Novels by Christabel Joseph

The Reckoning WaveThe moon was called Serene Reach, a forgotten pearl in the Outer Volumes where the oceans glowed faint turquoise at night from bioluminescent plankton, and the only sounds were waves on black sand and the occasional cry of seabirds. We had been there for three months—longer than anywhere else since the war ended. Long enough to build routines. Long enough to almost believe the quiet was permanent.I woke before dawn, as always. Kessa was already up, standing on the balcony of our cliffside cabin, wrapped in a thin blanket, watching the horizon where the first sun would rise. Her silhouette was sharp against the pre-dawn indigo, hair loose and wild from sleep.I joined her without speaking. We had learned silence was sometimes better than words.She leaned back against me when I wrapped arms around her waist. Her skin was warm despite the cool breeze.“Dream?” I asked quietly.“Memory,” she corrected. “Varn’s voice. Telling me I’d come back.”I tightened my hold. “Y

The Long ShadowThe liner *Stellar Drift* was everything the war hadn’t been: soft lighting, live music in the lounges, passengers in vacation silks sipping cocktails under simulated starlight. Kessa and I had boarded at Port Meridian under false names, carrying nothing but two small duffels and the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that no shore leave could fix in a week.We had cabins on the promenade deck—adjoining, doors left unlocked between them. For the first three days we did what civilians do: slept twelve hours straight, ate real food, walked the observation ring hand in hand like any other couple escaping the grind. No one looked twice at us. No alarms. No gunfire.It felt alien.On the fourth day, Kessa found me in the gym at 0400 ship time, pounding a heavy bag until my knuckles bled through the wraps.“You’re going to break your hands,” she said from the doorway.“Better than breaking my head thinking.”She stepped in, closed the door. “Nightmares?”“Memories.” I stopped, bre

Ashes and AftermathThe *Ebon Sparrow* hung in the void like a black needle against the starfield, cloaked and silent, three light-days out from the smoldering ruins of Obsidian Keep. For forty-eight hours we had done nothing but watch the sector unravel.Every major feed carried the footage Crab had uploaded in the final seconds before the fortress detonated: the Directorate’s faces, their voices, their plans laid bare. Names that had been myths—admirals, CEOs, intelligence chiefs—were now splashed across emergency broadcasts. Arrest warrants flew faster than light. Bank accounts frozen. Private fleets seized at dock. Entire governments teetered as compromised ministers fled or were dragged from offices in restraints.But wars do not end when the head is cut off. They convulse.Concordance cells—dozens, maybe hundreds—went dark or went loud. Some surrendered. Most fought. Suicide charges on Federation outposts. Assassinations of investigators. Sabotage of orbital infrastructure. Thre

Ghosts in the VoidThe *Driftwind* ran dark for three days.No running lights, no transponder, minimal emissions. Captain Hale plotted a wandering course through the nebula fringes of the Elysara Sector dense gas clouds that scattered sensors and hid us from long-range scans. Inside the ship, the mood was funeral-quiet. Crew spoke in murmurs, if at all. The newsfeeds we dared to skim painted a picture none of us wanted to look at for long.Calyx Station destroyed. Over four hundred thousand confirmed dead, countless more missing in the debris field. Official story: catastrophic fusion cascade, cause under investigation. Unofficial channels screamed the truth everyone was afraid to say aloud someone had deliberately overloaded the cores.Markets were still frozen. Trillions in wealth evaporated overnight. Governments declared emergencies. Fleets mobilized. Fingers pointed everywhere: terrorism, corporate sabotage, foreign powers. No one named the Concordance publicly. They were too dee

StationfallThe *Driftwind* dropped out of FTL with a shudder that ran through every deck plate, the kind of jolt that told experienced travelers the nav computer had just shaved margins too close for comfort. Captain Hale’s voice came over the intercom, calm but edged with steel.“Calyx Station in thirty minutes. We’re running hot and quiet. Concordance cutter is still limping somewhere behind us, but station traffic control just pinged us twice routine, they claim. Stay sharp.”Kessa killed the intercom and looked at me across the cramped smuggler’s nook. Her face was drawn from lack of sleep, the scar along her jaw standing out pale against olive skin.“Thirty minutes to dock. Forty-three hours total until the second canister arrives became twenty-nine while we were dodging that cutter. We’re cutting it thin.”I checked the flechette pistol’s magazine for the third time. Full. Safety on. “What’s the plan once we’re inside?”“Calyx is a hub three hundred thousand permanent residents

Into the GreenThe jungle swallowed us whole.One moment we were standing in the small clearing where Kessa had parked the van; the next, the fern-trees closed ranks behind us and the night pressed in from every side. Elysara’s twin moons hung low, filtering silver light through layers of canopy, but down here on the forest floor it was all shadows and bioluminescent flickers—fungi glowing soft blue along fallen trunks, insects tracing lazy green spirals in the air.Kessa moved like she’d been born in this darkness. No flashlight, no hesitation. She adjusted the straps of her reconfigured backpack—the spider-drone now compacted into a slim tactical rig—and set off along a trail that wasn’t a trail at all, just a subtle parting of undergrowth that only someone trained to see it would notice.I followed, duffel slung cross-body, trying to keep my footsteps quiet on the springy humus. The air was thick, warm, heavy with the scent of sap and decaying leaves. Every few seconds something l