Starship Arcadia (Farthest Reaches Book 2), page 1
STARSHIP ARCADIA
©2024 BRANDON ELLIS & MAX WOLFE
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CONTENTS
Also in Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Thank you for reading Starship Arcadia
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Battleborn
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ALSO IN SERIES
Farthest Reaches
Starship Arcadia
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CHAPTER ONE
“War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
—General William Tecumseh Sherman
Planet Kahwin
North Pole
Captain Scott Moore
Nothing lived in the north. It was too cold to think, too cold to do much of anything other than put one foot in front of the other. The ice formed an impenetrable barrier to plant life, a permanent kill field with the damn wind. Endless mountains stretched far off to the east, their rocky crags occasionally visible in the snow. Through sparse clouds, the sky burst with blinding light that always sat above us during this time of year. Behind us, a trail through the snow snaked along the ground, a thick layer of ice.
We were up by the North Pole, and not the one with Santa. This one stood at the far end of the world, and after travelling this far, my wits were at an end. Something turned much of the ice a deep blue, and at times, it felt as though we were walking on still water.
My heel found the next hold as I continued my ascent up the steep incline, which did a number on my legs. Every few seconds, my goggles’ autowarmers kicked on and defrosted the lenses. Loose snow whipped by as the deadly wind notched up faster. With wind like this, any exposure to the elements would result in amputation or death.
I’d find this ship if it was the last thing I did. It was here, buried in these icy mountains. At least, that was what our last intel told us. All clues pointed to this place, this hell.
“You know what sounds good right now?” Vincent asked.
Chief coughed as he maneuvered past a spot of jagged ice that blocked his route. “What’s that?”
“A McDonald’s hot fudge sundae.”
“Hell, I could go for a Big Mac right about now,” I said.
Erika followed in Chief’s footprints, making it easier for her to move. “Sir, if I could still eat, I’d eat one with you.”
“I will be elated if we find your ship, Captain,” Zoe said. “Why did you name it Arcadia? What does it mean?”
“It’s a place back home.”
Zoe asked, “Why do you name your ships after places?”
“Not all ships are named after places,” Chief said. “Some ships are named after important people.”
“How can you talk when it’s this cold?” asked a sergeant.
Chief helped the sergeant climb over a snow hill. “Keeps your mind active. Otherwise, you’ll bitch about the freeze in your head.”
“How’s the solar charger holding up?” I asked.
“Good, sir. We should be able to transmit within fourteen hours.”
During our journey, we’d lost most of our gear and vehicles to the poor maintenance and the elements. We’d lost one of the APCs in a fire when the engine exploded. Ten of our tablets succumbed to humidity. Although we’d brought hundreds of solar cells, many of them started to break down during the first two years, and by the third year, we were down to a handful. Needless to say, remaining in contact with Starport City was my priority, but finding a place to transmit this far away proved extremely difficult. If only we had satellites. We stored the comm equipment toward the rear of the formation, away from the rest of our supplies.
In front of me, the last surviving Janissary from this expedition pushed forward with dozens of cables attached around his waist. The robot pulled along our sleds over the battered terrain, carrying what few supplies we had remaining, and the corpses lost to the desolate chill and the creatures we’d encountered on the way here. Its power supply rose from its back with four exhaust tubes. On its shoulder, it sported a dark matter accelerator cannon. Its main weapon was a wrist-mounted plasma gun that was powerful enough to obliterate a Shaper in one hit. Problem was, it only worked half the time. Chief and Vincent had tried to repair it, but they were at a loss without the right parts or facility. One thing was for sure—without the Janissary, we would have been dead.
But as the saying goes, don’t store all your eggs in one basket. A quarter of our supplies remained on sleds, which we ourselves were forced to pull. My brother, Vincent, insisted we take Melody, a cluster of servers stored in stasis pods, to protect them from the elements. Why did he want to bring Melody when it was still corrupted? Well, if he were to explain it, he would have said he hoped to find Antediluvian technology to help repair it, but the real reason was because he didn’t want to leave it back in Starport City with the Senate and Equinox.
