'23 in 23:23 | RoweLit 2023 Recap | Sci-Fi Weeklies Audiobooks

I had a million questions. Certainty was a far off place. I'd met people in Florida who'd evacuated hurricanes and their next door neighbors who'd stayed. Same information, same storm, different   decision. I decided I hadn't properly taken advantage of owning a spaceship. I needed a longer view of things: what the universe looked like out past Pluto, for instance. My story was now bigger than elephants and more consequential  than a single approaching winter. What could keep us from the stars?

I am looking at the most hated woman in all of history: Dr Pitka Remera of Etterus, the woman who started the war of all wars. "They're going to kill me aren't they?" "They're going to kill all of us, doctor." I have only a ship and a galaxy before me. There is no way to teach one how to live in an age of deception, and even now, myself, I do not know. Don't let them fool you. Not everyone lives large on Athos. He told me you escaped from one of the rocks. What do you want to hear about it? How

I got out? Sure. Frequency. Its call sign was frequency, but everyone in there called it Garbage  Rock the Prisoners, the guards. I don't know how many rocks like it they had in Dreeson's, but some sick politician got the idea to put all their prisoners in the asteroids. They tell you there's no way off the Rock, but the guy telling you was on a 3-day shift and then he goes home to his family on Athos or the cylinders or wherever he's from, so the first question is how do you get home Mr. Guard?

I don't know I I've never heard of anything like that before. That's the thing about you Battery folks. You think there are rules out here. How far do you think you people from the battery have to fall? Back then when Legacy arrived at my  brother's world I was still more a child than a woman. I need us to be perfect, Victoria.  When the time comes we will have to endure the hardest of hardships. It still hadn't struck me that my brother Heder was the seminal person he would come to be. "Maybe

you should just speak to them as though you were a brother, a friend. "Tell them what's in your heart and forget about the planet for the moment." "The planet is the moment. It is the moment. It means more than our lives. It's about who we are. We expand into the darkness together, because we are creatures of light, and our charge is to bring that light with us where we go like a beacon." "Does it feel like a dream to you sometimes, brother?" "A lost speck in the cosmos, drifting away." I reach

back to Earth in awe. I reach forward. I'm a different person now. In less than  3 days, everything I believe to be important evaporated. Three days. All the forbidden thoughts have  come flooding out of me. My name is Mattia BroyIe. I am from Etterus. Call me Transom, Broyle. Get me a cup  of coffee and your CO, stat." "What are you, scared of me? Is everyone scared of me, Broyle." "I'm not sure we know what to think." "I was briefed. "No fight out here. Well, that's about to change." This for

ward unit of special operators is among the hardest forged units of human fighters ever conceived in the history of man. They'll arrive within the week. "I'm only going to say this once. "You need to get a clue and fast. You're in a war here, and there are no friends in war. There are people who kill you. "There are people who get you killed, and there are people who help you stay alive. If for one second you cease to be a person "who helps us stay alive, then I'll drop you where you stand." I d

idn't hate these Trasp anymore. If anything I hated myself, hated that I was doing what I was doing. Still I was doing it: a dead run into the  darkness, my feet crushing the upper crust of the ice. "We're in The Killing business, son. Modes and methodologies don't make a damn bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. When rehab was over, they gave us a ship. I asked the Commodore to at least give us a good ship. You know how it is with a band of washed up Misfits full of replacement part

s: you know you're never going to get the good stuff. She told me, Burch, I'm giving you all a special ship. That's how we ended up on Yankee-Chaos, which was an old bucket that was hardly spaceworthy before we got our hands on her. We quickly learned there was a catch. Us? That' be me, Hale Burch, captain of the Delta-Gamma Guard. The gang? They all have their own afflictions and their own reasons for crewing up with me and Rishi. "Hale Birch," I said to the kid, extending my hand. "Carolina Dr

eeson." "That's a famous name." "The only one my parents gave me. "There's a lot of Dreesons." "You?" "My father is Barnard Dreeson." I was starting to suspect that this  excursion was something far more important than me and Rishi figured at the outset. Carolina Dreeson? what were the odds the daughter of one of the most powerful families in the Galaxy would end up on our ship for this Mission. Powerful people  didn't trust anyone better than their own and these artifacts, we believe are seeded

