Path of the Whiptails

By: C.L. Armerding

In a faraway future, five women find themselves on an abandoned Earth. With no memory of their past, their only clue is a message from a mysterious benefactor named The Matriarch. They were charged with the task of rescuing the last humans as a part of a last-ditch plan called the New Mexico Whiptail Project.

The five women consist of the courageous leader, Leone, the cantankerous gunner, Bindi, the curious android, Jay, the timid medic, Ming, and the optimistic pilot, Yori. This unlikely crew will travel the universe through wormholes in order to visit planets that are inhospitable to humans, such as a Precambrian world, a world with a chlorine atmosphere, and a world covered in oceans of ammonia. To make the journey even more dangerous, hostile aliens made of silicon inhabit these worlds, forcing the crew to navigate undetected around massive alien structures and planet-wide civilizations. They do all this just to right the wrongs of the past in a journey across the stars.

The Path of the Whiptails is an adventure story inspired by the science of exoplanets, hypothetical biology, and astrophysics creating a future that is fantasy derived from science. As the story’s heroines brave the dangers of space and uncover what led humanity to extinction, they learn that in order to save humanity, they will need courage, ingenuity, and friendship.