A Quiet Universe by Kay F. Atkinson

SPSFC 2024

CERHA is a fabricant, and her job is simple: keep Annalise Fletcher safe, a role she performs dutifully and without fail, as she was designed to. Neither she nor her charge expected that this routine assignment could lead to love, but when feelings begin to bloom, neither see fit to stand in their way, and the two find themselves leading a shared life where both must walk a tightrope, precariously balancing between duty, and what domestic bliss is woven into the spaces remaining. For a time, they are as close to happy as they can manage. Then Annalise vanishes away to the embattled starship ‘Upon Silver Tides’, leaving a cryptic warning in her wake, and CERHA finds herself frantically in pursuit, on an illegal mission to save her objective-turned-lover and bring her home alive. She isn’t sure what she’ll find. But what awaits is a web ensnaring both wayward lovers, far more tangled than either could possibly know, and lurking upon this forsaken vessel is a descent into insanity that will force CERHA to confront the bleak truth at the heart of her function.