Unknown Horizons (Lesbian Space Opera)

Chapter 1

Two minutes. A lifetime in a hundred and twenty seconds. It's enough time to save forty-five thousand lives, enough time to end a career. Or both. As first officer of the Persephone, my decision to eject an engine core without authorization, could be a quick maglev ride to a court martial, but if I succeed, it'll be worth it.

"Did we list?" I yell at Hartley, the Persephone's head engineer. He doesn't remove his focus from his console, just shakes his head. So, this is Hartley in crisis mode. It's welcoming to see he can play grown-up when needed.

As I begin to pull myself up, using the rail surrounding the pit of the engine well, the ship banks to the left. I lose my balance. My head smashes against the rail, and it takes a moment before my vision clears.

In space, there are any number of anomalies that can throw us for a loop: space debris, asteroids, cosmic dust, gravity wells. The hazards are endless, and the trick is to be prepared.

He shakes his head in exasperation. "Why do you always have to be such a hero, Ash?"

But I'm not a hero.

A small puck-like device—one of Hartley's inventions—careens toward the edge of the well. If it falls over, any hope of ejecting that core will be gone. Without thinking, I reach for it, and when my fingers grip around the smooth surface, I realize what a colossal mistake I've made.

I'm the result of happenstance. When I was ten, I remember having to study the Great Migration—when humans fled Earth to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. A whole series of downloads focused on the role of Angus Shreves, the first captain to land on Ceres (later known as Alpha Station). The way they spoke about him, brave, steadfast and without flaws, made it sound as if he was superhuman. He wasn't. I'd always known him as a hard-of-hearing old man, my quiet and moody grandpa.

A few months before I was set to join the academy, my grandpa once asked me the year the Great Migration started. We were in a cafe on Alpha, just a few years before he died. I knew the answer but doubted myself and named a different year. He nodded in his quiet, gruff way and didn't say anything. I missed my opportunity. Maybe saying the right year would've been a key to learning more about the way he helped change humanity's future. But he never did correct me. Ever.

In truth, I think he kept quiet because it was second nature. For him, it wasn't special to be self-effacing. He wasn't the superhero everyone made him out to be.

Here we go. Sirens have begun to blare all around the engine room.

In seconds, one hundred amps barrel through my fingertips and cut through my system like razor blades. Everything goes hazy. The sirens fade into the background, and chaos erupts in a muted play of colors and sensations.

Hartley grasps at me before I go over. He seizes my arm, and a surge jolts me backward. The only other time I can remember feeling such intensity is with Captain Jordan Kellow. I remember why I'm doing this. Even if I never get to touch her creamy skin or run my hands again through that wild black hair, this last act is for her.

***

Four Weeks Earlier

I step over the threshold of the Persephone and feel an excitement well up so quick and so fierce, it brings tears to my eyes. I blink fast before the corporal beside me sees and thinks I'm an emotional basket case. This is it! The last time I will ever watch the sun rise over the asteroid belt. The last time I will ever see Earth from the giant telescopes on Alpha Station. The last time my dad will ever hug me good-bye. It's a heady feeling, this combination of excitement and sadness, and I swallow it deep.

In less than four weeks we'll dock at the Posterus, the first generational ship ever constructed, and begin the most important journey humankind has ever undertaken. More important than discovering fire and creating language. Or even more important than abandoning Earth to live confined in biostations among the asteroid belt over one hundred years ago.