Above All Else

My family named me Ithriiks—"sturdy heart"—and held me aloft in the shadow of the Great Machine. My birth name was chosen to extol my strength as a hatchling; my chosen name would be aspirational. On my third molting, I chose the name Inaaks, "gentle hands."…

We had sailed the Long Drift for centuries, but I had yet to come to terms with our new reality. My son had only borne witness to a fraction of it. He was still young, still struggling to understand his place in the world. The two children from the House of…

My mother could not keep me swaddled to her chest forever. I was no longer a child, and no longer in need of sheltering. I was my own person, and it was time that she understood that. I knew that she loved me. Because she shared her Ether with me. Because she…

We had discovered a ship full of Human usurpers hiding behind one of the moons of a dusty red world they called Mars. Generations of survivors cowering on a derelict colony ship since the Great Machine failed them. Siviks, Rakis, and I led the raiding party…