Discovery- A NaNo Novel

[Gwenivive]

***Law***

Senior Officer Rory was never going to shut up.  While the captain was unsuccessfully saving Hernandez, Law had been knocking some sense into Officer Rory. 


A bit literally.


He had looked over in time to see smears of murky blue blood running down the man’s face.  Law’s first thought was: ‘I didn’t know Rory was half Aviar,’ followed quickly by: ‘Oh shit he’s going to tear his eyes out!’  Law had to pin the wriggling scientist down by sitting on him and holding his hands down with all of his weight, while keeping himself from being thrown out of the dominant position and possibly off the ledge.  Thankfully by the time the madness had passed there were only a few jagged cuts in his eyebrows and one across his eye lid, all of which were going to heal quickly and without scars.


Now Rory wouldn’t stop thanking him.  Law sighed, he had never been thanked for headbutting anyone before, but as his throbbing head and excitable shadow proved, anything was possible.


“You’re welcome again Rory, but really I have to go and talk to the captain, why don’t you do some more scans of the area, try to find out what that was?”  Law tried, and this time it worked.  When he turned around he saw the withering look that Samuel had been giving the other scientist and a part of him sighed.  Of course it had been someone else that got results.  He shook himself out of the brief funk and skirted around the rock to where Jasmine was.


“Feeling okay?”  He asked, gesturing to her hands.  He had seen them bloodied, but the amount of bandages still shocked him a little.


“Yeah, bit of a dull throb, it’ll go away in a bit,” She nodded, “Everyone else doing okay too?”


“Some headaches, some scratches, nothing major.”


“Good,” She nodded, moving to walk back to the group.


“We have to keep going.”  He said, holding out a hand.


She looked down at the hand in her path and looked across at him with her eyebrow raised, “Oh?”  She asked.


“We have to find out what that was, if it’s some kind of disease or a weapon, and we’re still only ten minutes from the disturbance site, if we can break down the barrier it would be almost as fast as walking back at this point.”  He felt oddly like a child giving a report.


“That’s the reason I had too,” She sighed.  “Whatever this is, it isn’t good.  I feel like the answer is staring us in the face, but I just can’t see it.”  They turned together then, and went back to inform the rest of the landing party that they were forging on.

17 BECAUSE IT SEEMED LIKE CHAPTER BREAK TIME

The landing crew of six had only been walking for ten minutes when they saw the source of the disturbance.  Sprawling across the canyon at an impossible angle was a ship.  The ship was probably twenty if not thirty years old judging by design, with a rotating engine on each corner of the large rectangle.  The engines were digging into the walls of the canyon, and though both they and the canyon walls seemed to be damaged, the structure looked stable.  As they moved closer to the ship, Jasmine could discern trees along the top, and she realized that the top of the ship had been sheared off, to allow the plants light from the sun.


The party had expected that there may be people on the ship, but when they rounded another bend in the canyon and nearly ran over a little girl it still surprised the hell out of them.


“Hello,” She said, looking up with a smile.  She was maybe 8 years old, with curly black hair and caramel skin.


“Hello,” Jasmine replied when she realized that the little girl had spoken to her.


“Welcome home,” the little girl smiled, her dark eyes sparkling.  She stood and dusted off her dress, clearly made from a man’s shirt, then gathered the pebbles that she had been playing with and darted down the path to the ship.


“There’s life on this planet...” Rory gaped.


“We probably should have stopped her...” Law ventured after a moment.


“Oh hello completely unknown civilization, we just kidnapped one of your youth... but it’s okay, we come in peace!” Samuel said, looking at Law with a wry smile.


“I say we follow her,” Jasmine said.


“We should go back out of the dead area and call out.”  Scaro said, looking uncomfortable.


“That would take an extra forty minutes.  If we can get the barrier down then we have a better chance of making second check in and actually having useful information.”  Jasmine rehashed the argument that had already taken place the first time they decided to push deeper.


“We have useful information, there’s life!”  Muhammad sounded slightly desperate as he agreed with his fellow security officer.


