by K. Gorman
THE EURYNOME CODE
©2020-2021 K GORMAN
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Contents
BLACK DAWN
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
RENEGADES
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
BLOOD TIES
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
WORLD SHIFT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
AWAKENING
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
DEUS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue
Epilogue 2
Thank you for reading The Eurynome Code
More In Sci-Fi
ABOUT K GORMAN
BLACK DAWN
BOOK ONE
Chapter One
Only twenty minutes into the scrounge, and Karin Makos was already cursing whic
hever crazy, inbred subset of people had been responsible for building a settlement in the dark, twisting, and forever narrowing depths of the Amosi cave complex. Despite the reinforced support system in her suit, made more for over-land voyages rather than… what was the word for this? Spelunking?—each step downward wrenched at her knees and ankles before the suit compensated for the awkward slope. A slow burn rose in her thighs, matching up with a growing stiffness that cut across her core abdominal muscles.
Sol, I should have worked out more on the ship.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had enough time, given how long it had taken to reach this dungheap of a planet. No, she’d just been lazy, losing herself in the feeds and the dull intricacies of the Nemina’s navigation system.
When one wasn’t active, the need for fitness didn’t seem quite so strong.
Another rust-covered relic rose under the mercurial tint of her flashlight.
Just who in the ten hells had decided this was the best place to settle?
One of the second-gen off-worlders, probably. That rust looked at least fifty years old, which would correspond with some of the cult departures she’d read about. If one added some time for the people actually living here.
Amosi was, technically, the stereotypic bucolic hideaway. More practical—and successful—cultists tended toward small niches in either Enlil’s or Belenus’ moons. Hells, even the belt farther out was more popular, though she understood that was more a combination of mining and piracy than anything else.
Still. Amosi settlements were the survivalist equivalent of hobby farms—small, one or two generational, and only a little ways off official government flight paths.
Down the slope, her two comrades echoed her thoughts.
“What the gods did you do, Marc? Piss in Cookie’s inbox?” The internal comms of the suits made Soo-jin’s voice tinny and warped, but her disgust rang obvious. “I bet this place’s picked clean.”
Marc, the captain of their ship and the farthest into the cavern, let out a heavy grunt. “Possibly.”
The gauges and holodisplay in the suit underlit the smooth, dark, shaven skin of his head as he frowned down the slope. He’d been a soldier before, part of Fallon’s forces from after they’d left the Alliance, and the history was evident in the way he moved. He balanced well, kept a casual-but-regular exercise regimen in the Nemina’s spare room, and had an above-average interest in the many dated and valuable firearms they came across.
Karin grimaced upon hearing Marc’s last word. Possibly didn’t sound good for her. Her bank account hovered over its final thousand credits, and the last two scrounging sites had been busts. If they were going to keep this business afloat, they needed to find something—anything—soon. If they didn’t...
Her jaw tensed. They had to.
Static-y sounds of close, heavy breathing came over the comms. The slope wasn’t particularly steep, but the roughness of the ground made it difficult to navigate. Marc and Soo-jin clambered ahead about a hundred meters away, the beams from their flashlights roaming over chunks of dusty rock and smooth slides of scree. The walls molded together in layers, the occasional, long-since-dried stains marking dark splotches into their mottled brown and black. High above, it all came together in a lopsided archway. There’d obviously been a landslide since the settlement’s abandonment—several of them, by the looks of the rock and the scree—but the main part lay over a klick underground, resting in some dug-out part of the territory’s natural cave system. Hopefully, the depth had protected it from complete burial. It had certainly prevented their ship from doing a better scan.
Marc’s voice crackled again on the comms. “Karin, how you doing?”
“Fine. I—” She yelped as her foot slipped. Her whole body tensed as she slid several inches down, arms flailing out for balance. Loose rock and soil fell with her, catching in the beam of her flashlight. The tote in her right hand clunked with a loud, reverberating bang against the metal that covered her leg as she recovered. “I’ll catch up.”
Having operated the crane lift for the other two before maneuvering down the rope herself, she’d been the last one in, so well behind them. Even Soo-jin, who’d been second, had already covered quite some ground ahead. As the team’s most experienced scrounger, she was a lot more used to the exoplanet suits and rough terrain than Karin. In fact, she and Marc both were. Karin was really only here for her flight knowledge. And for the handy-dandy navigation license that let them veer off the pre-approved government routes and come to places like the Amosi caves. Though both Marc and Soo-jin were capable of piloting the small craft, they didn’t have her credentials.
It made her indispensable. Sort of.
As she caught her stunned breath and righted herself from the fall, then picked up the scrounge-kit from where she had dropped it, she found herself doubting her usefulness. Soo-jin was the one with real scrounging experience. And Marc owned the ship.
“No worries,” he said. “Let us know if you need help.”
Karin gritted her teeth. Had they all heard her little fall? She’d done her best to be quiet.
“Thanks,” she forced herself to say. “I should be fine.”
“Yeah, Cap,” Soo-jin cut in. “She’s actually a secret badass.”
She narrowed her eyes at the comment, and her lip curled back at the tone. A flash of anger, long repressed, bit into the front of her mind like used coals. They’d been rubbing shoulders since the last failed scrounge, and she’d just about had enough of the other woman’s needles. “Fuck off, Soo-jin.”
Soo-jin made a noise into her mic that might have been a snort, but otherwise said nothing.
Marc’s next sigh came dosed with long-suffering exasperation. “Can we focus, please?”
“Sure,” Soo-jin said. “There’s plenty to focus on here, what with all the rocks and dirt and pieces of rusted, broken, unsalvageable shit.”
A noise clunked up ahead, as if Soo-jin had kicked something.
“Less talk, more walk,” Marc said. “I want to actually sleep tonight.”
“Oh, you’ll sleep, Cap,” Soo-jin quipped. “We can turn around the second we lay eyes on whatever crockery Cookie sent us down here to investigate, agree to roast his gunai on a lav-log next time we see him, and hike our broke asses back out.”
“If it comes to that, I get first shot. He’s blood, after all.”
“Just so long as I get a lav-log roast when you’re finished. I have some personal feelings to work out, not to mention all the compensation I won’t be getting.”
“You’d exchange Cookie’s gunai for compensation? You should have said something earlier. I can agree to that.”
“Fantastic,” Soo-jin exclaimed. “Hurry up, Karin. I’ve got some gunai to roast.”
This time, the woman’s tone sounded surprisingly free of sarcasm.
“No problem.” Karin relaxed as they all focused on the descent again.
It took them another twenty minutes to reach the settlement, their speed helped by an uneven, twisting staircase they found once the debris from the cave-in petered out. The cavern narrowed as they went down, and the ceiling dipped close enough for their flashlight beams to catch. Thin, sharp-looking stalactites made jagged slashes of shadow on the weathered stone.
Her eyes narrowed on a large one that hung next to the railing. It was bone-dry.
