Nexus Nine – Chapter 10: Visions Revealed

by Mary E. Lowd

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

“By the grace of the Unhatched, I swear,” Omoleura said, “I cannot wait to give my Rheun-self back to you, and would never have taken it if there had been any other way.”

Omoleura heard Neera’s sad song, and zhe dragged zirself, limping and in pain, out of the barracks and toward the front of the shuttle.  Quincy hopped after zir, gallumphing about how the insect was supposed to stay still until the medical foam on zir talon hardened.  The frog had replaced his expensive color-changing shirt with a simple synthesized one in plain, bright green.

But Omoleura couldn’t stay out of the way when zhe could hear in Neera’s voice that something was so clearly wrong. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 10: Visions Revealed”

Nexus Nine – Chapter 9: Cracking Eggshells

by Mary E. Lowd

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

“Mazel knew Neera had been a freedom fighter, killing Reptassan occupiers as little as a year ago. But watching her face off with these insects made that whole, arcane history more real.”

While Mazel and the rest of her team — minus Omoleura the traitor — waited for the Carapids to return, Quincy lightened the mood by telling stories.  Most of the frog’s stories seemed to end with the moral:  “And so the soggy swamp swallowed them up, along with everything they had and everyone they knew.”

After a while, Unari suggested that the rest of them should steal the frog’s color-changing pants as well as his shirt and watch captioned episodes of “Small Dog, Big Heart,” but Quincy objected both to the idea of being left naked and to the idea of having everyone stare at his legs for entertainment.  So, they were left with his swamp stories. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 9: Cracking Eggshells”

Nexus Nine – Chapter 8: A Different Perspective

by Mary E. Lowd

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

“Plummeting wingless eggshells! Omoleura needed to rescue that little cat, and get this ancient biohazard of a computer chip out of zir brain.”

Rheun’s reality shrank down to a pinpoint — pure thought, no physicality.  Time could only be measured by the shape of her impatience, which came in waves.  With no external anchors, only darkness, it was hard to keep track of who she was.  Mazel the cat?  Darius the dog?  Augrula the bear?  An octopus?  Maybe even human.

When reality returned, the truth of being Mazel melted away like frost in sunlight.  The cat was only a memory, and the physical truth of Rheun’s existence had changed.  Zhe extended an arm to look at zir paws, but instead two limbs moved — a wing and an arm, zhe thought — and the appendage that appeared in zir view was not a paw.  A talon, perhaps; covered in blue fuzz with darker ridges, creating a feathery pattern.  Except the talon appeared dozens of times in overlapping, multitudinous views until Rheun figured out how to resolve all of the images into one. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 8: A Different Perspective”

Nexus Nine – Chapter 7: Off the Rails

by Mary E. Lowd

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

“But the memories were already gone. All of her past selves, all of those voices had been like friends inside of her, but they wouldn’t talk to her anymore. The chip in her brain wasn’t working. Was it broken?”

After the initial blush of excitement, several hours of studious, focused concentration and contemplation followed.  Numbers streamed over screens — fascinating, mesmerizing numbers — each one representing a star or planet; asteroid field or nebula; likelihood of habitability and — even more exciting — likelihood of already being inhabited.

Mazel was in seventh heaven; her crew was less thrilled.  Quincy, Neera, and Omoleura disappeared back into the barracks to play a game of Chanster’s Claws.  Even Lt. Unari seemed to grow weary of cataloguing star systems by their likelihood of containing biological elements — native plants and animals — that she could study if they went to them… but that were too far away as they floated in space beside the currently invisible nexus just scanning, scanning, scanning. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 7: Off the Rails”

Nexus Nine – Chapter 6: Discovering a New Galaxy

by Mary E. Lowd

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

“For an instant that felt like an eternity, Mazel became convinced that Van Gogh must have also carried a neural chip, whispering memories of nexus travels into his brain; he had been a fellow traveler across the centuries, also originating in the galaxy Ennea.”

The command deck was crowded — seemingly full of every Avioran officer onboard Nexus Nine Base, every Tri-Galactic Navy scientist, and of course, Omoleura — when Mazel launched the un-crewed probe toward Nexus Nine.  The anticipation was palpable.