“How many?  Are they fortified?  Do they trust us?  Why do they speak our language?  How long have they been here?” Jasmine suppressed a sigh, “If we find the disturbance and can’t bring it down, we’ll split into two groups, one will go back and call in the information and the other will continue working on dropping the shield, okay?”  When the group had agreed to that, they walked toward the strange ship in silence.

[Gwenivive]

***Surly***


“They missed first check in...” Surly said over lunch with Chief Ailey.


“Chief Littlechip said that they might miss the first check in, depending on how fast they make it to the center of the disturbance.  We shouldn’t worry until planet’s nightfall.”  Ailey reminded her.


“We could send a small secondary recon group...” Surly wheedled.


“They’re fine.  If we haven’t heard from them by planet’s nightfall then we’ll set up another group to scout around when the sun is back up.”  Ailey gave her a sharp look across the table, “Chief Littlechip and I have our orders and we know what we’re doing.”  Her tone was flat.


“I’m sorry, I’m just worried.”  Surly looked away, feeling the blush creep up her cheeks.


“It’ll be fine, it’s just routine,”   Aily assured her, but the growing sense of unease that Surly felt was not only hers; Penny was worried too.


***Jasmine***


“Has anyone else noticed how creepy quiet it is?”  Rory asked.  He had long since stopped surveying the local fauna, instead studying the path and their surroundings like the security team.


“Yeah, you’d think if there was a settlement up here they’d be making more... settlement type noises,” Muhammad agreed as they came flush with the side of the ship.  The engines on the corners stuck up like pillars to frame where the canyon path had been worn down to perfectly meet the top of the ship.  Holes had been cut in the ceiling, opening into what appeared to be a miniature forest, with a few different kinds of trees reaching up to the light of the alien sun.


“What kind of trees are those?”  Jasmine asked Rory who was already scanning the area.


“Looks like green apple... some kind of pear... all of these are fruit-bearing trees, and they appear to be indigenous to Sapien Earth.”


“Ship’s design is three or four decades old, but it’s a Sapien ship, looks like one of the first civilian carriers, they might have been trying to find somewhere to settle?”  Sam postulated.


“No, it’s not set up for terraforming, the ship would have to be at least twice as big.  They might have been mining or trying to sell civilian star maps, though,” Law said.


“Hello the ship?”  Jasmine shouted, causing the other five men to jump.


“Captain what if there’s someone inside?”  Scaro hissed in panic.


“Theoretically they’ll come out to see why there are strange people yelling outside?”  Jasmine replied, “We know there are people inside, and they have yet to shoot us, so I say we play nice until we know why this crashed ship is so well shielded.”


“Hello?”  A thin man wearing only a pair of pants that seemed to have been made from at least thirteen other garments came up one of the trees, sliding off the branch easily and standing barefoot on the roof of the ship.


“Hello, I’m Captain Jasmine Jakes of the SSDC Discovery,” Jasmine smiled her best political smile, “We just found your ship, did you need any assistance?”


“Oh.”  The man looked perplexed.  He was gaunt and his hair was a dusty brown mop that didn’t appear to be acquainted with a comb.  “No, the spores take care of us here.”  His reply was troubling, and she caught a look from Sam that made her press the issue.


“Spores, sir?”  She asked politely.


“Yes, the spores, in the air.  They’ll fix the ship, that’s what they have to do: fix the ship and keep a crew.  I guess if there are six of you that explains why we lost Zeph and Sinari.  I told them we were too close to the threshold.”  He shrugged and sat down, dangling his feet into the ship.


“To which threshold?”  His answers were infuriating; they made more questions than they resolved.


“The crew threshold.  We can only carry 42 crew at a time, any more than that and the spores break someone down for carbon.  It happens when you get too old to be crew, too.  Or if you won’t mate for the common good.”


“What kind of plant do the spores come from?”  Jasmine was almost certain of the answer.


“They don’t come from a plant, they come from the ship,” The strange man looked perplexed, like it should have been common knowledge.


“What are they made of?”  Sam asked, Jasmine could hear the strain despite his efforts to hide any distress.


“Carbon... And steel, but what they take from the steel they replace with more carbon.”  The man nodded.


“Where do the spores get the carbon?”  Jasmine asked.


