Break the Sky

By Karen Harris Tully

Welcome to the universe of Galactic Dreams, where fairy tales are reimagined for a new age—the future.

Years after an apocalyptic attack radiated planet Epiphany, pick-pocket Jakarta “Jak” Moon has one goal—to stay alive. Desperate, she breaks into and climbs the giant elevator to retrieve the last working transport to the space stations in orbit. Upon her return, she’s targeted by the winged dictator, the Godmother.

Forced to team up with Gill, her old crush, they embark on three missions, each more dangerous than the last. Now, Jak and Gill must learn to trust the love they’ve found in order to escape the giant space station and certain death. Or is that too much for a pick-pocket to ask?

Galactic Dreams is a unique series of science-fiction novellas from Blue Zephyr Press featuring retellings of classic tales from different authors, all sharing the same universe, technology, and history. If you liked Marissa Meyers’ Lunar Chronicles or James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse, you’ll love Galactic Dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen Harris Tully
• Release date: Nov 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005373979

Karen Harris Tully

Karen Harris Tully creates elaborate worlds for her novels aided by her bachelor’s in political science and economics. A PNWA member, she’s the author of The Faarian Chronicles, published by Blue Zephyr Press. After growing up in the snowy mountains of Colorado, Karen experienced the traffic nightmare of Seattle before accidentally realizing she’s a small-town girl. She happily lives in Raymond, WA, singing karaoke with her amazingly supportive husband, two beautiful children, and one disgruntled feline.

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Galactic Dreams

What if...

...you could change the future?

What if your enemies could too?

Welcome to the universe of Galactic Dreams, where fairy tales are reimagined for a new age—the future.

In each Galactic Dreams Volume 3 novel you’ll find an old tale reborn with a mixture of romance, technology, aliens and adventure. The Alliance is on the brink of war with rebel Naturalists who insist on keeping the human race pure of genetic modifications. As the Naturalists fight to keep the technology of the future at bay, some take that fight more literally than others. Now each Prince and Princess, each intrepid adventurer scrabbling to make a difference in their corner of the galaxy must find out what happens when the future arrives on their doorstep.

Galactic Dreams is a unique series of science-fiction novellas from Blue Zephyr Press featuring retellings of classic tales from different authors, all sharing the same universe, technology, and history.

We hope you enjoy this adventure.

Galactic Dreams Timeline

Break the Sky

by

KAREN HARRIS TULLY

Prologue

The Godmother

Gemma Mutter ran from command deck toward the launch bay, her mag-boots clunking on the metal decking of the old Alliance battle cruiser, the Liberator, as stun blasts from the marshals’ weapons ricocheted off nearby walls. They were on the same side! Her plan would win the ongoing space battle quickly, saving Alliance lives, yet her own captain called her reckless, insubordinate, and ordered her to the brig? All because Gemma wouldn’t abandon her brilliant plan solely because it broke an outdated, intergalactic treaty. It was those murdering, genocidal Naturalists, who had broken the treaty first, launching their illegal wasp drones against the Liberator’s piloted fighters.

Knowing the marshals wouldn’t follow, Gemma ran through a door and onto the observation deck that overlooked the launch bay three stories below. She disengaged her mag-boots, spread her five-meter, black and white wings, and leaped over the railing. With the old cruiser’s gravity off to more quickly launch fighters and power the cannon arrays, winged flight was a whole different skill. Thankfully Gemma had had many years to practice in zero-G. Too many.

Too many years as a senior pilot to not be taken seriously. Too many years to be passed over, yet again, to captain her own ship. Mother, the young crew called her, a sneering play on her name. The one who’d dared call her Grandmother was lucky Gemma hadn’t ripped their throat out with her talons. The Captain hadn’t considered the punch to the face Gemma had delivered instead to be a measured response and had called Gemma hot-headed, unfit for leadership, and given her a night in the brig to cool off. Instead, Gemma had steamed. She should be Captain, not that weakling who wouldn’t know strategy and cunning if it punched her in the face.

