Voidbreaker: A Lumen Universe Story

"We will not allow our species to be consumed... The mission of the Voidbreaker Karis is nothing less weighty than the hope of all humankind."

In the decaying cornfields of Earth, thirteen-year-old Cami Mitchell runs. She runs to escape the broadcast of the Voidbreaker Karis—the colony ship carrying her mother, her father, and her twin sister, Delia, to a new life on Mars.

Raised in the "Human First" movement, Cami was raised to believe that an all-human colony was the ultimate goal. But a heart murmur deemed her unworthy of the voyage. Now, she is the girl left behind, grounded on a planet her mother calls a failure, surrounded by the "Uplifts" she was taught to resent.

As the Voidbreaker approaches its critical docking sequence at Mars Station One, Cami finds herself forming an unlikely alliance with Dawnsky, a young Canine Uplift who offers her the one thing her own species wouldn't: connection.

Written by Cath Lauria, Voidbreaker is a tragic, grounded sci-fi short story about the cost of hubris, the pain of abandonment, and finding humanity in the "other."