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Warp Riders – Chapter 5

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The Engineer was a helpful person at heart; she just, often, found herself worn out by the disinterest – honestly the ignorance – of everyone else regarding the inner workings of the equipment that kept them all alive.

That day, as she lay on her side in her tent smelling fresh coffee, she was building a radio.

She’d done the trek to the ship with the Bosun at low tide, under the heat of the green sun, and returned at a run with two clanking bags full of scrap parts from the upper store room, all mercifully dry, and a soldering iron she was going to hook up to their solar battery.

And, not that anyone asked, but the Engineer had also rebuilt the solar battery, so that it would work efficiently with the green sunlight. And she and the Stowaway had taken the camp stove apart and put it back together twice already, as they’d sourced new materials to combust.

She had a few radios in mind; one to communicate short range, so one person could work on the ship repairs and another could stand atop a hill and watch for the tide. Another broader, more sensitive receiver, to scan the system for noise.

And a third radio-like tool that she was particularly proud of, that would connect wirelessly to the ship’s research computer, where she had, before the crash, been building an ingenious translation software that she was confident would unlock the words of the Stowaway.

The Captain liked them all to have formal roles on the crew, but the Engineer had taken to thinking of the Stowaway in less rigid terms, referring to them as “kid” and “short stuff” and mostly, while they collaborated, “hey you.” It’d be nice, she thought, to learn their name.

The most delicious part of the communication puzzle, to her, was that the Stowaway clearly understood everything they said, or wrote, or typed. The kid was an active listener, and they followed instructions perfectly. She even caught them reading the waterlogged battery manual.

So, in her engineering mind, she pondered the similarities between the physical locks on the ship doors, and the linguistic lock on the Stowaway’s words, and the strange, locked-in-place feeling of being immersed in the flow of time again. Maybe she just needed a new kind of key.

Warp Riders – Chapter 4

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The smell of coffee brought the Captain out of her tent as the green sun set. The Bosun and the Stowaway were working in quiet organization around the makeshift stove, and the Navigatrix was pouring herself a mug. No Engineer yet; her sleep cycle seemed to be slightly different.

No one was wearing their uniforms properly anymore. The Bosun had stripped down to her work tank; the Navigatrix had abandoned the ceremonial cape and gauntlets. The Captain would have worn hers, but evacuating the ship had cost her most of a sleeve.

The green light had an uncanny effect on the Navigatrix’s copper hair; sometimes it almost looked black in the light. The Captain thought it gave her a bit of an occult air; pale face and dark hair and those long, long limbs.

She was kneeling as she added spices to her coffee, and when she looked up and caught the Captain’s eye, she shot a wry half-smile through the haze of the stove.

“Guess who just finished the pot.”
“First time you’re awake before me and this is the shit you pull.”

She made her way over to join the Captain, and gestured with her cup.

“Want a sip?”

“The way you spice it? I can smell it just fine from over here.” Cinnamon and cloves, pepper and a pinch of salt and something sweet. “Impressed you got the Bosun to rescue your spice rack.”

“Got her to grab my best mug last night, too.” The Navigatrix nudged the Captain with her foot and proudly showed her the faded logo.

“Navigatrix, you piece of shit.”

The compass rose, sword and skull were all there, framing the cafe name, “Pirate’s Cove”, in melodramatic pink.

“That’s a fucking latte mug from the cafe on Ereb.”
“Oh, it might be!”
“This is when you tell me that you stole a shitty mug -”
“- well, now -”
“- from a cheesy theme cafe -”
“- okay, but -”
“- on the last planet we got arrested on?”

She winked. “You know I love a keepsake.”

The Navigatrix had never been the most straightforward person – folks who read star charts rarely were – but after they’d found the Orb, she’d become fully enigmatic.

The Captain hadn’t had this banal a conversation with her in, well, since they’d first left time. She didn’t trust it.

“I guess I’m glad you still found time to plot a route out of there, in between your thievery and cafe patronage.” The Captain felt herself getting angry. “Let me know when you make any headway on figuring out this novelty-tchotchke-free moon.”

But the Navigatrix never seemed up for a fight when the Captain wanted one, and she nodded as if that was a reasonable thing to say.

“You know, it’s a refreshing challenge, using analogue methods to locate us, both galactically and temporally. The light does complicate it.”

They both turned to watch planetrise, and watched a flock of aerial creatures scatter as the pink rays brought colour back to the landscape.

The Captain tilted her head back, trying to find the darkest part of the sky; between sun and planet, not a single star was visible.

