Page 1 of Music of the Ocean

Prologue

SPACE—the final frontier, the old broadcasts had called it.

Like you could draw a neat line around the unknown and declare the map finished. Except it wasn’t finished. The unknown didn’t end at the edge of a star chart.

Humanity learned to take the technology given to them by other species. First came the leap beyond the home system. Space stations with their relays blinking in the darkness became the norm.

Then came the breakthroughs everyone had hoped for—corridors that folded time and space. Engines that could handle warp speeds were built, and suddenly, distance stopped meaning what it once had as ships took humanity to the stars.

New worlds waited to be explored. Some were empty and indifferent, some were loud with weather and color, while others held nothing but water. Some were already claimed. Politics followed, as it always did.

Alliances were signed, borders argued over, and treaties negotiated in rooms where the air had to be calibrated before anyone could breathe, let alone argue.

Eventually, the impossible became ordinary enough that aliens could settle on Earth without panic. They could be neighbors instead of nightmares and share streets under the same sun.

But there were those who always looked to the stars. Not because Earth was broken, but because the next horizon kept moving.

Saxby was one of them. Just one more member on a starship, one more body in a uniform, chasing the thin, persistent feeling that whatever came next was worth the risk.

Chapter One – Saxby

THE SHUTTLE’S belly hit atmo with the kind of jolt that echoed in every molar joint. Saxby braced against the restraint and shot a look at the readouts, but the numbers flickered green, so it was just nerves and old hull plating making conversation.

Next to him, Vance’s gloved fingers danced over surface monitors, and in the back, Abe swore as he wrestled the box of sample canisters that had spilled into the locker next to his seat.

Kira hummed under her breath, an old pre-Fusion pop song, which meant she was bored and trying to get under someone’s skin.

Saxby licked his lips. The air in the shuttle was always just a little off. The scrubbers were good but never great, and it made his tongue taste like static. He kept his attention on the viewport as the clouds peeled away from the planet below. Survey Target Fourteen, according to the mission brief, had very few large land masses… and endless blue oceans.

Class M, the report said. Oxygenated, green, and breathable. The place had no name, according to their government, at least, not one the Republic of Earth recognized. The official line was there was no indigenous life, no flagged resources, no sign of anyone else’s boots on what little land there was.

Saxby turned to Vance. “You got a landing vector?”

“Yeah, yeah. Flattest spot north of the equator. That’s the biggest landmass and comes in at four thousand square miles.” Vance grunted and flicked the nav to external view, showing Saxby a stretch of pale land. “That’s roughly ninety-three miles across at its widest point.”

Saxby scowled. That wasn’t a landmass. That was a damned island, and a rather small one at that.

“That’ll do?”

Saxby nodded like there was a choice. There just wasn’t a lot of terrain on this damned planet, and the lack thereof was giving him the heebie-jeebies. “Set us down there.”

The shuttle’s thrusters kicked in, and the sky outside doubled, then tripled, in blue. It met the blue of its ocean. Gods, that was a lot of water. The tropical jungles came at them fast, then cleared to a grassy meadow.

With a thump, the landing struts bit in, and everything went quiet, except for Kira’s humming and the distant tinkle of cooling metal.

“Atmosphere’s holding at point-eight-six G,” Vance said, reading the console from the pilot’s seat. “No trace toxins. Could be worse.”

Saxby didn’t say what they were all thinking—it could always be worse. They’d been in the shit before. He was sure they’d be in it again. He unlatched his harness and flexed his hands, feeling the blood return to his fingers in a rush.

Landings always made his hair stand on end. He wasn’t sure if he loved or hated the feeling, but that familiar spike that sharpened the world and made him feel undeniably alive was something he’d learned to crave.

He stepped into the airlock and checked his phaser. He never left home without it, as the old saying went. Besides, it was protocol. Never trust the first fifty feet or so of a planet when exploring. Not until the area was secure, at least.

Abe joined him, slinging the sample pack over one shoulder, and Kira followed.

“Popping the hatch as soon as the pressure readout levels. Which is now,” Vance said through the comm device on their wrists. “Be careful.”

Kira snorted. “Where’s the fun in that?”