Despite the lack of gravity, Gemma used her wings against the air to power her flight down to the launch bay and the mining vessel she had been optimizing. She landed next to the Havoc and scrambled through the door just as a few blasts ricocheted off the doorframe, leaving black scorch marks. If they’d stop firing, Gemma could finish her plan, but as it was, she skipped the usual safety check and fired up the miner’s newly tuned engine, keeping the running lights off. She planned to run dark in the little mining vessel and disappear around the planet, sneaking up on the enemy cruiser, the Naturalist Charlemagne, while its drones were occupied with the Liberator’s fighters. Why were Naturalists always naming battleships after ancient Roman d’arseds, anyway?

She blasted the Havoc toward the exit, the Liberator’s plasma gate, scattering what was left of the launch crew. They were shutting the blast doors on her. She braced for impact, as the Havoc moved through the Vapo-lock plasma shield as if through thick, simmering pudding. But the blast doors missed the Havoc, slamming closed behind her, and Gemma rocketed into space. She double-checked her running lights were off, so this wouldn’t be the shortest flight of her life.

Gemma dodged this way and that, her own damned captain still firing on her. Still, without Gemma at the helm, the young ensign pilot’s moves were predictable and she out-flew the firing pattern easily. If the Charlemagne saw her at all, she suspected the enemy would be laughing at the little mining vessel running away from the fight to hide behind watery planet Epiphany. The Liberator soon gave up on Gemma, concentrating on the fighter-wasp battle lighting up the planet’s orbit between the large, enemy cruisers.

The Liberator had been tracking the Charlemagne, their intelligence showing it was loaded with Adthal bombs and headed here, to the TRAPPIST-1 system. TRAPPIST-1 had seven planets, each less hospitable than the last. The only one of value was the center, water-heavy planet T-1e, renamed Epiphany, with its eight man-made islands that served as exotic vacation spots for rich tourists from Earth, only forty light-years away.

Despite its decadent tourism, however, Epiphany’s real value was in its space stations, one in high orbit and one in low, both attached to the main island by an ancient Ele-Tube. The two space stations had been the center of scientific discoveries in designer genetic modifications for the Alliance for centuries, altering humans to survive on a variety of planets, watery Epiphany being just one.

Only now, Earth had elected a fekking Naturalist who refused to leave office and had taken Earth out of the Alliance. In a few, short years, the galaxy had devolved into war between what remained of the Progressive Alliance, and the anti-modification Naturalists. The Liberator’s task was to protect Epiphany and its science stations, but the captain’s dedication to a treaty that had already been broken was going to get them all killed.

"Naturalist ship Charlemagne, Gemma heard the Captain’s voice over the com attempt yet again to hail the enemy. This is your last warning. Your wasps break intergalactic treaty. Power them down at once and prepare for boarding, or be fired upon." Gemma didn’t know why the captain bothered. They hadn’t answered a single com yet and meanwhile, the unmanned wasps illegally targeted the life-support systems of the Liberator’s fighters while the Charlemagne continued to edge closer to Epiphany with its load of Adthal bombs.

Adthal had theoretically been designed not to kill, but to revert all human-derived DNA to the Terran system standard, but the effect was the same. Plus, the idea of a human DNA standard anymore was laughable. Humans had become more diverse over the past centuries, mainly through modifications to ease colonization on various planets. There were now so many different variations of humans, it was nearly impossible to track them all. But, the Naturalists had, and were doing their best to wipe the galaxy clean.

For the water-dwelling people of Epiphany, suddenly losing their mods would be fatal. As for winged Gemma herself, so much of her bloodline had been altered and intermingled with eagle DNA, she was not sure what would be left. Probably a mixed pile of cellular goo.

