Book Blurb:
So when the
universe falls to pieces, it doesn’t mean your life has to, right?
That comes later.
Jeane Blake,
captain of the spaceship Skylark, makes her living by looting dead
worlds, planets fallen prey to naturally occurring wormhole-like
rifts plaguing the cosmos. She survives the only way she knows how:
avoiding commitment and arguing with her dead foster father's ghost.
But when her crew stumbles upon an alien device that could collapse
the wormhole network and wipe out all sentient life, they catch the
hungry eyes of the Union, a tyrannical empire hunting the sinister
tech.
As she flees the
Union’s brainwashed agents, Jeane is forced to take on a shady
mission and gets stuck assisting the runaway monarch of a technocrat
planet. Queen Maura Tholis is seeking the aid of an interstellar
resistance to reclaim her war-torn world, with another trouble-magnet
device as her bargaining chip: a glove that allows her to command AI
systems. Jeane couldn’t care less about the whole deal, but things
become personal when the Union annexes the place she calls home. And
it might be her fault.
Reluctant to
become weapons in the hands of power-hungry militants and desperate
rebels, smuggler and queen join forces. But to save their homes, they
must redefine themselves, work with the enemy, and face personal
traumas they’d buried long ago—and only stars know which
challenge might break them in the end.
See
Also:
Firefly Vibes, but with Way More Parental Trauma • Wormholes
Schmormholes • “When I look around, you know what I see? Losers.”
Book Links:
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Skylark-Fog-Helyna-L-Clove-ebook/dp/B0B4PXWNBK
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61262158-skylark-in-the-fog
StoryGraph:
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/b47418a6-e276-4d6d-9da5-1f6c6534dcbf
Looking for a taste of what to expect in this book? Here's an excerpt!
Part
I – It’s a long lane that has no turning
Sunset
and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there
be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
Twilight
and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be
no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For
though from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear
me far,
I hope to see my pilot face to face
When I have
crossed the bar.
(Lanehunter
prayer, originally from Old Earth, excerpt from Crossing the Bar by
Lord Alfred Tennyson)
Chapter
01 | Wild Lark Chase
The
moment the first missile crashed into the Skylark,
Captain Jeane Blake realized she had gravely underestimated the
danger they’d gotten themselves into.
The
spaceship jolted, and a series of yellow warning messages flashed up
on the screens. On the radar display, the markers showing the Lark
and the Union vessel hot on its trail flickered in and out of
existence in the interference, and the gravitational anomalies of the
lane kept throwing both ships off-course. Their pursuer was gaining
on them.
“The
generator didn’t like that,” Kliks groaned in the co-pilot seat.
His lean form hunched over the console, large black eyes tracking the
numbers on the status indicator. “Alignment issue, I think. Can we
get out of here now?”
Jeane
frowned at the code running on the main computer screen, then at the
model above, where the Skylark’s
current trajectory appeared atop the schematic representation of the
lane: a stream of parallel lines forming a shifting and contorting
chasm in the spacetime continuum. “We need five more minutes to
compute a vector,” she said. Although only a rough estimate, that
sounded like just enough time to be blown to smithereens by an
overeager Union agent.
Her
Talalan companion made a frustrated noise, realizing the same thing.
“I’ll take a look. We won’t get far without proper thrust.”
He
stood, crossed the cabin with one long stride, shoved the door open,
and stormed out. Only a few seconds ahead of the next blow from the
Union vessel.
The
hit shook the entire ship, and this time, the artificial gravity grid
in the walls and the floor couldn’t compensate fast enough. The
impact pushed Jeane to the deck, and while she grasped for the edge
of the console, a bone-chilling metallic creak reverberated through
the hull, making her teeth grind.
She
hauled herself up and punched the comms button. “Kliks, come in!
Are you okay?”
One
of the lamps above released a spray of sparks over her keyboard, and
the next second, all the lights blinked out in the cabin. The engines
sputtered one last time before they gave up the fight. Silence and
darkness fell over the Skylark.
Jeane
sank back into her chair, and as the ventilation wound down around
her, she took a shaky breath and started counting her heartbeats.
Eight,
nine, ten, eleven—then
the auxiliary generator rattled to life.
The
shrill sound of an alarm filled the cabin. Jeane shuddered, swallowed
the acrid bile rising in her throat, and scanned the awakening
displays. Most of the ship’s instruments reported errors, their
shields and the engines were down, and although the front screen
flickered to life to show the immediate environment of the
Lark—nothing
but the glow of this precarious tunnel in spacetime they’d decided
was a good idea to jump into—the main computer remained offline.
