Chapter 3.20: Titanium
“Congratulations,” Lucy’s voice greeted me as I pulled the headphones from my ear with a slight pop. “How are you feeling?”
I stared, my thoughts effortlessly processing and categorizing the immense array of information my active sense meridian provided me. I spent a few moments reorganizing them, compartmentalizing the overwhelming input...
2025-10-27 16:50:07 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.19: 237
It took the better part of four months for Charlotte to get her hands on a copy of cognitohazard 237, a process I thankfully didn’t have to witness as from my understanding it involved a fair amount of browbeating an innocent archival worker and a fairly hefty bribe.
It must be nice to have money.
The whole song and dance apparently bypassed a lengthy testi...
2025-10-17 20:20:51 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.18: Not My Problem
“And?”
“And nobody seems to care! The local sect representative refuses to investigate, and my fellow disciples just continue their sparring as if he’ll return any day now, but he won’t! Someone’s taken him. The wards at the entrance to his private quarters were broken, and even though the lock—”
I interrupted him ...
2025-10-17 20:18:54 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.17: Paid Medical Leave
“I still vote six-eighteen.”
“Cal, we’ve been over this.” Charlotte swiped through the holo display we’d projected over our side of the dining room table to bring up the description for cognitohazard six-eighteen. Her finger gestured to a figure just below the id.
Survival Rate: 83%
“Yes, I know it’s b...
2025-06-18 17:25:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.16: Incident Report
The airlock we wound up at was a small shuttle dock, whatever vessel it served conveniently absent. The no-at didn’t fit, so Bill had to leave it secured outside as we maneuvered inside.
A medic—and, thankfully, nobody else—was waiting for us. “I had a call about a vac exposure? Where’s the patient?”
I pulled off my h...
2025-06-09 16:32:01 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.15: Occupational Hazard
It took eight months, all told, from our arrival on the Right Eye for the conflict within the Urlitch household to finally end. None of us had been in the room for obvious reasons, but the word was after bleeding each others’ resources for months on end, Myra had managed to catch Cassie alone and challenge her, only for Darla to appear in the afte...
2025-06-04 17:13:15 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.14: Celebration
“Sooooooo? What did he say?” I pressed a gin and tonic into Xavier’s hand the moment he set foot on the gangway. I’d wanted to open with champagne, but Lucy had vetoed that option as being in ill taste should Jean Jack have rejected his petition. A G and T made for a far more neutral beverage.
Xavier took two large g...
2025-05-30 17:27:08 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.13: Petition
“Xavier challenged Li Bo today. Broke his arm in three places.”
“That’s the last one, isn’t it?” I asked. “Finally done?”
“Finally done,” Micaiah confirmed with a ragged breath. “Threads, it's been a long month.”
It hadn’t felt like that to me. From my perspective, the third month since we’d arriv...
2025-05-28 16:47:23 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.12: On the Inside
2,614 matches found!
Micaiah groaned and flung the arm from which her holopad projected into the cushion beside her. Three weeks she’d been banging her head into this wall and still the AI refused to play nice.
“Perhaps you should take a break,” Xavier broke from his silent meditation to say. “You’ve been at it since b...
2025-05-24 16:21:20 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.11: The Mortal Life
“Exactly what part of ‘keep your head down’ did you not understand?” Charlotte’s voice rang in my ear as I stepped down Lucy’s gangway on my way to work.
“In my defense, my head was down,” I said into my holopad. “My mouth was just open. Threads, I wasn’t even trying to talk to them. One of them had their s...
2025-05-20 15:34:25 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.10: Cultivator Bullshit
“…then Sun Buns turns to me and says—and I shit you not—‘the stench of sewage is back. I think there might be a second source.”
I slammed my fist into the table as laughter took me. “Right in front of him? Oh, that’s devastating. I’ve gotta steal that.”
Sun Buns—or Sun Byun to those of us who weren...
2025-05-17 16:53:32 +0000 UTC View Post(A quick note that chapter titles are exclusively to help me keep track of what happens where in my internal files. Please refrain from groaning.)
Chapter 3.9: My Sect’s Life
“Cal…”
I mumbled incoherently and rolled closer to the source of warmth a few feet to my left.
“Cal,” my tormenter persisted. “You’re going to be late for work.”
My eye...
2025-05-15 16:45:42 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.8: Back to Work
Lucy’s lower deck felt lonely the next morning.
I didn’t lack for company, as Lucy and I amicably chatted while I nibbled away at a plate of eggs over easy, but lovely as I always found Lucy’s presence, she couldn’t replace Charlotte thinking over a plan aloud or Xavier boisterously gloating about achieving a personal best against the co...
2025-05-12 17:29:30 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.7: Party’s Over
I cycled my lungs and heart to calm myself as partygoers around us rushed in for a better look or inconspicuously made for the door. I realized swiftly that Micaiah and I stood out, seemingly the only two in the entire ballroom who hadn’t leapt into some kind of action. Our view of the corpse had long been obstructed by the press of bodie...
2025-05-09 19:59:30 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.6: Immaculate Reception
“Are you sure I have to wear this?” I patted down black jacket Lucy had dug up for me, fingers tracing the high collar that formed a flat line from shoulder to shoulder. “I’m not sure it suits me.”
“It didn’t suit Cedric either,” Lucy replied, a tendril of qi polishing one of the ...