Gemma slowed the Havoc and snuck around behind the Charlemagne, her heart racing at what she was about to do. She’d already programmed the little miner to mimic the signal from the enemy wasps so she could duck through the Charlemagne’s shields. Now that she was beside it, she felt like a pebble beside a boulder. Her taloned hands hovered over the controls, and she gently maneuvered her mag-clamps to attach the miner to the side of the enormous cruiser, next to the engines. With the precision of a surgeon, she used the ship’s drilling array to carve through the side of the Charlemagne like a laser through butter. A feeling of victory surged through her as she cut the power from the cruiser’s engines, the rest of the ship going dark one level at a time.

The only thing Gemma hadn’t expected was a half-dozen wasps spotting her. She detached the miner suddenly and dodged, the Havoc’s laser drills slicing erratically through the Charlemagne and cutting glaring arcs across the dark of space. Gemma swore as the wasps surrounded the Havoc, trying to sting holes with their drills through the little miner. She had no choice but to throw the Havoc into a spin, slashing her lasers haphazardly through the drones before they could land.

The Havoc’s alarms blared as it tumbled away from the Charlemagne and its diced drones, toward the planet. Gemma tried to maneuver toward the station in low orbit for cover but was only partly successful. The damage was done, both to her little miner and the battlecruiser, even more damage than Gemma had intended. Thankfully, no wasps followed her, seeming to head back to their mothership.

Seconds later, the Charlemagne’s thorium engine ruptured and blew the front of the ship out in a spectacular, sideways mushroom cloud, blasting the nearby wasps and remaining fighters to ash.

The Havoc spun from the shock wave, and Gemma shook her head from the ringing in her ears before realizing it was coming from her ship as multiple warnings blared, including the radiation alarm. The explosion had cracked the Havoc’s engine seals. Her electronics were shot. Gemma was dead unless she could reach a place to dock.

With radiation levels rising rapidly, she unbelted and grabbed an emergency spacesuit. Though it was one size fits all, she struggled to pull it up over her large wings. Those, plus Gemma’s height, tested the limits of the suit’s size capacity.

Only then did she see through the port window that the blast had peeled the Charlemagne’s hull back like a ragged banana, with the rear engine section still somehow attached. The whole thing was slowly spiraling into the gravity well of planet Epiphany. Well, that had not gone as planned.

She looked in the direction where she’d last seen the Liberator. It hadn’t been pretty, but her decisive actions had won the battle for the Alliance. They couldn’t ignore that. But all she saw was the blue glow of the Liberator’s engines in the distance, trying to outrun the expanding blast. She felt suddenly sick.

With her engine in tatters, Gemma had no way to catch up. Her control panel had gone dark, the electronics no doubt fried by the EMP, the electromagnetic pulse of the nuclear blast. The planet’s low orbit station was nearby and her com system appeared to have been shielded enough to send a short distance message. She tried hailing the Liberator first but got no response. Though she hated to do it, Gemma sent an S.O.S. to the low orbit station. Why weren’t they helping her already? They had to know she was here. She was feeling worse by the moment, nauseated, shaky, and feverish. All signs of severe radiation poisoning.

Finally, a message crackled over the com system, a woman’s voice, unnaturally calm given the situation. An AI, Gemma thought.

"To the miner Havoc, this is ELOS station. We have received your S.O.S. Though our grid is down, and our people have already evacuated to the planet, we have emergency power to offer some assistance. However, we are currently experiencing major failures in all systems and repairs are underway. Please stand by. We will bring you aboard as soon as possible."

Though she normally would have demanded assistance immediately, Gemma felt too sick to argue and had no choice but to wait. Finally, the station docking clamp spastically jerked into action, obviously still needing more repair. It reached out and grabbed the Havoc roughly, dragging her in just before Gemma passed out.

Part 1:

Planting the Seeds

So [Jack] took the cow’s halter in his hand, and off he starts. He hadn’t gone far when he met a funny-looking old man who said to him: Good morning, Jack… and where are you off to?…

I’m going to market to sell our cow here.

Oh, you look the proper sort of chap to sell cows…. As you are so sharp, says he, I don’t mind doing a swop with you–your cow for these beans.

Walker! says Jack; wouldn’t you like it?

Ah! you don’t know what these beans are, said the man; if you plant them over-night, by morning they grow right up to the sky.

