QSFer Gideon Marcus has a new queer sci-fi book out (ace, bi, gay, lesbian, poly): Majera.
Their last flight?
Testing a new Jump drive far beyond the Frontier, Captain Kitra Yiilmaz and her friends plunge headlong into a rare first contact…
…just a little too late.
The world they find seems lifeless, shrouded in eternal silence—until it lashes out with lethal intent. Now, with danger all around, and emotions running high, can the Majera crew solve the riddle of the plagued planet in time to save a dying race?
With illustrations by Hugo Finalist Lorelei Esther.
Get It At Amazon | Publisher | B&N | Kobo | Apple | Bookshop.org | Ingram Spark | Universal Buy Link
Excerpt
As Majera slid toward the planet’s night, there was an unnerving twinge in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t quite place why. Something unnatural about the view.
“No lights,” Marta said. The words hung in the air.
That was it. With all the signs of civilization, the landscape should have been lit up like the night sky. But it was completely, ominously dark.
“If they’re aliens,” Pinky said calmly, “maybe they don’t use the visible wavelength.”
“Fair point,” Marta said. “I should have thought of that.” There was a pause, and all I heard was the soft whir of the ventilation fans and the sounds of our breathing. Then, “But it’s dark all over the spectrum,” she added.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Aside from those signals I talked about earlier, there’s nothing. Aside from no lights, I’m also not picking up anything in infrared. If they were generating power, or there’s traffic, or industry, or anything, I should see something.”
“Even from this high up?” Peter asked, a little incredulous.
“Even this high up.”
Forty minutes later, we were back in the light, over ocean again. In another forty minutes, we’d finish a full circuit of the planet. It wouldn’t give us a complete map, not at this altitude, but we’d have a decent handle on most of the world. Then we could pick out spots of interest to survey more closely.
A set of islands came into view, small and feathery. I zoomed in on a few. There was what looked like an artificial harbor on one of them. At least, its boundaries seemed too regular to be natural. There were no tracks of shipping traffic, though we might be too high to see. That’s what I told myself.
Then we were over another continent, this one narrow at first, like the tip of a spear, but as we flew over the ridge that made its shaft, it quickly expanded. Once more, there was the telltale mottling of gray and green, interspersed with the white of clouds. If there was a difference between the pattern of settlement on this side of the planet versus the other, I couldn’t tell.
“I’m getting those empty bands again,” Marta said. “Faint, but something is definitely broadcasting.”
“They couldn’t be natural, could they?” That was Fareedh.
Pinky answered for Marta, “Then they’d be static. These are being swept clear by the carrier waves.”
“What he said,” Marta added, her smile tingeing her voice.
The second landmass slowly passed beneath us. Like the first continent, there was no part of it that wasn’t at least sparsely settled. The only times I didn’t see civilization was when we passed over a stretch of beige desert. Otherwise, there was the same network of lines and nodes, more cultivation. This time, I noted, the fields were round like back home. While I looked at the scenery, Peter went back to the wardroom to get us some food, coming back with a tray of Majera specials and cups of water. I nibbled at mine absently as the opposite coastline came into view. Soon, we were back over open water.
“Well, what do we do now?” Fareedh asked. He was looking at me, and he knew what the answer had to be.
“I guess we take a closer look,” I said. Again, that shiver up my spine, part from excitement, and just a little part from fear. I checked the fuel display: 88%. Plenty to spare for an expensive maneuver, especially with all the free water below that could be turned into fuel. I turned the ship around and fired the engines, at the same time angling the grav thrusters down to keep us from losing altitude as we decelerated. I wanted to come down near the shoreline so we didn’t have to waste time backtracking.
Just fifteen minutes later, we were hovering a few thousand meters above the ocean, rippled and glistening like the skin of a fish. It reminded me of the sea off Denizli, Vatan’s capital, though as if through some kind of blue filter. That made it seem colder, somehow. Sterile.
I pressed forward on the sticks. We’d come down about 200 kilometers offshore. As had been the case on the continent’s opposite shore, we came across a line of islands first, craggy and seemingly uninhabited. I gauged them to be about 150 kilometers away, turning the horizon into a series of lumpy peaks.
“I’ve got something!” Marta said in a relieved gust. “X Band, directional. Someone’s sending us a message, I think.”
Pinky tinged toward ochre. I looked over in concern. “What is it?” I asked.
“Nobody sends messages on X Band,” he said simply.
“Folks,” Fareedh spoke up. “I’m getting a heat signature from one of the islands.”
I tensed. “A beam?”
“It’s a reaction drive, pulling five gees and increasing.”
Peter’s voice was puzzled, “A welcoming committee?”
“Eight gees,” Fareedh continued.
“No,” Pinky said, answering Peter. “An interceptor.”
Inside a new display, I saw a fuzzy, pointy-ended cylinder, flame streaking out the back. It looked like a firework, not a vessel.
“Is there anyone on board the thing?” I called out.
“Don’t think so,” Pinky replied evenly. “It’s only a ton in mass.”
“A missile,” I spat out. “Can we shoot it down?” My aversion to guns had an exception. A pirate torpedo had nearly cooked Majera just a few weeks before, and I wasn’t about to let this one get anywhere near us.
Fareedh nodded in my peripheral vision. “It’s on a ballistic course.”
Pinky’s voice went flat, “Hit it now. It’s probably got a warhead.”
Author Bio
Public speaker and professional space historian Gideon Marcus is also founder of Journey Press and six time Hugo Finalist Galactic Journey.
An acclaimed science fiction author, he has just finished Majera, fourth book in The Kitra Saga. His short fiction can be found in Dark Matter, Utopia, Simultaneous Times, and elsewhere.
| Author Website | https://gideonmarcus.com/ |
|---|---|
| Author Bluesky | https://bsky.app/profile/gideonmarcus.bsky.social |
| Author Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/GideonMarcusWrites/ |
| Author Mastodon | https://wandering.shop/@gideonmarcus |