The Widening Gyre (The Remembrance War)

The Widening Gyre (The Remembrance War)

"Johnston’s debut will keep readers on the edge of their seats as the heroes get themselves into one scrape after another. It has a hint of Battlestar Galactica, but with giant reptilian aliens. Johnston, with skillful plotting and impeccable world building, takes the tale of Tajen and his crew searching for home and shapes it into an unforgettable journey." - Booklist The Remembrance War Book 1 Eight hundred years ago, the Zhen Empire discovered a broken human colony ship drifting in the fringes of their space. The Zhen gave the humans a place to live and folded them into their Empire as a client state. But it hasn’t been easy. Not all Zhen were eager to welcome another species into their Empire, and humans have faced persecution. For hundreds of years, human languages and history were outlawed subjects, as the Zhen tried to mold humans into their image. Earth and the cultures it nourished for millennia are forgotten, little more than legends. One of the first humans to be allowed to serve in the Zhen military, Tajen Hunt became a war hero at the Battle of Elkari, the only human to be named an official Hero of the Empire. He was given command of a task force, and sent to do the Empire’s bidding in their war with the enigmatic Tabrans. But when he failed in a crucial mission, causing the deaths of millions of people, he resigned in disgrace and faded into life on the fringes as a lone independent pilot. When Tajen discovers his brother, Daav, has been killed by agents of the Empire, he, his niece, and their newly-hired crew set out to finish his brother’s quest: to find Earth, the legendary homeworld of humanity. What they discover will shatter 800 years of peace in the Empire, and start a war that could be the end of the human race. FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launching in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. "Johnston's debut will keep readers on the edge of their seats as the heroes get themselves into one scrape after another. It has a hint of Battlestar Galactica, but with giant reptilian aliens. Johnston, with skillful plotting and impeccable world building, takes the tale of Tajen and his crew searching for home and shapes it into an unforgettable journey." - ALA Booklist (Starred Review) Born in the San Francisco bay area and raised in Napa, California, Michael R. Johnston grew up steeped in everything Science Fiction and Fantasy from Asimov to Zelazny. In 2013, he attended the 17th Viable Paradise Science Fiction Writing Workshop. The experience of having his story critiqued by other writers, some of them professionals he'd been reading for years, helped him realize he could write professionally. He currently lives in Sacramento, California, with his wife and daughter. When he's not writing or teaching, he spends time with his family, plays video games and tabletop RPGs, and reads. He blogs at MJohnstonBooks.com, and can be found on Twitter @MREJohnston. The Widening Gyre: The Remembrance War Book 1 By Michael R. Johnston Flame Tree Publishing Ltd Copyright © 2019 Michael Johnston All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-78758-143-2 CHAPTER 1 My ship was almost ready for jump when the HUD projected in my visual cortex notified me of a distress beacon about five light-minutes out; the code meant a human ship was being attacked by marauders. I thought about ignoring it – the odds of actually receiving a given distress signal are so astronomically low that the ship in distress had to know getting help was a long shot. The chain drive's ability to bypass the laws of physics cuts in-system travel times down considerably, but it still takes hours and sometimes days to get from a jump point to the inner system. Space is plenty big and empty, and life's pretty cheap on the outskirts of the Empire. And Kintar was on the outskirts of the outskirts. The `dock-master' on Kintar – a position so rarely needed it was a part-time gig – had informed me I was the only ship to dock there in weeks. And that was if the signal was even genuine in the first place. The last `distress signal' I'd answered had turned out to be a marauder battle gang, and I'd lost a good cargo when I had to dump it and run from far too many ships to fight by myself. I'm good at combat, but I'm not that good. On the other hand, the signal's transponder code identified the ship as human. And humans, as a species, were already in pretty short supply in the universe. If that signal was real, I'd be condemning them to death by ignoring it. A memory of a tiny, gnawed-on body bubbled up from the depths of my military service, and I clenched my jaw. The marauders aren't known for being kind to human prisoners. And most importantly, if I left this ship to die, there was no way I could look any human in the eyes ever again. I sighed as I took the jump system offline, locked in the distress call's beari