Jack and the Beanstalk, recorded by Joseph Jacobs (1860)

Chapter 1

The Deal

— Seven Years Later —

Jakarta Jak Moon double-checked the dagger sheathed at her side as she approached the interior of her once-crowded island city from above. Silently leaping from rooftop to rooftop, climbing drainpipes to balconies, sticking to the shadows, this was her preferred way to travel the night. She made her way to the designated alley two hours before the sunrise would stain the world red. Some neighborhoods had fixed their lights since the Naturalist attack seven years ago when Jak was just fifteen. Some neighborhoods had built walls and hired private security to protect residents from the bands of looters that now roamed the streets at night. This wasn’t one of those neighborhoods.

Jak leaped down to the garbage-strewn alley from her balcony perch when she saw Cook was alone, making the older woman jump and stumble back, one hand to her heart. Jak touched her mask next to one ear to turn off her holo-veil, allowing Cook to see her face.

Dammit, Jak! Cook hissed, catching her breath. Did you bring what I asked?

In the distance, Infinity Tower stretched gleaming into the stratosphere over the decrepit city, supported by its three, diamond-faceted legs arching into the water on each side of the clover-shaped island. It was by far the tallest structure in the city, indeed the entire, watery planet of Epiphany, looming over their lives and shining a cruel reminder in the darkness of all they had lost.

Jak felt for the rough, woven bag at her side, bulky and stiff. "Did you bring what you promised?"

Yes, yes. Now let me see them. The old woman held out scarred, gnarled hands.

Jak hesitated then drew one item from her sac and held it to her chest, a baton-looking weapon, then handed over the bag and the rest of its contents for inspection. Cook grabbed the sac and withdrew Jak’s father’s armor, allowing its weight to fall open with a muted jangle. Made of imitation pangolin scales, it shone brown in the light reflected off Epiphany’s three planetary sisters currently dominating the night sky in blue, red, and pale yellow. The scaled fishing armor was one of the last things Jak had from her father, the other was clasped in her hands.

Cook held the armor up to her short, bulky body and measured the straps against herself that would attach the traditional fishing armor in place. Unlike most people since the attack and the nuclear winter that followed, decimating both crops and people, she hadn’t missed any meals. Jak supposed that was the perk of being the chef for the richest, most powerful woman on the island.

It swims well, just be careful not to catch any reeds between the scales. You’ll have a hard time getting loose. Jak knew from experience.

And the spear? Cook clumsily folded the armor and Jak winced as she haphazardly shoved it back in the bag, all the while eying the collapsed metal baton in Jak’s hands.

The keys to the Tower first, Jak said.

Oh, all right. Cook pulled a small drawstring purse from her pocket and tossed it to Jak who caught and opened it.

"What is this?" Jak asked in disgust. "Small pearls, pale ones?" She reached to take the armor back, but Cook stepped away.

Not just any pearls! She held up her free hand to stop Jak who had one hand on her dagger. The Godmother’s pearls.

Jak paused and took one out of the little bag, holding it up and looking closely at it in the planet-light. It did have the rumored blue sheen.

"Even if they are, what am I supposed to do with them? You said you were bringing keys."

All the Tower doors were keyed to her DNA at one time, years ago.

So? There’s obviously better security now or anyone could steal some pearls and walk right in.

Cook snorted. Do you know what I had to do to get those five? No. She keeps a tight watch. Paranoid, she is. Doesn’t even trust a machine to crush them, but does it herself with an old mortar and pestle.

But those doors must have been re-keyed long ago, to something more… reasonable, impersonal, secure.

Yes, they have. All but one.

Which one? The kitchen? Until recently, the Tower kitchens had been Cook’s domain. Jak looked again at the blue pearl in the nighttime glow of the Tower kitchens again….

No. It enters an old storeroom at the base of the elevator. Houses emergency provisions. No one goes there, security’s even forgotten about it.

So where is this door? Jak squinted at her. "How do I know…?" Jak stopped herself before insulting the older woman.

