Stranded (Shadows of the Void Space Opera Serial Book 2) Read online

  Stranded

  Shadows of the Void Book 2

  J.J. Green

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  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank the Taipei Writers Group for their friendship and support during all my writing endeavours. I’d also like to thank my subscribers, who contributed to my ideas for the animal characters in Generation and subsequent books in the Shadows of the Void series, and who constantly surprise and delight me with the warmth, kindness and wit of their correspondence.

  Special thanks go to my editor, Lacey Lengel, for her painstaking attention to detail and inspired feedback.

  About the Book

  Shadows of the Void is a ten-book science fiction serial, and Stranded is the second book. You can read the books out of sequence, but you’ll probably enjoy the story best if you read them in order. The first book in the serial is Generation, and the book that follows Stranded is Dawn.

  If you find a typo or mistake, I’d love to hear about it, or anything else you’d like to tell me about my books. My email address is on my website (scroll to the very bottom of the page).

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter One

  Jas Harrington was watching Haggardy in his cell, looking for signs of alien possession. The man was eating his rations, hunched over a plate as he sat on his bunk, and Jas was looking through one of the clear cubes in the wall, set to observation mode so that he wouldn’t know she was there. The former first mate been in the brig a couple of days, but Jas was no closer to figuring out whether he was infected with an alien, or if he was just the same play-it-safe Haggardy she’d always known and not particularly liked.

  When the rest of the Galathea’s officers had been infected on K. 67092d, Haggardy had been with them, there was no doubt about that. He’d admitted as much himself, but he maintained that he’d managed to avoid the other officers’ fate. All that he would say about what had happened was that it had been too dark to see much, and he’d escaped as soon as he could. After that, he’d fooled their dead master, Loba, and the rest of the infected officers by copying whatever they did.

  The problem was, Jas wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Possessed individuals looked and behaved nearly the same as usual. Most of the Galathea’s crew members had been duped by the infected officers, and they’d nearly taken over the ship. Jas had been one of the few to notice a slight change, a certain distant, cold taint to a victim’s manner and an emptiness behind the eyes. Her perception was due to her years of working with the part-human, part-synthetic defense units, which had made her sensitive to that touch of inhumanity.

  Doctor Sparks had run every test he knew of on the disgraced Haggardy. As far as he could tell, there was no sign of alien infection. The former first mate’s DNA, retinal scans, and fingerprints matched those on Haggardy’s file. But Jas guessed that the other infected officers would have also passed the tests.

  She couldn’t understand it. Haggardy’s behavior had seemed entirely human ever since he’d been arrested. Before that, he’d gone along with the possessed Loba’s plans. Only one thing counted in his favor: when Jas had commanded the defense units to destroy the ship’s shuttle so that Loba couldn’t take any more of the crew to the planet surface, Haggardy hadn’t taken control of the units himself. As the higher-ranking officer, he could have, yet he hadn’t. It wasn’t enough.

  Carl Lingiari appeared at the door to the brig, and Jas’ mood lifted at the sight of him. As well as saving all their lives by turning the crash of the Galathea into a crash-landing, the lanky pilot had been a helpful support and ally as Jas had organized the crew afterward.

  He gestured to her to step outside. “Let’s take a walk,” he said as they left the brig.

  “What do you think about Haggardy?” Carl asked. “Made your mind up yet?”

  “I can’t make him out,” replied Jas. “Whatever he is, he’s staying in the brig. He didn’t lift a finger to stop Loba and the others. I don’t trust him. He’s a traitor.”

  “I hope Polestar agrees. We better have a pretty good excuse for locking up the first mate.”

  “When they see the security vids, it should be obvious. Whatever. There’s not a lot I can do about it.”

  They toured the ship’s corridors, passing small groups of crew members who were making the best repairs they could to damage caused by weapon fire and during the crash. Jas had assigned everyone tasks to keep them occupied and not dwelling on what would happen now that they were stranded on K. 67092d, which was inhabited by hostile aliens.

  It was a few moments before either of them spoke, and then they both spoke at once.

  “You go first,” said Lingiari.

  “Have you been on the flight deck? Has anything arrived at the comm desk?”

  “I’ve been there all morning. Nothing’s come in from Polestar or anyone else. How long has it been?”

  “The fight with the officers was three days ago.” replied Jas. “If Lee sent a message packet to Earth like I asked her to, I think a reply should’ve come by now. Do you know how long a response should take to reach us?”

  Lingiari grimaced. “If they replied right away, we should have their answer by now. I checked. A couple of days is plenty of time.”

  “I know the comm desk isn’t displaying sent messages, but will it show if we receive a reply?”

  “If nothing’s broken, I think it should.”

  “And if something’s broken, would we be able to tell?”

  “I suppose we might not.”

