Commences — Susannah J. Bell

Although COMMENCES is the fourth novel in The Fleet Quintet, it can be read FIRST.

Billions of years ago, before the artificial universe, there was the Fleet.

Fleet personnel number 50, or Dett, sees a spacial dissociation in Fleet space and realises the control sector is broken.

She interacts violently with Fleet personnel 410, a Magician and time strategist who has been running a continuous cast for aeons. Trapped in a time loop, they fall in love before being torn apart in the cast's multi-dimensional war.

Dett begins a search that forces her from Fleet space into the artificial universe. A bloody encounter with Fleet personnel 2 takes her onto different planes of reality, from her primary attractor to Garanthal, a planet plagued with alternate timelines. 2 never fights back but he has also had a revelation that goes beyond Fleet space. Driven insane by a crucifixion tree, 2 wants 410 as a time engineer to unify the primary attractors, so beginning a new Fleet.

But the Fleet are in complete disarray. All the rules have been broken. The remaining Founders reconvene the Fleet only to witness an irretrievable split.

The fourth novel in The Fleet Quintet, COMMENCES begins where the old Fleet ends: a surreal trip from a stone angel in a ruined garden to the angel Archturan whose ambitions for the Fleet are the most dangerous of all.