Don’t trust anyone, do you? Cook jutted her chin indignantly at her. Who fed you since your father got sick? Who kept you and that idiot brother of yours from starving? You’d think I could get a little more respect, she blustered. Besides, if anyone can find it, you can. Now, the spear.

Jak squinted at her but didn’t hand the weapon over. It was true. Cook had kept Jak, Cervantes, and Father from starving by leaving the kitchen door cracked ever since Father got sick and lost his job. She’d also taken fifty percent of Jak’s haul, then sixty, then seventy-five after Father had passed. In the end, a few algo-bars and a pocket each of rice and beans had been the only payment Jak had received. She’d cursed Cook’s name to the stars, sure she’d been selling everything on the black market, but what could Jak do? Since the Naturalist attack, everyone was just trying to survive. Why are you doing this?

I think you know.

The cancers. Jak had heard that was why Cook had been replaced, meaning she wasn’t a Pearlie after all. She’d faked it well.

She gave a short nod, anger tightening her face. She fired me. After all those years.

But why would you want— Jak gestured to the armor in the older woman’s hands.

Don’t you see? Her face cleared and lit with a manic glow Jak had never seen on her before. I’m finally free! I’m not pretending anymore. I didn’t realize how trapped I was until I finally wasn’t tied down. I’ve bought a little boat and I’m going to spend my days free as a bird over the ocean waves, owing nothing to no one. And I’ll fish and test my mettle against sharnosaurs and lamprails and steeth. She threw her arms out wide and looked up at the planets chasing each other across the sky like she was embarking on a grand adventure. I’ll feast on their hearts raw and whittle a whistle from a whalecrab’s spiny carapace.

Jak felt her eyebrows rise. Cookie, you’ll die out there.

She scowled. Don’t call me that. I’m dying anyway, and so are you. Take my advice, Jak: Find the door and break the lock. Take what you can. Don’t get caught. And whatever you do, don’t sell no piece of yourself to the Godmother.

With that she lunged, taking Jak by surprise and shoving her into the alley wall, grabbing the spear. Before Jak could pull her dagger from its sheath, Cook was sprinting away with both spear and armor, hooting like a madwoman, leaving Jak with nothing but a few blue-toned pearls and a crazy story. Jak swore and took three steps after her when a Guard cruiser hovered by, marked with the Godmother’s winged insignia. The cruiser slowed at the strange sight of tubby Cook huffing and running, waving fishing gear overhead like a victory banner in the cold hours before dawn. Jak made an abrupt turn down another alley, pressing her holo-veil to re-activate, and quickly scaled a wall to a shadowy balcony. The cruiser moved on, but Jak had lost sight of Cook. Whether she liked it or not, the deal was done.

Chapter 2:

Pearls of Immunity

The next morning, Jak wrapped her pearl scarf around her neck and checked her look in the broken mirror of their one-room shack. Presentable. Her little brother, Cervantes, slept heavily after a long night’s shift at the repair plant. He could get in another hour before he had to get up for school and Jak was careful not to wake him, sighing again at the ugly, burgundy bruise mottling half his face. She should have been there to walk him from work. But no, she’d had to meet with Cook—for what had turned out to be worse than nothing.

It had seemed like a decent gamble at first, for the chance to regain access to Infinity Tower’s kitchens. No one wanted to buy fish from the radiated waters of Epiphany anymore anyway, not now that nuclear winter was over and the top layer of the planet’s islands had been scraped for farming. But Jak had lost the gamble, and what had she gotten in return? Useless blue pearls that, if real, would be too hot to fence. The story that they opened one of the Tower’s basement doors was a tall tale. Pearl DNA locks were so outdated they’d all been bricked over or removed years ago. Unless she had a time machine, there was no door left for Jak to even try. She rolled her eyes at herself in the mirror. Time machine, right. She shoved the blue pearls deep in her pocket. She would carry them with her as a reminder of her stupidity.

