Outer space. We made it.
Another yelp, quieter this time.
He unbuckled and sprang to his feet.
“Argos!” he called. “I’m coming, my friend!”
The dog was barely moving. Weak, and even thinner than he remembered, but still alive. Hyleesh unlatched the first aid cabinet, grabbed a handful of energy bars and walked back to the cot. He unwrapped the bars and had to feed the first one into Argos’s mouth before the pup recognized them as edible. But once he did, the rest were gone within seconds.
Hyleesh stroked the dog’s auburn coat. “We made it, buddy. Wanna know how? The Yaxees had enough Quarium to make twenty propulsion bombs per year. And they’d just used them all on Yulia.”
All but one.
The one he’d stolen before leaving for Sarai. He’d hoped to get more, enough to limit the damage to the planet, but things hadn’t turned out as planned.
Good thing he had the one, though, securely stored in Orion’s cargo bay, or he would have never gotten away from the Stingrays. His only fear was that the bomb would fly past the Stingrays and fail to detonate until impacted the ground, but the Stingrays had risen to the bait. They shot the missile carrying the bomb, thus triggering the fusion explosion that signed their own death sentence and bestowed enough recoil to propel the Orion back into outer space.
Now he was the most wanted man in the galaxy, with a handsome reward on his head and no troops to command. But he had the ship of his dreams and a companion to travel with. Hyleesh opened the first aid box, tore a pair of latex gloves out of their sterile package and smiled to himself.
He no longer was Captain Weber.
From now on, he was just Hyleesh.
The luckiest man in the galaxy.
Q&A with E.E. Giorgi
E.E. Giorgi is a scientist, a writer, and a photographer. She spends her days analyzing genetic data, her evenings chasing sunsets, and her nights pretending she’s somebody else.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in the U.K. but grew up in Tuscany, Italy. As the daughter of a biologist, the highlights of my childhood were collecting toads after the rain, growing newts and tadpoles in the old bathtub outside, and traveling abroad every summer.
Did you study biology in college?
No. I ended up studying math because it was beautiful and perfect. Except one day I realized that “beautiful and perfect” does not apply to real life problems, so now I still do math but I apply it to biology. Which is the coolest thing, because I get to do biology on a computer instead of in a wet lab.
Do you still live in Tuscany?
No. After I graduated from college, I moved every other year for ten years (twice across continents) before settling in New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment. It’s the most beautiful place on Earth. After Tuscany, of course.
What inspired The Quarium Wars?
The inspiration for this short story came while I was writing the first book in a new space opera series. The character of Hyleesh came to me halfway through the story when I realized I needed some backstory for Argos, his companion dog. This also gave me the opportunity to explain some of the political background behind the quest for Quarium, which is a basic element in the series. I’m planning to release the first book, Anarchy, in the fall. Join my newsletter if you would like to be notified the day of the book release, and you will receive a free story as a thank you: http://eegiorgi.thirdscribe.com/newsletter/
What other books have you written?
My genres are mysteries and thrillers, sci-fi, and YA dystopian. You can find all my books here: http://eegiorgi.thirdscribe.com/my-books/
Re/Genesis
by G. S. Jennsen
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
Milky Way, Sector 14C
Phoenix Arx
6142.319
12th Epoch Proper
WHEN YOU’RE AN anarch, dying is the easy part. Completing your mission objective before nulling out? Not always so easy.
“A scan of your credentials does not return a valid result. Present Accepted credentials or be pacified.”
The weaponized arm pointed at my chest by the Vigil unit suggested the pacification would not be of the gentle sort. It rarely was.
I brought my hands up from behind my back and stretched them into the air, fingers curled in but giving every indication they were opening in surrender. As the nail of my left index finger reached the center of my palm, I flicked it outward.
The gossamer dampener net unfurled as it sailed through the air to envelop the Vigil unit.
The floating orb began jerking to and fro in the narrow hallway in an attempt to unsnarl itself. I leapt forward and collected the edges of the net in one hand, then wrangled it under some semblance of control until I was able to wrap my arms around the wide, circular frame and brace it against the wall.
It squirmed savagely, but after two tries I found the input port and shoved a spike into it.
“Not this time, Vigil. You don’t get me yet.”
The unit dropped from my grip to the floor and rolled into the opposite wall.
I’d bought myself twenty minutes.
I stripped off my infiltration suit, shrank it and stuffed it in my kit. The fete-worthy attire which remained looked ridiculous to my mind, but nevertheless appropriate to the venue I’d be visiting. I unbound my hair and began scaling the service duct.
The galactic core hung in the sky like an ornament placed just so to best complement the pavilion. The prodigious light it provided, even here on the verge, filtered through an invisible prism field to cast soft, color-varying rays upon the conveniently reflective flooring.
See how small you are, it whispered.
See how powerful we are, it hummed.
In this case the core acted as a stand-in for the Anaden Directorate, obviously.
The guests enjoying the Phoenix Arx amenities acted oblivious to the implied message, though in truth it was because most of them had internalized it decades if not centuries ago and would never question it again.
Yet as a backup if the message didn’t come through clearly enough—the Directorate didn’t practice subtlety—every rotation of the Arx brought them a stunning view of the Phoenix Gateway in the distance. The colossal triple rings gleamed in the unfiltered glow of the galaxy, beautiful and menacing. This close to the ancient structure, the Gateway appeared more massive than the core itself. It was an optical illusion, but an effective one.
Today the Phoenix Gateway numbered only one of hundreds of its kind; in comparison to many of them it was aging, if not decrepit. But there was a reason for that: it was the first. The first wormhole portal to span the interstellar void and link to another galaxy. A dwarf galaxy, true, and one long since fallen out of fashion.
But once upon a time the Phoenix Gateway had meant everything. This meant it still mattered today, if only as a symbol of all the Directorate had achieved over the millennia.