The dry, hardy grass that seemed to clump up everywhere notwithstanding, there was no sign of life in the broad valley they found themselves in. They left their pods down in the dip and set off along the shortest axis, up the side of one of the hills that surrounded them. Luna looked back down at the escape pods, twinkling silver in the light. That was the last she’d see of the life she knew for a long while. She could feel it, even then.

Chapter Four

It took about another week to get up to orbit of the planet that the councillor had suggested in his hurried, dashed-off text message. In official records it was known as Moss k18h79n8764gd790, a snappy designation that encapsulated every relevant factor about the planet’s atmosphere, gravitic-magnetic signature and geo-resources in a code that was understood by absolutely nobody alive in the Empire today.

Chapter Three

The operator waited a fraction of a second until the woman was away from the building, suspended in time for the brief moment before gravity took hold, and then pressed the trigger of the Matter Scoop. Instantly, a shimmering, sky-blue sphere formed in the air, encompassing the woman in mid-air for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Then sphere and woman alike vanished as easily as if they had never been there in the first place.
She was running before the computer dinged its customary notification: Warning: Organic Material Detected in Scoop Sphere.

Chapter Two

The city was almost uniformly built out of the same grey granite stone that also dominated the landscape around it, which made one building hard to discern from the next. Alleyways and bridges, textures and shapes, all seemed to blur together to the woman. Faces, on the other hand, she was hyperfocused on. The particular cast of the eyes here, the shape of the mouth there. All full of a million little clues. Answers to the most important question on her mind.
Are they on to me yet?

Chapter One