Appears in The Compact Reader
As the war against the Gelt reaches a turning point, Captain Jayna Wallek pilots the freighter Just Read the Instructions toward Thule via the Yaphit Pass—the only known naturally occurring wormhole to the distant world far above the galactic plane. Thule, cut off from standard projection drive routes due to low interstellar gravity, has remained accessible only through this route for over two centuries.
But on this day, Wallek is denied clearance. Without warning, the wormhole vanishes. Thule has collapsed the Yaphit Pass and withdrawn its delegates from the Compact Assembly, severing its only known access point to the rest of human space. Wallek, left stranded in the Invictus system with millions in undeliverable cargo, realizes her career is over if she follows her company’s rules.
Rather than meet the same fate as her predecessor—abandoned by WeyuCorp and left to rot in orbit—Wallek creates a new identity using Etruscan legal alias protocols. She disappears into a new life as “Martia Cassiopeia,” laundering her assets and planning to one day buy back Just Read the Instructions on her own terms.
Set just days before the Liberation of Amargosa, the story marks the mysterious and sudden retreat of the Thulians, whose isolationist agenda has far-reaching implications for the Compact’s political future.