Derin Edala

4.114: Climb and Sing

The spinal column of our prison was our prison was our home/ and the shadow of our home/ lay in the vessel’s bones/ and we knew these halls these halls but smaller/ in this temporary hauler/ and ...

058: DISCLOSURE

I move my stuff into Habitation Ring 1 that night, choosing a room as far away from the one where I found Leilea Arc Hess as possible. While I’m moving, I take the time to go through every curren...

4.113: Be the Music

Hammond stepped in front of Saina. “Parvi,” he muttered, “I’ll distract her attention; you hide in the seats until she’s clear of the door and then get out – ”

The pair were sur...

057: FAMILY

Despite Sands making it clear that Movie Night is in no way compulsory, almost everyone shows up. The only one absent is Celi Tate, the new doctor, and our existing doctors explain that ke’s unde...

4.112: Catching Up

Okay. This was nothing to worry about.

I put the pearl back on the plinth, but the light didn’t come back on. Moving it must have permanently disconnected something. This was… this was no...

056: HISTORY

I’m checking our various hardware supplies on a terminal in Network and Engineering Ring 1 later that day when our new psychologist walks in.

“It’s Aspen, right?”

“Sure is. Ho...

April patreon bonus -- Tal's Life Advice

The thing they don’t tell you about riding the wires, right, is that there’s always, ALWAYS a way back to you. Stands to reason. I mean, you’re in your meat; can’t escape it. So riding the ...

4.111: Harmony

It took me a little while to be sure what I was looking at.

Not because the room was poorly lit or anything. The stone within the 2m space glowed as brightly as the stone outside it, although...

055: ICEBREAKER

By the next morning, everyone’s awake, registered, and well enough to (at Captain Sands’ insistence) attend a morning meeting at our usual picnic table, even though there’s no way we could al...

4.110: The Cursed Heart

They say that if you hit water from a high enough height, it’s like hitting concrete.

Well, I wasn’t worried about that. I knew I wasn’t high enough for that to be a concern. I’d fall...

054: RECORD

Sunset moves in her bed, and the Friend quickly shoos us all out. “Go and inform the captain,” it says, which… okay, yes fair, he should be informed, but I still can’t help but fee...

4.109: Bait And Run

Saina pulled a couple more people into the link, one at a time, to ask for updates. I didn’t know them or have any context for what they were discussing, but she didn’t drop her link with me th...

Ask Me Anything 9 -- Tal Smithson

Have you heard of the magical girl genre?

Fuck yes, have you read Sailor Nothing? World-changing. Preneek. Literature. I mean we only have two thirds of it but they were a gr...

053: AUTONOMY

The first of our new crewmates to wake is the doctor, Celi Tate. The doctors are insistent about kem not being crowded, so it’s a few hours before I’m allowed to see kem. Ke blinks up at me fro...

4.108: What You Relied Upon Before

I screamed.

There was a startled sound. Not me, not the monitor beeping next to me; something from outside the soundproofed curtains. But not from the rest of the hospital. Something from… ...

052: EXPAND

All eight of us crowd around the chronostasis pod. It doesn’t take the entire crew to revive someone; we could work a lot faster if we split off into groups of three, but no one, event he captain...

4.107: Mind Games

I woke up feeling a lot better. Not great, but a lot better.

There was still something… itching… in the back of my head. Not quite a headache, although it did carry the unpleasantly disor...

4.106: Detention

The funny thing was, the cell they lead me to wasn’t all that different from my room in the school.

I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, really, but it made sense. I already lived in ...

051: HULL

The video in question is from the two cameras on Denish’s space suit. I watch him exit the ship through the pod launch ring 3 airlock, wait for the giant lens to be cycled, through, then help Tin...

4.105: Interrogation

One of the sekuranti settled a cloak over my shoulders, concealing my hands shackled behind my back. Ralphie adjusted his collar to hide the tattoo on his neck. Ralphie left, half a minute later th...

050: SELECTION

“Well, this isn’t great,” Lina says as we pluck beans for dinner. It’s less than ten minutes after my meeting with Captain Sands, and the two of us are alone in Greenhouse Ring 1 – the ca...

4.104: The Miratova Conspiracy

“Di Fiore betrayed me like that?!”

“He understood his duty and the importance of keeping an eye on an active danger to the school. What is the key for?”

I considered lying. But ...

049: SAFETY

“Alright,” Captain Sands announces, wiping coolant off his arm with a rag as he strolls into Recreation and Medical Ring 1, “the coolant system’s as fixed as it can get. Tal, go turn on the...

Behind the Keyboard -- di Fiore and Clara

4.103: Question and Answer

I hesitated. What was the plan here, exactly? Get into a fistfight with my surveyanto? This wasn’t the time to panic. I had no idea what he actually wanted.

“What did you just try to drug...

048: ADAPTATION

The doctors shoo us all out of the room pretty quickly so they can run tests. About an hour later, I’m let back in alone. Keldin is significantly more awake, sitting up in bed and sipping some of...

4.102: Preparations

Over the next few weeks, we planned. We gathered supplies. We hung out with our loved ones when we could.

I packed everything I thought we’d need. Food, water, first aid kit. Lighter, knife...

Behind the Keyboard -- the janitors

So guess what I forgot to queue for February 22nd? This, apparently! Apologies for the super late installment.

Next AMA character is... Tal!

Send in your questions by the end of the month!

Patreon bonus -- Tinera's javelin ID card

ID chips were implanted into colonists shortly before stasis for  recognition aboard the ship and new colony, but during the training,  accommodation and boarding process, it was more con...