Storm Fleet

by Tim Niederriter

  The Pillar Universe Book One: Storm Fleet

  Copyright © 2018 Tim Niederriter

  http://mentalcellarpublications.com

  https://dwellerofthedeep.wordpress.com/

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written consent of the author. Unauthorized duplication in any media is a violation of international copyright laws and will be prosecuted.

  Published by Mental Cellar Publications

  This is a work of fiction People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to actual people, places, and events is purely coincidental.

  Also by Tim Niederriter

  Spells of the Curtain Series

  Court Mage

  Battle Mage

  Winter Mage

  Garden Mage

  Traveling Mage

  Fire Mage

  Tenlyres Series

  Ilsa and Blue

  The Gray Lector

  The Lyre War

  The Root Conspiracy Series

  Memory Lost

  Mind Chase

  Image Storm

  Cell Cycle

  Other Books

  Rem’s Dream

  Find out more at http://mentalcellarpublications.com

  Sign up for a stories at http://www.timniederriter.com/list/

  For everyone who ever put up with me talking about a Pillar Universe.

  Thank you.

  This is only the beginning.

  Nine cycles ago

  Trouble found her.

  Three teenage girls blocked Yajain’s path home on a cold nightside street of Kaga settlement. Two of the girls were empty-handed, but the one in the middle, Nira, carried a metal pipe. Yajain’s heartbeat accelerated. Adrenaline offered the usual two options when confronted with a threat of violence.

  Fight or flight.

  And she chose a third option, one available only to humans, despite what these girls called her every day in school. Ditari, like Yajain, were just as human as they were. She stopped walking a few meters from them.

  “Nira,” she said. “Hey.”

  The girl with the pipe glared at her.

  “Don’t act casual. You’re in trouble this time.”

  Yajain’s eyes narrowed.

  “What happened? I breathe too much of your air?”

  Fight?

  Or flight?

  “Oh, you’re funny.”

  One of the girl’s at Nira’s side grimaced.

  “Cannibal.”

  “I need to get home,” said Yajain.

  The pipe tapped against Nira’s palm.

  “What’s the matter? We’re not good enough for you?”

  “No, that’s not it.” Yajain trembled, almost stuttering. “You’re nothing to me.”

  Blood pulsed. Adrenaline surged. With adrenaline came fear.

  In his martial arts classes, father always said to avoid fighting.

  Too late now, Yajain thought.

  Fight it is.

  Nira advanced.

  The pipe swung high.

  Yajain lunged low. She shoved Nira in the chest.

  Nira stumbled backward. The pipe flew out of her hands and banged against a wall.

  She seized Nira by the collar. Yajain’s fist connected with the girl’s nose. Blood flowed.

  Nira stumbled back. Yajain released her collar.

  “Out of my way,” she growled. “I don’t want to fight.”

  “Because we’re nothing to you?” Nira’s grunt was nasal and red. “You’re not getting away, you bitch.”

  Yajain gritted her teeth.

  “None of you train to fight. I do. Now, get out of my way.” A bluff. Yajain had not excelled at her father’s classes on self-defense. She planted her feet, eyes on Nira and the girl behind her.

  Where was the other one?

  The pipe whistled through the air. Yajain could not tell from where. An explosion of pain screamed from between her shoulder blades down to her tailbone. Yajain stumbled forward, head jerking back. Streetlights flickered in her eyes, dancing in the aftershocks of the blow. Nira caught her by the front of her jacket. She grinned, a wavering, bloody grin.

  “Told you, you were in trouble.” She hammered Yajain’s temple with her fist.

  Flickers turned to jagged streaks of lightning in her vision. The pain from Nira’s blow would never match the blow of the pipe. Yajain flinched. Nira held onto her jacket.

  “Hit her again,” said Nira.

  The pipe cracked along the back of Yajain’s knee. She screamed. Her legs folded under her, blazing with agony. Nira let her collapse to the cold pavement. The girl with the pipe swung again. Then again. Yajain’s covered her head. Blows hammered on her thigh and shoulder. Yajain curled up, trying as best she could to protect her head and neck.

  “What the hell are you doing?” said a voice Yajain knew. Mosam.

  The girl with the pipe shouldered her weapon. Red dripped from one deformed end.

  Mosam walked toward girls. He glared at the girl with the pipe as he approached.

  “What have you done?” His tone consisted of pure rage. Then his gaze fell on Yajain. “Yajay, are you—?”