“The crew,” Deadpan, matter-of-fact.  Senior Officer Rory took a few steps back to be violently ill on the side of the path.


“How do you get spores?”  Sam asked, looking at Jasmine fearfully.


“They’re everywhere.  You’ve already got them.”  The man said with another nod, scrutinizing them.  “I can see it, they’re still new, but they’ll be fully integrated in time.”


“We can’t go back to the ship.”  Jasmine said softly.


“Why not?”  Officer Muhammad hadn’t quite realized the situation.


“Because we’re chock-full of tiny, carbon-based, sociopathic robots.” Sam said softly.  Jasmine felt ill.


“Wait... Nanobots?”  Law asked, eyes wide.


“Nanobots, nanoids, nanites, nanomachines, nanomites, whatever you want to call them we’re all infected.”  Sam said gravely.


“Any self replicating or artificially intelligent nano tech is illegal,” Scaro replied.


“For about forty years now,” Jasmine agreed, “Sir, how long has this vessel been grounded?”  She asked the man who had been politely ignoring them.


“Since before I was born,” He shrugged.


“He’s at least eighteen, but I can’t get a solid read on him,” Rory said as he rejoined the group with an apologetic look.


“Full of nanobots he could be eighty and perfectly preserved,” Sam sighed.


“We need to find out what kind of robots we’re dealing with.  If they work through hive mind we’re screwed, but if there’s a central brain running them all then we could, in theory, turn it off,”  Rory said, still scanning the vessel.


“Their existence only within the range of influence of the shield and the fact that they ‘come from the ship,’ as our new friend put it would imply that there is a central brain.”  Jasmine agreed.


“Sir, may we come in and see your ship?”  Law asked politely.


“I don’t see why not, you’re crew now.”  The man replied chillingly, dropping into the darkened area silently.


“I don’t like the sound of that.”  Jasmine said, earning a chorus of nods.

[Gwenivive]

***LAW***


Law glowered as Officer Muhammad lowered himself carefully into the hole that the native man had disappeared into.  He was safely climbing down the apple tree when Jasmine came up and bumped her hip against his.


“I bet you weren’t expecting this when you argued that I couldn’t be the first to go down,” She grinned.  Jasmine had wanted very badly to be the first in, the one who would be in the most danger.  Law had argued, saying that it was his job to go before the Captain.  Once she had relented to his logic, Officers Scaro and Muhammad used the same logic against him, as it really was security’s job to go into high-risk situations first.


“Yeah, but you didn’t go first either.”  He grumbled, peering into the blackness of the hold in a vain attempt to see.


“Nope,” She sighed, kneeling at the opening, “You okay down there, Muhammad?”


“Yes Captain, all clear on this level, you can send more down if you want.”  The security officer’s voice echoed back.


“Let’s get this show on the road, then,” Law grinned, grabbing a branch to descend.


***


The hold was warm, a dead dank warmth that made the darkness feel close and sticky.  Law’s eyes thankfully adjusted quickly, and he saw that what had presumably once been orderly beds of dirt was now hills of sunbathed green plants amidst short, pale subterranean mosses and mushrooms.  There was no sign of the local man, but Muhammad pointed out the two doors as soon as it was apparent that Law could see.  As Muhammad watched one, Law yelled up to the rest of the party and watched the other.


“It’s creepy as hell in here,” The captain came up from behind him, stepping carefully around the mushrooms.


“I can only assume the... crew gets most of their sustenance from these plants,” Rory said, scanning and cataloguing the plants in the background, “Everything here is edible, the trees are well-established, at least thirty years...  it’s interesting that they bear fruit though...”  The young scientist mused, seeming to have forgotten the people listening to him as he tapered off.


“Why is that?”  Scaro asked, dropping out of the tree and onto the ground, the last of the party.


“Oh.  Lack of insects.”  Rory answered offhandedly.


“They could be pollinating the trees by hand?”  Law offered a theory.


“Yeah I guess, they do have two of each kind of tree, so it’s possible.”  Rory sounded dubious.


At that moment the door that Muhammad was watching swung open ominously, and the group went on point.


“Well then...” Jasmine started.


“We go down?”  Law asked, pointing to the door.