Aviorans whispered about the Apex and the Sky Nest — many of them seemed to believe they would soon be hearing the voice of their gods, the wisdom of the Unhatched, sent through the scientific scanners of the probe.  The Tri-Galactic Navy scientists whispered less; their excitement was more straightforward and less fraught — they would learn something interesting today, regardless of what exactly the probe discovered, new knowledge is new knowledge.  They had fewer hopes to be dashed and thus could wear their excitement on their sleeves, where the Aviorans had to cradle their sacred, delicate hopes like fledgling babes with untested wings, unsure yet of whether they’d ever fly. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 6: Discovering a New Galaxy”

Nexus Nine – Chapter 5: The Power of Visions

by Mary E. Lowd

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

“Mazel had never played Chanster’s Claws before, but her Rheun chip was exceptionally good at calculating probabilities, and she had lifetimes of experience with reading other peoples’ body language.”

Once Mazel and the captain were alone on the sandy shore beside the Temple of Yunib, the German Shepherd climbed into the rowboat, sat down, and stared up at the sky.  “What does it mean, Big Dog?” he asked.  “Am I a messiah in a religion I’d never heard of until three weeks ago?  What would that even mean?”

Mazel sat down on the wooden plank seat beside Bataille.  Her head only came to his shoulder.  His physical presence, now that he was so much larger than her, had a comforting, anchoring quality that she didn’t remember when she’d been Darius. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 5: The Power of Visions”

Nexus Nine – Chapter 4: Flying Down to Avia

by Mary E. Lowd

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

“She stared harder at the crack in space-time where the universe was folding in upon itself and draining into an obscure hyperspace. She stared so hard that her eyes watered; her ears and whiskers flattened. But she saw nothing more strange than the crack in space-time itself.”

The flight from Nexus Nine Base down to the surface of the planet took twenty minutes, and it was spectacularly beautiful.  Lacy clouds streamed past the shuttle’s windows, and the world below expanded from a globe of gemstone brilliance hanging in the dark sky into a vista engulfing them, bright blue sky all around and rich green expanses growing wider and closer below. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 4: Flying Down to Avia”

Nexus Nine – Chapter 3: Researching the Sky Nest

by Mary E. Lowd

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

“But Mazel hoped that Nexus Nine led to a galaxy that hadn’t been explored at all before. Fresh and brand new. Or maybe, deeply familiar. Maybe… home.”

Mazel dreamed fitfully of her past lives.  Her body changed from small and fluffy to gangly and short-furred, leaving her wobbling and off-balance, then her long, canine legs stretched like taffy being pulled until they became coiling tentacles.  Dogs and cats who had been close to Rheun but had died years ago — or hundreds of years ago — whispered to Mazel, saying words she couldn’t quite hear.  Mazel woke abruptly from the dream, startled awake by the sensation within the dream of her tentacles calcifying into chitinous legs that only bent in a few places.  More places than her feline legs.  But so few compared to the infinite bending of a tentacle. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 3: Researching the Sky Nest”

Nexus Nine – Chapter 2: The Esplanade

by Mary E. Lowd

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

“At another time, in another condition, the esplanade might have been stunningly beautiful. At this moment, in this condition, it was only stunning for the story it told. A story of destruction.”

The deck they’d come to was wide and open, as large around as several city blocks and two stories high, with arching windows around the perimeter and even more windows worked into the floors, all looking out at the stars or the planet Avia below.

An expansive stretch of lacy white clouds shrouded the turquoise and jade crescent of the world currently in daylight.  The wholesome brightness of the planet in its gemstone shades of green, blue, and pearly white only made the esplanade itself look shabbier.  Outside the windows was natural wonder, large enough to spend lifetimes exploring; inside was a cramped, dingy space.  Scorch marks seared across the window frames and marred some of the windows.  Rubble was strewn about, including broken pieces of the esplanade itself — stairwells and walkways that should have provided a second level, wrought of some dark metal, had twisted and crashed to the floor. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 2: The Esplanade”

Nexus Nine – Chapter 1: Meeting An Old Friend

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Nexus Nine.  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.

“I should have known you’d show up here.  You always were fascinated by the nexus passageways.”

Mazel Rheun watched her old friend, Shep Bataille, from across the command deck of Nexus Nine Base.  The calico cat was steeling herself to approach the German Shepherd.  Mazel needed to introduce herself, and then she would see the reality in Shep’s eyes — the confusion, the lack of recognition.  Shep wouldn’t know her.  In fact, Mazel probably shouldn’t think of him as her old friend Shep anymore.  Now, he was her commanding officer, Captain Bataille. Continue reading “Nexus Nine – Chapter 1: Meeting An Old Friend”