The Daughter of Dark Space (2025)
Synopsis
This second installment in the speculative psycho-fantasy series Of Dark Space, follows Marine in her attempt to escape that subspace dreamscape of memories. Haunted by angry ghosts, hunted by her grandfather's murderer, and hiding from an ancient goddess of destruction. With no one and nothing to return to, what’s the point?
Oh yeah… revenge.
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The Daughter of Dark Space
PROLOGUE
Marine Zahn
Present Day
Kh-Odyn Complex, Seryy Military Command, Forbidden Zone-Kh, Quarry Delta
Emily hesitated before closing the lid on Marine’s cargo crate. Her eyebrows knit together, “Marine, I’m afraid if I do this, I’m going to hear about the cadet found dead aboard the DSS Godspeed this evening; Shouldn’t we drill some air-holes or something?”
Marine sat up and made a show of looking around the cargo dock. “Do you see air-holes in any of the other boxes?”
“Not in the top, idiot. But… what if we borrowed a scuba tank from the zero-G training pool?”
“If I’d planned this months ago (or at all) those would both be great ideas, but the loading crew will be here in fifteen minutes,” Marine squeezed Emily’s hand where it held up the lid. “Relax. I’ve got about an hour until CO2 buildup becomes a problem. And once the ship is in dark space, all properties of classical physics will be suspended. I won’t technically need to breathe. Worst case scenario if loading gets delayed is: I get a little carbon-dioxide headache.”
Emily nodded and sighed, “Just… don’t make me a murderer.”
“We’re going to be fine. No one is going to even know I’m on board, so no one will come looking for evidence. And if they do, we’re in a security blind-spot and you have an alibi.”
“But I’ll know!”
“Seriously, Em, I’m going to be fine!”
Emily started to close the lid but hesitated a second time, “Marine, I—”
“Yeah, yeah, I love you too. Just seal the container and get out of here.”
The corner of her mouth began a smile, but that wasn’t what she’d been about to say. “I hope you find him.”
The lid closed. Marine settled into the cramped darkness. She listened to Emily carefully secure five separate latches, and re-calculated the exact volume of air in the long, coffin-sized cargo crate. The numbers were tight, yet she forced herself to regulate her breath.
‘Maybe this was a bad idea.’
Any sound she made in these tight confines was amplified, and possibly even audible to a passing dockworker. With the lid so close to her face, she could hear the wet sound of her eyes blinking. The moments of silence crawled across her skin like an unscratchable itch, and she had to bite her lip to keep from calling for help.
As the lid, a hand-width in front of her face, grew wet with her aspiration. She felt as if she’d been in the box an hour, and began growing tired of fighting off the doubt. Of avoiding the image of Emily, weeping uncontrollably at her funeral. ‘Stop it! This is going to work.’
When the fork loader arrived, she felt as much as heard its lumpy tires trundling along. Every time it drew near, she thought it might be her turn, and was disappointed so many times that when its forks finally slid under her, the sudden, loud shhhhhh, caused her to yelp in alarm. Her arms flew out for something to hold onto as she was quickly lifted into the air. Their banging she thought was a dead giveaway, but the loader operator never paused. To prevent future noise, and to keep her weight from shifting, Marine folded her arms to her chest and filled her lungs with air, wedging herself in place. As the loader backed up and turned, she lost all sense of direction. The abrasive bumping seemed to continue for longer than the distance to the D.S.S. Godspeed, as if the loader were taking her somewhere else.
’Stop worrying!’ She scolded herself, ‘Everything always works out for me in the end, there’s no reason it should stop now. I’ll find Daddy before Rachael even knows I’m on board. One step at a time, Marine.’
Praise for The Mother of Dark Space
From Amazon comments:
"I can't quite understand how you managed to write such an intricate scientific story without having lived it! … what a treat, i was gripped and miss them already…”
“I haven’t had a book draw me in like that in years…"
"I love this already. Captivating and quick to grab the reader!!!”
