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  EPOCH:

  QUEEN OF HEAVEN

  MICHAEL ORR

  FIRST FUTURIS MEDIA KINDLE EDITION SEPTEMBER 2019

  Portions of this book were previously published in the 2015 ebook Soulstice Book 1: Adventus by Michael Orr

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Your support of this author is truly appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, entities or institutions, living, dead or eventual, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art, design & 3D ship model by Michael Orr, copyright © 2017

  Digital Edition ISBN: 978-1-7340145-0-1

  Print Edition ISBN: 978-1-7340145-1-8

  * * *

  Connect with Michael...

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  The EPOCH SAGA:

  BOOK I: QUEEN OF HEAVEN

  FATES AND FURIES (The SAGA Prequel)

  BOOK II: DIVINE RIGHT

  BOOK III: REFORMATION

  BOOK IV: MANIFEST DESTINY

  For Laurel,

  never fully grasping who she is for others,

  and unable to tell a promise from a prayer.

  OUR GALAXY – LOGOS

  * * *

  ESS ASHERAH'S ORION ITINERARY

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  AUGERY

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK I

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  BOOK II

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  JAY 1

  CHAPTER 33

  JAY 2

  CHAPTER 35

  JAY 3

  BOOK III

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  ANITA

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  EPILOGUE

  APPENDICES

  APPENDIX A: EID – EARTH ISOLATION DISORDER

  APPENDIX B: FTL

  APPENDIX C: THE ORION ALLIANCE

  APPENDIX D: STAR SERVICE

  APPENDIX E: AUGMENTATION

  APPENDIX F: FAITH

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  EPOCH SOCIAL

  And precious, sightless innocents

  unmindful of the war that rages

  frolic ’round about the bunkers

  We, for whom the battle wages

  ~ Anita

  PROLOGUE

  * * *

  EFS KOLKATA – ALLIANCE SPACE – FEB 8, 2371

  Lieutenant Commander Aldo Lansig credited Alec Knoor with summing up Space the best:

  Before coming here, we all think of Space as a highway to the stars...the expanse of nothingness between places to land. A place that allows for places. We strike out into the abyss anticipating journeys to distant suns and their goldilocks planets, but on the way we discover Space itself is where things happen.

  Coming here, you have those inevitable moments when the universe knocks on your door and you unthinkingly let it in. You become aware of a fine, fragile boundary between this reality and others.

  Visit often enough and that boundary weakens. And if you allow yourself to go just that little bit mad, you’ll catch glimpses beneath the surface.

  What you find there will surprise you.

  By the time you make planetfall you realize that stars and planets are but islands rising up from a depthy ocean — tips of larger realities that stretch far below the surface into realms no one imagines. And by that reckoning, the real action is taking place down there. What we see up here is the merest hint of things that only reach their fullness in hidden domains beyond our ken, populating Space with thriving existence no more distant from us than our own breath, yet unfathomable and forbidden.

  The more aware of this you become, the more it beckons and the more of it you crave.

  By the time you find the key to unlock those doorways, madness has overtaken you and the only cure is Earth’s healing embrace. The key is lost — unless perhaps you find your way out here again in hopes of grasping it this time.

  This is what spacers know. This is how we change. Space pierces us with its siren-song; calls us back again to seek that damnable key, always flirting with a madness only Space bestows.

  On Earth, madness is malady...something to be cured. Out here, it’s truth. But who on Earth will listen, and who out here can build a case?

  Lansig understood Knoor completely. Or maybe it was the other way around. Knoor’s words voiced Lansig’s thoughts about Space better than anything he himself could have written.

  “Close now, Skipper,” Nav announced. “One minute thirty.”

  Lansig nodded, scanning the bridge of his corvette. The glowing semicircle of holopanels was staffed by younger guys intent on making their way into his chair, and ahead of them spread a wall-sized viewport looking out over Kolkata’s broad, flattened spine. Beyond that, the fuzzy vagueness of slipstream space loomed like a picture at half-res.

  Earth’s unique method of FTL manipulated gravity waves from neighboring dimensionalities, propelling EarthFleet ships to five lightyears per hour, literally surfing at thousands of multiples of c. The downside, though, was this eerie lightshift that blended the luminance from millions of stars into a general haze.

  “Sixty seconds.”

  Kolkata’s skipper smiled inwardly. Commanding an unsupervised ship around alien frontiers was the pinnacle of a mariner’s career.

  Not to mention, Lansig reminded himself in a wicked moment, this is one’a the few life-paths restricted to men.

  The last three centuries had completely equalized the sexes in every regard save one. The onset of EID, Earth Isolation Disorder, was more rapid in women, forcing long-term deployments to be a male task. As a countermeasure, star service was divided into an all-female EarthGuard to police the solar system, and an all-male EarthFleet for exploring deep space.