She
killed the alarm and tried the comms again. “Kliks? ALU? What’s
your stat, guys?”
There
was no answer. Panic crept up her spine. They were dead in the water
in the middle of a gods-forsaken lane with an apeshit agent set on
offing them. How’d this day gotten so bad, so fast?
“...got
us on the tail...fell down the frickin’ ladder!” Kliks’ words
started pouring out of the speaker, occasionally dropping into
silence just to reassemble into somewhat comprehensible phrases a
second later. “I’m afraid the generator...to bring back power!”
He
sounded pissed, but at least he was alive.
“What
do you suggest?” Jeane’s gaze kept wandering back to the swirling
fog of the lane displayed on the screen. She couldn’t shake the
feeling that the void outside was watching her.
“The
bastard…stopped shooting at us, so...and look at it.”
Jeane
pushed away from the console, detaching the flashlight from the belt
of her cargo pants. “I’m going down there. Is ALU with you?”
“They’re
on their way up. ...a vector?”
“Nope,
system fried first. Don’t move. I’m coming.”
She
barely walked out into the darkened corridor when a series of
sorrowful beeps sounded off from ahead. With another step forward,
the flashlight beam fell on her technician’s angular form.
“No
power,” ALU said, crestfallen. They seemed uninjured, but their
insect eyes scanned the hallway as if they were waiting for an
ambush. Their squat, boxy body bounced up and down, and they waved
their four multi-jointed, metallic arms around. “Don’t like it.”
Jeane
reached down and grabbed them by one long limb, turning them around
and marching them across the darkness. “Give me something useful!”
“Structural
integrity sixty-three percent. Life support ten percent,” ALU
recounted, pattering forward. Without power, gravity would linger in
the ship for several hours, so at least they wouldn’t have to
acrobatics their way through it for now. “Generator and shields at
zero. Engine room sealed off.”
Skies
damnit. Shouldn’t have asked.
The
agent knew what they were doing, immobilizing the ship without
destroying it. But the Union was usually not this merciful when
dealing with lanehunters, so Jeane didn’t even dare to imagine what
the bastard really wanted with them.
The
Skylark
had been lifting off a dusty little planet in a backwater dead system
when the agent had shown up. The small lane leading to the highly
unstable central star of the world didn’t have a name and was only
identified with a row of numbers. It was the last place to expect an
attack from the Union. The empire’s henchmen preferred the busier
sectors to catch themselves some innocent scavengers.
The
crew had already been in a hideous mood, finding nothing of value on
the deserted military base, save for some scrap metal and defunct
weaponry. The offices had been cleared out, and the decrepit ships in
the docks loomed empty. This wasn’t all that surprising. The Altex,
the race that had built the place, had been extinct for a hundred
years because the central system of their empire had been destroyed
by a forming lane, then the Union had purged their surviving
colonies. But this was a newly discovered outpost, its location
recovered in files smuggled out by lanehunters from stars know where.
Virgin waters and all that jazz—definitely worth a trip, their
source on Metallia had said. Except they clearly hadn’t been quick
enough about it.
After
a few hours of fruitless foraging, Jeane and her companions had
climbed back into the Lark
to plan a course to their next objective, hoping that one of these
days, they’d actually earn the price of their fuel and maybe the
funds for a few necessary upgrades too. They’d just left the
atmosphere when the Union nailship had started tailing them. Jeane
had raced the agent to the lane, hoping to lose them on entry, but
Jerkface had followed them in.
She
descended the ladder to the maintenance level with ALU at her heels,
and they hurried toward the tail along the corridor lit by sparse,
red-tinted emergency lights. They found Kliks standing beside the
metal door of the engine room, only his legs visible as he leaned
into a section of removed hull panel. The surrounding deck was
scattered with cables, tools, and various diagnostic devices.
Jeane
peeked into the wall cavity beside Kliks’ shoulders. Blind LEDs
stared back at her from a sizable switchboard, and she smelled smoke.
Kliks turned to her and plucked a tiny flashlight out from between
his teeth. “The engine room is in emergency lock, and I already
managed to ruin a battery trying to switch life support back on.”
Jeane
gave an indignant grunt. “That hit must have knocked out the
shielding circuitry.”
