James Osiris Baldwin

Brief pause for editing, and some art

I need to pause The Black Garden for a week or two while I finish writing and editing the final chapters. The first three-quarters of the manuscript has been edited into its final form (you guys have been reading the alpha draft) and now I need to wrap it all up. We even finally meet Vornn.

If you've noticed that there are some common names between Archemi and Voidhunter - such as the Khe...

The Black Garden: Chapter 25

Neither of us said a word, sprinting back toward the entry bulkhead. Ratty slammed the big door closed behind us. If reinforcements were coming, they would have to run an angry Abyssal drone gauntlet and unlock the door. As I scrambled back up the ladder, Ratty peeled off an explosive charge and threw it to the ground just in front of the entry anyway. Little crab-like legs caught...

The Black Garden: Chapter 24

Once a lithium fire got going, it stayed going for as long as it felt like burning. Even the Khememmu kept a safe distance from the straight pillar of flame and black smoke towering into the sky from the remains of the car, surrounded by the barbequed remains of several Hellions.

As always, Ratty and I had to wait for the others to catch up. She and I were the DWO-6 strikers, the first on...

The Black Garden: Chapter 23

The combined force of Hellions and Nu-suht drones were dug in like ticks. There were only two visible Nu-suht on patrol, easily recognizable by their towering height and elegant, horse-like heads. One carried a pulse rifle perfectly capable of turning me into a fine red mist. The other carried a square antennae-festooned pack similar to Gaius’s, except I had a feeling the Nu-suht’s wasn’t...

The Black Garden: Chapter 22

I passed out on the trip back, hanging onto Gaius and the flank of one of the big Khem, and woke up in a bed I didn’t recognize. An actual bed, not a stretcher or a sleeping pad in the back of a truck somewhere. I roused to the sound of terse conversation: Lilia and Taga Actual, the big Axuma matriarch, but unconsciousness dragged me under again before I could make out what they were discussi...

The Black Garden: Chapter 21

The Blind Mice had left the big grey sedan almost hanging off the edge of the road, one tire sunk down into the mud. Surprisingly, there was no enemy activity around the vehicle – and with a jolt, I realized that the whole confrontation in the forest had probably taken less than thirty minutes from start to finish. By the time we’d made sure the scene was clear, I was becoming increasingly ...

The Black Garden: Chapter 20

Tsariel could sense it, and led me unerringly in the right direction. As we grew closer, I could feel it: raw waves of malevolent terror. There was no sensation like it—pure malevolence radiating from something that should not exist. It hated us, hated everything in this reality. It also desired it, all of it. To consume it, to fuck it, to destroy it.

The place where the lanterns had fa...

The Black Garden: Chapter 19

Ironically, it was their Gaussian Silencer Field that gave them away. Five lean, deadly figures, sliding through the thick under-canopy like a pack of wolves in a bubble of unnaturally perfect silence. I was a thousand feet away with my helmet on zoom, crouched in one of the trees with thermo-optic camo enabled. I sucked on a piece of candy while I watched them encircle the bike guns-first. My ...

The Black Garden: Chapter 18

I gunned the throttle, blasting between frightened pedestrians at a crossing, running a red light. I swung the bike around at a corner and shot off at a ninety-degree turn faster than the lumbering Cadillac-sized car could ever hope to follow. Tires screeched and people screamed as it did its best anyway, fishtailing through the intersection to roar up the road behind me.

“Got ‘em tag...

The Black Garden: Chapter 17

BRRT BRRT.

I stirred groggily as my morning alarm and several message alerts purred against my inner ear. My lower back was cramped, and I grimaced as I shifted around and my hips clicked. I’d moved the hotel room armchair so that it backed the closed bathroom door and gave me a view of the bed, windows and entry to the suite. My pistol and the now-empty bottle of whiskey sat o...

The Black Garden: Chapter 16

Dopamine, the primary reward hormone in humans and many other species, didn't last very long - a few minutes at most - while the cocktail of endorphins I'd been drip-feeding Mert would linger for an hour or two. After that, the withdrawals would start. Mert would spend the evening sour-mouthed and depressed. He might even wonder if I’d somehow spiked his beer. But by about ten am the next mor...

The Black Garden: Chapter 15

Spicy! 

-----------------

The New Warder Hoffman Memorial Hospital was in one of the poorer areas of the city, close to the road that led to the zoned warehouses that served Vornn Industries’ endless need for logistical transportation. This grey graphene building mostly served the city’s ‘yellows and reds’ – laborers, cleaners, the unemployed, people with min...

The Black Garden: Chapter 14

Jak left me to my own devices in the demon-haunted house, where I turned my attention to my little hellspawn friends. I had big plans for them - and no intention of staying in the Confluence residence, as I did not enjoy being murdered in my sleep. Two of the parasite jars went into the quantum locker, to be forwarded to our science corps for analysis. The third I jerry-rigged to one of the cle...

The Black Garden: Chapter 13

The parasites were like nothing I’d seen before. Despite my need for energy, I almost forgot to eat while I studied the three surviving tadpoles in their now-separate jars. These little champions had eaten all the others, and had grown to about the size of a man’s thumb. They had unpleasant, needle-tipped maws that pulsed and sucked rhythmically as they swam around and around in the murky s...

The Black Garden: Chapter 12

Jak took us up into the misty green hills, along a narrow rammed-earth driveway and into a small parking lot in front of the Confluence residence: a stunning, organic building that disrupted very little of the surrounding rainforest. A blocky, matte-black armored van crouched to the other side of the lot. Parked horizontally across the short path leading to the entry were a classic blue and whi...

The Black Garden: Chapter 12

Jak took us up into the misty green hills, along a narrow rammed-earth driveway and into a small parking lot in front of the Confluence residence: a stunning, organic building that disrupted very little of the surrounding rainforest. A blocky, matte-black armored van crouched to the other side of the lot. Parked horizontally across the short path leading to the entry were a classic blue and whi...

The Black Garden: Chapter 11

Beside me, Jak zoned in on the road with the intensity of a hunting eagle, flying past the other traffic, putting it between us and our pursuers as we tore up the chargeglass beneath our wheels. My heart sped; I grinned with raw excitement as the car wove around a motorcycle, passed a honking semi, slid between two cars to get into the far-right lane, and then took the exit at near-top speed. J...

The Black Garden: Chapter 10

My mind worked quickly as I smiled at Peggy. "Ohhh, I see. That's just a pre-screen tick from the Medical Corps.”

"Really? Whatever does it mean?" Peggy asked, with a measure of real innocence.

I let out a pleasant warm laugh that made her blush again, even as I turned my focus inward and adjusted the parameters of my central nervous system in readiness for combat. The chemical tw...

The Black Garden: Chapter 9

New Warder was a long way from Jump Base Tiamat.

My first leg was to get back on the Fetch Quest: one of CEIDR's two branchships and among the newest, built specifically for stealth in Abyss-contaminated environs. It didn’t resemble any other craft in space. Branchships didn’t dock in the traditional sense. Instead, they extruded from the Void, separated from reality by a num...