If I were to tell you how many times we’d almost lost the pods and how cumbersome and heavy they were, you’d assume they were more important than our food supply. Vincent seemed to think so.
Our excursion party consisted of Chief, Vincent, Doc, Paysha, Zoe, Erika and nearly everyone who survived from the original crew, save for those who I needed to stay behind at Starport City to serve in the Senate. We totaled sixty-three, down from our original eighty. The years had not been kind to our expedition to find Arcadia. Yet, our tenacity and willpower pushed us toward our goal of getting back to Earth.
“I’m detecting electromagnetic signatures and faint traces of radiation,” Zoe said through my bio-mechanical translator embedded behind my ear. Her soothing voice snapped me back to reality, and I realized just how damn cold it was again.
“Where?” I asked.
“Hard to pinpoint, sir. Readings have spiked. Maybe my scanner is broken.”
Vincent looked it over. “Seems to be working, but these readings don’t make sense. Whatever is emitting this electromagnetic signature would be the size of the Pentagon. No, this can’t be right.”
“That’s oddly specific,” Erika said.
“I spent years there. It’s larger th
I concentrated for a moment, visualizing the robot stopping its climb and protecting us.
Defensive posture.
The Janissary crunched the ice underfoot and aimed his wrist weapon in front of him, creating a firing arc.
In this type of weather, obviously water is easy to find, but you lose it as you speak. Chief rigged up our suits with plenty of warming mechanisms to keep us warm and to boil water if necessary. Although the cold zapped the batteries, with the constant sunlight this time of year, we recharged them every few hours by putting them face up on one of the survival sleds and exposing them to the sunlight.
My second-in-command, Lieutenant Commander Chen, kept a close eye on me. Intelligent and tough, I appreciated her strength and willpower. She was a natural leader, though at times, her approach was to use as few words as possible.
I made my way over to Vincent and examined the omniscanner. “Might be an old Antediluvian base. Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve found one that’s submerged.”
“Don’t think it’s a base. It’s too active.”
Something about this rubbed me wrong. It’d been months since we’d encountered anything remotely resembling Antediluvian technology, the last being a small, abandoned encampment three hundred klicks south of our position. “Even a fusion reactor would run out after that much time had elapsed. Zoe?”
“Captain, I do not believe either of those theories to be correct. The Antediluvians set up several beacons on the polar caps.”
“This far north? For what purpose?”
“They believed other Antediluvians would come and rescue them. Shapers despise the cold, so it would make logical sense for the humans to assemble in areas like this. Due to the harsh weather conditions and lack of suitable farmland, all attempts to establish bases here would be doomed to failure.”
Vincent muttered under his breath, “They’re not the only ones who despise the cold.”
“Alright, we’ll scout ahead. Everyone, take a knee,” I said. “I’ll send the Janissary to go look.”
With a thought, I ordered the robot to secure our sleds and recon the position. It vaulted through the snow. Its metallic claws found purchase on the rocks and, along the way, created a path for us to follow.
Slowly, the Janissary proceeded to venture over a large hill beyond my line of sight.
When you’re standing still in temperatures this low, it’s easy to get comfortable, and if you get comfortable, you die. I made sure to move constantly. What I wouldn’t have given to be beside a fireplace right now. A nice blanket. Some coffee. Now there was something I missed.
Valuable minutes passed. The Janissary should have been back by now. I’d give it another few minutes. I checked in with my crew, and they signaled they were okay. They were tough anyway. I was proud of them and their willingness to go all the way. When the temperature wasn’t a million below, we normally camped and made small talk. Through the years, I’ve learned a lot about them. It’s funny how fast you get to know people’s quirks and what sets them off.
Damn. Where’s that Janissary? He should be back.
I imagined him returning, which should have sent a telepathic command to him and ordered him to return. The Antediluvian device fused behind my ear not only translated languages, it understood my conscious and subconscious desires to some degree. This allowed me to willingly and sometimes unwillingly command the robot without direct communication. This type of technology existed back home, but when the Beijing riots occurred, the tech was subsequently banned worldwide. Banning tech doesn’t make it go away; it only creates an underground market.
