Parallel Extinction (Extinction Encounters Book 1) Read online

  Parallel Extinction

  T.R. Stevens

  Previously Published

  as a Booktrope Edition

  by

  Booktrope Editions

  Seattle WA 2015

  Copyright 2015 Todd R. Stevens

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

  Attribution—You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

  Noncommercial—You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  No Derivative Works—You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

  Cover Designer: Troy Johnson

  Editor: Richard Mandel

  Proofreader and Supplementary Editor: Patricia Eddy

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015911806

  To Roslyn—

  For the endless encouragement and feedback at critical points in the process, for seeing the vision of my writer self, and for being an unending font of encouragement.

  Thank you to my loving wife.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my friend, Zan, for her role as transcriber, recreating, from handwritten and printed story sheets, the electronic document when the digital file went corrupt. For being the first editor on the job, reading and rereading, and meeting with me to discuss notes. Thank you.

  To the various readers along the way, including my father, a well-steeped SciFi fan; for their feedback, thank you.

  To my Book Manager, Krystal Chan. Editor, Richard Mandel. Proofreader and supplementary Editor, Patricia Eddy. Cover Designer, Troy Johnson. To all of these people, and for their extra effort on this longer manuscript—Thank you!

  CHAPTER 1

  2257 A.D.

  EVENT: DAY 6, Unknown Hour

  In a frozen cave, barely lit by an aqua glow, lay the crumpled oversized mass of a hibernation suit.

  Wedged into a shallow niche, it housed the body and shattered mind of Doctor Federico Comani. Brittle silence reigned. Around him flowed ethereal fog-shapes, mute witnesses: the eternal offspring of the Ghost Falls of Eighre Masc.

  The starkly beautiful world was a spinless, frozen ball of ice. Its orbital realities left one face forever exposed to the dark cold of space. The other half faced the distant, dim system star, Janus, rarely eclipsed by Eighre Masc’s dead moon.

  As a planetary scientist it was Comani’s business to study these things. He had experienced the Follen Worlds Sensorium recordings. He’d not had the survey privilege. Terrologist Lars Follen named Eighre Masc for its translation: “Ice Phantoms.” No Earth-bound, and few spacers, would ever witness its beauty in person.

  With the sunward surface ever hovering at a forbidding minus 181 degrees Celsius, the ghost falls never tired.

  Near to the kilometers-high perimeter walls of the atmosphere basin, mountain-sized ice rubble piled up to cast deep shadows, allowing the spectacle of pooled oxygen lakes. Liquid oxygen (LOX) trickled down through the fractured, granite-hard H2O ice basins of Eighre Masc, into ice-cavern complexes beneath the low plains. Then, miniscule subterranean heat, generated by the tidal forces in the solvent core, caused an instant change in the LOX—it flashed into ether at its relative boiling point, one degree above its frosty liquid state: the “ghostly” displays.

  Dr. Comani had always thought that these Ghost Falls were exquisitely beautiful. In these caverns, the transformation manifested as an ephemeral waterfall, the solvent oxygen falling from its higher point, and in mid-air, disappearing into its self-made cloud, in a whisper. Fog-shapes propagated like snakes from those transitional points, and bloated into drifting golems larger than a man. The tentative specters eventually rose out of the caverns to return to liquid in the shadows of the frigid surface. The cycle was endless.

  Just a few days earlier, Fred would have appreciated time off from his demanding schedule for a visit, a perfect place for his disconsolate soul, with unresponsive, undemanding phantasms for his only company. In the years of his life as a terrologist—his second life, taking the place of a broken one—when forced to suffer the presence of others, Comani dreamt of such a place as Eighre Masc. It called to the loneliness enshrouding his heart. But resolute and rigid-minded, his focus was on his job, and his work would never take him there.

  Here.

  He had his perfect world now.

  He no longer wanted it. The isolation carved into him just as half the planet had been carved out over billions of years by ultraviolet bombardment. His rattled psyche was besieged by an old and forgotten need to be with other humans. Something he’d done without for a long time. Gone was his requirement for seclusion.

  In his desperate torpor he was reliving the life he knew before his present occupation, a life that he’d banned from his thoughts.

  Marooned, embraced by cold, hard ice and the not-quite-splashing whisper of the falls coming through the pick-ups of his suit, the renewed necessity for human closeness was pushing into his comatose state. Every so often, sorted from the whispers, a word in his native dialect filtered through his broken consciousness.

  The days crawled by uncounted, and the haunting lexicon of his non-companions grew. Their murmuring coldly excluded him.

  Comani, alone, fought off an alien terror that consumed him.

  The safe inner void that had for so long been his only consolation, a protected hollow within, had become a screaming, gaping maw. Eons had chewed away at this side of Eighre Masc, and now countless teeth bit and snapped at Fred. He fought the nightmarish monster with all of the goodness of a life past. Memories of love.

  Combat with this terror left little room for other sensory inputs. The feeding and waste-handling of his body was left to the devices of the hibernation suit. The memories of the trek from the crash site to this cavern, even donning the suit, all were hazy or absent. Unnecessary memories that could not be spared space in his brain. Any distraction from his struggle, and he might slip, might fall into the toothy, dark unknown.

