Breath of Oblivion

Book 2: Astra Black

by Maurice Broaddus

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Maurice Broaddus's Breath of Oblivion is the second in a trilogy that 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 O.E. (original earth) to Titan – as it faces an escalating series of threats...

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

Release date: November 12, 2024

Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

Print pages: 592

Sample

01EPYC RO MORGANBeyond 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?”

“Painting over the insignia on the ship,” Robin said.

“What?” she asked, but waved herself off. “Never mind. I’d ask who authorized that but…”

“Anitra.”

“Dare I ask why?”

“So that anyone we encounter knows who they’re dealing with now!” Anitra Gouvei shouted. Unadulterated joy fueled the bombast of her voice. She reveled in life, whatever it might look like, taking it on her terms. It was what made her so devasting as a gbeto: she fought for her sisters, she fought for life. So painting the letters L.H.S.—Life, Health, Strength—on their ship made perfect sense.

“Who?”

“The aliens.” Anitra said to Ellis, “No offense.”

“Am I supposed to be offended?” Ellis!Olinger asked. Muungano scientists had designated the first habitable world on this side of the Orun Gate Eshu. But Ellis’s people, the Mzisoh, did not distinguish themselves from the planet. After the HOVA secured their people and dispatched the agents of CO/IN—the Interstellar Alliance’s version of the HOVA—who had been terrorizing them, Ellis opted to travel with the (now) Reapers in the hope of bringing the war to the CO/IN.

“Not yet,” Robin warned. “Brace yourself, she’s just getting warmed up.”

“We’re out in the home territory of the aliens. I’m not down for any anal-probe nonsense either,” Anitra said.

“Literally we are the aliens in this scenario,” Robin reminded.

“No. Butt. Stuff.” Anitra shook her head and batted away the imaginary probes.

“You a daggone fool, you know that, right?” Robin shook her head. “Although, Captain, I hesitate to say this, but Anitra raises a good point.”

“I done told them…,” Anitra echoed.

“Let me rephrase that: Anitra has inadvertently stumbled into a notion we should discuss further.”

“What’s that?” Epyc Ro asked.

“Our first-contact protocols.” A spoken-word artist in her former life, Robin could have been anything—a Master Teacher at the Thmei Academy, a ranked battle poet, or a member of the Griot Circle—with her skills.

“Everyone, let’s convene in the command deck in ten minutes.” Epyc Ro clasped her hands behind her, with neither a shrug nor a sigh, content that her team were adapting, even embracing their new adventure. They were their own, often wandering, village. They were always home as long as they had their sisters.

More an odd, metallic blue, the corridors were lit by vaguely blue light drowning the ship’s palette in something sterile and cold. There wasn’t a lot of ship to explore, but just enough to get lost in. Not a military vehicle, it retained a bulkiness that brought to mind a cargo vessel of some sort. As she wandered, Epyc Ro found that she missed gardens. Her time on research-level starships exposed her to Green Zones, but she missed the planetside feel of grass beneath her feet. The sense of peace that accompanied communing with nature.

Peace seemed like such a faraway memory.

Shoulders back, spine straight, her proud bearing owning any space she entered, Robin accompanied her to the meeting alcove. With her huge heart, being a gbeto did not come naturally to Robin. It didn’t mean she wasn’t good at it, just that Epyc Ro worried about her. She finished cleaning her talon, Busta, and with a flourish set it on the table before her. Inspecting her weapon with a meditative soberness, she decided to stow it in the series of translucent ribs along the wall she improvised into a weapons rack. She was an experienced gbeto, a sergeant in the HOVA. When the need required, she could set aside her emotions to perform her duty. When the need passed, she felt every bit of them. That practice kept her human.

Chandra was the next to join. When she removed her headgear, her white mohawk slumped to the side. Her eyes always stared toward the distance, but were also glazed with exhaustion. She’d probably seen more action than any other member of the Reapers. Though her military record stretched back decades, the campaigns and missions she was a part of were Code Black / Eyes Only.

Anitra tromped in, the last of the original HOVA Hellfighters that comprised their unit. Her sniper expertise was unmatched even among the HOVA. Her modified talon, a DMX-3000—more a tactical weapon—was a mess. Banged up, earth clogged, scarred, it would take a while to properly clean. Spying Robin’s talon, she slung hers onto the table in front of her. Within easy reach. Noting the silence, she uncharacteristically remained quiet.

