Category: Book Chapter

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 3: A New Direction

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“You found one?” Lys asked. “A hyperspatial slipstream?”

Lt. Diaz stared at the computer console in the engine room, unbelieving.  She’d written the program that had detected the hyperspatial slipstream herself.  She hadn’t been especially careful, but it also hadn’t been especially hard.  She had no reason to doubt the results.

Except for one.

Why in the hell was there a hyperspatial slipstream inside the Tetra Galaxy?

The entire concept of hyperspatial slipstreams had been mostly theoretical or extremely small scale and experimental until the Wanderlust had encountered the Waykeeper which seemed to exude the time-space warping field from its shell like some sort of biological process.  As far as Lt. Diaz knew, there wasn’t a single hyperspatial slipstream large enough to show up on the scan she’d just performed anywhere in the entirety of the three galaxies that had been explored by the Tri-Galactic Union. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 3: A New Direction”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 2: A New Idea

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Discovery of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

“I wanted to experience a wider universe than I would have been exposed to under the Waykeeper’s protection,” Lys said.

The most useful thing that Lt. Diaz could think of to do with her time was research every aspect of the engines and computers aboard the Wanderlust that she didn’t already thoroughly understand.  That way, when she did finally get home to the Milky Way, she’d be able to take her knowledge and use it to upgrade technology on Lupinia.  Hopefully, there wasn’t going to be a need for an Anti-Ra force protecting Lupinia anymore, now that the planet was safely located in neutral territory.  But it couldn’t hurt to be prepared.

As long as Lt. Diaz was being forced to play the part of a Tri-Galactic Union officer, she might as well make the most of it.  She would become an expert on the latest discoveries and advancements in Tri-Galactic Union technology, and then she could carry that knowledge with her when she was allowed to finally be free from ridiculous union strictures again. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 2: A New Idea”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 1: The Endless Liminal Space

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Discovery of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer to read in e-book or paperback form, learn more here.  Or if you want, skip ahead to the next chapter.

“Once Captain Carroway insisted that everyone had to wear regulation union uniforms while on duty, she made it happen, even if it involved repeatedly mending new tears in Lt. Diaz’s uniform with her own paws.”

A small ship armed to the teeth flew across the Tetra Galaxy, always aimed toward the Milky Way, like an arrow pointing home.  The Wanderlust had been designed for a crew of twelve to eighteen, so theoretically, there was plenty of space for the eleven officers living there.  But no one in the Tri-Galactic Union had ever predicted a crew like this one.

Lieutenant T’lia Diaz didn’t think much of the Tri-Galactic Union.  She’d attended their academy, served on a ship — a different one, back before everything had gone wrong — and risen to the rank of lieutenant before.  Then she’d quit, joined the Anti-Ra, and been labelled a terrorist.  All for the crime of defending her homeworld.  If she had her way, Lt. Diaz would have never worn a Tri-Galactic Union uniform again, but very little had gone her way in the last six months. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 1: The Endless Liminal Space”

Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 30: The Voyage Begins

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter.

“Before Lys’s egg had even been laid, her mother had seen that this moment could stop the Zakonraptors.”

Once again, the vacuum bomb sailed away from The Wanderlust, looking like nothing more than a thin streak of light on the viewscreen.  A shooting star.  But this time, Captain Carroway didn’t try to wish on it.  She wondered how many of the members of her crew did.

The bridge of The Wanderlust was much more crowded this time.  Everyone aboard had gathered together to watch.  And now, not only were there two crews melded together aboard The Wanderlust — Union and Anti-Ra — but also three newcomers, two guests from the Waykeeper’s back and the strange amalgamation of circuitry and mycelia who now insisted they were a doctor. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 30: The Voyage Begins”

Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 29: A Better Use for a Black Hole

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“…Captain Carroway wasn’t going to make the choice he wanted her to make. She wasn’t going to take this ship home. Not at the expense of an entire world.”