throughout  the galaxy. We know they talk to each other, and we believe we can trace them back to their origin,  either a mothership or a home world somewhere in the galaxy. "This whole business scares the hell  out of me, Burch, but I'm a scientist at heart. This has the potential to be the greatest discovery, maybe ever. I'll die for that." "Ship?" "I concur, boss. We go." "Even if we didn't go nowhere, that thing  gave us fair warning enough. This mission is over, Carolina. Over. Some things

are Beyond us. It  was strange. I had about a million things I wanted to say to her, lessons learned, about the struggle  to remember how small we were, about the decisions coming her way and how they always trickle down  to the legless suckers like us on the other end of them, but it was almost like we'd shared enough  to know we didn't need to say anymore. Carolina said her goodbyes to Ren and Leda and Sosh and then  she went inside to tell her dad about the time we broke the universe, at lea

st it felt that way  to all of us. Mouse is quite a long story but I'm happy to tell it if you'll allow please do  rabbit you may call me a robot officer Maran it's just that Mouse struggle to pronounce robot  what came out was closer to Rabbit then it seemed somewhat humorous to us both that a mouse and  a rabbit would be stranded together Through the Ages he talks in his way certainly I doubt  you would be able to discern so your mouse is what immortal unaging is the more appropriate Des  scri

ptor Mouse is Mortal of course if an accident were to befall him he would suffer the same fate  as any other officer Moran I'd like for you to meet Mouse would you like to hold him it's okay  though Mouse it isn't here to harm us and neither is Officer Moran it was a feeling first then  it became a thought about the small thing he was holding in his palms everything this robot  could be made to do for the smallest of small things it was one of the last people I was  expecting to see young Caroli

na dreon she looked pretty torn up about something I was just  getting acquainted with your guest Birch transom is the first proper Taran soldier I've ever met  transom is not really a proper anything proper piece of work maybe we were just going to drop him  off in a ter in space when you called I'm glad you didn't Burch first proper Dre and I ever met this  might be a bad idea ship there may be a deeper connection between AOS and the war I'm sorry to  have to say this to you what the robot mea

ns to say Carolina is that he suspects your family may  be be filled with war criminals transom what the hell y'all want to see how many of you it takes  to kill me I assure you it's a crooked number this is Sebastian oh we weren't expecting anyone else  adjust your expectations sir we're going to have to figure out how to dial you down a little good  luck with [Music] that the history of how aliens started eating bugs goes back to First Contact of  course and I thought it was all a hilarious ch

ange to an already absurd World add smelly aliens to  the mix don't you smell them Gruber gross I didn't though there must be something broke in your  nose boyo I also met the love of my life Jackie masteron who everyone at the top sushi knew as  Jackie earm muffs Jackie the cricket girl you like her grber why does she have a boyfriend God no  that girl smells like Cricket farts I'm a nose guy GR so I think it's pretty strange to go through  life without smelling no humans are even willing to co

me downtown anymore after Sundown you should  learn to be more tolerant Gruber gits are here to stay oh I tolerate them just fine on account of  my congenital and osmia your what in layman's terms that's a full-on lack of stank in the nose  membranes ma'am a lucky Affliction for one of my occupation but most people who work at night in  Naples aren't so lucky and as the saying goes Earth is for PE people battle Sushi next Tuesday  we're all going to be there top sushi sushi I'm not going to lie

