Daros, page 1
To Christina
My Reader Number One
Cover art by Serene Illustrations
https://sereneillustrations.com
Cover design by Olivia Pro Design
https://www.fiverr.com/oliviaprodesign
Map art by Jennifer Lange
http://jsl-art.de/
Daros
First Released Edition, May 11, 2021
Copyright © 2021 by Dave Dobson
All rights reserved
Contents
Bug Out
Mission Brief
Special Delivery
Hostile Takeover
Pod Helps Those Who Help Themselves
Sorry, Occupied
Petty Theft
Here to Stasis
Hide and Sneak
Wake Up Call
Band of Others
Bringing to Heal
Nothing but Net
Can’t See Ship
A Game of Drones
Lost and Found
Price Has Dropped
Bad News Bearers
All About That Base
Everything Happens for a Treason
Things That Go Bump in the Light
Noise to Signal
Called In to Question
Weird Science
Hey, There’s a Yellow Vehicle Out There with Its Lights On
Summary Execution
Lost in Translation
A Time to Die
Interfacelift
Deletions
Rise of the Machines
Send in the Lawyers
The Best Laid Plans
Restraint
Salvage
Finish That Sentence
Sigil Shepherd
Wreck Cognition
Site Unseen
Unfree Ride
Sometimes When We Touch
Captive Audience
Spoor Relation
Climate Change
Send in the Lawyers One More Time
Intelligence, Agency
What’s in the Box? What’s in the Box?
Busta Slimes
Deal or No Deal
Hold Me Now
Smooth Criminal
Fit to Be Tied
Drop in the Bucket
Hello, World
Father Time
There’s No Place Like Foam
You Shall Not Pass
Nontrivial Pursuit
Fully Charged
Freezy Pop
Chain of Custody
Fire Down Below
Hooked on a Zeelin (Ship)
Now Boarding All Uniformed Military Personnel
Meet and Greet (and Meat)
Gate Checked
I Hear You Knocking
I Thaw You There
No Way
The Thirty-Four
Road’s End
Of Course There’s a Scene with a Ventilation Shaft
Phone A Friend
Operations Overlord
Echoes of War
From Here to Paternity
A Path Among the Stars
Selection
Roads Beginning
Appendix: Dr. Melman’s Guide to Galactic History
Author’s Note
Things to Try
About the Author
A Note on Future History
If you are the kind of reader who likes to know background information on the setting of the book before diving in, you might want to make a first stop at the appendix located at the end of the text. This appendix gives you a brief review of how the human civilization imagined in the story came to exist, or rather, will come to exist, over the next millenium or so.
If you are the kind of reader who likes discovering all that from context as you read and imagine, then read on and enjoy.
1
Bug Out
“Kill it! Kill it!” shouted the Borian, his mouth tendrils darting outward. He fired his pistol four times, but the bolts flew wide. Two struck the floor, one hit the wall, and the last one left a black smear on the wall screen.
Brecca ducked down behind a metal crate. “Stop it, Nex,” she yelled. “Those can bounce in here.” Nex fired again. His target, a fist-sized arachnoid, scuttled away from the ineffective barrage, waving its eyestalks around. Brecca stomped on it as it cruised by, and she was rewarded with a satisfying crunch. The yellow slime that splashed outward, coating the smooth alumite floor of the cargo bay, was less satisfying. “Eww.”
“Thank the nine gods,” said Nex. His mouth tendrils drooped, and he holstered his weapon. The red light on his implant went off as he turned off his targeting assistance. “Those things give me the wracks.”
“You can’t go shooting them,” said Brecca. “You’ll get yourself killed. Or me. Or the cargo.” She scraped her boot on a nearby crate, leaving a wad of yellow entrails.
“I had it on low,” said Nex with a sniff. He went over to the emergency station and opened the cabinet with his lower left arm. “I can’t work in these conditions.”
“We need to find where they’re coming from,” said Brecca. “I think they must be in the ducts. I’m seeing them all over. Dad’s not happy.” Brecca looked at Nex. “Hey, can you pick them up with your implant?”
“What? No, of course not. It’s just the basic model. Net connection, comms integration, medical monitoring, self-defense, that kind of thing. It only has rudimentary signal enhancement. With what your father pays me, I can’t afford to upgrade.”
Brecca sighed and pulled her personal console – called a “con” by all but the desperately old – out from the hip pocket of her worksuit. She tapped the sensor link control, and the holoscreen pulsed to a diagram of the cargo bay. “I don’t see any of them on my scans.”
Nex opened a pack marked HazGloves: Large, Borian, 4 and proceeded to place a glove on the ends of each of his four upper limbs. The two gloves on his lower arms were tiny. Brecca raised an eyebrow.
“You really needed all four, for one dead bug?”
Nex’s tendrils twisted around his mouth opening. “I’m not touching that,” he said. “You’re lucky I don’t ask you to clean it.” Suddenly, he looked at her, hopeful. “Would you…?”
Brecca laughed. “Sounds like the cargo officer’s job to me,” she said. “Besides, you’re already geared up.”
