GAISS // READY
Restricted query channel online.
Three responses are available. Select a permitted query to continue.
Paramount systems // Mechanical layer
A science-fiction story ten years in the making
A dead ship. A living vessel. Twenty-four hours to choose.
Captain Elias Riker salvages dead ships at the edge of charted space. Then one of them answers back.
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Elias trusts one voice in the dark: GAISS, the intelligence that has kept his battered salvage ship alive for fourteen years. Then an unknown signal locks her out of her own core.
The Characters
Elias spent fourteen years turning the battered Paramount into a home. He trusts old machinery more than institutions and GAISS more than any living person. Every distress call tests the solitude he claims to want.
Sahara presents herself as the human steward of Nexus, a living Celestial vessel carrying a possible answer to Langus. She needs Elias, but her history with the ship—and with the intelligence hunting it—is deeper than she is prepared to explain.
Their alliance begins as an abduction and becomes a negotiation over the line between saving a life and owning it. Neither offers trust easily. Both know the cure will demand more than blood.
Restricted Ship Interface
System layer // Interference
Three queries survived the lockout. Each reveals only what GAISS is cleared to disclose.
GAISS interface ready. Select one permitted query.
Scripted controls are unavailable, so every permitted response is displayed below.
GAISS // READY
Three responses are available. Select a permitted query to continue.
GAISS // SYSTEM STATUS
GAISS // ARCHIVE RESPONSE
GAISS // VESSEL QUERY
Living Celestial vessel. Carrier of a possible Langus solution. Steward authorization verified. Full architecture sealed.
Scripted interface · fixed commands · terminal choices are not transmitted or stored.
The World
Celestial systems // Organic layer
MEMNexus carries more than a cure. Its oldest secret links Sahara to a history she does not fully remember—and to a choice Elias is not ready to make.
LNGLangus is not simply a disease. It is a system built to decide who may survive and what they must surrender for the privilege.
CNSWith another world hours from collapse, Elias and Sahara must choose what can be saved without erasing the people they are trying to protect.
Visual Transmission
Experience a short atmospheric interpretation of the novella’s living ships, deep-space salvage, and impossible scale.
Kindle Storyteller 2026
Fortune of the Void is a participating title in the 2026 Kindle Storyteller Award. Participation does not mean finalist, winner, or Amazon endorsement.

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126 pages · 5 × 8 inches · ISBN 979-8189805189
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