  Makes for uninspiringly same-sex crews, Lansig admitted. But the payoff was accelerated career advancement. At 33, he was already a corvette captain gaining candidacy for a frigate.

  He quieted his thoughts and zoned out for a sec, waiting on Nav’s announcement. The young sublieutenant’s voice broke his reverie a moment later...

  “Coming out now.”

  The vagueness of slipstream bled off like fog in sunlight, revealing crystal clear heavens as far as the eye could see.

  “Locale?”

  “Deneb system, as planned.”

  “I guess we buy NEVA a drink.” Lansig offered the nav AI his customary toast.

  Now on station, Kolkata would be
gin drafting system charts while she ferreted out local raiders. The Orion Alliance had precious little love for Earth’s expansion and only grudgingly provided its chart database for the purpose. EarthFleet policy was to create its own charts and note discrepancies as a way of gauging Alliance trustworthiness.

  “Skipper,” Tactical spoke up, “I’m reading spatial distortions off to port.”

  Lansig brought up his own display, highlighting Kolkata against the problem area.

  “Cloaked Romulans?”

  “No, sir.” Tactical was too absorbed to take in the joke. “Possibly a slipstream funnel, but it’s strange.”

  “Shields already at full, Skipper,” reported the XO.

  Lansig called out “General quarters!” and listened for the claxon.

  Twenty klicks out, a plex of compound eyes looked on from a discreet vantage as the corvette was jumped by the ghost of a bygone age, ancient and unremembered.

  The forgotten interloper had lately been proving itself all too capable, one EarthFleet ship at a time. Recently awakened, it wasn’t yet seeking fair fights and had focused only on corvettes.

  This bullying strategy suited the onlooking set of eyes perfectly. Every EarthFleet ship eliminated meant fewer humans infesting Alliance space.

  Locked inside Kolkata’s hyperalloy-sandwiched CMF hull, four hundred and fifty men rushed to battle stations as the vette braced for action.

  “Ship materializing, sir!” Tac’s young voice cracked.

  The unfamiliar lines of an alien dreadnought materialized into slo-space like a colossal cockroach.

  Bolts of plasma streamed out from the intruder and flashed on the corvette like it was a gunnery target. Kolkata shuddered from the salvo and Lansig snapped himself into action.

  “Evasive!” He took personal control of steerage to get his ship clear. “Comm, launch a recorder!”

  “Aye, sir!” Comm yelped. “Launching!”

  “Send a mayday!” Lansig ordered to anyone available, focusing his full attention on outmaneuvering the alien’s weapons. “Make jump!”

  “FTL’s recharging! seventy seconds,” called the XO.

  “Gah!” Lansig didn’t care how big an improvement it was over the previous generation of slipstream drives. It still wasn’t enough. Not nearly.

  Out in the starry distance, the dreadnought jumped in using a seemingly reckless close-quarters FTL approach that caught the Earth ship unprepared. The onlooking eyes began recording as traces of discharge from the corvette’s railguns were lost amidst the enemy’s plasma bursts. Bits of the corvette fell away in drops of melt as the plasma breached its shields.

  The battle matured and lifepods ejected into space. The corvette held out longer than expected, but it was no more than a curiosity. There had never been any real chance.

  “Shields gone!” Tactical cried.

  “Engines offline. We’ve had it!” came the XO’s voice.

  “Abandon ship! Abandon ship!” Lansig shouted, ignoring his own order.

  Superheated plasma jets battered Kolkata’s hull like cosmic spears, warping the vette’s compact frame and hurling men into bulkheads with bone-crushing violence.

  Shrieks of torment stormed the bridge as titanic jolts launched the crew from their posts. Lansig locked himself in place with a grip forged to steel by desperation as wailing men crumpled into heaps of shattered limbs.

  Too busy to register pain, Lansig battled his failing wrists in a ferocious bid to save ship and crew. But twirl and tumble the corvette how he might, sublight actions would never shake the dreadnought. The attacker struck again and again, blinding sensors and rending airlocks.

  Like dribbles of blood, men spilled from Kolkata’s ruptured belly into the unending night even as their captain fought to outmatch fate.

  The onlooking compound eyes watched the smaller ship disrupt beneath its attacker’s superior fire-power.

  Several minutes passed as the dreadnought let the corvette‘s destruction play out; then it swept the debris field, picking up lifepods. Whether it killed or only captured the survivors, the onlooker couldn’t say; all he cared about was that they did meaningful damage. Either the humans would evict themselves from space, or the Alliance would do it for them.

  “Success either way.” He smiled across his multilateral mouths and launched the recording.

