Tellermoon

By Westin Lee

Rosetta Nell is the perfect cadet - studious, clever and dedicated. Just don't ask her serious opinion of life in the Eden Protectorate Navy. Or to stand up to her despotic mother.

 

But she never imagined she'd sit here with her crewmates, trillions of miles from home, judged by cameras and journalists and politicians.

 

Daring, tactics and luck won't save them here, they'll have to win people over with their story. But will that be enough? It has to be, right?

 

Deadly starship combat. Galactic adventures in the unknown. The horrors of social media. The cadets of the Tellermoon must face them all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westin Lee
• Release date: Mar 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9780997879131

Book preview

ONE

It was six months until the end of service, and the sky over Capital Bay was a crystal clear blue-green.

Rosetta Nell sat on one of the low concrete benches outside the shining metal and concrete frame of the Eden Protectorate Naval Academy, hand resting on the bluish grass, the majesty of the bay in front of her, with its white yachts drifting on serene, deep blue water, framed by curved silver skyscrapers.

It all went completely unnoticed. She stared at her phone in her shaking hand. A torrent of furious messages streamed from her thumb to the top of the screen:

I was promised hours, how am I supposed to get…

The captain said they would…

If I don’t get trained, I don’t get my certification, which means no work on…

They’re doing it again…

Nell typed bitterly: The real flight hours were the friends we made along the way. But she hesitated, then deleted it. It didn’t need to be said and was probably the wrong tone anyway.

Are they still complaining? Dyson asked. The taller, tanner cadet lay out on the grass, the straps of her sports bra cinched down so the sun could hit her shoulders unimpeded. Her cadet’s jacket was crumpled in a pile with her service boots, and her shirt was rolled up under her head. She wasn’t the only one; other cadets, probably suffering the same injustices as Nell’s class, were scattered across the square, huddled in laughing groups and pairs. They kept soccer balls airborne with circles of knees and feet.

"Yes, we are," Nell said. She began typing another message and got just a word into it—You—before she deleted it again.

You’re getting worked up. I can feel it from here. You should put the phone down and enjoy the sun.

Dendragons crowed their nasal, whiny cry overhead and flapped leather wings toward the dense, tall trees and wealthy residences of Landing Hill to the north.

Nell leaned back and let the sun wash over her face. Her complexion darkened quickly when she actually had a regular chance to be outside, but so much of her time had been spent in classrooms that her current degree of paleness brought comments, even from her fellow cadets. Her dark brown hair was tied back tight, and even down, it wouldn’t touch the lavender collar of her cadet’s uniform. Her father had been Argentinian (apparently), and her mother was Filipino, and so her features landed her as Pacifican. On Earth it might have mattered, but even being human on Eden wasn’t necessarily normal.

Certainly, this close to being free of their service, no one cared all that much about someone they hadn’t already befriended or bedded. Or gotten in a drunken fight with? She guessed that might count also.

And what exactly about her was worth forcing into a conversation? None of it needed sharing. Being a second-generation Edenite was either a point of enormous pride or derision, with no middle ground. The person at the other side of the conversational arena decided which, depending on whether they were a fellow colonist descendant, a refugee, or somehow connected to the Xanta Alliance. So, that was a wash.

Her leg began to tingle, so she shifted her weight off her black service boot and confirmed the culprit: the rectangular metal locking bracket at the heel. It caught on any edge, strap, or piece of clothing it could, and fought mightily when you wanted it to do its job and actually click into a stirrup in zero gee.

A pair of teenage boys on skateboards whistled at them (specifically, Dyson) from the circular walk in front of the water. She ignored them; they ignored Nell, whistled again, and kicked off back toward downtown.

Dyson hadn’t weighed in on their crisis, so Nell circled back. What do you think? You haven’t said anything since we got the news.

They’ll get us the hours. They have to. Legally, right? Dyson shifted her weight and pushed around her uniform shirt under her head, took the time to smooth out her braided hair so the loops weren’t cinched or creased under her.

I don’t see why anyone is surprised. We heard stories from the outgoing classes for a year and a half. If the sims didn’t break, the skiff had a pod explode and it couldn’t dock. If they were able to dock, the engines wouldn’t hold a charge. If they held a charge, an attitude jet failed inspection.

It’s true; this happens in the service. I had to get my jackets fitted, too. Dyson fished her phones out of her pants pocket, tossed aside the Navy-registered one, and held the other out above her, looking for a good angle. She let it hover in place, put her arms in interesting places, and pursed lips dark with lipstick. It’s like I’m already getting more freckles, she said. She tried notching the sunglasses down so she could wink over the frame at the camera.