“Talk to the Engineer. Get your equipment up and running. We need to know when we are.”

Warp Riders – Chapter 3

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The Stowaway had shown up after their last gig. The four of them had fled back to the ship after things had gone sideways. They’d quickly battened the hatches and dropped through the warp, back out of time, and it was only afterwards they noticed them hiding in Lucy’s old bunk.

They weren’t a crew that got stowaways; the Engineer had set up very fiddly locking systems on all the doors of the ship, the sort that took a whole choreography of twists and turns to unlatch. So the first thing the Captain asked their guest was how the hell they’d gotten in.

But the Stowaway didn’t tell her. Couldn’t, maybe.

They opened their mouth and made noises, but not noises anyone thought of as, say, words. Noises that kind of slid in one ear and out the other, warped and slippery, without leaving any meaning behind whatsoever.

So the Engineer got them a keyboard to type on, and they frowned and made a good effort, clicked all the keys, and hissed audibly as the screen filled with punctuation and numbers, continuing to add more for a few seconds even after they raised their hands.

So the Bosun pulled out her personal notepad, tore off a sheet, and handed an analogue pen to the Stowaway. They all gathered round and watched as their guest wrestled with the pen, sweating and huffing, failing to make it put anything on the page that resembled a word.

At which point, the Navigatrix threw her hands in the air and called it futile, and they left the Stowaway in Lucy’s old bunk, locked the door, and spent another hour arguing as a crew over whether it was worth the risk to drop back into time immediately and kick them off.

In the end, they hadn’t really gotten around to it, was the thing.

There was always a lot to do between gigs, even without the pressure of time weighing on them. The ship needed repairs, their equipment had to be patched up, and this time, so did the crew themselves.

It didn’t take long for the Bosun to talk the Captain into unlocking the bunk and putting the Stowaway to work in the kitchen; and now it felt almost like they’d always been there, in their terrestrial outfit, silently doing odd jobs in all the quiet corners of the ship.

That was the thing about living outside time; it was hard to be sure of duration. 

Warp Riders – Chapter 2

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They agreed after the second or third cycle that the green sunlight was awful, and most of the crew took to sleeping during the sunlit parts of the day, and puttering around in the planet-lit dusk.

On the fourth night, as the dusk brightened on the horizon and the rest of the crew were filing into their mercifully dark tents, the Navigatrix pulled the Captain aside. She gestured with her eyes to the Stowaway, who was dusting themselves off fastidiously before going to bed.

“Have you made any progress on talking to them yet?”

The Captain frowned. “No.”

“When were you thinking of figuring that out?”

“I wasn’t. I’m busy.”

They were standing on the edge of the high plateau, and the Captain watched the tide pull the lake water away from them.

She had been flying with the Navigatrix for years before they left time; they used to work so well together. But now the Navigatrix had this … this pitying look on her face, and it was getting on the Captain’s nerves.

“You don’t seem to be doing that much,” she said gently, her eyebrows tightening a bit. It was infuriating.

“Well, no, I can’t, can I? Because someone crashed my ship on this damp moon while I did a routine computer reset!”

The Navigatrix did not have the grace to look at all guilty. And, to be fair, none of them knew how things had gone this wrong; they’d been safely outside time.

“Well, Captain, it seems somewhat urgent that you prioritize communicating with our quiet friend.” The Navigatrix paused, and leaned down and put her hand on the Captain’s shoulder. “I think they may know more about this whole debacle than we guessed.”

The Captain didn’t sleep after that; she just stared at the seam of her tent as it leaked green sunlight.

Serializing a new story!

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I’ve started posting chapters from a pulpy sci-fi adventure novella, tentatively titled Warp Riders!

I wrote this story live on twitter in November 2021, and I am so glad I did! It was so much fun to write this motley selection of queer space pirates; I felt like I was getting to know them along with everyone who was reading as I wrote. I did make my fair share of typos and awkward run-on sentences as such, though, so I’ve taken the novella and done a quick editing pass myself before sharing it here with you!

I was aiming for the same vibe as everyone’s favourite monster movie, 1999’s The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser’s big blue eyes – but, you should know, much more sapphic. There’s rampant bickering, life or death situations, feats of derring-do, curses, time travel, magic orbs, and a little romantic tension to top things off. If that sounds like your jam, I hope you give it a try!

