Inside the front cover

Well, I am just about halfway done with the first draft of Apotheosis: Prophets. I have reached a point where I am willing to hazard a prediction. You know most books, in addition to the (usually badly written) back cover copy, there’s almost always some edited snippet of the actual text inside the front cover. I strongly suspect that I’ve just written the scene that DAW’s going to use for that snippet in Prophets.

Minor spoiler warning, as this is a big reveal midway into the book. But that doesn’t change my opinion that they’re going to use this bit as a teaser:

There wasn’t even a sound to mark the jump, just an abrupt shift in the star-field shown in the holo.

Another twenty light years, Nickolai thought. Here we are.

“We’re still nominal on all systems,” Parvi said. “Drives are cold.”

Wahid didn’t say anything. After a long pause, Mosasa said, “Navigation?”

“Hold on a minute.” Wahid shook his head, and for all the trouble Nickolai had in interpreting human expressions, even he could tell something was seriously wrong.

“What’s the problem?” Parvi asked. “Are we off-course?”

Nickolai knew that the Eclipse was fueled for multiple jumps at this distance, but even so, the thought of taching twenty light years in the wrong direction tightened something in his gut.

Could what I did have affected the engines? Nickolai began to realize that there was no particular motive for Mr. Antonio to keep him alive. Mr. Antonio wasn’t like Nickolai. He was a man, and had no honor to keep, even to himself.

“No. We’re right where we’re supposed to be.” Wahid said slowly. It almost sounded as if he didn’t believe it himself. “All the landmarks check out. . .”

“What’s wrong then?” Parvi asked.

“Look at the damn holo!” Wahid said, thrusting a hand at the display as if he wanted to bat it out of his face.

“What?” Parvi looked at the holo of stars between them, and her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “No. . .”

“Kugara?” Mosasa snapped.

“I’m ahead of you. Mass scans out to the full range of the sensors. No sign of anything bigger than an asteroid for 100 AU. We got background radiation consistent with interstellar media—”

One of the scientists, the female with yellow hair, spoke up. “What happened? Is there some sort of problem?”

“Bet your ass there’s a problem.” Wahid spun around on his chair and faced the spectators, pointing a finger at the holo display. “We’re missing a whole star.”

“What?”

“Xi Virginis is gone, Dr. Dörner.”