Nex grimaced, his eyes growing narrow. He opened a pack of ZestiWipes and lowered his torso to floor level, bending his large rear limbs at both of their joints. “I’m also the mechanic. And the cook. But whatever,” he grumbled. “Your father had better hire more crew on Daros.”
On the wall above them, the comm beeped to life. “Brecca.” Her father’s voice sounded tense.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, shouting at the wall. The pickup in the hold wasn’t working well.
“Can you come up to the bridge?”
“Sure. Something wrong?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.”
“On my way.” The comm beeped again, a pair of sad downward notes. She stepped over Nex’s abdomen section. “Let me know if you see any more of them.” Nex produced a distressed grunt.
Brecca crossed the cargo hold, walking between the neat stacks of crates. Most of them held raw grain from Ramine, but there were some that held tech parts, medical supplies, and cultural goods like recordings, clothing, and holos. Those were always more profitable. The grain would barely cover the cost of fuel crystals, wages, and supplies, she figured. The only chance at a profit would be the specialized goods. Even then it wouldn’t be much.
The crates were bolted to the floor, the ceiling, and each other with thick toothed pegs that were built into the crate sides. If the navgrav field failed, you didn’t want loose cargo floating around. Brecca had helped with the loading back on Ramine, guiding the levcarts on and off the ship through the large doors at the back of the cargo bay. The porters there sang the whole time they worked, and even though Brecca didn’t speak any Ramine, it was really cool to hear them sing, often in three- or four-part harmony.
Brecca reached the ladder at the forward wall of the cargo bay. The lift would be easier, but she didn’t mind the climb. A dead arachnoid lay at the foot of the ladder, its eyestalks blanched white. She kicked it back into the bay. Maybe Nex would deal with it. She mounted the bottom rung and pulled herself up through the narrow tube, two rungs at a time.
2
Mission Brief
The captain was killing somebody again. Looked like Ensign Uzgar, maybe. Was that her name? Hard to remember. The ensign had only come out of the hatchery eighteen hours ago. That would probably be a record for existential brevity on any other ship, but on this ship, you had to beat Morkan’s seven seconds, probably the shortest lifespan in the entire warfleet. It was just a case of wrong place, wrong time, wrong end of the blaster pistol, and of course, wrong captain. At least Morkan would live on in fame and stories, if not in person.
Frim toggled the astronavigation overlay. The hologrid filled with a cluster of small red dots. These were the ships of the expeditionary force, thirty-six in all, although they were acting like one big ship now. They were in their long-range travel formation, the Pod, where they fastened onto each other and relied on the massive twist engines of the flagship to carry them all to their destination. The countdown showed only eight hours until they dropped out of the twist, nine until they reached the planet. They’d be there before fourth meal,
A hand touched Frim’s shoulder, and with the touch, feelings of concern and revulsion filled Frim’s receptors. The emotions were always much stronger with physical contact. Not good. The hand belonged to Ecos, the pilot. “Navigator. You… uh, you’re budding.”
Embarrassing. Frim felt around her chest, then checked her neck and arms. Usually they showed up on her chest or shoulder.
“It’s on your leg, Navigator.”
Frim looked down. It was a big one. Even more embarrassing. Frim shot a glance at the Captain, but she wasn’t looking. That was good.
“Thanks, Ecos.” Frim pulled, and the bud detached. Frim stood, cupped the gray mass in one hand, and casually walked over to the incubation access chute, trying not to draw attention. Most eyes were on Captain Torlo, standing over Uzgar’s smoking corpse, swearing about orders and duty, so subtlety was still possible. Frim pushed the bud into the chute, and it slid down into the depths of the ship. Good luck, little offspring, Frim thought. I hope you last longer than Uzgar.
3
Special Delivery
Brecca stepped back off the ladder onto the bridge. Across the chamber, the main screen showed a planet, mostly red dirt interrupted by patches of vegetation and open water. Daros. There were bands of clouds in stripes at several latitudes. A thick yellow arc showed their ship’s projected course, and smaller curved blue lines traced nearby ships and satellites. Her father sat in the command chair looking at his message log. He slouched a little, tilted to the left, as he always sat. His face glowed green in the light of his holoscreen. In front of him, Cam sat at the pilot’s station. She had one foot up on the console, and she was flipping through an entertainment holo. Tiny figures danced and sang silently on top of her console, one fading into the next as she swiped through the pages.
Brecca pulled her knife off her belt and flipped open the blade. She approached her father and knelt to cut off some bits of black tape dangling from the back of his command chair. At one point, the tape had covered the beamer hole burned into the back of the chair, but no longer. The hole was older than she was. Her father refused to tell her how it got there. She stuffed the tape into a pocket of her worksuit. “What’s up, sir?”
Her father tapped the screen, and the green text vanished, replaced by the ship’s logo. Three gold coins and a snake with dripping fangs, all behind the ship’s name, Envy’s Price. He rotated the chair to face her. His face was serious, but that wasn’t uncommon. Nellen Vereen was hardly a bundle of joy even on the best days. He looked at her for a long couple of seconds before speaking.