I’m going to be posting it chapter by chapter, maybe two posts or more a week! I’ll tweet about it whenever one goes live, and I’m looking into different wordpress plugins that would make it easy for you to subscribe. If you’ve got a preference – RSS? email? twitter hashtag? tumblr hashtag? uncanny voice in your head? – please let me know in the comments!

Thanks, I hope you enjoy it!

 

Warp Riders – Chapter 1

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The thing was, they’d been living out of time for … well, some time, and maybe more than anything else it was the feeling of time, real time – linear time – passing, that made the planet grate on her so much.

They’d been there for something like 30 hours so far. The planet – well, honestly, it was a moon – was facing the lit side of a gas giant, and night never really fell. The lighting options seemed to be either a greenish sunlight or a warm planet-lit dusk. It made the Captain uncomfortable.

Their poor fallen ship was immersed in a briny lake at the moment, but there had been a couple hours under that green sun where the pull of that gas giant had tugged the water away, and she’d got a good look at it.

And they got some supplies out, which was the main thing.

The Bosun had a proper camp set up above the high tide line an hour after that, and the Engineer got her surveying equipment out, and the Navigatrix laid out all her charts on the flat slabs and got down to work figuring out where they’d landed.

The Stowaway even sat down and started putting a cooking fire together with dried lakeweed, following the Bosun’s instructions.

But the Captain didn’t really know what to do with herself, to be honest.

Launching!

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Hi friends; I thought it might be nice to make an archive for my fiction writing, especially those pieces that are getting waaaaayyy too long for twitter!

I’d like to make this as comfortable and easy to use for anyone as possible; please for sure let me know what sort of rss feeds or email subscriptions or automatic tweets would be good for you in the comments here?

Also, is this colour scheme comfy on the eyes? Should I switch to dark mode? I am Open To Suggestions!

Thanks again for popping by!

Wolf Neighbours – Chapter 10

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As Miter finished his own trading, he saw Gove was still talking to Empul; they did not look like they had reached any sort of agreement. As he came closer, he could hear Gove quizzing the blacksmith.

“So after the equinox then? How long after?”

Empul looked extremely fed up. “I don’t know; three weeks, a month or two; I’m not guardsen and I am not the keeper of the north circuit’s route.” They shifted their crossed arms and leaned back against a thick post, staring at Gove from beneath heavy eyelids. As Miter caught their eye, they raised an eyebrow.

“Miter — you look like you need me for something.”

Gove whipped around, looking slightly rueful. Miter was relieved he wasn’t the only person finding her behaviour frustrating, but he didn’t want her to alienate the whole town, either.

“Gove, have you gotten that ax sorted out?”

Gove and Empul quickly glanced at one another, and then Gove turned half away from Miter with open embarrassment on her face.

“Apparently Empul is not a fan of smoked meat either.” She shrugged. “So I won’t be trading them for an ax.”

Miter scanned Empul’s unrolled leather wraps, where four nice hand axes lay lined up between smaller knives and longer fire tongs.

“You know, Empul; this summer’s cheeses are almost ready.”

“You don’t say. You salt them properly this time?”

Gove squinted at Miter. “What are you —”

“Half a wheel for an ax?”

Empul snorted. “Full wheel and you know it. You’re not on credit anymore, Miter; I’ve melted down all your iron already.”

Gove sputtered, but he handed her a basket and stepped between her and the blacksmith.

“Half a wheel and enough felt to line your shoes; next market.”

“Woolen felt?”

“Winter undercoat wool.”

And Empul shut their eyes and nodded solemnly. “Next market, then. I’ll have a better ax than these little ones, just for you.”

Gove glared at them both. “I can’t believe this.”

Miter led her away from Empul before she could resume her interrogation. Gove waited till they were clear of the main crowd, and then turned on him.

“I don’t need your charity.” Her eyes were embers; was she embarrassed?

“It won’t be charity if you trade me fence building for that ax.”

“You said my fences were terrible.”

“The ax might improve them.”

She didn’t laugh; Miter tilted his head in confusion.

“You either accept this ax from me or you rely on me to chop firewood all winter. I’m thinking of myself, I promise.”

This did not have the intended effect. Somehow, Gove looked more miserable. “I’m fine on my own, Miter.” She turned and stared into the fog; it was thick enough now the far riverbank was hidden. “I don’t need this kind of looking after.”

The wind stirred up tendrils of mist into strange shapes, and Miter tried to figure out where he’d gone wrong.

“You still seem worried, though?” Gove pointedly huffed in response. “I’m just trying to be a good neighbour.” He had an idea. “Maybe these will help.”