Nell sat back and kicked her legs out. Her feet flopped out in a V and she leaned back on her hands. That guy Abel last year, he said they were doing their hours, they were a week in, and one of the cadets on the engineering rotation forgot to reconnect the entire heat-dissipation system. The ship atmosphere went up to forty degrees and stayed there until they cut the mission short. Nell laughed, mostly to herself, a quiet hissing nod to the stupidity of it all. At least this way, we don’t get cooked alive because the crew on the ship forgot to turn a twistlock.

Click. Dyson nodded, satisfied at the selfie, and typed quickly. Nell, did I ever tell you that you’re mean when you’re angry? Her phone beeped and the picture sailed off to the system cloud.

I think it’s justified, Nell said, and went back to her phone. She swapped from the group chat over to news. Corporate scandals. Something involving Eden Parliament members this time. She flipped to Call and began reading the posts in the city feed.

Listen to this, Nell said. On Earth, they have this joke now that if you did something unacceptable, you tell the other person you enlisted them and that ‘You’re going to have a great time in the Spacy.’

Dyson thought, expressionless under her sunglasses. The Space Navy? I don’t get it.

Nell giggled. Well, they had this infamous recruitment ad back in the first part of the war; it was all very excited and hopeful. But then—

Dyson nodded. But then they actually got into a fight.

Right, so they’re saying they’re going to force them to—

And this uses the same language as the ad? I get it now. Dyson said. Is the Spacy really all-volunteer?

Yeah, I guess so. There’s a lot more Earthers than Edenites.

That’s valuable tanning time.

Nell risked a jab: I’m so sorry—these two years must be hard.

I recognize your message of condolence in this time of great strife, Dyson said, and tossed her phone onto her pile of things.

A breeze rustled across the square. A single circular purple leaf twirled down to the grass between Nell and Dyson. Another cough of breeze rushed by, and the leaf folded in half and grabbed at the grass stalks, held on for dear life.

Twenty-five! Report to the lecture hall! A booming deep female voice. Lieutenant Ichijyo walked fast down the steps, stopped at ground level next to one of the groups kicking a ball, and hollered again, Twenty-five! You’ve got ten minutes! Let’s go! Even the shorter cadets towered over her, but the group scattered up toward the doors. She tugged her brown uniform jacket straight below the belt and saw Nell and Dyson. Like a pod pivoting, she took two quick, precise steps toward their circle of grass. Her black hair was short and slicked back, buzzed on either side. She’d gotten her hours, clearly.

Cadets! Let’s go.

Yes, sir! Nell said.

Satisfied, Ichijyo turned and strode away from the water, toward the bulk of the idling cadets. Twenty-five! You have new orders! Get inside.

Dyson hitched her bra straps over her shoulders and pushed up to her feet with a sound that crossed a sigh with a growl.

The Eden Protectorate Naval Academy building was as polished and lavish on the inside as the Capitol was on the outside. At the entrance, at least. Sun poured into the foyer from a circular skylight onto the three levels of the central area. Tinted glass doors led to classrooms on all three, and directly ahead, posters flashed on the walls of the recruitment office, the only part of the building that used wood paneling. The gray grain spiraled in hypnotic wandering loops—the empress tree, one of Eden’s few natural resource exports. The wood was an iconic high society look on Earth and Xanta, too (so the rumors went).

The space had a gentle echo to it, from the din of faraway conversations. Boot brackets occasionally chimed on metal stairs.

Nell waited while Dyson composed herself to the side of the entryway. Every time the aluminum doors opened, the breeze forced its way in, with a rush of noise, harried cadets, and a burst of salty ocean air. Over the last summer, the skylight and heat wave had baked the academy, especially this foyer’s open space. Even now it was much warmer inside.

At least I’ll be gone before there’s a risk of simmering in this greenhouse again, Nell thought.

They crossed the marble floor with its inlay depicting the liberation of Eden by a combined human fleet in the war, and walked down a hallway with the one hundred and ninety-seven other lavender jackets of the twenty-fifth class of the Eden Protectorate Navy Corps of Cadets.

Or whatever it was called. Nell had seen it worded three different ways.

Running bootsteps caught up to Dyson’s side, and Rapp cracked a please-like-me grin and pawed at his mop of hair. We’re completely screwed. You’re mad about this too, right? he said to Dyson. It’s classic incompetent EPN bureaucracy. I’m getting my money’s worth.