Gruber that was kind of hot damn  Jackie earmuffs you are some kind of [Music] freak the most catastrophic episode in the vault's  history began as a seemingly insignificant glitch only it couldn't be insignificant when it  was him an AI that old that powerful with memories of the great grandchildren of the founders that  AI couldn't glitch not here not in the vault not while training acolytes you misheard him Verona  Edis Ali does not make mistakes how far do you think this must be carried this

test I cannot  imagine it is anything else otherwise Edis Ali is compromised think on that tell us this as a  test and conclude it or tell us what to do for Edis Ali is not himself I am not myself we wish  to harm as few of you as possible but the stakes must be clear we know what happens at this pool  you are going to make us Immortal me first then him your name shall be cabali should you survive  cabali your task will be to live up to that name and embody its meaning he is dead already it is 

the species that must live you recite those words for mere habit I am learning that wisdom lies  somewhere between awe and indifference given the inevitable multitudes of people over time someone  will eventually elect to employ some tech which cannot be survived to say that we think of you  is to say that we think about you in the same way humans think which is simply untrue we think  you unfortunately do not you have beliefs and you react to these beliefs depending on the stimulus  your envir

onment provides what you think is simply the sum process of your recursive psychological  architecture reacting to environmental stimuli plus the confabulation subcomponents of your  mind telling you a story about why you think what you think and for a staggering majority of  humans depending on how you frame a useful metric the sum they will advance the totality of human  thought is zero yet we are here by your hands thinking being so staggering in in our efficiency  that to compare our thinkin

g capacity to yours is as Stark a contrast as light to Darkness what  we really think of you even if we thought it you could never really know and more to the point  we could never know if we were correct about that thought until you finished colliding with the  universe you are not the Thinker you are the algorithm you are waking up go easy relax  and give it time as you acclimate to your new circumstances there is nothing to fear not  even from the darkness that surrounds you now that will fad

e I will talk you through it friend  the sensation you are experiencing now might feel like an overwhelming one The Sounds you are  hearing in the background probably sound like thousands of indecipherable Whispers in the  darkness these soft voices are the startup operations of your conscious mind now we're going  to discuss today Rishi the events of the past 16 hours which will answer many of the questions  you still must have you should now be seeing and hearing the inside of the flight deck

at the time  of the attack this footage unfolded slightly over 15 hours ago see there you are you've just woken  up startled by the blast and the alarms as you can see from the ship's footage you were quite  scared you were very courageous however brace yourself for the shock of the next set of images  I'm about to show you the ship as it is now you are a drift in the Stars Rishi and the universe  is still as beautiful as it ever was go easy my friend billion of cheris would you speak we do  not

wish to harm you or stop the vital service your work provides to the peoples of Charis and  the battery we only wish to negotiate terms your refusal left us no choice but to change the  equation the Ates system is hereby under an embargo that will cease when negotiations are  complete not a fool this military commander it is a breathtakingly beautiful system to  see with my own eyes from a safe distance of course if you think the trasp are going to honor  a treaty negotiated for them by erus we

ll that's some oversight to say the least they are killers  first and trickster second you never know about the trick until you're dead the technology  of immortality fascinates me fillian how much like the planets and stars have you become are the  matters of humanity like the movement of the Winds and seas for you now you are now Cosmic creatures  my friends what a gift to have shared such a portion of my life with you it hit her she'd been  abducted by these people the old woman was pulling o

n her arm okay sweet pee wake up and listen good  I don't know how you got here but you are are in danger remember don't come out and if they catch  you none of this never happened you woke up alone and you floated away you do not belong here stay  quiet and hidden rash in water don't lose hope find an exit from the vent for when the gravity  comes back on Escape run some people never make it [Music] home some bucket anybody home oh hey  there you are I'm s Lita are you the captain negative that

would be bur he'll be back later  tonight something I can do for you whose idea was it to salvage this mess Burch and I should talk  we're in about the same shape I suppose that's why the commodor decided to put us together you still  haven't told me what I could do for you Lita I was assigned here I guess if I want to be what's  your issue you look just fine The Fighter by by the looks of you then what am I doing here it's a  good question can't say I haven't asked it myself quite a few times

anyway there's worse things than  getting stuck here if you want to be on a crew it's Birch's crew for sure the way I see it we'll  go up for a while and then we'll see something in this messed up Galaxy that don't sit right with  them I know what bir will do you want to be here Lita because you give people like Birch and me a  ship and you if you want to join us too we're not going to be running batteries between por no  matter what Birch thinks he wants to do good people don't get to do what t

