Exodus Farthinghome Series, Vol. 2

Farthinghome Series, Vol 2 By Nina M. Osier

With their home-world taken over and poisoned, and their navy destroyed, the surviving Humans of the Farthinghome system must choose between setting off into the unknown or attempting to keep their off-planet colonies functioning. Those who cast their lot with the refugee fleet will depend on one man, Father Bazel daKiev, to reach deep into ancestral memories for the coordinates of another world where Humans can live. Meanwhile, the invaders are targeting Humankind's allies—and at least one of those allies sees in the nearly helpless Humans a target far to inviting to resist.

ISBN 1- 59431-513-2 Sci Fi / Series Books Cover art by Shelley Rodgerson

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Chapter 1

“Tambour.” The chrono glowed a lurid green 0150 above the berth-side comm unit. As she reached to activate that unit so it would transmit her voice, the former StellaGuard commander blinked and pulled herself free from the arms that held her. She sat up, and wondered for a moment why the cabin’s lighting failed to respond.

Of course. She wasn’t in her stateroom aboard the Daughter of Ceres, a pampered guest of the Faith’s only surviving primate. Until recently this cabin had belonged to the captain of a hyper-capable cargo vessel, whose owners wouldn’t have dreamed of providing their hired hands with motion-activated illumination. She’d lived aboard Primate daKiev’s ashram just long enough to grow used to its luxuries. Which was her tough luck, since the newly re-christened Spirit of New Thecla’s accommodations—even its best ones—didn’t measure up to the XO’s quarters aboard her final StellaGuard ship. Antiquated though the Gallant had been, there she could put her bare feet down on a carpeted deck. Not on cold metal, as she must soon do here.

She would be getting up and going to the bridge. She knew that already, because none of the Thecla’s small company of officers would wake her except to meet an emergency. She swung her legs over the berth’s edge, into the cabin’s chilly air, as the comm said in her son’s voice, “Commodore, we’ve got company.”

“Janet’s on her way?” Greg might feel obliged to use his mother’s title as he stood graveyard watch, but that didn’t mean Tambour must be equally formal. She was on her feet now, and the deck felt colder than she’d anticipated.

“She said to call you, too. They scan as Drajs, Mom.” The young man who had been a Home Guard patrol pilot would not have encountered non-Humans before. His slip back into familial address told Aisha what his tone didn’t. That he was nervous, and glad he wouldn’t be facing the next few minutes alone.

Tambour reminded her offspring, “That means they’re our friends. I’ll be right there.”

“Okay. Captain said not to count on that, though.” Before Gregory Wolfenden could close out the call, the vast ship shuddered. Aisha Tambour, standing on one bare foot as she jammed the other into a trouser-leg, lost her balance.

She tumbled backward, swearing, into the arms she’d left. The man they belonged to was sitting up in bed now, and he caught her easily. He said into her ear, “Drajs or not, Aisha, they don’t sound very friendly to me.”

“Shut up, Bazel.” Once again she heaved herself up, and away from that other bare body’s warmth. Once again she damned herself for letting this happen—any of it. All of it. Whatever.