Jak, Father’s hoarse words rang through her head as clear as the day he’d died. You have to take care of Cerv. He’s smart, he could even be a doctor one day, but he’s not street smart like you. Make sure he goes to school.

I will, Father, she’d promised. And up till now, she had, but it would all be for nothing if she couldn’t pay rent and protection that month.

Cerv was smart, good with electronics and computers. She knew he could be the doctor her father had wanted, that their people needed, if he would only concentrate on his schooling. But he was also a dreamer, naively talking non-stop about music and futzing around with his homemade instruments made from scraps he’d brought home from the plant. She counted six currently hung carefully on the wall that he kept trying to sell, with no luck. People enjoyed his music sure, but no one was going to pay for it these days. She hated to be the one to crush his optimism, but it made him a target.

Cerv was working to pay for his schooling, but he’d been jumped and his pay stolen the night before. He wouldn’t be paid again for another two weeks. Jak didn’t have a steady job, couldn’t find one that paid better than her odd jobs and deliveries gig, though she preferred honest work when she wasn’t desperate. Of course, when wasn’t she desperate these days? Ethics, she’d decided, were for people who could afford them. She forced herself to look on the bright side. At least she and Cerv weren’t yet showing signs of the cancers that had taken their father and so many on the island. And she still had her one true skill up her sleeve.

She ran her fingertips across her smooth, narrow cheekbones under her projected face screen. The image showing in the mirror was that of a girl, younger than Jak’s twenty-two years, with forgettable brown eyes instead of Jak’s glacial blue. She had a healthy glow to her strategically pockmarked skin. Beautiful, for a Pearlie, and Jak practiced a shy, innocent smile on the face that wasn’t her own.

Hi, I’m Lily, she declared in a sweet, lilting voice, while she painstakingly wand-colored her straight, blue-gray locks into smooth, brown curls. Lily Greenlee. Jak nodded at her reflection and left a note for Cerv, reminding him to check the homemade hooch that was fermenting in the kettle, and the next steps in case she didn’t return. As long as he finished it correctly, he could sell it and make enough to get by for a week or two.

She left the shack, the hood of her roomy black cloak disguising her further. The trade with Cook had failed, but there was no time for moping. It was time to make something happen.

When she neared Infinity Tower and its upscale marketplace, she paused to quickly flip her cloak to the bright green satin side, fastening it over her best outfit with an easy-to-lose if necessary, highly illegal, pearl brooch. She lifted her chin and strode forward. Everything about her said she belonged there, and at the same time made her a target for pickpockets like herself, thus the dagger sheathed at her hip. Pearlies trusted the armed guards to keep them safe while they shopped, but Jak held no such illusions. She gave her innocent-girl smile to the guards at the gate as they looked her up and down, and they allowed her to pass without stopping her or asking to see ID, even as they hassled a group of scruffy traders. Jak looked as though she belonged, as long as no one looked too closely.

Jak’s preferred marks, the well-to-do Pearlies, shopped the upscale market here in droves. As usual, they were easy to spot in their prideful misery, gleaming in warm pockets of sun that only a year ago would have been rare.

The sun had finally made its way back to them through the clouds, years after the Naturalists had hit with their surprise attack. Folks said the purpose of the attack was to destroy the two science stations in orbit, the Alliance’s premier destination for genetic modification work, and make it impossible for the planet to fight back. But Jak thought its purpose had been to kill genetically modified people as slowly and painfully as possible, because that’s what it had done, by radiating the planet and causing nuclear winter. Her mother had died in the attack, and then Jak had to watch her father get sick and die from radiation poisoning and fatal cancers. And it seemed to have done one more thing. It had revealed an unexpected mutation in some lucky people—the ability to pearl.

Rich Pearlies wore clothes and skin adorned with what had become the objects of wealth and opportunity: the pearls of immunity. The few Jak wore were either fakes or low grade and stolen, a jail-time offense if she was caught, but necessary to enter the upscale market. To a common thief, pearls signaled a fat purse, but Jak knew they were more than that. They were trophies