Ellis!Olinger nipped at her heels. They had the physique of a champion pyramid player. Strong. Patient. Cooperative. Dedicated. Persistent.

Epyc Ro finished her assessment of her people. For now.

“All right, we all here.” Anitra sidled next to Epyc Ro. “Why don’t you continue to school everyone here on my good point.”

“Lawd,” Robin said. “I regret all of my words.”

“As members of Muungano, the HOVA were entrusted with training to handle first contact with indigenous people.” Epyc Ro circled the room, meeting each of their eyes. “We have to determine what interacting with new cultures means for what’s left of the Muungano way.”

“Real, proper-ass aliens,” Anitra said.

“Again…,” Robin began, but shook her head, not wanting to rise to her baiting. “We’ve all had cultural engagement and diplomatic training.”

“But we were dispatched as gbeto, not diplomats. With our weapons, we send the wrong message in terms of building bridges and how we want to exchange ideas,” Epyc Ro said.

“What are you saying?”

“It’s easy to believe, given, you know, all of history, that humans are wired to not like folks who don’t look like them. It’s too easy to lean into that default. I suggest that we need to adapt our protocols given the change in our … military parameters.”

“Yeah, now that we’re space pirates, not gbeto,” Anitra said.

“We’re not…” Robin waved her off again. “So what do you imagine?”

“You and Chandra take point. You because of your extensive studies in cultural analysis. Chandra because of her Maya database.”

“Let’s not overthink it,” Anitra said. “I figure first-contact protocols is like figuring out who to invite to the cookout.”

“It better not be like that because I’m a longtime advocate of us needing to keep the invite energy to ourselves, because it’s rarely reciprocated,” Robin said. “Besides, do we trust their cookouts?”

“Hell nah. That’s what I’m saying. First contact is only a couple steps away from how raisins end up in our potato salad.” Anitra initiated her DMX’s self-maintenance protocols. “We need trusted spaces to be able to talk shit about folks. Most importantly, I’m not trying to share my to-go plate. Cookout meat is a precious sacrament of family, not meant to be shared casually with colonizers, gentrifiers, and fans of Dave Matthews.”

Anitra was part of the neonik generation. They loved the late-twenty-first-century era, referring to their throwback culture as the Remember Revolution. While the philosophical intent was to never forget tragedies of O.E. oppression, functionally it boiled down to them using older slang and references.

Robin glided toward Ellis in commiseration. “We want to just get out of her way when she’s in the full throes of that LVE.”

“Do I even want to know what that means?” Epyc Ro asked.

“Loud vagina energy.” Anitra plunked her clean DMX onto the weapons rack. “Let’s set our protocols to ‘minding our own weusi-ass business’ and see how far that gets us.”

“Anyone check out the ship’s stores? I’m hungry,” Ellis said.

Chandra projected a holovid of the schematics of the ship. <Standard amenities. Protein synthesizers. Shower bay. Limited fashioning capabilities.>

“You had me at showers. I’m stowing my gear unless y’all planning on getting into a space skirmish in the next hour. I’m not coming out until I feel completely human again.” Robin stashed her EVM and other gear out of discipline, but stripped out of habit, without consideration of Ellis’s presence in the room. Shame didn’t accompany nudity for Muungano members.

Ellis canted their head in a manner filled with mild curiosity, more innocent wonder than anything else. Their gaze lingered at the string of beads girding her belly. “What are those?”

“My HOVA elekes,” Robin said. “Part of our uniform, I suppose. We receive them when we become official gbeto.”

“Do I get one?” Ellis asked.

“Do you know what I had to do to earn these?” A sniff of offense accompanied Robin’s tone.

“When will I have done enough?” Ellis had picked up a weapon and fought alongside them, but they were still thought of more as an armed civilian. And each of the Reapers found it difficult to relate to people of the civilian world.

“Oh, trust me, someone will let you know.” Transparent as ever, she didn’t want the Mzisoh to further inquire. The Reaper rituals were for them, defined them, and they hadn’t discussed what introducing an outsider to them might look like. “You okay, Captain?”

“I’m … assessing,” Epyc Ro said.

“Assessing what?” Ellis asked.