“We may as well, we’ve gone this far,” Jasmine agreed.  With Muhammad on point and Scaro in the rear they filed into the stairwell, and descended deeper into the ship.

[Gwenivive]

***Jasmine***

Their small-scale goal had seemed easy: find an open door and explore inside.  Except that all the doors were locked, and even with their stollies it would take nearly an hour to cut through any of them.  That wasn’t even taking into account the fumes that cutting into the metal would cause would be highly hazardous in such an enclosed area without masks or ventilation.  So they climbed further down, past four decks but not quite to the bottom of the stairwell before they found a door that opened.


“I don’t want to split the party, especially if this door locks behind us, let’s search this deck and we can go back and down if there’s nothing here,”  Jasmine decided, answering the silent queries around her.


Behind the door was a skinny hallway, with two doors that had apparently been welded shut with thick, inexpert seams that punched small holes in the bulkhead.  No light came from the holes, so either the wall was double layered, or it was dark on the other side.  The end of the hall had an ill-fitted wooden door that seemed to have been put together from spare lumber and old style packing crates.  Unlike the crudely sealed doors, light was pouring from the cracks in the door and the space around it.


"Do you want to go in there?"  Muhammad whispered; he sounded nervous at the possibility.


"I rather think we have to."  She replied quietly.  Scaro and Muhammad stood tightly against the walls surrounding the door, and Law shouldered Jasmine out of the way, radiating annoyance as he took point.  "By all means, Mister Nevin,"  She hissed quietly, falling back with Sam and Rory who were dutifully watching the hallway behind them.


Law pushed the door open and, when he wasn’t immediately shot, he stepped in and moved aside for the rest of the group to join him.  In the center of the room was a metal desk with a black box on it.  There was a door in the rear of the room, but no other decoration or furnishings.  The walls were dusty metal, and there was a faint scent of rust and sweat that seemed to be everywhere in the ship.


“Unidentified crew members, please state your name and recieve your rank.”  The black box began to glow a light blue as a clearly computer generated voice filled the room.  The away team looked at each other in confusion and Rory stopped scanning the door for the age of the wood and began scanning the box instead.


“I’m Captain Jasmine Jakes of the SSDC Discovery, to whom am I speaking?”  Jasmine stated, confused.


“The Spirit of Devotion is not in need of a captain, Jasmine Jakes.”  the computer replied, “I am Gizmo, the ship’s computer.  I give the ranks to the crew when they are of age.”


“May I speak with the captain?”  Jasmine asked carefully, watching as her security crewmen took up flanking positions along the walls to observe the box and both entrances to the room more closely.


“I sense that you are strong, despite your poor blood.  Until full integration of spores I will make you a cadet in maintenance.”  The computer decided.  Sam snerked under his breath, a coughing little sound of amusement.  “Input not recognized.  Next unidentified crew member, please state your name and recieve your rank,” The computer chirped in reply.


“May I speak with the captain of the Spirit of Devotion?”  Jasmine asked again.


“The captain is currently indisposed, next unidentified crew member, please state your name and recieve your rank,”  Jasmine bit back a growl and glanced at Sam.


“Hello Gizmo, I am Doctor Samuel Charlesgate, Chief Medical Officer of the SSDC Discovery, may I speak with your captain?”  Sam stepped forward.


“The captain is currently indisposed.  The Spirit of Devotion already has a staff of medics.  You have good blood, but you aren’t very strong.  You will be a cadet in the science department after integration.”  The computer decided.


“What will happen to Captain- I mean... Cadet Jakes after integration?”  Sam asked, wincing in apology as he demoted her for the computer’s understanding.  Jasmine brushed her tail against the back of his knee reassuringly, feeling his flush of embarrassment in passing.


“Cadet Jakes has bad blood.  She will be used for ship repairs after integration, so that a new crew member can take her place.”  Gizmo chirped helpfully.


“What does that mean?”  Sam asked, leaning back far enough that he almost had to step back for balance.


“She will be recycled for carbon to repair the ship, so that a new crew member can take her place.  We are going to start a new colony of pure humans,”  The computer told them, pausing briefly in the chilled silence to continue again, “Next unidentified crew member, please state your name and recieve your rank.”

