S01E09 · Clamps, Mines, and Countdowns

The soft chime confirming their contracts has barely faded when the hull shudders. Val's hand lingers on the holographic interface, her golden signature still glowing on the conference room table. The numbers flash through her mind—enough for a real workshop, legitimate equipment, stability for Jotter after fifty years of patchwork survival.

Then Orriona's hologram dissolves into scattered particles as she redirects processing power, and her voice comes through flat and urgent: "Edgepoint Station Administration has designated this ship as Classification-7R: Unauthorized Artificially Operated Vessel."

Ghost ship. The automated impound request has already gone out to OSSA.

Seconds after signing on as crew, they're under siege. Armed units breach the hangar. The station's locking them down, and worse—there's hardware out there designed to make sure they never leave Edgepoint at all.

The mission briefing is clinical, efficient, and terrifying. They're strangers who just met, operating with untested equipment, facing trained mercenaries. The clock is ticking in minutes, not hours.

Val straps on her shield generator and catches Jotter's optical sensors. His concerned beeps ask the question neither of them voices: Is this what you want?

Fifty years they've scraped by on the frontier together. Fifty years of running from anything that looked like home or community. She'd told herself this was just one last job for enough credits to disappear completely.

But standing at the weapons locker, watching Dr. Jengu struggle under the weight of equipment he's never used in combat, watching Kai check his sidearms with the efficiency of someone who's survived worse—Val realizes something has already changed.

The running was always going to end somewhere.

The question is whether she's ready to stop.

WHAT TO EXPECT:

1. Audio drama adaptation of Legacy with cinematic sound design
2. A queer-norm galaxy (no homophobia, no coming-out angst—just space adventures)
3. First mission under fire
4. Ticking clock tension with multiple objectives
5. Strangers learning to function as crew
6. Grand, hopeful adventure with a massive heart

CONTENT NOTES: Combat violence, high-stakes action, time pressure

WHERE TO PURCHASE THE BOOK: Currently in Kindle Unlimited. Visit https://www.orriona.com/ and subscribe to the newsletter for more information about wider availability and free content.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Orriona

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X: https://x.com/orriona

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SUBSCRIBE for weekly episodes as we...

The Orriona's corridors stretch in white and silver—no rust stains, no patched panels, no years of accumulated wear. Edgepoint's grime stops at the threshold. For Kellan Harr, stepping aboard feels like crossing into a future he'd stopped believing in.

The conference room holds twelve chairs around an oval table, most of them empty. A question no one's asking yet: are they the first arrivals, or are those extra seats waiting for something else?

Then she appears. Light erupts from the ceiling, assembling into a figure of translucent cubes—a woman's form, nearly two meters tall, with a presence that straightens spines without saying a word.

"I am Orriona," she says. "Both commander and core system of this vessel."

She's not just a ship. She's a fully autonomous consciousness who chooses her own path through the galaxy. No corporate oversight. No government leash. She goes where need exists, operating in the spaces between established structures—delivering supplies to abandoned colonies, protecting vulnerable populations, transporting those the system's written off.

The missions she describes sound noble. They also sound dangerous.

And she's offering contracts with numbers that could change lives. Numbers that could fund a long term search for a missing father. Numbers that could buy real equipment, real freedom, real futures.

But there's a catch: she selects the missions. Final approval rests with her alone.

For a former Sector Guard pilot raised on chain of command and accountability, trusting an AC to choose where you risk your life contradicts everything. But the Orriona isn't asking for blind faith. She's done her homework on each person in this room, and she's prepared something none of them expected.

Individualized contract addendums. Personalized offers that prove she sees not just what they can do, but what they need.

The question isn't whether the offer is good. The question is whether five strangers from Edgepoint Station are ready to bet their futures on a sentient ship with her own agenda—and whether they can trust each other enough to survive what comes next.

WHAT TO EXPECT:

1. Audio drama adaptation of Legacy with cinematic sound design
2. A queer-norm galaxy (no homophobia, no coming-out angst—just space adventures)
3. The moment strangers sign on to become crew
4. An AI with agency and her own moral compass
5. Personalized promises and impossible choices
6. Grand, hopeful adventure with a massive heart

CONTENT NOTES: High-stakes decision-making, trust issues, AI autonomy themes

WHERE TO PURCHASE THE BOOK: Currently in Kindle Unlimited. Visit https://www.orriona.com/ and subscribe to the newsletter for more information about wider availability and free content.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Orriona

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orrionauniverse/

X:

Hangar Bay C on Level 12 is where Edgepoint Station keeps the things it wants forgotten. Corroded pipes drip overhead. Uneven lighting casts jittery shadows. And wedged between two towering freighters sits the Orriona—polished, streamlined, impossibly clean against the station's rust and decay.

Kai Kyros watches from the shadows as the others arrive. An engineer with grey-streaked hair and an ancient bot. A doctor carrying a meditation bench. A Taree'karin whose theatrical energy fills the hangar. A former Sector Guard pilot whose green eyes hold too many questions.

Strangers, all of them. People who answered the same impossible invitation Kai did. People who believe a sentient ship and generous credits are reason enough to leave everything behind.

Supply bots haul provisions up the boarding ramp in a steady stream. The Orriona's amber light spills across deck plates, warm against Edgepoint's harsh glare. One by one, the others climb aboard—stepping from a station that takes everything and gives nothing, into something none of them fully understand.

Kai stands at the threshold, pack digging into his shoulder. Eight years ago, he escaped one impossible situation with nothing but hope. That hope delivered him to Edgepoint, where he learned that survival means staying invisible, relationships are transactional, and trusting anyone is the fastest way to lose everything.

But ahead, a pilot waits. A crew waits. A ship that chose him specifically waits.

Time to decide: stay in the shadows he's mastered, or step into amber light and see what happens when someone finally sees past the masks.

WHAT TO EXPECT:

1. Audio drama adaptation of Legacy with cinematic sound design
2. A queer-norm galaxy (no homophobia, no coming-out angst—just space adventures)
3. A found family's first meeting
4. The moment strangers become crew
5. Hope warring with hard-earned survival instincts
6. Grand, hopeful adventure with a massive heart

CONTENT NOTES: Anxiety, trust issues, references to past survival trauma

WHERE TO PURCHASE THE BOOK: Currently in Kindle Unlimited.

Visit https://www.orriona.com/ and subscribe to the newsletter for more information about wider availability and free content.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Orriona

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orrionauniverse/

X: https://x.com/orriona

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@orriona

SUBSCRIBE for weekly episodes as we follow the crew of the sentient starship Orriona.

Welcome aboard. The Driftline awaits.

#QueerSciFi #Audiobook #SpaceOpera #MMSciFi