Nell always thought his voice sounded like a crow’s. Or how a crow could sound if it could speak and only told ill-timed jokes.

You don’t know that, Nell said.

Rapp looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. What?

We could be screwed for completely random reasons.

Rapp made an excuse and ducked away for a water fountain.

He’s not wrong, Nell said.

Dyson turned. Two minutes ago, you were ready to write off the entire human race for that broken patrol boat. Now it’s understandable?

Nell laughed, but before she could say anything, another of Dyson’s fawning morons, Santiago, leaned his stupidly handsome face around Nell (as if she wasn’t there!) and chimed in, We all needed the hours, right? You said something about that, I think. Interfaces? Maybe we can all push back together. That’d be smart, I think.

Maybe… I’ll think about it, Dyson said, while Nell seethed.

They say you can do anything if you work together. Santiago smiled a row of pearly white teeth. His styled black hair caught the last of the natural light and shone as they rounded a corner. He broke off to be a handsome idiot with another group. The gorgeous presentation of the foyer gave way to thirty-year-old paneling painted an ancient, peeling shade of forest green.

The main lecture hall was also adorned with warped green paneling from its original construction. The desk surfaces in front of the rows of chairs were scratched and marked, and the blue upholstery of the chair Nell sat on was splotched enough it looked camouflaged. Style 7001: Disappear into the rundown classrooms and lecture halls of the Naval Academy.

Nell laughed to herself, a single heh that got a confused look from Rapp in the chair next to hers.

Ichijyo waited at the base of the stage as one hundred and ninety-nine cadets found seats. Next to her stood the other class dads. Behind them, up on the stage, four two-meter-square glass displays showed the old DarkOS bootup animation. Monochrome dots layered and sifted like a sand garden to form a contrasting picture of the dark side of Luna, littered with a patchwork of city lights, framed on one side by a sliver of brilliant white and on the other by a stylized starfield. Umar’s orbit above Eden matched Luna’s orbit of Earth, and it had plenty of dark-side habitats, but no one went there of their own free will. It was all Protectorate Navy Fleet Command and the enlisted engineers, those poor fools.

Nell! whispered a familiar husky voice.

She turned and two rows back was Abioye, who winked at her. He crossed his legs and smoothed his black uniform pants with dark brown hands. He gave her a smug, self-assured look but overhead lights glinted off his bald head. He looked ridiculous. Nell rolled her eyes and turned back to face the stage. He’d messaged her something, she remembered, and she’d forgotten to read it. She’d get to it; didn’t he know she was in a bad mood?

Cadets! Let’s begin. Ichijyo again. The cadets quieted and settled into seats.

One of the dads loaded up a presentation on the four screens. The first slide was an untitled template—just the Navy logo. She brought up a hovering control on her phone and sent it over to Ichijyo’s device.

Ichijyo let her phone float up and follow her as she paced in front of the class. She said, We are now six months from the end of your normal service period. It’s customary to spend these months in rotation on one of the Navy’s ships. Get you your flight hours and complete your training.

She swiped in the air in front of her phone and the next slide appeared on the screens—a breakdown of the fleet. It only took a moment to parse, the fleet was so small. The Riverrun, that grand old bird, in orbit perched above Eden, as it had been almost the entire last thirty years. And then a handful of the Nexus patrol skiffs. Three in a little triangle next to the Wusat Xanta gate. Two for the gate toward Castor and United Nations space. And then five total in a box drawn around Eden, Umar station, Nerrell (its weird orbit represented by slanted lines in a vertical ellipse around the planet), and the purple splotches of the Gulf, down at the bottom corners of the map.

Ichijyo continued. "Usually, we do one of two things for the training. You were scheduled for a skiff batch. We split the class and place you on the skiffs at a gate and one each of the skiffs patrolling Eden local and the Gulf. The groups swap two months in, so you experience both missions. Or we put all of you on the Riverrun for the duration, as there is much more space on a capital ship."

She paused. The room waited. Here it came.

Ichijyo swiped and the slides advanced. Now there were crew counts and fully four of the skiffs were red.

"Four of the skiffs are in for refit, as they are all currently not space-ready, even for orbital work. So, that means we cannot place you in the remaining operational ships. And unfortunately, the Riverrun is undergoing a maintenance cycle, and the twenty-fourth class is there now. There isn’t room for another cadet rotation. She paused to think, then added, This means that, for the first time, we don’t have the bandwidth to train a cadet class on live ships."

