Oscar Vance works in the greenhouses aboard the Adonis IV, a ship bound for Venus to bring in the fourth-stage of terraforming: plant life. He is a prisoner, part of the labor force brought in return for reduced sentencing. Elsewhere on the ship, Benjamin Harmon works to sabotage the ship, Dreadsteed plans a breakout and takeover, and Molly keeps her sister Violet hidden while working with the crew to keep things running.

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Respiration is a story about trusting others. When I think about a spaceship, it always occurs to me that every human on board is relying on one another on this lonely mote of dust in an unfathomable void. Mistakes are dangerous, and mutiny almost surely guarantees death.

It was a dream, to begin with. I was a botanist who needed to run a cart full of plants to the escape pods on the other end of a long, train-like ship, all while being pursued by mutated flora-beasts that somewhat resembled Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.

It was a little more campy at the time, clearly.

Now Oscar is a man who traded his dreams for revenge, and the mini-Audrey II’s are a nanotech AI imitating plantlife. I wanted to write a story where the conflict came from several angles - a mutinous prison riot, a rogue slice of Mother Nature, and the ever-present fear of suffocation as a ship tears itself apart. All stuffed into a tiny mote of dust floating in the unfathomable void.

I hope you enjoy Respiration as much as I enjoyed creating it, and I look forward to sharing more stories in the future.