[Gwenivive]

*** Law ***

Silence controlled the room after the computer’s announcement.  Law looked at the two security officers, each staring at her, waiting for something to happen.


“What if I refuse?”  Law asked, stepping forward.


“Gizmo doesn’t understand; refuse?”  The computer’s happy blue glow turned a dull green, tinged with orange on the edges.


“What if I don’t want to be crew?”  He asked.


“Gizmo doesn’t understand.  You are crew already.”


“What if I quit?”


“Gizmo doesn’t understand.  You may not quit being crew, you are crew.”  Law was really getting tired of the computer’s repetition.


“What if I mutiny?”  He was aware now that Samuel and the captain were staring at him, the security team was watching the doors and Rory was still taking notes on the structure and the computer.


“Gizmo doesn’t understand.  You are only one person of 42; a mutiny is not logical.”  Orange was quickly becoming the dominant color on the glowing box.


“If you’re the ship’s computer, do you also have access to the stored information?”  He asked, though he suspected the answer.


“Gizmo stores the information, Gizmo accesses the information.”



“Do you have historical files?  Particularly one on the UCC Prosperity?”  As he mentioned the ship he saw Samuel elbow Jasmine sharply, but she barely glanced at him.


“The UCC Prosperity was the first privately owned ship capable of navigating deep space.  It was built for the Human Christianity Council on Sapien Earth twelve years after first contact from the Homo Aviars.  The UCC Prosperity was taking a group of Sapien pilgrims to a newly terraformed world when it was decommissioned mid-journey,”  The computer announced.


“How did it become decommissioned?” law asked, fiercely glad he had paid attention in his early leadership classes.


“The UCC Prosperity was decommissioned when the young passenger Harold Catcher had a falling out with the captain and the on board chaplain over the journey’s religious implications.  Mr. Catcher locked off the main controls to the ship from engineering and rerouted the ship’s course into a nearby star.”



“How many people were on board the Prosperity when it was decommissioned?”  Law asked the computer, now completely orange.



“104, 49 of whom were considered crew, while the rest were passengers.”



“So one person out of one hundred and four people led a successful mutiny of the UCC Prosperity, killing himself and 103 other people?”  Law summed up his point.


“The captain will see you now.”  The computer hummed as the door in the rear of the room slid open mechanically.  Samuel took a step back and gave him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder as the room went on point, waiting for the new arrivals that could clearly be heard as footsteps on steel stairs.

[Gwenivive]

*** Samuel ***

Samuel was proud of the young First Officer; he had gotten his way and seemed to have avoided being killed... so far. 


The man who walked through the door in the rear of the room looked like he had other ideas, though.  He was a burly man, taller than Law and built like a prize fighter and his skin was the same death pallor pale as the two smaller men that followed him.  All three had raggedly cut dusty tan hair as the first man they had met, and though they weren’t clean-shaven, it was clear that they had trimmed their beards fairly recently.  The bear of a man spoke first, causing Rory to flinch back a half step.


"I am Captain Vaux, who are you?"  His voice was deep and almost rusty.


"I am Captain Jasmine Jakes of the SSDC Discovery, representing the Interplanetary Coalition's Research and Defense Navy,"  Jasmine stepped forward, skirting the table to meet the challenge head-on, "With me I have my First Officer Lawrence Nevin, my Chief Medical Officer Samuel Charlesgate, and Officers Rory, Scaro, and Muhammad."  She finished, leaning a hip on the table with faux bravado.


"These are Sa'ay and Sheltie, and you seem to be confused as to whose crew you're in."  Vaux replied with what might have passed for an amiable smile with his brown, rotting teeth.


"I really don't believe I am, though it would interest me to know why you're so intent on claiming my people as your own,"  Samuel watched for warning signs, but she kept her focus ring on her tail with ease and her ears, though perked forward, weren't showing signs of internal turmoil.


"The spores say you're crew so I'm inclined to agree."  Vaux shrugged.


"The purpose of the crew of the Spirit of Devotion is to make the ship spaceworthy, is it not?"  Jasmine asked.


"Yes, we help the spores fix the ship so that we can go to the new planet to colonize."  Vaux agreed, and Sa'ay and Sheltie nodded vehemently behind him.


