Kai stares at the smooth ceiling, counting heartbeats against the Orriona's engines. Sleep came in fragments. Each time he closes his eyes, the explosion replays—the Belloros vaporized in a clean, cold analysis from his tactical display.

Twenty-four hours ago, he was running card games on Level 9.

Now luxury surrounds him. A contract promising credits. Academy patronage. A future.

Eight years ago, that would have set his heart racing.

Now it feels like contamination. The kind of feeling meant for alleys and abandoned corridors, where sharp edges fit the frontier's landscape. Here, surrounded by abundance, it feels wrong.

He would deal with it later. On the driftline. Where he always dealt with everything.

But the Orriona's showers aren't the thirty-second sonic rations of Edgepoint. Hot water cascades over his shoulders—a luxury bordering on reverence. And in that private moment, something breaks.

The Belloros explosion. The targeting solution. The choices made in fractions of a second.

His chest heaves. The pressure building until each breath requires conscious effort. The compartmentalization he's maintained for years cracks open, and he can't hold it back.

After the water stops, voices drift from the galley. Kellan's laugh. People being people.

He's spent years learning when to walk away. The question waiting is whether he's learned how to stay.

WHAT TO EXPECT:

• Audio drama adaptation of Legacy with cinematic sound design
• A queer-norm galaxy (no homophobia, no coming-out angst—just space adventures)
• The cost of compartmentalization
• Luxury that allows grief to surface
• Learning the difference between surviving and living
• Grand, hopeful adventure with a massive heart

CONTENT NOTES: Processing trauma, emotional breakdown, survivor's guilt

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.

(I am not very active on these, but these are the official spots)

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.

#MMSciFi #gayaudiobook #MMSpaceOpera

Val wakes slowly, her body registering pain before her mind fully surfaces. Deep bruises from the hangar firefight throb across her shoulders and back—ducking behind crates, disarming a gravity mine under fire, bolting up the Orriona's ramp with plasma bolts sizzling past her head.

She's alive. The bruises are proof.

But now she's awake in Quarters One aboard a sentient starship. A private bathroom with an actually functioning shower. A workbench equipped with tools she's only seen in technical journals. Clothes without burn marks or worn edges.

It feels like someone else's life.

For fifty years, Val has survived on the frontier with Jotter at her side—her constant companion, the keeper of her family's legacy. Fifty years of taking the hardest jobs, the most desperate contracts, always choosing the path that led further from anything that looked like home.

She left behind expectations she couldn't meet. A mother who wanted her to design starships, not fix broken ones. A family legacy of advanced engineering theory when all she wanted was to work with her hands.

Now she stands in quarters that belong on an IMZ luxury cruiser, looking at a reflection she barely recognizes.

The engineer who improvises repairs with salvaged parts. The woman who's spent decades keeping broken things running against impossible odds. Someone who learned long ago that comfort like this isn't meant for people like her.

But the Orriona chose her. Gave her a workbench that's never known desperate fixes. Gave her tools without the scars of a thousand emergency repairs.

In eight hours, they reach the Axrathan derelict. A mission that will require everything she knows about bio-mechanical systems and ancient technology.

The question waiting in the mirror is simpler, and infinitely harder: Does she deserve to be here? And if the answer is yes—what does that mean for someone who's spent fifty years running from exactly this kind of belonging?

WHAT TO EXPECT:

• Audio drama adaptation of Legacy with cinematic sound design
• A queer-norm galaxy (no homophobia, no coming-out angst—just space adventures)
• An engineer reckoning with who she was and who she's becoming
• Fifty years of running finally coming to an end
• Family legacy and hard-won skills
• Grand, hopeful adventure with a massive heart

CONTENT NOTES: Reflection on past trauma, family estrangement, survivor's resolve

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.

(I am not very active on these, but these are the official spots)

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.

#MMSciFi #gayaudiobook #MMSpaceOpera

((Writers Note: Sorry this chapter took so long. Life. Special thanks to Jimmy for your super kind email!!))

Dr. Rian Jengu sits cross-legged on the cool metal floor of the Orriona's medical bay, his hands resting lightly on his knees. His back stays upright—alert yet relaxed—as he synchronizes his breathing with the ship's quiet rhythm.

He's processing. The weight of the Mark III shield generator still lingers in his muscles. The memory of weapons fire, the plasma cutter's fierce vibrations, the moment the docking clamp finally gave way. The sudden jolt when the Belloros seized them. The terrible certainty of the Goliath cannon charging behind them.

Fourteen years he's practiced medicine on the frontier. Fourteen years in under-resourced clinics where supplies run out and improvisation becomes second nature. Where you learn to steady yourself through meditation because the galaxy's chaos can't be conquered with force—only with stillness.

But yesterday wasn't a clinic. Yesterday was combat.

And now he's here, aboard a sentient starship with technology that makes IMZ facilities look outdated. A medical bay that seems to anticipate his needs before he voices them. Nix at his side, as theatrical and brilliant as ever, making jokes about the transition from their Level 18 clinic to this.

The crew starts filtering through. Each one carrying their own weight from Edgepoint, their own stories written in subtle signs he's trained to read. Kellan's controlled drinking patterns. Kai's wariness of medical scrutiny. Val's pragmatic exhaustion.

They're strangers who just survived impossible odds together. Who signed contracts hours ago and immediately faced death. Who are now trying to figure out what it means to be a crew.

And Rian—temple-trained, frontier-hardened, more accustomed to treating bodies than building bonds—must find his place among them. Not just as their doctor, but as someone they can trust when everything falls apart.

Because if their first mission taught him anything, it's that everything will fall apart. The question is whether they can hold each other together when it does.

WHAT TO EXPECT:

• Audio drama adaptation of Legacy with cinematic sound design
• A queer-norm galaxy (no homophobia, no coming-out angst—just space adventures)
• A healer processing trauma and finding balance
• The weight of caring for strangers who became crew
• Temple wisdom meeting frontier medicine
• Grand, hopeful adventure with a massive heart

CONTENT NOTES: Reflection on recent combat, medical practice, healing

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.

(Not really active atm on social media, but these are it:)

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.

#MMSciFi #AudioDrama #SpaceOpera