Title: Siphany and the Whale
Series: Siphany and Lurbira, Book One
Author: Susan Jane Bigelow
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 06/25/2024
Heat Level: 1 – No Sex
Pairing: No Romance
Length: 93700
Genre: Science Fiction, sci-fi, lit/genre fiction, action/adventure, trans, cyborg/undead/altered beings, space battles, kidnapping/abduction, social anxiety, violence
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Description
You blow up one crappy little space drone, and everything goes to hell.
Siphany was just trying to be nice when she returned the drone she’d sort-of-accidentally blasted a hole in. But when its owner tries to kidnap the reclusive space mapper and steal her beloved ship, Siphany teams up with pint-sized robotic psychopath, Lurbira Call, to make a daring escape.
Soon Siphany and Lurbira, along with unwanted passengers Isan, the undead teenage cyborg; Siphany’s enigmatic former lover and Sovene spymaster, Qas; and moody, electrically beautiful fighter pilot, Pati, are all caught up in a deadly game of spies, starships, and interstellar war. When everything comes to a head, Siphany and Lurbira must find a way to face their tumultuous pasts in order to really, truly find freedom at last.
Siphany and the Whale
Susan Jane Bigelow © 2024
All Rights Reserved
Siphany awoke into pitch-blackness. Everything smelled sharp and chemical, like cleaning products. She lay on a cot. A sliver of light streamed from underneath the nearby door.
She raced to the door and banged and pulled on it. The door was locked fast. No one came. No one let her out. She sat heavily on the cot, heart racing.
Visions of the institution back on Sovena haunted her. They’d locked her in her room every night. Siphany hated being shut in with no way out.
The nurses, the doctors, the therapists all loomed out of the darkness at her.
She hunted through her pockets, trying to keep a hold on her sanity. They’d taken all of her communications equipment and remote controls for the ship, as well as the tiny dart gun she kept in her boot.
Siphany frantically felt around the rest of the room and found it bare, except for what might have been an acrid-smelling towel and a half-empty bottle of cleaning solution. They’d stuck her in a janitor’s closet, of course. She pounded on the door and shouted, but no one answered.
Eventually, she lay on the cot and shivered, fighting to stay in control.
The metal floor still vibrated; they were obviously well underway. Worries about her ship, her cat, and her job marched back and forth through her mind, trampling what was left of her rationality into an anxious paste.
At last, the door opened and then closed again.
“Left you in the dark, did they?” a tinny female voice said from nearer the floor than Siphany expected. “Just a second.”
The lights flickered on. Siphany blinked and squinted, her vision blurring in the harsh artificial brightness. She’d preferred the darkness.
“I’m here to give you food,” said the voice. “Aren’t you lucky?”
Siphany was at last able to focus on the newcomer. Short, with a child’s stature, she had the polished metallic sheen required of all Artificial humanoids. “You’re a Loyan robot,” Siphany said, trying hard to conceal her irritation.
“An Artificial, thanks, and yes. My name’s Lurbira Call.” Lurbira thrust the tray at her. “Have some croppygreens. They’re what’s on the menu, pretty much every day and night until the end of your life. They make me glad I don’t eat.”
Siphany hesitantly took the tray. The inoffensive little spheres were a bit cold and undercooked, but Siphany didn’t mind. “Thank you,” she said, chewing thoughtfully. She found she was starving, and she hungrily downed another.
Lurbira looked at her as if waiting for her to say something.
“What?” asked Siphany, mouth full.
“Aren’t you going to ask how someone who is clearly a Loyan-built little-girl simulacrum is living aboard a Junk in the middle of Haeld space?”
“Nope,” said Siphany, washing down a croppygreen and reaching for another.
Lurbira fixed her with an odd look. “Why?” she asked at last.
“Don’t care. I just want to get back on my ship and get out of here.”
Lurbira grinned, amused.
She was decently made, Siphany thought, if somewhat old and outdated. One of the more expensive ones, made to look essentially real with a few very deliberate tells. Different kinds of sei, from fully mechanical Artificials to partly biological androids, had been a major fad at times over the past millennium, though the use of Artificial troops in the Pelagarine War had soured a lot of people on them. They had mainly been built on Loyan and Pelagar.
“No one’s ever not asked,” Lurbira said. “Everyone wants to know about me. But you don’t? Really?”
“Really,” confirmed Siphany. “You can go away now.”
To Siphany’s surprise, Lurbira actually looked hurt. Her expressions were painfully clear and easy to read. “If that’s what you want.”
“Hey,” said Siphany hopefully. “Are you one of those non-sei robots who has to do everything I say?”
“Fuck no,” said Lurbira. “Not even close.”
“Oh. Damn. I was going to use you to escape from here.”
“Tough shit for you,” said Lurbira and let herself out of the room. The door clicked shut behind her and locked. A second later, the lights went out again.
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Susan Jane Bigelow is a librarian and writer from Connecticut. She loves reading, spending time with her spouse and their cats, and wandering the green hills and wide valleys of her home state.
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