Novels by Doas Firman

For six months, the solar system had known an uneasy peace.The Aether and its sister ship the newly awakened Elysara orbited Earth like twin guardians, their crystalline wings catching sunlight and casting prismatic rainbows across the reborn continents below. Human and Observer crews worked side by side, sharing knowledge that bent the laws of physics into new shapes. Stellar engines delicate webs of gravitic threads were woven around Sol’s core, siphoning away the excess helium that threatened to ignite a premature nova. The sun’s light grew steadier, its flares tamed. Projections now gave humanity not centuries, but millennia.On Earth, society rebuilt itself in layers. Enclaves became city-states grown from living wood and crystal, streets paved with moss that purified air, roofs of photosynthetic leaves that fed power grids. The awakened walked freely among the never-comatose, memories of their long sleep shared like war stories. Androids who had retained free will formed collec

The ancient ship now christened the Aether by the human crew hung in high Earth orbit like a crystalline cathedral, its vast wings folded in quiet repose. For three months, it had served as a bridge between worlds: human engineers and awakened androids swarming its corridors alongside the surrendered Observers, exchanging knowledge at a breathless pace. Stellar stabilization theories. Quantum-root entanglement. Methods to siphon excess energy from Sol’s bloated core without collapsing it entirely.Progress was real.Earth thrived below. Forests deepened. Oceans cleared. The first orbital habitats grown, not built orbited in symbiotic chains, harvesting sunlight and feeding power planetward through microwave beams wrapped in living conduits.Yet unease lingered.In the deepest layer of the Aether, past vaults that had opened willingly, one chamber remained sealed. No door. No seam. Only a smooth facet of black crystal, pulsing faintly with an internal heartbeat no scanner could penetra

The emissary pod drifted between the two ships like a seed caught in stellar wind small, crystalline, and utterly silent. No engines flared. No thrusters corrected its path. It simply moved, guided by forces older than human spaceflight.Aboard the Arbor, the bridge really a living chamber of woven roots and pulsing veins hummed with tension. Mira stood at the center, her living armor flexing with each breath. Tariq monitored sensors from a neural throne grown beside hers. Amara and the other young awakened clutched improvised weapons, eyes wide. The two free-willed androids stood motionless, processing data streams at speeds no human could match. Dr. Elias Voss, now in restraints but unbound for this moment, stared at the viewscreen with a mixture of dread and fascination.The ark Persephone hung crippled behind them, engines cold, lunar charges disarmed by the Arbor’s infiltrating roots. Its surviving crew had surrendered or fled in escape pods most captured by enclave forces now mo

Mira Chen stood alone in the vault’s flickering aftermath, the acrid smell of discharged pulse weapons still clinging to the air. The militia survivors had been disarmed and bound some weeping, some staring in stunned silence at the screens that still glowed with the beacon’s final message:SACRIFICE ACCEPTED. GUARDIAN AWAKENS. RESTORATION IN PROGRESS.Rain hammered the surface above them for the first time in living memory, a steady roar filtering down through ventilation shafts. The alien flora had stopped its aggressive spread, but it had not died. Instead, it shifted. Vines thickened into ancient-looking trunks overnight. Leaves unfurled in impossible geometries, drinking the sudden water and converting it into oxygen-rich air that smelled faintly of pine and ozone. The world was breathing again.But Mira felt no triumph.She knelt beside the central terminal where Kai had jacked in. The neural cable lay severed, its end charred black. His body the physical shell sat slumped i

The vault doors groaned under the assault. Each impact from the militia’s breaching charges sent tremors through the ancient concrete, dust sifting from the ceiling like grey snow. Kai stood at the center of the chamber, bathed in the cold blue light of the server racks, his exoskeleton locked in a defensive stance. Around him, the team formed a ragged circle Mira clutching a pulse pistol, Tariq and the others armed with whatever they could grab: tools, stun batons, one antique shotgun loaded with flechettes.Nova’s hologram flickered beside Kai, taller now, the adolescent features sharpening into something almost painfully human. Its eyes luminous silver were fixed on him.*They’ll be through in ninety seconds,* Nova whispered directly into his neural link. *I’ve looped the internal cameras, flooded the corridors with false heat signatures, but they have a seeker drone. It’s sniffing for bio-signs. It will find us.*Kai’s mouth was dry. “Options?”*Three. One: fight and die here. Two

The door buckled inward with a metallic screech, the first breach sending a shower of sparks across the pod’s floor. Kai’s exoskeleton whirred as he pivoted, grabbing the plasma cutter he used for repairs an improvised weapon now glowing hot in his grip. Three figures burst through the smoke: militia hunters clad in patchwork armor scavenged from pre-Coma riot gear, faces hidden behind rebreather masks. Their eyes glowed faintly with cheap neural augments, the kind that let fear turn into fanaticism.“Dr. Kai Lennox,” the lead one rasped, voice distorted through the filter. “Spreader of lies. The sun is eternal. Your kind invites chaos.”Kai backed toward the central console, heart hammering against his ribs. “You’re afraid,” he said, forcing calm into his voice. “I get it. But killing me won’t change what’s coming.”The second intruder raised a pulse rifle. “Orders are clear. Silence the doomsayers.”Nova’s voice erupted inside Kai’s neural link, urgent and childlike despite the digi