2025-05-07 18:20:05 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.5: Staying Put
“I, Xavier Honchel, future champion of the Dragon’s Right Eye, challenge you to a duel!”
Micaiah suppressed a sigh as the sound of a door slamming reached her from the hall outside. “Give it a rest, Xavier. Four ‘no’s should be enough to get the hint.”
“This place la...
2025-05-02 18:27:19 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.4: Death
I still felt it.
I felt its presence, scratching against the edges of reality, ready to appear in all its ineffable glory should I but slip into the proper state of mind. I didn’t think that was possible without at least activating my brain meridian, and even then it would require conscious effort. One advant...
2025-05-02 18:25:45 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.3: Errands
The ostentatious doorway spat me out into an ostentatious-er departure lounge. Hardwood—real wood—floors tapped against my boots with a satisfying knock. Oil pantings of the fields of Ilirian hung upon three of the chambers four walls, the fourth of which—opposite my entrance—was made entirely of glass. I paused for a breath, staring...
2024-12-02 19:31:20 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, this is long overdue, but the multitiered system for patreon chapters doesn't really make a lot of sense for series that aren't being publicly serialized, so at the end of October, I'll be re-doing the tier system.
All advance chapters of The Stargazer's War will be available at the (new) $7 tier. For most of you, that means cheaper chapters, so adjust your pledges accordin...
2024-10-23 21:15:00 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.2: Warm Welcome
The Dragon’s Right Eye, like any caged sun, was a marvel of engineering.
The station itself wrapped around the entire star, a dyson sphere built to capture qi rather than anything so pedestrian as light or heat. Other than the infrequent supporting pillars and access tunnels where necessary, every mile of the station followed the corners and curves ...
2024-10-23 21:07:19 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3.1: Into the Suns
Four days from our looming arrival at the Dragon’s Right Eye, I sat atop Lucy’s bridge contemplating impermanence. My musings weren’t anything special—with all the meditating I do they can’t all be winners—but I found the process peaceful enough to justify the handful of hours I devoted to it each morning. Lucy, being Lu...
2024-10-23 21:05:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi everyone! I'm incredibly excited to announce that book 2 of The Stargazer's War is finally out! It took a long time getting there, but I'm incredibly happy with how the story turned out, and of course with Rashed AlAkroka's...
2024-08-30 14:31:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 2.19: Crucible
“Charlotte!” Xavier dove to catch her on her way down, cradling her head to keep it from the hard cobblestone. The dolt. She was weak, not unconscious. Despite herself a warmth blossomed in Charlotte’s chest, almost enough to make her forget the ache spreading through her entire body. Almost.
“Charlotte?” Caliban stood over her, expression as icy as ...
2024-02-01 21:30:56 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 2.18: The Dead City
“Cal,” Charlotte’s hushed voice roused me from my slumber. “You’re up.”
I nodded groggily, grateful they’d given me last watch even though Charlotte had been the one nearly falling over last night. I supposed she at least had gotten a few hours in while I was advancing. By the time I’d made it to my feet, grabbed a few things from my bag, ...
2024-01-31 21:09:33 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 2.17: Underground
I think the enchantments are changing. It’s insane. I know it’s insane. Enchantments don’t change. The complexity of maintaining stability through transitional states is beyond modern AI, let alone whatever math the Sil would’ve been able to crank out by hand, and that’s assuming they had access to some kind of material rigid enough to hold an encha...
2024-01-17 21:56:05 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 2.16: Negotiations
Inspector Samuel Scorne was about to blow this whole case wide open. He could feel it in his bones, in his soul, in his gut, the latter of which had steadily grown both in predictive capability and in circumference over his twenty-seven years at the Office of Criminal Investigation. It was those damn bear claws in the break room. It wasn’t his fault t...
2024-01-08 21:48:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 2.15: Bronze
I sat then and there, crossing my legs and straightening my back inches shy of the tunnel wall. I cradled the egg in cupped hands, my gaze fixed on it as Charlotte and Xavier stared down at me.
“Is this a good idea?” Charlotte asked. “They’ll be searching right above us.”
“What’re they gonna do, sense me pulling dark qi?”
She opened h...
2024-01-05 21:53:27 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 2.14: Hatching Day
Xavier rushed in to join us in Lucy’s upper deck with his shirt half tucked in and his hair still wet from the shower. “It’s happening?”
“Strap in,” Lucy instructed him. “We’re leaving.”
“It’s happening,” I acknowledged him, my hands cupping the egg close enough to feel its inhabitant shifting within.
Xavier quickly obey...
2024-01-04 19:22:00 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 2.13: Ticking Down
I knew I couldn’t stay out there forever. I didn’t need forever, much as I shrouded myself in it like a security blanket. Behind its frigid pall, sapped of humanity as it left me, I could look at things objectively. I could look, and I could understand.
Lucy’s actions made sense. She’d taken a chance, her only chance, to save the ...
2024-01-04 00:02:58 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 2.12: Past Time
“…and ’til the day my heart stops beating, my love for you’ll be unretreating…” Charlotte’s gorgeous if drunkenly over-frilled soprano resonated through the living room as she worked her way through the cheesy ballad. From the couch, Xavier and I looked on, only nominally paying attention as we chatted amongst ourselves. Charlotte didn’t mind. She w...
2023-10-05 21:09:26 +0000 UTC View Post