Tombs of the Tekkek
A brand new novella, set inside the Fragmented Multiverse series.
Surprise, Lax Morales is back!
This story is the first scene from an upcoming novella. It follows Lax Morales (AKA, Lahkx) and his two older brothers. You will have met Sarbrox in WHO BUILT THE HUMANS?, but you won’t have met Scohhrin before. In fact, this is his first published appearance in any media.
The full novella should be around 15,000 words. This post is about 600 of them.
There’s still time to grab some free Sci-Fi from other people on this promo, too.
TOMBS OF THE TEKKEK
Today’s suggested listening is Sleeping Pandora, Quiet Pass.
The starship descended gently into the planet’s thick atmosphere, its slow-moving hull attacked by swarms of chittering spores and bathed in airborne algae. The rain, if it fell, fell almost sideways, spiralling in microtornadoes that collected together around the ship. This living, breathing world probably saw the starship as a virus, as the early signs of cosmic disease and decay. It was only reasonable then that this jungle world wanted the starship dead.
By the time the egg-shaped thing found its way to the planet’s surface, it had already become home to a school of barnacle-like creatures. The chokeweeds had already whipped and snarled their tendrils around its landing gear, the shrubs had already begun salivating onto the egg’s metal feet, helplessly trying to consume it.
Sarbrox tapped the console gently, hoping the readings were false.
“We’re a few hours off course,” he said, lamenting a future journey by foot.
“Just hop from here to there,” Lahkx suggested. He looked to his older brother, always the wiser of them both, and realised it would not be that easy.
“She’ll know we’re here soon. Landing was loud, and a take-off will be loud too. We can go by foot, quickly, and only the dumb plants will sense us.”
“They won’t have time to tell her,” Lax added, almost asking for clarification.
“Precisely.” The two of them watched the diagnostic screens in the dimly lit cockpit, both following something different on the hexagonal displays. Behind them a third member of their party lingered, his body larger than theirs, his six legs bulkier, his claws heavier.
“I shall exit first. You will each need cutters and acid suits.”
“Yes brother,” Sarbrox replied. He got up and skittered away into another section of the starship, clambering down a hexagonal shaft into a lower area. From here he suited up, placing the segments of his suit on meticulously, triple-checking each panel, each connecting point.
“You should stay here, make sure the ship doesn’t get buried,” the oldest brother said. Lahkx shook his dark red head, his yellow eyes reflecting the screen ahead of him.
“She will be buried regardless. If I am outside, I can help you cut away the vines.”
Scohhrin’s features curled into the Atanattat equivalent of a smile. He nodded, gesturing widely with both claws open, the symbol meaning ‘the future is yours to choose’. Lahkx got up from his chair and twisted on his six legs, spiralling himself into a smaller shape, dropping through the shaft to the equipment room. The suits were a pale neon blue, contrasting Atanattat skin, giving off their own artificial light as and when required. The living fabric which provided this effect was kept in stasis for the flight, the populations only lasting a few days before needing to be replaced. To the Atanattat, the living light existed for a painfully short time. Still, Lahkx had managed to keep his own population of them as pets in his aquarium. He visited this on his way through the bowels of the ship, admiring the orchestrated schools of almost microscopic fish.
He did not remember which planet they were native to, but he knew how to care for them.
“Lahkx!” Sarbrox shouted. The crab-like creature stared up through a connecting shaft, saw his two older brothers suited up and ready to go. He waved goodbye to his suitfish, clipped on his own suit, and headed to the airlock.
END
This post was the first scene in the novella. I wanted to introduce you to Scohhrin - who was first mentioned in WBTH but never shown - and show you the relationship between him and his brothers. It’s a side of Lax Morales you haven’t seen before, and it’s a side he has long since buried by the time we meet him in WBTH, or Earthloop.
Because this was a prequel. Not a sequel.
My plans for the full novella.
It will be sold as an eBook, exclusively on Amazon, so I can benefit from Amazon-only promotion companies and bump up its downloads in the first weeks of its existence. If you don’t do this as an author, the algorithms bury you and you never get seen again. Sometimes they even erase you from history, like with my friend [ redacted ].
The full novella may be offered as a reward for subscribers here who bring in a certain number of new subscribers through Substack’s new referral system. I’m doing this with one eBook for sure, I just haven’t decided which one.
The novella will be in print in Seven Stories about Space Travel, and if it’s big enough, might become its own chapbook. Nobody does those for fiction and I think it would be cool.
It will eventually be in print in a book all about Lax Morales, released in the run-up to Earthloop’s release.
If point 4 doesn’t come true, it will be in WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? TWO instead. And yes, that is me on the cover. David Bowie could do it, so why can’t I?
That’s it for today. But be here Wednesday, I have an announcement to make.
It’s funny. Trust me.
Conveniently, Wednesday is precisely two weeks before my birthday, which is… wait a minute…
The ninth,
of August,
On most, if not all, years.
This year is 2023, so…
09.08.2023
That’s the number from before.
What could this mean?
And does this floating skull have something to do with it?
What do you think the announcements will be?