About Hyvilma:
Excerpt:
“Definitely the auxcon. Easier than the other two, anyway,” his brother said.
“So, what?” Peter asked. “We rush in, turn out the lights, and then free the prisoners?”
“Something like that, I guess,” Iskender said. “We’d need to split up.”
It hit me then just what we were talking about. A bare dozen of us, half of us civilians, the other half supply clerks and techs, were talking about taking on a band of armed killers. Worse still, we’d have to be killers, or at least prepared to be. I wasn’t Admiral Okafor or Captain Hornblower. I certainly wasn’t James Bond or The Mist.
I felt myself starting to tremble, and my vision blurred. The Faucon crew were black smudges, their talk meaningless echoes.
Something touched my hand, and I jerked back, as if shocked. Marta looked down at me, surprise and worry touching her green eyes.
“Kitra, I said, ‘Are you alright?’“
I was anything but alright. I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat was a desert.
Her hand gripped mine, her eyes softening. “I know. But we’ll make it. We have to.” She looked behind me, and I followed her gaze. To Pinky, now a legless hemisphere, just his “head” poking out of his suit. I licked my lips, staring at my oldest friend, and felt the fear retreat, just a little bit, pushed aside by the need to get him help.
I looked back at Marta, who gave me a little nod. I took a bracing breath, then cocked my head. Something had occurred to me. “Are you okay?” I asked.
She blinked. “I…sure. What do you mean?” she whispered back.
“You’re so va-t’en guerre, so pumped up.” I looked at the deck. “I know how you feel about the Empire. These people we’re going to face, they’re fighting the Empire.”
Marta’s expression went pensive. “It’s something I’m trying not to think too hard about. Right now, we hardly know anything about what’s going on. One recorded message isn’t enough to go on.”
She smiled softly and tilted up my chin with the fingers of her free hand. “Anyway, right now politics can hang. Nothing matters more than family.” The pressure on my hand became a hard squeeze, and Marta’s eyes were shining. Mine stung too, I realized.
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About Gideon Marcus:
Serling-winning and five time Hugo Finalist science fiction author, Gideon has just finished Hyvilma, third book in the Kitra Saga, a YA space adventure series featuring themes of isolation, teamwork, and hope, and starring a queer protagonist of color.
His short fiction can be found in Dark Matter, Utopia, Simultaneous Times, and elsewhere. He is also the editor of the Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women anthology series, featuring some of the best works of science fiction’s Silver Age.
He is the founder of Journey Press, an independent publisher focused on unusual and diverse speculative fiction, and he also runs the award-winning time machine project, Galactic Journey. He is a professional space historian, member of the American Astronautical Society’s history committee, college professor, and frequent public speaker.
Gideon lives in San Diego County with his writer/editor wife and their Hugo-nominated artist daughter…along with a cat, a snake, and an immense library.
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