Vincent promised to find a way to make direct communication with the Janissaries a reality, but our travels made it impossible for him to work on anything as complex as that. Some day.
“Captain, EMF readings rising,” Zoe said. “Strongest readings are coming from the northeast.”
Erika opened one of our last remaining tablets, keyed in data about our location, and looked where Zoe had pointed. “Could be the site.” She was a synthetic human or what were once called androids. Her body had died during an emergency explosion, but her consciousness lived on inside the silicone in her head. Once, I’d thought of synths as nothing more than expendable tools. What a fool I’d been.
The ice behind me cracked open. Massive chunks of ice flew overhead, and one smashed into our medical sled, obliterating it. Beneath the ice, smaller crab-like appendages reached up from below the waterline and I caught sight of a carapace with boney protrusions around its outer rim.
Erika zipped into action and lobbed our last remaining dynamite at it. The explosion blinded me for a moment, and then the snow came down on us from above. When the mess had cleared, three of the creature’s arms lay still and bleeding an inky fluid over the snow.
I unslung my dark matter rifle as blotchy squid-like arms six stories tall reached up through the snow and grappled a sergeant. He screamed, then his body turned to gelatin as the creature crushed him.
“Spread out!” I aimed and fired, peppering the tentacle’s lower half. By then, we’d scattered, my team shooting with wild abandon. We stood no chance against something this size.
A second tentacle burst forth out of the snow next to Chief. He rolled out of the way, and I put six shots into the beast. Although it bled, my fire did little to stop it.
“Shaper!”
Tentacles flung out from the snow like newly formed trees, crunching the ice loud enough. The deafening rumble underneath our feet morphed into sounds like an artillery duel. Several of our sleds slipped into the water, our priceless cargo disappearing. I let out a few choice swearwords, my mind racing. Without the cargo, we’d all be dead in a matter of days.
“I’ve got eyes on the body!” Chief said.
Shifting underneath the water, a city-block-sized Shaper wiggled its amorphous body, a shape with enough mass to displace several tons of water. Thousands of metallic implants shined as its body pulsed with light from its internal organs. Eye stalks, like cellphone towers, writhed chaotically, and its bulk burgeoned with muscle and a thick, dark purple carapace.
Soon, the ice began to crack everywhere, and we found ourselves sliding on ice floes.
Below the water, I finally spotted the Janissary, its limbs torn asunder by the creature. The Shaper’s many arms still held on to parts of it like prizes. Something round stretched beneath the beast like the roof of an enormous dome, and it dwarfed the Shaper.
Zoe dove through a hole in the ice deep underwater toward the Shaper’s enlarged maw. Was she suicidal?
“Zoe!” Vincent dashed uncaring through the white toward a hole in the ice. “She’s going to get herself killed!”
Zoe dodged one of the Shaper’s many arms and grabbed several of the sled cords and then kicked her way toward the surface.
My crew fought tenaciously against the horde of emerging arms, but this ambush threw our practiced unit cohesion tactics for a loop. Panic spread, and a few of my team succumbed to the angry cold when they slipped into the water.
Thousands of beams laced the air, severing Shaper’s arms. As soon as we’d kill a few limbs, they’d double and double again. How many arms did it have?
“Run!” someone yelled.
“Fall back!” another said.
“Stand your ground!” I barked.
A few still retreated, and Chief paused his assault on the Shaper to put a few shots over the heads of those whose mettle had failed them. Only one still ran. I’d deal with the coward if we survived.
Erika paused at the edge of an ice floe and dove in the water after Zoe.
Damnit, Erika! You’re going to freeze!
My crew fought tenaciously against the horde of emerging arms, but our futile attempts to maintain unit cohesion in the ice had thrown our practiced tactics for a loop. Panic spread, and a few more of my team died when they slipped into the cold water.
While we fought for our lives, a lieutenant stared at his omnitool. “Sir! Something else’s beneath the water!”
A tentacle lashed out from the water toward him.
Chen dashed through the snow, shouting orders.
“Get down!” I yelled.
As it missed him, the arm continued its path straight at me. Disc-shaped implants spun like sawblades, and along its glossy flesh, thousands of eyes looked every which way.
