Endure: Lost Colony, #2.4

By Jonathan Sherwood

On the run from a life of slavery, can he endure long enough to save his daughter?

 

Time to Read: about 45 minutes

 

Baedo has spent his entire life as a slave on a small planet on the outer reaches of the empire. But the birth of his daughter inspires him to run for her freedom, and perhaps the freedom of the galaxy.

Lost Colony is a quarterly magazine of masterfully crafted mid-length (10,000 to 25,000 words) science fiction and fantasy in all of their varieties. This ebook edition includes an Editor's Note in which the editor explains why this story was chosen for publication.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lost Colony Books
• Release date: Oct 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223348450

Book preview

Endure © 2023 Jonathan Sherwood

Editor’s Note © 2023 M.E. Pickett

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without written permission from the copyright holder, except for brief portions quoted for purpose of review.

Cover image by Simon Dannhauer via Shutterstock

Cover and interior design by M.E. Pickett

Lost Colony is a publication of Lost Colony Books, a division of Great Pond, LLC

www.lostcolonymagazine.com

www.lostcolonybooks.com

Lost Colony and its colophon are trademarks of Great Pond, LLC

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Volume 2, Issue 4

October 2023

Contents

About Lost Colony

Endure

About the Author

Editor’s Note

About the Editor

About Lost Colony

Lost Colony publishes one masterfully crafted piece of mid-length (10,000-25,000 words) speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy in all of their manifestations) every quarter. Quarterly stories are published for free on our website (with ads) and for one or two dollars as an ebook (without ads). Once a year, all four of the stories that have appeared in the magazine are published in an annual anthology, both electronically and in print. If you buy the ebook of either the quarterly story or the annual anthology, or if you buy the print version of the annual anthology, you will also get editor’s notes that explain why each story was chosen for publication.

I started Lost Colony after I wrote a mid-length story and very quickly ran out of outlets to submit it to. I thought that the mid-length story should get more love, so I decided to launch this little publication.

I named it Lost Colony because I had moved to Roanoke, Virginia, shortly before launching it. Roanoke, Virginia, has nothing to do with the lost colony of Roanoke (which was in North Carolina), but it was the first thing that I thought of when I learned about the city, so it made sense to me. It also evokes a sense of mystery, the supernatural, or even the exploration of the cosmos, so it fits nicely with what I’m looking for in the stories that I publish (for more details on what I’m looking for, check out the Submission Guidelines).

Endure

By Jonathan Sherwood

It was said the revolution did not rise from the galactic hub, where the voices of anger and rebellion roiled bold and loud. It crept in from a nondescript world on the fringe of civilization, as a mounting whisper that would not cease.

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The tall man, dressed in graying rags, shuffled with the mass of slaves along the hard salt earth. In the crook of his elbow an infant squirmed, but the man’s eyes stared, unfocused, at the white ground and dragging feet before him. A loaf of bread hung low from his fingers. An aging woman ahead fell to one knee, retching air. He stepped clumsily around her like the rest of the mass.

The man’s name was Baedo. The child had no name.

On all sides, the salt flats of a long-dead sea stretched to an undulating horizon, unbroken but for the great arc of barracks, manor houses, and the mining sheds where the man, like everyone else, spent the entirety of his life. The child twisted against his arm and bubbled a sound. He lolled his head slightly to see her.

His steps slowed and stopped.

Baedo stared as his two-month-old daughter squinted against the sharp sunlight. Her tiny, open mouth widened into an infant smile as she reached curling fingers upward, the thin shadows brushing her face. His brow wrinkled. He stood unmoving, his feet burning against the white earth as he blinked at her. Behind the cracked, dry smile, her tongue worked as if for words. Small hands stroked the sun, and a feeling