LONGSTAR: a novel of the Known Arc by Patrick Cumby

Author:Patrick Cumby [Cumby, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Broken Monolith Press
Published: 2024-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

TASH

The hatch closes behind Theron. I stare at the two soggy cigars sticking out of the coffee cup on the desk. They stink. I pour the entire cup, cigars and all, into my cabin’s trash receptacle. It cycles with a whoosh. Did they just get vented out into the hypervee void? Or did they go into some storage container aboard the Lucky Star for later recycling? If they got vented, it’s weird to think that two cigars will be floating in the null-space of the hypervee void for all eternity.

If Theron is to be believed, Commodore Mughrabi is my father. I guess it makes sense. He’s the same age as my mother, more or less. And maybe it explains why he came for me and Amethyst on Stavanger.

I don’t know how to feel. The whole time Theron was telling me the story of my mother and how she met the young midshipman, I felt nothing but a hollow emptiness, like my capacity for emotion is so overloaded that it’s burned out entirely. I’m beyond tired. I’m beyond hurt. The pollen is eating away at my insides.

I don’t care about anything else but Amethyst. I simply don’t have the capacity. Everything is so utterly overwhelming. I feel like a speck, a lifeless grain of sand, sinking into a dark and infinitely deep ocean. And it’s true, that’s exactly what I am. I’m alone in this tiny metal cabin in this tiny metal ship sinking through the vast nothingness of endless space.

I force myself to take a deep breath. Despair isn’t going to help Amethyst.

Think. Think. Analyze the situation.

Theron is even more cunning than I suspected. Amethyst and the emora are just variables in some greater scheme of his. He reminds me of the mischievous demigod known as the Jester in the Cataclyst scriptures. Or the character Steerpike from Titus Groan, one of the secret novels shared to me by Dr. Jeethro. Always scheming, always maneuvering everyone around him toward some unknown goal. It’s like watching a masterful athlete maneuver through obstacles on a crowded field of play.

So, what is Theron’s goal? It surely isn’t rescuing a helpless child from the clutches of evil just for the satisfaction of doing a good deed. No, for a schemer like him, every action he takes is intended to bring wealth, power, or influence. And simply rescuing Amethyst would bring him none of these things.

He’s after the emora. I’m sure of it. He says he intends to give it to the darok at Rosacris Station in exchange for her help rescuing Amethyst. I don’t believe him, though. There’s more to it than that.

There are only three Great Emoras mentioned in the Cataclyst scriptures. They are the ur-relics, the holiest of the holies, the Creation Stones supposedly wielded by the Archangels of the Oa to make the universe. For ten millennia since the Cataclysm, they’ve been fought over by warlords and armies. Entire populations have been destroyed in their pursuit. Just a hundred years ago, the

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