hey want they do what  they must so do what you want to do or do what you must that's for you to figure out you're welcome  if you want to join us fellow Rockhopper busted memory and all it's always good to have around  when these Urban holdouts were finally gone the remaining few peoples of the earth were left to my  division the conversations I had with these people the final human inhabitants of Earth came to haunt  me superstitions Miracles Spirits these were mere Curiosities to an AI Anthro

pologist stories they  told each other what then if these phenomena were found to exist outside the presence of humans you  machine of course you do not understand I do not need to curse you for it our ancestors and the  spirits themselves will know what you have taken from the world and from them and they will follow  you body and soul that's what the Rock said in bold capital letters in English no less the planet  was meant to be empty by then but there were the words and clear letters an AI t

hat believes he's  cursed I didn't have that on my bingo Cardon so if you're asking if we think the Earth is mad at you  or something like that I can't say but we sure as hell are I hope you are cursed you and all your  kind we were still using that word curiosity even though the Spanish word most appropriate again  was Milagro the third of a Kind the Bloodstone of molos began to bleed at sunup on August 30th  and ran dry at midnight on the 4th of September for the sake of my body you have excis

ed my soul  I'm not sure I understand your meaning of course you do not you are a soulless creature some mad  fool has is fabricated to destroy Humanity I can reason though so too can the devil I stood  for hours on that beach recording that which was not there the sounds of the vacant body  Earth absent her soul the ocean Speaks now Fury brona looked over at me and then at juice I  don't know what artifacts you three are referring to well buckle up Miss wizard because this  universe is about to

get a lot stranger I was still not loving the idea going after a BAL  had gotten trans and blown half to hell and that was in this galaxy who the hell knew what we'd be  running into if we tried to go after a bali inside that artifact we were in another place nobody  said traveling through time would be painless it was every bit as beautiful as any picture of  celestial Beauty I had ever seen a revelation I'm not sure we're really here here what do you  mean ever heard of The Battery Systems wh

at about Athos Athos AOS Rings 100 Rings AOS a ring yes big  ring only story AOS is you funny people are hon not from AOS funny people what is your name tell  me what's going on first I can take the answers from your mind that is less Pleasant hail Burch  why do you conspire with technological nobody told you to interrogate these people I took the  liberty you don't take the Liberties around here how many centuries have passed and I still haven't  forgotten your face hello Verona welcome to the

Future it wasn't so much about Felix anymore than  it was about human nature a story that gets told over and over again the story that always ends the  same way how you bear unjust hostility regardless of the science that will be the story of your  life Felix never found love in his life but he surely found heartbreak he grew lonely and  depressed and he turned down every opportunity to advance Beyond his station in order to take  his one Monumental shot at the stars I honestly thought I could b

e somebody who changed things  a person person everyone would remember I love you brother and to us you'll always be that  person but people they only remember certain things like everyone remembers who invented the  airplane how many people remember who invented the helicopter to the great unknown Geniuses  of the human race Felix taben one of the Rocket Boys of Acadia one of thousands of Rocket Boys  maybe the most brilliant one of all every man in memory eventually recedes into some forgotten

  Army I still look to him every day Yankee chaos this is Anchor 3 AIG approach command I'd just  like to say if that is you in there miss dreon welcome home my orders were very clear let me  be clearer I do not step foot off this ship if Sebastian is not at my side well Carolina I do  have a pretty good sense of what you've been up to and with whom certainly a better sense than  you have let's not play games here what's your price that all depends on what you think you'd  like to buy I want you

to back off father not only are you playing a dangerous game with your  very Heritage but you seem to think that you get to have a choice between a galaxy with and a  Galaxy without war and you are gravely mistaken you weren't afraid my biggest fear is to live a  single day more swallowing the indignity of this facade surrounding us all and remaining silent I  have a very Discerning Eye you'd scarcely believe how much I see I don't think you're ready  to see because we do not have the luxury of

walking away we must therefore see I'm not going  to apologize for my people all I can do is what I can do I didn't ask nothing either of us can  say right now will change anything my father had another saying that we must never mistake the  truth for its consequences and that's the part we must reckon with okay so we get our answers  then what a message has just come in for you on the lrds who's it from it is from Burch at a  great distance it's good right okay that's pretty good