  BOOK I

  * * *

  1

  * * *

  LOW EARTH ORBIT – FEB 23, 2371

  With the planet below wrapped in a twilight shroud, one bright pair of eyes turned to studying the ‘retros’ sharing her trans-atmospheric flight. Up ahead of her were an edwardian couple (or were they cavaliers?) and some silky, button-happy mandarins. A pair of glammed-out tudors sat just behind her, with one lone, flowing-robed sheik across from them.

  Fauxbles, Trish labeled them. No legit blueblood noble would be caught dead on mass transit among the ‘blanks’: commoners who ignored the retro trends of the nobility in favor of today’s economical prefab fashions.

  You’re avoiding, chica, she scolded herself. Truth be told, Renée is right. This whole notion of going to space is nuthin’ but a hail mary.

  But what else’m I gonna do? she asked the ethers. Less than ten paying gigs in the last four months. Conservatory pedigree or not, nobody hires artistes.

  Far beneath her sleek trans-at, Earth slipped from darkness into twilight and recaptured Trish’s interest.

  The Pacific stretched out in unending gold on reentry, then regained its midnight-blue mystery as they dropped below the misty clouds into full daylight. Out her window was nothing but opaque ocean, but on her viewer’s cockpit feed the Aussie coastline grew closer by the blink.

  Seconds later, the plane glided up to Sydney’s offshore spaceport and settled onto a pad in a jolt-less touchdown.

  “Halfway ’round the world. Now all I hafta do is get hired,” she told the ethers.

  This port was far larger than SoCal’s, and busier. As Earth’s capitol, Sydney benefitted from everything any other megaplex had, only more so. It was bigger, glitzier and wealthier than anywhere else. She’d never been here in person, but Renée was born here and told her all about it.

  Falling in line with other passengers on the mover, she took in the expansive terminal with its quartzite dome and crimson carpet. In the center, a towering four-story waterfall tumbled downward into a frothing pool, calming the hectic terminal with white noise, natural air conditioning and something to focus on besides the three-story windows looking out on acres of flightpads. The pads looked to Trish like stepping stones leading out to the dark blue ocean beyond, and she was still caught up in that vision when the familiar sensation of being scoped drew her back to the moment.

  She glanced around and caught gawkers casting glances her way. It was the same wherever she went. Just part of the background static.

  “Check ’dat out, man,” whispered someone nearby as she searched curbside for her cab, and the words took her back to the day her universe changed:

  “Daaaamn...lookit that Trisha Thierry!” The whisper comes at her a bit over-loud. She glances back to see a group of boys from class, and it brings a smirk.

  Eyes self-consciously forward, she takes on a new stride. There’s no conscious thought. Her body responds as if by magic: motion sultry...hips swishing, shoulders following suit...an intentional wiggle replacing her unconscious bounce.

  The hurry she was in falls away against the glow from that collection of eyes behind her, and their welcome warmth suddenly makes sense. She’s felt this same flush before. Many times. But this is the first time she knows exactly what it’s from.

  The sudden insight brings a new question:

  If that’s what my back does to ’em, can’t imagine whaddas my front do?

  The experience even transforms her dancing, giving her a sexy new stage presence that makes conservatory audiences sit up and take notice.

  Whispered wonder had transformed her into a woman thos
e few years ago, and it was still echoing through time like a constant companion. Today’s was the latest of a hundred such echoes, and she no longer bothered looking back.

  “Goddess Lines Headquarters for Miss Trisha Thierry,” announced a waiting yellowstripe skytaxi.

  “Thanks.” She ducked into the stub-winged capsule. “z’It only me?”

  “Yes,” the taxi’s AI entered conversation mode. “Goddess had a bit of a run for several weeks, but it’s been quiet since the weekend.”

  “Riiight.” Trish sensed her chances fading. She’d missed the big rush to hire on for the new liner.

  The taxi lofted into a sunset sky and quickly consumed the ten kilometers to shore.

  “I understand the Asherah is leaving on her maiden voyage in a few weeks,” the AI kept up its end. “Will you be on board?”

  “Gawd, wouldn’t that be the life...” Trish mumbled.

  Aptly named Asherah: Queen of Heaven, Earth’s newest, grandest and most luxurious starliner to date was fourteen kilometers long and three-and-a-half kilometers in diameter, featuring four independent districts. Each one bore the flavor of its namesake city and provided multiples of every conceivable amusement, all to keep 150,000 passengers occupied between interstellar ports of call.

  At fifteen times the mass of EarthFleet’s largest capital ship, her launch was all the news, and earning a suite on her maiden voyage would be the reward of a lifetime. Maybe two.

  Understandably so, Trish told herself, trying to imagine the demigods who’d make it aboard. Ordinary mortals had to content themselves with the likes of Ishtar and Astarte and Hera — all recently demoted to baby sisters now that Asherah was sailing.