“I don’t know yet.” Epyc Ro also wondered how they would maintain Muungano culture now that they’d been cut off from it. She lacked the words to explain what churned within her or what her emi searched for. Not knowing where to direct their energies next, she feared her people might lapse into depression and anxiety. Feeling numb. She remained alert for anyone beginning to isolate themselves, ceasing to do the things they loved to do, or diverging from their usual routine. Though there was nothing usual about where they now found themselves. “If you’ll excuse me…”

Epyc Ro longed for the luxury of a walkabout. A journey to clear her emi. So much of her preparation to transition to a HOVA gbeto involved pain. The ritual they all underwent opened with a communion drink. A mixture of sacred fruit, herbs, and a tincture of her blood blended into the initial retrovirus cocktail. Most folks rarely discussed the sense of dysphoria that accompanied the early phases, post-transition. One of the reasons why gbeto were so dominated by women was that they adjusted better to the mitochondrial insertion and other genetic modifications. Honestly, she hadn’t understood all the changes made to her or even considered all of the implications of her transition. All the genomic and cellular modifications, including her cells possessing dual mitochondria, led to her body’s ability to rapidly detoxify reactive oxygen species and other cellular wastes. She was faster, stronger, and her endurance lasted longer. She aged slower and healed quicker. After the transition, her gbeto sisters performed a scarification on her thigh: a welcoming ritual of carving signs and symbols into her evoking strength and protection. They had to be done soon after the initial treatment because after that, her enhanced cellular regeneration would erase all scars as she healed.

The cost of the procedure required them to separate from the Muungano people. This program teetered too close to the cliff of eugenics, a hypocrisy the Muungano leadership admitted to but couldn’t always face, especially living alongside gbeto in day-to-day community. The HOVA forged a new society, their like-minded members sworn to protect and guard their people.

That was so long ago.

The existential ache Epyc Ro experienced spilled all over her sabhu, threatened to consume her. Longing for her passion to return, she wanted to feel again. Part of her had forgotten itself, how to draw people in, how to create and live within a sense of belonging. She needed to discover the things that would make her happy. Tracing her scarification with her finger, she idly wondered what the barrel of her talon tasted like. What the energy pulse blasting through her skull might feel like. If an eternal quiet might still the voices and bring her peace.

With an interrupting cough, Robin framed herself in the octagonal entranceway. She’d fashioned her nanomesh into a loose kanzu with textured pants.

“That shower didn’t take long,” Epyc Ro remarked, somewhat irritated at the disruption.

“I rushed back to my humanity faster than I thought I would.” Robin sauntered over. “You good?”

“Yeah, why?” Epyc Ro asked.

“You just don’t seem all there.”

“Just have a lot on my mind.”

“Uh-huh. That might fly with the others, but not with me. Never with me. My love is consistent, persistent, and…”

“Insistent?” Epyc Ro forced a thin smile. “I thought you were going for a rhyming thing.”

“I wasn’t sure either. I was leaning toward ‘knowing.’” Robin peered, a penetrating gaze into her emi; deep and aware, yet without intrusion. There wasn’t much room for hiding from it.

“I’m afraid.”

“I ain’t never seen anything close to fear from you.”

“It’s about what sort of things I’ll have to leave behind, to be who I need to be in this new situation.” Epyc Ro ran her hand along the storage compartment above her.

“The unknown is a risk. Chaos is an opportunity. We adapt and trust in the process. I’m excited to see the you, the any of us, that emerges.”

“I … don’t know who I am.” Epyc Ro avoided her friend’s eyes.

“The HOVA was a role, a uniform, not who you were. You are a Muungano member no matter where you go. Right now, you are simply free of the duties and obligations others had for you. That said, being a leader is also part of who you are. I wonder if it’s about trying to figure out not who you are, but rather how you can be true to that without other people telling you.” Robin’s hand fell on her shoulder in a reassuring clasp.

“I think part of my struggle is figuring out who I’m supposed to be next.”

“Anitra found her answer.”

“I’m not sure if I’m ready to become a space pirate.”

“Me either, but we’ll figure it out. There’re too many things left in life for us to do.”

“It’s all right.”

“What is?”

“To cry. To yell. To do whatever it takes to lift that burden from you.” Robin’s huge, tough, easily wounded heart betrayed her again. Epyc Ro knew that many nights her lieutenant wept, not out of fear, but to mourn all the lost lives and wasted efforts of their wartime activities. “A ritual of renewal,” she called it. “Don’t let it overtake you. Share your load. We all can help carry it. Closure is a myth. Heal and live, sis.”


Copyright © 2024 by Maurice Broaddus