As he rustled around in his back, trying to find them, Gove succumbed to curiosity and turned back with a sigh. Her frown remained, but she waited as he unwrapped the wards and tilted them to show her. “Rusk makes these, to ward off the uncanny and the cruel.”

“The uncanny?” She caught his eye and glared. “You want me to worry about your monster with you?”

“They’re good for more than just —”

“I have real things to worry about! Guards!” And she pushed his hand away, harder perhaps than she meant to — because the wards tumbled from their stack, and three of the four slipped from his grip.

The three wards hit the deck boards and shattered; each little amber window rattled down between boards to the river below.

Miter snatched the remaining ward away from her, a cold feeling seeping into him from his feet. Suddenly the mist had a chill to it; and his scarred hand ached with a feeling of frostbite and crushing teeth.

Gove was wide—eyed at her own mistake and didn’t seem to notice.

“Shit, shit, Miter, I didn’t mean to do that —” She frantically picked up the larger shards of terracotta, and desperately tried to fit a few back together. “I don’t know how these work; I just — can I fix it?”

He stared at her. “They’re wards. You only use them till they break.”

She looked so horrified, hands full of broken clay, that he felt the chill recede a little. This was all a misunderstanding; an accident. She was new here.

“Maybe it was meant to be this way.” Miter smiled a little, trying to sound lighthearted. “Wards work by breaking.”

That seemed to lighten the mood a touch. “Does that mean you’re triple warded now?”

That wasn’t exactly how these wards worked, but he didn’t think she needed to know right now. “I’ve never felt safer.”

He packed the remaining ward back in his pack, and Gove waited politely.

By silent agreement, they turned to leave the market together. Gove was clearly still thinking about the wards.

“Are they a northern thing?”

“Yes. The first time I was given one was up on the glacier.”

Gove looked impressed. “What brought you up there?”

Miter hesitated. But no, not today.

“I traveled a fair bit. Before the muskoxen.”

Gove stepped ahead, picking a path through the crowd towards the bridges that led to shore. “That sounds wonderful; I’ve always wanted to see the glacier.”

“It’s a strange place.” He shuddered. “Leaves a mark on you.”

“I’ve always wanted to see the sun stay up all night.” Gove paused to let a cart roll by them, and then, as she turned back onto the thoroughfare, Miter heard a familiar noise. Iron plates, rattling together; wooden cartwheels and soft leather boots.

Ahead of him, Gove froze.

Out of the fog, first one, then two, then a whole troop of guardsen walked onto the bridge, heading straight into town.

Wolf Neighbours – Chapter 9

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Miter wasn’t stomping, exactly, but he moved firmly into the crowd and exhaled loudly as he did. There was no reason to be mad at Gove; she was just a suspicious person who didn’t understand what had really happened in the woods. Just another person who didn’t believe him.

He’d come to market with a few specific things in mind, and wound his way over to the shaded bench where Rusk usually set herself up. As he moved through the crowd, locals nodded to him; a few younger men with a slightly mocking look in their eyes. He’d become a local eccentric.

Rusk wasn’t in her usual place; a few other older folks were sitting in the shade in her absence, and they paused their conversation as Miter approached. Rusk’s sister stepped forward to greet him.

“Rusk didn’t come down?”

She shook her head. “She wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so I told her to stay home, and I’d bring a few things down for folks who’d been waiting.”

“Does she need anything?” Miter owed a lot to Rusk, and was one of her nearest neighbours; he should have checked on her this morning, really.

“No, no, just tired.” Beska was maybe a decade younger than Rusk, and still easily twice Miter’s age. He nodded.

She tilted her head. “Are you here for your usual?” From her many pockets, Beska pulled out a few fist—sized terracotta bowls with lids tied on with string. “Warming and cooling, right?”

Miter traded in his empty bowls and tucked three of the salves into his pack.

“I also brought more of those wool scouring pads she likes;” and he handed a small stack of felted circles to Beska. “I was hoping she might also have some, um—” He saw the other old folks listening.

Beska smiled, not entirely with sympathy. “Some wards?”

“Some wards; yes.”

She handed out a few of the marked clay tablets with amber windows, and they rung gently as they stacked in his good hand. “She thought you might want a few. I know you don’t like the fog.”

Miter resisted the urge to correct her; it had never helped in the past.

Beska was oblivious to his frustration; “You can trust Rusk’s wards, dear. They’ll keep the white bears at bay.”