“You can move Lupinia?” Commander Chestnut asked, scurrying his way into the engine room and pressing his way between the much larger cat and canine blocking his view of the indecipherable equations Ensign Diaz had been writing.  His brushy reed of a tail flipped about wildly, expressing more excitement than seemed like should be able to fit into such a small mammal. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 29: A Better Use for a Black Hole”

Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 28: The Spark of Inspiration Ignites

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“It was a moment of patience, a moment that could so easily have not happened, so easily have gone in a different direction. But it went this way.”

Meanwhile, in the engine room, Captain Carroway kept pressing Ensign Diaz, gently but firmly, to think harder.  They needed a way to help the Waykeeper, while also escaping from the incoming fleet of Zakonraptors themselves.

The wolf-like officer kept insisting it couldn’t be done.  The fur on her hackles had raised, and a growl crept into her voice as she countered every one of Captain Carroway’s proposals.  The Norwegian Forest cat’s suggestions barely deserved the word ‘proposals.’  It was more like she kept rattling off the basic specs of The Wanderlust — electron torpedoes, blazor canons, lumo-projectors.  None of it was useful or inspiring, and Ensign Diaz felt increasingly wild and angry listening to the cat pressure her. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 28: The Spark of Inspiration Ignites”

Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 27: Metamorphosis Delayed

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Or… if they weren’t a doctor… yet… could they maybe become one? Perhaps that was what Ensign Mike wanted to do…”

Ensign Mike withdrew their mycelial filaments from the cracks in the prone caterpillar’s wrinkled skin.  The cracks healed and the wrinkles smoothed as the fungal strands pulled out of them, leaving Lys as young and healthy as she’d been before leaving the atmospheric bubble around the Waykeeper launched her into the throes of a premature metamorphosis.

The fungal officer had stopped her metamorphosis, staving off her chrysalis state. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 27: Metamorphosis Delayed”

Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 26: The Many Branching Futures

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“She picked through the other threads, looking for a better cluster, threads that led to better possible futures.”

Lys could hear the commotion around her.  She heard the captain — the gruff cat with green eyes who she’d waited to meet for many years — get called away to consult on something in the engine room.  She heard the kind squirrel man chittering to her about trees, branches, and roots.  Something spiritual, something comforting.  She could hear the sound and meaning, but the actual words had become muffled as her body tried to withdraw deeper inside itself, shedding the outer skin that was supposed to still be her, still be her for many more years.  She could feel the filaments of the mushroom creature’s hands extending out, infiltrating the space under her skin, between the old self that was trying to die and the new self — crystalline and unfinished — getting ready to begin. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 26: The Many Branching Futures”

Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 25: Returning to Where It All Began

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“The turtle’s back shrank from an entire world, ensconcing them, holding them in its protective bubble, to a distant landscape, beautiful but removed.”

“Captain?” Ensign Melbourne meowed from the pilot’s seat.  “We have company.”

“The Zakonraptors are back?”  Captain Carroway had barely been back in her captain’s seat long enough to get comfortably settled.  “Already?  We scared them away for less than a day?”

“I guess so,” the white tomcat meowed acerbically, the tip of his tail twitching in a way that betrayed the concern his dry tone tried to belie.  “We don’t have any better weapons than when they were here last time, but this time it looks like there’s a lot more of them.  Do you think Ensign Diaz has any more ideas or clever tricks hidden up her sleeves?” Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 25: Returning to Where It All Began”

Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 24: You Can’t Go Back, But You Can Go Forward

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“We’re coming with you,” Korvax squeaked matter-of-factly.

When the time came to say goodbye to their Ollallan hosts, the crew of The Wanderlust lined up in front of the ramp leading up to their open airlock.  A group of Ollallans lined up across from them, mimicking the crew’s orderly formation.  Captain Carroway felt a burst of pride that her crew was already working together so smoothly.  It helped that Commander Chestnut had clearly run a tight ship, so the Anti-Ra officers had been well prepared for blending into a Tri-Galactic Union crew. Continue reading “Voyage of the Wanderlust – Chapter 24: You Can’t Go Back, But You Can Go Forward”