The cadets murmured angrily.

Ichijyo’s voice rose. Quiet! I know—these certifications are why you join the Navy and not the Civil Corps or the Guard. We’ve got a plan to make it right.

More noise from the group. Rapp leaned over to Nell and said, I bet she chokes someone unconscious, and they need to call in the police.

Shut up, Nell said.

Cadets! Atten-hut! Ichijyo, an octave deeper and louder.

The cadets shut up.

She swiped again and the next slide appeared, dense with text arranged in bullet points. The title read Drydock rotation plans.

It took Nell two seconds to jump from incensed horror to planning her exit from the class. In another second, the rest of the cadets got it, and though they remained begrudgingly silent, the energy in the room shifted.

Nell closed the door to her dorm room, pushing the last centimeters against the air pressure from the hallway. The doors were hollow and always fought back; the dormitories had been designed with room vents smaller than the main circulation vents in the hallways. If this differential happened on a starship, it would lead to an ongoing depressurization cascade. When Xanta released the video of a state execution on their state network last year, Rapp had made the (tasteless, unfunny) guess that it was the person who designed this building before the war.

Along with the refinery that collapsed on Clarke’s private moon or whatever, Rapp added.

Now every time she shoved the door closed, she saw the poor guy hanging from the rope in front of the red banner. Here he was again. Crystal-clear and in 3D, should she want to duck in and see what color his lips had turned.

Dyson had left her desk lamp on. Surprise. It shone over a small white statue of what looked like a peacock under a stylized sun, ringed with swirling identical flames. Nell sat at her desk and hovered her phone at eye level. She loaded up civilian internet and flipped to her contacts. Mom appeared at the top of the pile—the phone knew who she wanted to talk to, despite the fact that she hadn’t called in months.

That’s not creepy, she said to the empty room.

Contact status updated and a render of her mother’s face appeared, gracefully aged and maintained and at her default level of condescension. She was at home, up on Landing Hill, judging by the blurred background around her smug half-smile. The splotches were absolutely gray wood and books. The green phone button appeared below.

Nell hesitated. Mom smiled smugly. Nell frowned at the woman.

No, she said quietly to herself. But the green button stayed.

And then, like a spider crawling down a strand of web, her finger crept for the button on its own.

Dyson swung the door open, buoyed by air pressure. Did you know that not a single commercial starliner takes ‘docked’ hours? she said.

Nell quickly swiped away the image of her mother and put the phone on her desk. I did not know that, she said. But I’m not surprised.

The door handle bounced off a well-dented wardrobe wall. Six people told me, one after the other, in a gauntlet between the lecture hall and here. Dyson pushed open the sliding doors to her wardrobe and pulled out one of her dress jackets. It looked just like their lavender uniform jackets, except the hem went farther below the belt and there was black piping along the shoulders and collar. It sounds like commercial crew hopefuls have a problem.

You need flight hours for your specialization, too, right? Nell said. It’s not just for starliners.

I can get a programming job in something adjacent. Jumpbox guidance or interstellar communications, make the jump over to shipboard interfaces later. She stopped and turned to Nell. Who were you talking to? she said.

What?

On your phone.

Nobody. Just reading more complaining, Nell said.

Dyson nodded. She unzipped her jacket.

What’s the dress uniform for?

I’m going to see the commandant, Dyson said.

And do what, seduce him? Nell said.

Dyson paused, one arm in the dress jacket. Excuse me?

Nell backpedaled. I mean, do you need to wear dress to see him?

No, but appearances matter. She zipped up the dress jacket and pulled it taut. She went to her dresser—an ugly little beige box at the foot of her bed—and pulled a box from the top drawer. From it she removed a small black cylinder that she knelt and placed on a matching round circle on her right boot. The boot turned glossy, black and pristine. She pressed it to the left one and it did the same.

Dyson stood up. And yes, Nell, I know he likes women, so looking nice won’t hurt, but I don’t plan to have sex with him so I can get a five-two certification in wireless ship communications.

Nell didn’t have anything to say to that.

Dyson pulled ties free, and her hair cascaded down past her shoulders. She’d straightened it recently and it fell in a shiny, round brunette circle just under her shoulder blades. She inspected herself in the mirror and, satisfied, walked out of their dorm.

The girl looked ridiculously beautiful, and Nell felt a little spike of irritation. When she was gone, Nell tapped off her desk lamp (once again) and turned back to her phone on her desk. It blinked on and floated up in front of her. Mom’s face appeared between the huge windows.