Behind her, the other older folk were muttering to one another. He carefully ignored them, while behind them, the mist was thickening into a proper fog, rolling down the river and hiding the sun.

Wolf Neighbours – Chapter 8

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The sun was high in the sky as they reached the river’s floodplain, but down by the water, things were hazy with something that almost looked like fog. It gave the market town an ethereal quality as they approached.

Gove had passed through the town on her way to buy her peccaries; it was unlike anywhere else she had seen on her trip north. All the buildings were up on stilts; this was because the town was built over the water, or over the floodplain the river would fill in the wetter months. There were homes, small with steep roofs, connected by a maze of footbridges; and there were larger platforms tucked between them, some with roofs but no walls, others open to the sky. Boats bumped against rope and wooden ladders, tied to the stilts themselves.

The floodplain underneath the houses nearest the escarpment was heavily planted; as Gove and Miter climbed up onto the wooden bridges, townsfolk bustled beneath harvesting a wealth of vegetables. The cool mist on her face was rich with the scent of humus and late summer flowers.

The river was huge; Gove had sailed up it with traders in the early spring, and had watched it transform from its wide, meandering southern self into a deeper, faster, colder northern thing. At this late summer stage she could tell it was lower than when she’d arrived, but it still seemed frighteningly powerful as it rushed around the stilts, rumbling and hissing and sparkling in the fog.

Miter navigated the wooden bridge paths without concern; as they passed houses with open doors he called out casual greetings to the occupants. Inside the wooden homes, Gove saw people bent over all variety of crafts. She noticed tanners scraping hides; old women sieving and grinding flour, scarves over their faces in the dusty interior air; in one, a circle of children were weaving a huge rug together from dyed reeds.

Miter quickly apologized as he ducked in a doorway to talk to an older weaver, leaving Gove leaning against the wall of the house and watching other locals carrying baskets and pulling hand carts along the bridges, hopefully also planning to trade. No one paid her much attention.

Two people passed by, one using one hand to pull a three wheeled cart and the other to fan themself with a wide brimmed hat, while their companion scowled over the top of a huge basket held in his arms. He grunted as they passed Gove;

“First the heat, now the fog again!”

Behind them a group of women younger than Gove were carrying baskets in pairs, each with a grip on one handle, the baskets themselves full of other straw and reed—woven goods — baskets and hats and what looked like protective plaited plating. One called ahead to the scowling man:

“Are you still on about all these omens?” The other young women giggled with her. Her partner on the other side of her basket added: “We’ve had our feet in the river all summer and it’s the same as it’s always been!”

Gove could see the scowling man turn and grunt something, but she didn’t catch it; Miter had stepped back out of the house, walking staff drumming on the wooden platform. His pack was noticeably lighter.

“Trading already?” Gove tried to peek in his baskets as he stepped ahead of her onto a smaller, quieter bridge.

“Of course.”

“Get much for your trouble?”

They both stepped to one side to let a woman leading half—grown turkeys pass. Miter shot Gove a confused look.

“I will in a few weeks. He can’t turn wool into clothing quite that fast.”

“Oh; I see.”

As they wove around houses, Miter explained:

“This isn’t a town with hundreds of craftspeople. If you want something complex, you should be prepared to wait.”

“Are axes complex?” Gove wasn’t sure how often she wanted to show up to market; her instincts told her not to be too memorable.

“You’ll have to ask Empul; they always have a few knives at least.”

He led her around another tall, bustling house and suddenly they were on the edge of a huge wooden platform, open to the sky except in the very middle, bustling with people, livestock, noise. Gove froze.

Miter turned and gave her an exasperated stare. “What are you doing? This is what we came here for.”

“It’s just .. wide open.” She saw people turning and looking at her, and she had to steel herself not to turn and run back to her tiny home in the woods. Miter had stepped back and put a hand on her shoulder.

“People here are friendly, Gove. You’re not going to get robbed or harrassed.” He had that tone to his voice again, like she was being a silly child; it made her angry, and anger made her unfreeze.

“I’m not worried about people being mean.” She shook his hand off. “I’m just checking to make sure you weren’t lying about local guards.” But despite the haze of the fog moving in, she couldn’t see any tell—tale red sleeves or tall hats.

Miter huffed, clearly insulted.

“Why not ask someone else, then. Empul, maybe.” He gestured with his walking staff to the far corner. “They supply the north circuit; they’ll know their schedule as well as I do.”

Then he turned and wove into the crowd, leaving her at the edge of the square.