This is the [first draft] opening of my new novella, a queer space pirate romance I’m worktitling Persephone’s Gate. Along with the title, it will probably undergo changes before publication, but until then…enjoy!
Zara Krauss-Kusnadi, station-born and -bred, awoke with the first realization anyone station-born and -bred would notice.
There was gravity. And it hurt.
“Ugh…” She groaned, laying one olive hand to her brow.
There was gravity. She was at the bottom of a gravity well – so a planet or a moon, not a ship or station.
There was heat. She was soaked in sweat, great drops of it sliding toward the gravity well that held her fast to the ground.
There was ground, and the earthy clay smell joined the scent of rancid sweat and pickled spacer that Zara herself exuded.
There was a pain in her head, over and above the weight of gravity over every inch of her body, something that throbbed.
“Ugh…” Zara repeated.
She dared open her eyes. Overhead, beyond the purple sky, a blue-brown planet with delicate cumulous curls in its atmosphere hung ominously, as if it would fall on her.
That…that’s Kopol… She thought.
Which meant she was on Kachhuapur, Kopol’s second moon. Still on Kachhuapur. But what was she doing sleeping outside, in the tall grass of Kachhuapur’s steppes?
What did I do last night?
She’d been…Ellis was there, Ellis Nnamdi-Divekar, and Louis and Sarai and Martian Mei and some of the others from the Fujiwara-maru…Ellis had looked amazing in Centauri silks, so daring…they drank toasts…God, how many?…they were celebrating…celebrating what?…
In front of her eyes, a streak formed across the sky. From her point of view, it looked like a light that sliced Kopol in two. She winced, closing her eyes again, trying to remember.
…they were celebrating a new enlistment…yeah…they’d signed articles yesterday afternoon on a Southern Cross interstellar…their last night on Kachhuapur before…
Zara’s eyes snapped open, big and brown and stone-cold sober.
That light. The one streaking across the sky. Big star bound, away from Kachhuapur, out of Kopol’s orbit, heading for the hyperspace barrier to catch the outbound startide.
Zara scrambled to her feet, as if her 1.8m could bring her meaningfully closer to the spaceship racing overhead.
Somehow, Zara knew that that very light, that very ship, was the Revenge, that Louis and Sarai and Martian Mei…and Ellis…were passing before her eyes right at that moment.
She watched it break free of Kachhuapur’s atmo, a shooting star in reverse, and sail off behind Kopol’s massive planetary bulk.
Leaving her.
Alone.
In the tall grasses of the Kachhuapur steppe.
She stared into the sky for a long time, throbbing head and dragging gravity forgotten, breathing rattling little breaths. As if by staring, she could still see her shipmates and the promise of plunder and adventure.
At length, she spoke.
“…ugh!”
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