  Jas cursed. “So we can’t get a message out, and we don’t know if Lee sent one because she’s in stasis. We might have received a reply, but the comm desk might not be showing us. Or Polestar might not have replied yet.”

  “You think the company wouldn’t reply right away?”

  “I don’t know, Lingiari. Maybe they would. Or maybe they’re still figuring out what to do about us.”

  The pilot stopped and turned to Jas. “You mean they might not send a rescue ship?”

  A group of men and women working on replacing a section of wall nearby paused at Lingiari’s words and turned to hear more. Jas grabbed the pilot’s arm and pulled him along the corridor to a deserted area, where they couldn’t be overheard. “For krat’s sake, be careful what you say around the crew. The last thing we want is people thinking we might not be rescued.

  “Look, Polestar doesn’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to employee welfare, does it? There’s a reason we sign away our compensation rights before embarking on a mission. We take the risks, Polestar takes most of the profits, and that’s just the way they like it.

  “We might not have received a reply because they’re still weighing up the costs of
a rescue against the potential benefits. We’re about halfway through the mission, and we’re only at break-even point. We’ve sent them the information on the planets surveyed up till now. Are we worth the cost of diverting a ship to come and pick us up? Or would it be more profitable to send one to cover the planets we didn’t reach?”

  “But,” said Lingiari, frowning, “even if Polestar decides we’re expendable, the Galathea’s worth billions. They aren’t going to give up on her that easily.”

  “We have to think about the information Lee sent, too,” said Jas, “assuming she sent it before we crashed. She didn’t know we would be stranded. She didn’t send a Mayday. She would have told them about the hostile aliens, infected officers, and the threat to the ship. With no more information, as far as Polestar knows they could be sending another ship and its crew into a deadly conflict. Even if Lee sent a packet to them, they haven’t heard anything since. They don’t know why we’ve gone silent.”

  “They might not want to risk another ship,” said Lingiari.

  “Exactly. Polestar isn’t a military setup. That’s the responsibility of the Global Government, and in a century of deep space exploration, they’ve never had to deal with hostile intelligent aliens. If Polestar’s told them about us, there’s no knowing what they’ll do. Whatever it is, rescuing us mightn’t be the first item on their agenda.”

  Some moments passed. “So what do we do?” asked Lingiari.

  “I don’t think we should be relying on anyone to rescue us. The more I think about it, the less likely it seems that’s going to happen. If we’re going to get off this planet, we’re going to have to do it by ourselves.”

  “I dunno how,” said Lingiari. “I won’t be able to lift her into orbit, let alone star jump. Both the starjump and RaptorX engines must be gone after that crash-landing, and we’re not gonna find any spare parts around here.”

  “I’ve told someone to have a look at the engines. Her name’s Toirien MacAdam. She’s only an engineer-in-training, but I remember the chief engineer saying he was really impressed with her. Said she was a natural with a wrench.”

  “Yeah, I know her,” said Lingiari. “She did some great work with the shuttle.”

  “I’m hoping she can do something, enough to get us off this planet anyway.” Jas frowned and looked down. “She’s all we’ve got. The rest of them, the chief, first, second, and third engineers, they’re all gone.”

  Lingiari put a hand on Jas’ shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”

  She shook her head. “It was my job to protect them. All of them.” The pilot went to speak, but Jas cut him off. “I don’t know how MacAdam’s going to repair the engines, but we’ve got to help her try. And we can’t forget about the threat on board. We don’t know if all the infected officers died. You weren’t sure exactly how many Loba took with him to the planet. Possessed personnel could be walking among us right now.

  “What’s more, Haggardy’s sitting in the brig, maybe infected by an alien and maybe not, but he’s another threat either way. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the crew think he should be leading them, not me.”

  “I’m waiting for the good news.”

  “Keep waiting.”

  Chapter Two

  Toirien MacAdam rested her brow against the hatch on the Galathea’s outer shell. The cool metal soothed her hangover a little, but the effect was quickly lost when she lifted her head to resume her work releasing the bolts. She would’ve asked Dr. Sparks for a painkiller, but the fussy man would want to know why she needed it, and he would soon see through her lies. Alcohol and all other drugs were strictly forbidden. He would test her blood and report her. Though in their current predicament, Toirien wasn’t sure what difference that would make.

  Right then, she had enough to contend with. She didn’t need to confirm the doctor’s prejudice against naturals and add his disapproval to her list of things she already held against herself. She tried releasing the door’s fixings with an electric spanner, but when she pressed the trigger, the machine whirred uselessly. Like all the others, the access hatch had been damaged when the Galathea had crashed, and wouldn’t open. Toirien replaced the electric spanner with a wrench, and hit the handle of the wrench with a mallet until the fixing released a little. Then the spanner did the work of removing it.

  Getting drunk had seemed Toirien’s best reaction to being stranded on K. 67092d, though long experience had told her that alcoholic oblivion was only a temporary solution. As was her habit, the previous night’s Toirien had chosen to ignore the fact, leaving that day’s Toirien to suffer the consequences.

