Letters from Deep Space

(As it happens, my lovely editor and lovelier wife, Amy, has been looking to try her hand at this writing gig, and so please give a big hand to the first piece of Eldraeverse canon not written – my hand was limited to a one-line prompt – by me!)

Dear Mom:

It’s been a weird month here. I got kitchen duty AGAIN (you’d think after the first time when no one would touch my Fantastic Fungus Fricassee they’d’ve taken me off that rotation, but nope), and I thought I’d redeem myself with a grand surprise.

Well. To make a long story short, surprise, you’re a grandma! Who knew 50 pounds of tofu could even HOLD enough bacterial volume to cohere into a sapient mind-state? Well, now we do, I guess. I should probably have read the culture sachets more carefully, huh.

The science team are thrilled, but the captain is pretty pissed at me, and is threatening to space me to save the air that my accidental offspring will be using over the next couple of decades. I think she’s not serious, but, uh, if you don’t hear from me for a while, wake up my backup and apologize to her/me for losing the long-haul bonus we were counting on, yeah?

Anyway, I’ll try to stay alive long enough to make it home, and maybe I’ll even manage to teach your grandspawn how to talk. I’m not looking forward to trying to explain to it someday that I was actually trying to make cheese, not become a parent. Talk about “The Talk”.

Still, keeps things interesting! I’ll try to have a quieter month coming up.

Love,
Me