  Survival of spirit had become prime. Survival of his body was secondary.

  Comani heard the whispers of the ghosts. And he heard his spirit keening.

  It wailed for good reason: he had witnessed—no, he had been the cause—he had sucked the life essence out of more than half-a-dozen souls.

  CHAPTER 2

  EVENT: DAY 2, 1420 Hours,

  UT (Universal Time)

  Any security officer could have spotted them there, dangling in their harnesses from the nose of the space elevator capsule.

  Taylor had arranged it all in advance, but she could not be sure her security perversion program was doing its job. She didn’t much care though, because it added to the danger-rush, the chemical fix of adrenaline flooding her body. It had been too long since her last stunt and she was ready for anything.

  Garrison, her unwitting partner, who swung next to her, hadn’t expected more than an erotic weekend aboard Toroid Alpha, the massive space dock. This ride had cost him 700 credits, but Taylor was worth it.

  There was no way he could have known what she’d planned for them, but he was about to find out.

  She had made sure that she and Garrison arrived
late to the space elevator. The agent assured them that they’d be onboard in time for takeoff. The Bullet, a thirty-two person cylindrical shuttle capsule, rode the high velocity tube up to the space station.

  Just before they had rounded the last corner to the shuttle loading platform, Taylor pushed him sideways through an access door that he hadn’t known was there. He’d think that she wanted some exciting, chancy bit of sex. Any of her lovers would have thought the same.

  “Hey, Taylor. What…” She’d quickly silenced him by pushing him up against the wall of this new passage, kissing him hard. Her wild unpredictability and exotic beauty both unnerved and excited him. She read it in his face, his resignation to take the next shuttle for a few more credits.

  But as he had begun to respond to her advance, she’d pressed a mylex pressure suit and mono breather into his hands, her hot, wet breath in his ear as she whispered urgently, “Put it on.”

  She leaned away from him, gripping his shirt front, and pulled him past a corner in the private passage, and into a maintenance bay. The front of the six-meter-tall, half-sphere nose of the Bullet protruded through a partition wall. The bustle of people loading could be heard in the passenger terminal area on the other side of the wall.

  In an angry whisper, he said, “What the hell, TJ?” When he turned to her, she was on a knee, pulling rigging and harnesses out of her overnight duffle. He looked again at the shuttle: a maintenance ring at the tip of its nose brought the pieces together for him.

  “Oh, no way, Taylor…” He scanned and found several cameras watching over the area. Garrison did not need trouble with the military police.

  “What is it, Captain? Too scary?” Using his rank, she got right under his skin.

  It was an insult that Garrison couldn’t tolerate. “No,” he spit back before catching himself. She had watched him fume in that moment, as he thought about what she intended: a ride to the station, but on the Bullet’s nose. Because it seemed possible, she had to do it and drag him along.

  With some quick mental calculations, he must have decided it was survivable, because he hadn’t backed out. Instead, saying, “No, I just meant… did you foul the cameras?”

  “Handled,” was all she could be bothered to say before she turned and took three strides on her long legs and tossed a hitch up around the Bullet nose ring, three meters above the mag lev rails.

  Gymnastically, she had set her rig while he donned the suit. A finger on the pressure spot of his scalp hood rigidified the faceplate. He’d looked up to see her silently swaying in her harness, beauty disguised behind the hood, her finger beckoning.

  * * *

  Now, Garrison swayed in his harness, shoulder to shoulder with Taylor. He missed a breath as the magnetics came online with a loud hum. The shuttle levitated on the EM field and rolled 180 degrees in the final boarding sequence. Foreboding overshadowed his irritation. This was a bad idea. While his stomach soured and a cold sweat beaded behind his mask, he could practically feel the excitement radiating from Taylor. Doubts about his quick mental-math conclusions and the survivability of this stunt assailed him.

  In a roar of sound, rocket forces pressed them against the metallic nose. Unconsciously, Garrison ran his hands rapidly over the harness and rigging straps before increasing G-forces made movement impossible. Pinned flat to the Bullet’s conical top, within seconds they were arcing into the vertical tube, hurtling up toward space.

  In the insane moments after takeoff, through the hood of his suit, over the diminishing roar of air friction, Garrison made out a familiar sound—Taylor’s uncontrolled laughter behind her mask.

  The acceleration pressures eased, and the excitement of takeoff waned as they cruised into vacuum. He closed his eyes against the sickening dichotomy of the steadily accelerating reality paired with absolute silence. No, not absolute—there was his pounding heart and breath in his throat.

  Taylor’s laugh echoed in his brain, triggering thoughts of their first meeting about a year ago.

  * * *

  Clink’s piano bar. The swanky environment was in stark contrast to his typical shore leave watering-hole experience: mostly ‘hole’ but large enough to buy a round for his crew.