  Two more fixings to remove, then she might be able to open the hatch. Why the higher-ups wanted to open the Galathea to the outside, she didn’t know. K. 67092d harbored dangerous aliens, aliens that had infested the rest of the engineers, leaving her the only one with knowledge of the ship’s engines. No pressure, though.

  Toirien imagined how drunk she would get that night.

  Alcohol—easily made aboard ship—wasn’t the only substance she could turn to for a little temporary oblivion. Pills to energize, or soothe the emotions, get you all loved up, or expand the consciousness, were also available, if you knew who to ask. Illegal, of course, on Earth as well as the Galathea, and the crew had to pass a drug test to be hired.

  There were ways around the test, such as by giving the tester a hefty bribe, but Toirien had been clean when she came aboard. She’d stayed clean, too, but since the crash she’d lapsed, given in to temptation, and leapt off the wagon.

  Emitting a grunt, she swung the mallet at the wrench handle. The final fixing loosened, and the wrench swung round before falling with a clatter to the floor. Toirien wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. Though her head still ached, the pain seemed to be lessening. It was the manual labor that did it. She’d always enjoyed the simple, honest, plain work of fixing things, tinkering with engines, taking devices apart, and putting them together again to figure out how they worked. Computer systems with their chips and impossibly fine wires puzzled her, but she understood mechanical devices, and there was a satisfaction to working with them that she’d experienced with nothing else in her life so far. In all other things, she freely admitted to herself, she was a screw-up.

  That was it. The final fixing was out, and it was time to test whether the hatch would open. But Harrington, the chief security officer, who seemed to be the one in charge for the moment, had told her not to attempt opening it alone. She’d been instructed to inform the woman when she was ready, and with the comm system out, that meant going to the flight deck.

  Toirien dragged her bag of tools to one side and set off across the ship.

  The beating the Galathea had taken as she’d slid across the rocky, barren surface of K. 67092d showed its effects in the walls, floors and ceilings of the ship’s corridors. Surfaces were warped, and in some areas they’d split open, revealing the ship’s thick metal beams.

  The effects on the crew were more subtle, but now that the initial shock of the crash was wearing off, they were beginning to show. Toirien had seen many of her shipmates weeping uncontrollably, while some stared endlessly into space, apparently immobilized by the situation. Others shouted angrily to whoever would listen about the incompetency of the officers who had led them into the crisis.

  She arrived at the flight deck. A piece of metal had been forced into it the door to hold it open. Inside, the red emergency lighting revealed two figures: the chief security officer and the pilot. They were talking, and Toirien hesitated at the door. Authority figures made her freeze up. Too many bad memories. The pilot, Lingiari, spotted her and waved her in.

  Toirien hadn’t had much to do with either of these individuals previously. Her job had been mostly below decks, servicing and testing the starjump and RaptorX engines. But she knew Harrington by sight. She was a giant of a woman, and with her deep olive skin and striking, dark reddish-brown hair and eyes, she was difficult to miss. The pilot wasn’t much s
horter than security officer, and he was well known and liked for his easy smile and his stowaway pet, who had made most of the crew’s acquaintance even though he wasn’t supposed to exist.

  “You’ve found a hatch you think will open?” asked Harrington. She and the pilot were sitting at the flight controls. The screens were dark.

  “I did. I released everything that’s securing it to the ship,” Toirien replied. “I left it closed, like you said, but it should open with a bit of work, one way or another. That area of the ship doesn’t seem too badly damaged, and I don’t think there’s much force holding it in place. But once it’s open, we won’t be able to shut it again in a hurry. I’d have to reseal it bolt by bolt.”

  “Okay, I understand,” said Harrington. “What else can you tell us? Have you completed a full inspection of the engines?”

  Toirien’s brows knitted together. Who did this woman think she was talking to? She was only an engineer-in-training, barely a step above a mechanic. She ran a hand through her ginger curls. “I spent most of today working on the hatch after I got your order. I haven’t had time to...I mean, with the crash and everything...”

  Harrington didn’t try to disguise her look of disappointment. She stood. “MacAdam, you’re the best we’ve got. We’re relying on you for our chance of getting off this planet. You understand that, right?”

  Toirien shrugged. “I suppose.” Seeing Harrington’s dark eyes narrow, she added, “I understand.”

  “Good.” The security officer turned to Lingiari. “Shall we get it over with?”

  “We’re ready as we’ll ever be.”

  “Come with us, MacAdam. We’re going to open that hatch.”

  Toirien wasn’t sure she wanted to find out what was outside the Galathea. She’d heard the various rumors and the official version given out by Harrington, that the aliens were living inside strange structures on the planet. But what if some of them had scaled the ship and were waiting for them to stick their heads out?