"The Discovery can take your people to the new planet, you know."  Jasmine grinned, "We can even help with the terraforming,"  She offered, her grin unwavering.  Samuel immediately began planning the quarantine and treatment for the new passengers to remove the illegal microscopic robots.


Vaux had opened his mouth to speak, but he paused, closing it again to contemplate her words.  "All of my crew?"  He asked, suspicion clear on his face.


"We have available accomodations and enough supplies to support all of your biologically living crew." Jasmine agreed, and though Samuel knew that she had to make the distinction, he hoped that Vaux missed it.


"Are the spores considered... 'biologically living?'" The Spirit of Devotion's captain was more perceptive than Samuel had hoped, though he had to say the last two words carefully, as though he were sounding them out while reading a particularly advanced book.


"Spores from a plant would have to be carefully quarantined, to prevent possibly invasive foreign species contamination between worlds."  Samuel stepped forward to assist, carefully wording his statement as well.


"Spores don't come from a plant, they come from the ship,"  One of the background crewmen spoke up, Sa'al or Sheltie.  Vaux looked over his shoulder, nodded his approval, and gave Jasmine an easily readable look, 'What now?'


"Unfortunately we can't take any technology with us, you would have to leave any computers, nanodevices, and weaponry would have to remain on the planet, we can take your crew, but your tech would have to stay."  Jasmine was unwavering on the point and with good reason; the technology was illegal in the Coalition.


“We can fix the ship, we don’t need a taxi.”  Vaux nodded after a second.


“How long has she been broken?”  Jasmine asked reasonably.


“We don’t need charity, we just need honest work from the crew.  Your honest work.”  Vaux was quickly becoming reticent.


“You have four options here as I see them,”  Jasmine started, planting her feet shoulder width apart and crossing her hands right over left in front of her belt buckle.  The security crew noticed the subtle threat and visibly focused on the three.  “One, you call the spores off and let us go-- though I’m not sure you can do that-- and we never return and leave you and yours be.  The second is that we get help from the Discovery, everyone loses the spores and we take you to your destination.  The third is we get help from the Discovery, everyone loses the spores, and we take you to a Coalition medical facility for treatment and reintegration into society.  You wouldn’t like the fourth.”  She finished with a shrug.


“What’s the fourth option?”  Vaux asked, predictably.


“Acting Captain Ailey drops enough explosives to neutralize all life and technology on the planet and the Coalition terraforms it as an outpost.”  Samuel swallowed hard, it was an unfortunate but true possibility.


“You would die.”  Vaux pointed out needlessly.


“And so would you.  Are you going to let my people and I leave?”  Her voice had an edge under the light tone she was using.


“No, I choose option five.”  Vaux said, smiling his brown grin.


“Enlighten me, if you please?”  Jasmine asked, shifting her weight as he took a step forward.


“Contain the prisoners!”  Vaux shouted to his men, aiming a punch at Jasmine’s head which she easily dodged.


Samuel felt an unnatural tingling in his skin, accompanied by a sense of wrongness.  He ignored it as he was tackled by one of Vaux’s henchmen.  He smashed his assailant’s head against the underside of the table and slipped out from under him, looking to where both Rory and Scaro should have been in the cronie’s path.


Both men were on the ground twitching.  A glance across the room showed that Muhammad was also down, and though Law was holding his own well enough against his assailant, his face was scrunched in pain and he was reacting with a marked decrease in speed.  Samuel went to help him, but sprawled gracelessly on the ground as the man under the table-- Sheltie, probably-- grabbed his ankle and yanked it out from under him.  Another wave of tingling wrong ran across his skin and he was facing two assailants, as Law had crumpled.  Sa’ay managed to get an arm around his neck and was choking him with terrible efficiency; Samuel tried to fight him off, but with one man on his legs and the other clinging to his back it was a losing battle. 


The last thing Samuel saw as the black spots took over his vision was Vaux, his face covered in blood, holding Jasmine and Rory by the handles on the necks of their jackets as their heads lolled sickeningly.

[Gwenivive]

More in June, but it's going to back up a bit, I'm splitting it in half and redoing the planet part