  His buddy’s wedding reception had ended. Garrison was decked out in a tux-piece, happy to shuck functional work wear and the skintight flight suit. With a good buzz on, he searched for his misplaced coat. The smart-shirt fabric accentuated his well-muscled body, and it had attracted the attention of a very energetic and exotic Taylor Jest. Her two-meter height, plus heels, put her above the heads of several men who surrounded her: rich-looking; one old enough to be her father. She and Garrison traded glances until she broke away from the group.

  In her thigh-cut black dress she came toward him like a cat escaping from a trap. She glided on long, sensuous legs. Her shoulder-length raven hair reflected the nightclub’s soft light in ripples. The liquid black of her tresses reinforced an aura of sensuality and intrigue that emanated from her without pretense. Not slowing, she looped her arm under his and said, “Hey Handsome, buy me a drink.”

  Garrison was quick to match her step, and let her lead, saying, “Well, the bar is back that way.”

  “Not here. Adoring fans are cramping my style.”

  He laughed. “I noticed. That’s some club you’ve started. Won’t they miss you?”

  “I’m sure. But I wanted to get to know you. I’ve seen you around, you know.”

  She had led him to a divey place that was more comfortable than Clink’s. As they talked, Garrison was pulled in by her eyes. Sur-mod crafted, her irises glowed with cerulean blue bioluminescence. Subtly and slowly, she dilated her pupils until they became bottomless, dark drowning pools, rimmed by glowing ice-blue. Hypnotic. And damned expensive. She had no argument from him when she suggested they get a room.

  She’d been ward of the state in her youth, but at twenty-nine years, Taylor had long-since thrown off the rigid constructs of the government-appointed guardians. She came on strong, too much for most men beyond short-lived relationships.

  Over the months that he spent getting to know her, Garrison watched how she used her mysterious and playful personality to assure financing for her stunts, by ardent, carefully chosen admirers. She used her intensity and beauty to get away with most anything.

  Garrison Bartell was overqualified in his position as Captain in the rather lax United Space Unrest Control Corps. Its ranks consisted largely of retired pirates and other anti-police types. The marginally lawless group took pride in their acronym, aimed at the military, and emblazoned on their ships’ hulls: USUCC.

  Captain Bartell was comfortable amidst the misfits, despite his lack of criminal background. He liked the anonymity it gave him while doing the thing he did best: Pirate hunting.

  Youthful at thirty-eight, his good looks were out of place compared with those of the crewmembers he commanded. Sandy-haired and gray-eyed, initially he’d been branded with the moniker of “Pretty Boy”. The looser command structure of USUCC meant that his rank did not give him immunity from new-recruit hazing, which involved the consumption of living, large insects that were quite angry by the time Garrison brought them toward his mouth. As a rite of passage, it allowed the rougher and less disciplined men to accept him. But he had to prove he was worthy of his Captain’s title. And he did, through clear direction during hostile engagements. Some of the ex-pirates, who refused to concede rank, acknowledged his skill by substituting ‘GB’ for other unflattering names.

  To Garrison’s relief, the taunt, “Pretty Boy” was forgotten over time, replaced by “Bartab”. It fit, considering off-command activities.

  On that first weekend with Taylor, the wild antics that ensued, and his free hand with his credit chip, cemented their bond. Her passion between the sheets, and elsewhere, kept Garrison interested. Still, his risk-junkie girlfriend could get on his nerves. This Bullet-ride
-stunt, for instance. This went far beyond annoying.

  A penetrating cold brought him out of his daydream. He shivered hard. Garrison tolerated a great deal from Taylor, she was an all or nothing package, but this was too much. Secured at the center of the Bullet, his feet were less than a meter from the tube wall. It unnerved him to watch the surface move by at 400 kilometers per hour.

  Still blazing up the tube, Garrison could finally see a far-off light coming from the station airlock. His relief was mitigated by his intense shivers. The end of the interminable trip held yet another surprise as they abruptly flew forward away from the shuttle when it began its deceleration phase. Rudely brought up short by the tethers, they smacked into each other like two clacking balls on strings. Taylor was ready for this and wrapped herself around him. The result of her action, combined with angular momentum, caused them to go into a spin. With reversing Gs increasing, Garrison couldn’t even reach up to the twisting tethers above them in an attempt to arrest the spin. He was drained by the time the shuttle came to a rest at the station air lock.

  Producing a lase-blade from somewhere, before the spin could begin a reverse rotation, she deftly cut them free from the tangled harness tethers with one hand, and emphatically pointed to an access hatch above their heads with the other. Zero-G did strange things to the inner ear, and their pirouette in the harnesses had drilled its way into his brain. His vision spun slowly as he looked up.

  The hatch cover retracted and a helmeted, suited figure appeared from the dark of the doorway, distinctive security stripes across the shoulders.

  They were caught. He was almost glad. His irritation had risen as his body temperature had dropped toward hypothermia. The piercing cold of vacuum meant that his extreme shivers were about the only movement that he could get out of his muscles. The meager heaters in the mylex suit weren’t designed for an EVA of that length. Even the heat from the laser-booster, conducted along the Bullet’s hull, had not made up for the lack of warmth.