“Possible,”
Kliks agreed. His huge black eyes narrowed to thin half-moons in
concentration, and the shallow wrinkles creasing his gray face even
at a relatively young age (as typical of his people) deepened. His
short white hair was sticking out in all directions on the top of his
head, and he lifted a hand to smooth it down self-consciously when he
noticed Jeane eyeing it. “It’s hard to tell from here. We have to
go in.”
“ALU
says the room is not pressurized.”
The
technician confirmed with a trill. They’d climbed the opposite wall
and were now dismounting another panel; the metal sheet landed on the
deck with a clang, and ALU stuck their arms into the hollow space.
The next moment, their head also disappeared inside the hole.
“So.”
Jeane started pacing. “The engines and shields are out, we can’t
see or hear outside, and very soon, it’s going to be real cold in
here. But hey, first, we might burn to a crisp at the lane barrier if
we stay too long without navs! What in hells does that agent want
from us so badly?” It was a rhetorical question, but when Kliks
sighed and pulled on the zipper of his black overalls nervously, she
raised her eyebrows. “I’m listening.”
He
stared at her for a second and then started speaking with the
momentum of someone continuing an argument they’d already begun in
their head. “I swear, I didn’t think they would jump us so
quickly! Well, I have to suppose that’s
the reason, but I mean, everything else would be a stretch. I’m not
even sure what—”
“Kliks!”
The
Talalan closed his mouth. Then he opened it again. “I found
something on the Altex base.”
For
a moment, Jeane didn’t know how to react, and Kliks took advantage
of her confusion to go on in a desperate tone. “Remember those
wrecked ships on the runway? You couldn’t get in, but I did. I
wanted to tell you, but I—”
“For
skies’ sake!” Jeane blurted out, the anger breaking through her
daze. “What were you thinking? We don’t keep these kinds of
secrets! Why the fuck—”
«Getting
all worked up won’t solve the problem, you know.»
Jeane
swallowed hard, closing her eyes for a second. The words kept echoing
in her mind.
«Calm
and collected. You can do this,» the
voice went on, and the familiar tone was like a cold shower on her
burning temper. She sighed inwardly. Of course, he
would think so. He always had too much faith in her.
She
looked at Kliks, who naturally couldn’t hear any of that but had in
the meantime stopped babbling and stared at her from behind his best
poker face. ALU kept rummaging in the wall, not concerning themself
with the drama in the slightest.
“The
ship was Talalan,” Kliks added quietly.
«Smack
me twice and call me Kevin! That’s quite an interesting piece of
information!»
Jeane
took a deep breath. She leaned forward, glaring into Kliks’ face,
then poked him in the chest. “We don’t have time for this. But
we’ll talk.”
Kliks
pursed his lips together, nodding, and it took Jeane all she had to
tear her gaze away and gesture towards the engine room.
“If
only a few connections are busted, we’re still good. We’ll check
the generator, jump-start it with a power cell, and if the engines
are not entirely dead, it only has to hold until we’re on the
vector. Weirdo warped spacetime physics will take care of the rest.”
Kliks
switched back to problem-solving mode, too—anything to escape her
wrath. “We’re not going to have much time with a cell,
considering the Lark’s
appetite. Also, what about after? Once we’re out of the lane?”
Jeane
waved it away. “Cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Because
if the agent can follow us out...”
“No
way.”
“Sure,
just like we thought they wouldn’t follow us in.”
Jeane
raked her fingers through her hair. “Well, let’s assume they
can’t because otherwise we may go ahead and screw ourselves now.
Will the cell hold or not?”
“Are
you going to feel better if I say yes?”
“Yes!”
They
glared at each other for a long second, and ALU chose this moment to
pull their head out of the wall and offer with a cheerful tone, “ALU
go in!”
“No.”
Jeane sighed, fiddling with her flashlight for absolutely no reason.
“ALU stays here and gets our eyes and ears back. I want to know
what Jerkface is doing out there. Keep working. I’m suiting up.”
The
technician chirped in agreement, and Jeane set out on a jog through
the ship, leaving her crew behind.
Most
of the Skylark’s
bulk was filled by the cargo hold, while the engines and the
generator took up the tail section. On the lower deck, there was only
space for a couple of tight storage chambers, and on the upper deck,
apart from the control cabin in the bow, a common room and two
cramped sleeping quarters nestled in between everything else. All in
all, the vessel was a hundred yards in length and a dozen yards
across—a medium-sized freighter ship, although customized to a
degree.
