Phantom Traveler

Ehli is an iscillian, designed in a lab to serve as a bantam, a ship custodian for a merchant crew. She imagines no future beyond the care of her starship and the quiet hours between ships spent painting in her quarters.

But when she discovers a vague clue that undermines the clear purpose of her existence, the satisfaction she once found in her simple routine dissolves into an unsettling, deadly obsession to learn the truth.

Her job is to put the needs of her ship and its crew before her own, but every step she takes to investigate her origins—the origins of all iscillian across the galaxy—drags her away from the life she knew and deeper into danger.

But Ehli can’t ignore what she’s learned. She must know what secrets have been kept from her, and she’s willing to risk everything to uncover them.

THE BANTAM transports you to a distant corner of space, introduces you to the most adorable invertebrate you’ve ever met, and sets up a mystery to propel Ehli forward into a new life of exploration and adventure.

The suspenseful sequel to The Bantam is here!

An engineering failure has left Ehli stranded between the layers of reality. Her only companion is BEETL—a scarab drone programmed to terminate any iscillian who endangers the ship.

Ehli definitely qualifies.

She must repair the ship’s disabled gate drive to free them from dimspace. But once she does, will she be free to search for her homeworld, or will BEETL’s deadly protocols activate the moment she fails to set course for an impound dock?

When Ehli inadvertently involves another iscillian in her trouble, it’s not just her own life she’s risking.

The rebellious engineer must solve both moral and technical quandaries before she destroys another crew.

“Dimspace, a realm shrouded in mystery and promise. Our ship’s gate drive hurls us between star systems, careening between random pinpricks of light faster than light itself can travel. We journey steadily toward the region of the galaxy whence we came, one calculated leap at a time. Each waypoint system offers unique wonders, phenomena, and life to explore, observe, and chronicle.We are seeking our own people, our culture, and our history but it is my goal that, when we reach our destination, we will have our own history to share…”

As the Harrow’s Tusk carries them across a galaxy toward a home world they’ve never seen, iscillian sisters Jayess and Sothree record the worlds they visit, through journaling and illustration. Every encounter brings them one step closer to discovering themselves and who they are meant to be.

Eleven log entries are paired with original full color illustrations.