“We’re in the grid for landing on Daros,” he said. “We’re 23rd in the queue, so it will be a few hours. They only have six pads, and their auto is an old version.”
At this, Cam snorted. “It’s not old,” she said. “It’s ancient. I had to undo six patches just to get our system compatible. If it sets us down in the ocean, I won’t be surprised. At all.”
Her father continued. “How are you doing with the spider things?”
“We got twelve, but I think there are a lot more. They’re not registering on internal sensors, which is weird. I wrote a program to detect them based on motion, temperature, and gas emissions, but it’s still hard.”
“They might be siliceous,” replied her father. “The sensors don’t handle that well.” He sighed. “We can’t let customs see them. They might quarantine us, or worse, vape the cargo.” He shifted in his seat. “If only we still had Trisket.”
Trisket was an eight-legged mammaloid, picked up on Delron IV about ten months back. She had been the ship’s mascot, and not a bad hunter of vermin, up until about two months ago when she disappeared. The mystery was only solved four weeks later when Nex turned on the backup ventilation system and a blast of foul-smelling orange fur spewed into the mess room, covering the prep area and the cooktop. A sad day, made marginally worse by the fact that lunch that day was soup.
“I can block the vents and tubes to the cargo bay, and we can do another sweep. I don’t think they would have gotten into the grain. The cargo bay should be the only place customs will care about.” Brecca thought some more. “Unless the bugs came from the grain. I guess I could use a pack of nanites to check the containers. There are too many for Nex and me to do them all before we land.”
“Good girl,” her father said. “But nanites are way too expensive for this, and we only have one pack left. Let’s go with your first plan and hope for the best.”
Cam laughed. “With any luck, we’ll be offworld before they open them up.”
Nellen turned his chair back towards the helm. “Cam, why don’t you get lunch? The auto will handle nav, and I can override if needed.”
“Not hungry,” she said. “I’m good.”
“Then why don’t you go take a walk?”
Cam grimaced. “I’ve got my Sleepercize set on Galeski Yoga. I wake up tired. I don’t need the exercise.”
“I think you do.”
At this, Cam looked up from her holo. She frowned and tucked a strand of blonde hair back behind an ear. “What are you…” Then she looked at Nellen. “Oh. Message received, sir.”
She tapped her console a couple of times. The ship’s voice spoke. “Oh, my exalted minions! Planetary guidance is engaged. The helm is locked down, just like our craven enemies shall be. Everything is ready for our domination of the universe!” Brecca giggled. She had changed the default ship personality pack to one she’d downloaded, which was Dark Lord Akkhan, an animated holo character.
Cam sighed. “You’d better change that back. It’s been three weeks. Getting really old. Otherwise, I’m filing a complaint with the union.” She rose from the helm chair, stretched, and walked back to the lift. Its door hissed closed behind her, and then there was a hum as it descended.
When she was gone, Nellen rose too. “Come with me.” He walked back toward the captain’s quarters to the left of the lift. He waved a hand in front of the door, and it slid open. The cramped cabin was cluttered with clothes, dirty plates, and other debris. The bedclothes were wadded up on the floor, and the bunk mat was stained so deeply that the sanitizer mech seemed to have given up or maybe gone on strike. On the desk, along with a pile of circuit plates and wires, there was a tendo ball on a display stand, a horned skull mounted on a plaque, a blaster pistol, and Trisket’s collar. On the floor was a blue worksuit that matched the one Nellen now wore, except for a gray stain down the front. A pair of green underpants lay on top of the suit.
“Ew, dad,” said Brecca. She picked up his blanket and sheet, folded them, and put them on the bed. “You’re so stank, I swear.”
“Sorry,” he said. He kicked the clothes under the bed. “How are your classes going?”
“I finished advanced O chem two days ago. I’m ready for the qualifier on that. And I started the basic field surgery unit in the medic section. It’s hard, but I think I’m getting it. I repaired a finger amputation a couple of days ago on the simulator. Got a 90, the first time. I might be ready for the level three qual in a week or two.”
“That’s great,” said Nellen. “Really impressive. You’re so good with all that technical stuff.”
“Thanks, Dad. Next time I register, can I get the level four computer engineering unit?” She hesitated. “It’s a little more expensive.”
“What are you going to do with that on this ship?”
“I might not always be on this ship,” she said. “Or, when I’m captain, I might buy a better computer.”
Nellen laughed. “I’m sure you will.” He pressed on a panel on the wall, and it slid up, revealing a small box. It had a grained texture that looked like wood, or at least some kind of natural organic. He took it out of the recessed space and handed it to Brecca. “Have a look at that.”
Brecca took the box. It was smooth, polished, cool to the touch. There was a groove around the edges, suggesting a lid. She stuck a fingernail in the groove and tugged, but it wouldn’t open. She saw a bump in the center of one side and pushed it, and the lid rose up slowly, swinging on hidden hinges.
The interior of the box was lined with fabric. In the center was a piece of gleaming green metal. It was in the shape of a chevron, but the tips of the V curved around a bit, with the two branches nearly meeting each other. There was a blue stone, a crystal, set in the metal just below the point. It was too small for a bracelet, too large for a ring.