This time, she pressed the green button.

The screen pulsed, ringing, and went live. A handsome man with an eerily perfect mouth and jawline answered, the library behind him. He smiled blankly. His voice was tonal and warm: Nell residences. Oh, hello, Rosetta.

Where’s Mother? Nell said.

It’s nice to see you, too, the young man said.

Nell brought up the keyboard and mashed the zero button.

Okay, I understand, you want to speak to a human, he said. Miss Nell is in a meeting. Do you want to leave her a message?

Nell knew she wasn’t, but she couldn’t stand looking at her stupid artificial butler anymore. The thing could be turned off for specific callers. It could have gone straight to a message. Hell, she could have recorded a custom greeting for her. Her actions said plenty.

Still, Mother could help.

Fine, let me leave a message for her, Nell said.

Very well, the man said, and smiled with straight pearly teeth. He vanished, and the screen mirrored Nell while the border turned red.

Nell looked at the video of herself, into her own eyes, brown and unremarkable, and surrounded on all sides by a face that was both unremarkable and full of noticeable flaws. It jarred her, as always. She looked down at the desk.

Hello, Mother, she said, and tried a smile. It felt strange. I hope you’re doing okay. I’m fine.

She hadn’t written out what she wanted, but old patterns came easily enough. You were right, she said, with the appropriate hint of reverence.

TWO

The following week felt vestigial, breezy, and boring, with classes led by confused instructors with nothing to teach. The logistics teacher literally played them an old Earth movie and read at her desk. To be fair, she still found the time to scold someone who mentioned a report on Xanta refineries.

You’ve been in the service eighteen months; you know the rules, the woman said.

All I did was talk about a station! Not their ships. It was Tsang, typically eager to start an argument. The cadet sat forward at her desk when she switched into argument mode, lanky and rail-thin, her broad shoulders curved forward like she was ready for a fight. Nell had learned what political live wires to skip in the first month:

No Xanta military, especially if they had just put out a state intercast threatening to attack Eden.

Everything was fine on Sirius Colony.

Really, safer to just not mention Xanta in general.

Things that Nell figured would be potential issues weren’t, and the things that seemed like they wouldn’t be, were off-limits. Except when they were allowed. Thorins were the preferred potential enemy and came up at length. The only off-limits part was their border with the Xanta Alliance. This continued to be strange, because they were at least as much of a threat to Eden’s little colony as Xanta was. Meanwhile, alien ‘Homebuyers’ were a sore point for any older Edenite, even officers, and were very much fair game. That, even though they had money to spend and didn’t have planets or navies. Talk about the refugees trying to settle planetside all you wanted, especially if there were reports they were smuggling weapons.

You should do a dance with me, Dyson said one evening. Here, look, this one’s called ‘Duplicity.’ She tossed her phone in the air and it hovered behind Nell, who huddled over her desk. She turned from her own screen to look. ‘Duplicity’ played and the three teal-clad women on screen shuffled, in time with the beat. The song sounded Mars-y, with a distinctly pop-funk vibe to it. Bubblegum noise echoing inside a rock tunnel.

Come on, I don’t dance, Nell said.

I don’t dance either, but I have a hundred thousand followers on my Call, and they demand dances. She flicked her wrist and the phone returned to her. This one’s simple, look. These are the first moves.

She hummed the song and went through the first steps.

Walk to me and tell a lie,

Baby in the Bay, every time,

Serves me fair, I love to cry,

…and forgive; you’re still sublime.

And then the last part is a breakdown, Dyson said. She spun her arms and turned to the side. It made the flourish look easy, which Nell sensed was a trap.

I’m busy, Nell said.

Oh, with what? Dyson said, and glanced at Nell’s screen. Is that chess? Holy God, put your phone down. If you don’t do this, you’re cut off. She grabbed the half-empty bottle of vodka off the desk.

Nell eyed the label (Made with potatoes grown in the green fields of Sirius!) and shoved herself up out of her desk chair with a groan.

On Monday, the history instructor—Volacin—skipped any pretense of teaching history and set up a class-wide combat game, with an arena nearly the size of the classroom. This was an indulgence for a game typically the size of a table, and the room immediately devolved into rowdy yelling as ships maneuvered and exploded in the huge sphere.

In the middle of the third game, between the cadets and a Thorin fleet led by the instructor, Ichijyo threw open the door of the classroom. Volacin froze, like