of her skull and cheek. She had been modified to be a living radio, a way for Command to relay orders to them. But now there was no Command in her ears. Only her and Maya. The other Reapers could only wonder what the conversations in her head might be like. <Weapons discharge. Military class.>

“Could it have overwhelmed the gate? Created a, I don’t know, feedback cascade?” Epyc Ro asked.

<Uncertain.>

“How’s the ship?” Epyc Ro remained in vigilant appraisal of their commandeered vessel. It bore an insignia, but no name. Though the ship was little bigger than a kraal, the command deck was a largely open space with two stations near the front about the size of a rondavel. The vaulted ceiling streamed with lights, the material of each rafter a translucent metal that refracted the beams into kaleidoscopic art. Each of the twin piloting helm stations were partially sunken into the dock and partially enclosed in a bulbous partition leaving her team determined to refer to it as the cockpit. The antechamber on the other side of the octagonal entryway served as a meeting alcove.

“I’m still trying to figure out the rest of the controls.” Robin took her station at navcom.

“I hope you aren’t over there just pushing buttons,” Epyc Ro said.

“Do I look like Anitra?” The controls responded to her gestures; hard light structures moved like funkentelechy-controlled nanobots. “Comms. Transmitter. Receiver. Sensor array. Some sort of quantum slipstream engine.”

“Slipstream? I thought that was just theoretical.”

“Not according to these readings.”

“That’s…” Epyc Ro’s voice trailed off as she gestured toward the screen of the body of the ship. Enlarging the image, two figures bobbed near the surface of the hull in EVM navsuits. Their biomech suits acted as a sort of mechanical membrane partitioning them from the world, shielding them from the environment. Each suit had a built-in air-filtration unit as well as servos in the limbs to aid with movements. It filtered sound through its receivers, the noise of which became muted when navcom channels engaged. The world appeared to them along their visor, scanned and digitized, the telemetry beamed back to Command. “What are they up to?” ...