Times
like this, it seemed way too small for a crew of three.
Jeane
passed the entrance to the cargo hold, the ladder leading to the
upper deck, then the airlock door, and by the time she reached the
end of the hallway, the fury pressing on her chest had dissolved. She
stopped in front of a towering storage unit and slid its doors open.
She
stood still for a long moment. The spaceship felt lifeless and somber
around her, and the flashlight cast quivering shadows on the
patchwork gray-copper metal walls. She was sweating like she was
getting paid for it; with the life support out, air circulation had
also stopped. Still, thinking about the cold, aggressive energies of
time and space, twisting and turning around the ship made her skin
crawl. Crossing lanes had become second nature to her over the years,
but it didn’t mean she enjoyed taking her time in them. She would
have been crazy to. Those things could tear apart entire galaxies.
And
now they’d gotten themselves stuck adrift in one. They hadn’t run
into agents in months; what in hells had happened this time?
She
grasped the leather strap hanging on her wrist, took a rubber ring
off it, and tied her long blonde hair into a ponytail.
“Fuck,”
she stated and felt instantly better.
«Don’t
panic, kid. Been worse, hasn’t it?»
She
removed a spacesuit from the closet and climbed into it hastily,
sealing the gloves and boots into place and taking the helmet under
her arm. A button on the wrist turned the controls on with a soft
beep, and she breathed out, relieved. Good thing Kliks always
reminded her to keep the batteries charged.
«An
abandoned Talalan vessel, right on your hunting grounds. You know
what that means.»
She
paused reluctantly. It meant Kliks was keeping secrets. It meant he’d
known what they were going to find on the Altex outpost, maybe even
that they could run into agents. And he hadn’t said a word.
They’d
been flying together for five years, and despite their many
differences, their teamwork had proved to be effective. Trouble was
never too far, but they’d always dealt with it. Yet the moment
something surfaced from Kliks’ home planet, the mysterious closed
world Talala, everything changed.
«And
what are you going to do about it?» the
voice in the back of her mind pressed.
Jeane
pulled a zero-G toolbox out of the storage unit, shut the door with a
bang, and set off towards the tail again.
First, I’ll save your damn ship. That’s what I’m going to do.
When
she got back to the engine room, ALU was sending an angry series of
trills at Kliks, who was still tinkering with the power cell.
“What’s
wrong?” she asked.
Kliks
gave a tired head shake. “I dared to suggest that shorting the
cables to open the door might be dangerous.”
“No
other way!” ALU objected, their small body still half-stuck into
the wall. “Structure too weak for blast. Have to maintain pressure
in ship!”
Jeane
stepped beside them and glanced into the shaft. The technician was
clutching the edge of the opening with two arms while using another
pair to hold onto a cable running vertically down the inner hull.
“Is
this
safe?” she inquired.
“Chance
of life-threatening injury thirty-eight point three percent,” ALU
exclaimed proudly.
Jeane
raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. Can you seal the door after me?”
The
technician blinked. “Yes,” they said and ducked their head back
into the hole.
Kliks
closed his side of the argument with a dramatic eye roll, but there
was a distinct look of worry on his face. Jeane attached the
flashlight to her belt, but before she put the helmet on, she fixed
her eyes on her friend for one more moment.
“What
is it?” she asked. The Talalan visibly winced, and it was both
satisfying and scary. “What did you find in that ship of yours?”
“I’m
not sure yet,” Kliks admitted. “It’s in the hold. I intended to
inspect it when we were in safe waters.”
Jeane
scoffed. “Must be valuable if the Union was tracking it.”
“I
think it is.”
She
wanted to grill him more, wanted it so damn much, but there was no
time. So, she sighed and put on the helmet, breathing in deeply when
fresh oxygen flowed into it. The whiff of cool, dry air touching her
face was a welcome relief. She gave a thumbs-up to Kliks because
there was no time for petty gestures either, rooted herself in front
of the engine room door, and touched the comms button on the suit.
“ALU,
if you can hear me, go.”
Author Bio &
Information:
Helyna L. Clove (she/her) is a science-fiction/fantasy novelist and a
lover of all types of storytelling, hot comfort drinks, and a
universe full of stars. She has been writing stories of thrilling
adventures in expansive imaginary worlds since primary school but
only recently has stepped out into the world with her books. Skylark
in the Fog is her debut novel.
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