  She wanted to tell him she was fine but only managed a gasp of pain. She looked up at him, vision swimming.

  “Step back,” said Nira. “You may not be from around here, but you’re not like her. We’re all nuinn. She’s Ditari.”

  Mosam’s eyes narrowed.

  “I’m more like her than I am like you.” His voice was soft but carried a menace Yajain never heard there when the two of them talked. “You three should step back.”

  Nira shoved her bloody nose close to Mosam’s face.

  “She did this to me. And you think you’re like her?”

  Mosam kept his gaze on Nira’s face. At the same time, he yanked the metal pipe from the other girl’s hand. The other girl backed off with a yelp.

  Nira’s blood ran down to her chin.

  “You think you’re like her?” she repeated. “Screw you, Mosam Coe.”

  “No thanks.” Mosam’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the pipe. “Get out of here.”

  Nira backed away from Mosam and Yajain slowly.

  “Come on, girls.” She glared at Mosam. “You won’t always be around,” she said. “We can wait.”

  Mosam’s eyes looked fierce. His brows bent inward. He said nothing.

  The girls retreated. Their footsteps disappeared down the street in the distance. Mosam knelt by Yajain’s aching side.

  “Is it bad?” she asked, tears running in her eyes.

  “I can’t tell. I’m not a doctor yet.” He reached past her battered shoulder, and gently brushed the back of her head through her hair. His fingers touched her neck making her spine tingle. “They didn’t hit you here. That’s good.”

  She winced as he touched her thigh just as softly.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  Her pant leg had torn in places. Where ever he touched the skin, her flesh warmed. Tears began to flow freely.

  “It was not your fault.” His voice was firm. “It was them.” His hand ran down her spine. “Anything hurt here?”

  She nodded. His concern remained visible through clouds of pain and streams of tears.

  “Not too bad. They only hit me there once.”

  He frowned.

  “Can you?”

  “I can walk. Just don’t ask me to fly.”

  “I wasn’t going to. We aren’t far from the church. My master can make sure you’re alright better than I can.
”

  “Alright.”

  He slid a hand around her side, where the pain was less. He helped her up. She leaned on him. Her legs wobbled. He kept his arm around her for a long while and they walked toward the Church of Harvest.

  The pain lasted a long time, bruises deep as the bones, but Yajain cherished the memory far longer.

  The present

  She looked for trouble.

  Motes of luminous green fungus clung to Yajain’s hooded poncho where she crouched, listening for a particular species of local predator. The tiny power veins in the form-fitting suit under her poncho kept her warm despite the frigid temperature of the cave all around her. Her eyes flicked for a moment to the simple wrist chronometer she wore.

  Forty seconds ago she had glimpsed her spidery quarry, a large apex predator. Five minutes before that her group had split up. Dara, the leader of the surveyors, had suggested the team circle through the cave system within the pillar to net any other specimens once they detected the large heat signature of the unregistered predator from the tumbler.

  Hopefully, the tumbler’s thrusters had not interfered with the heat sensors. Yajain knew that case was possible from her father’s stories of evading heat detection during war. She remembered fights of her own, though of smaller scale. Stealth could be valuable to hunters and warriors. And scientists.

  She who cannot be found, cannot be cornered.

  Yajain understood feeling cornered from experience as recent as this survey mission.

  She and Dara had flown on a small vessel, a ranger called Solnakite, part of the exploration fleet for the past five strands of time, just over one-hundred-fifty light-dark changes. Agricultural and biological survey excited her as much as ever but being first to confirm a creature like the one she pursued now presented the greatest thrill and more danger.

  Yajain’s gaze moved from the chronometer and she lowered her arm.

  Her hunter’s ears picked up even the soft rustle of her sleeve and relayed it clearer than life into the speaker in her actual ear. The hunter’s ears themselves were a set of four tiny disks, two set on either side of her poncho’s collar. The disks picked up the sounds around her and fed them, amplified to her earphones. From larger rodents skittering through the tunnels inside the pillar to tiny paws that padded like thunder across the gray stone floor as the hunted scuttling insects.

  She could even hear some things from outside the caves. On the sheer exterior of the pillar’s shell, a wild byga spider herd continued their eternal climb, fur brushing and pulling on the stone. These particular spiders were wild but closer to the central clusters they were almost all domesticated for their meat. The sound of the herd moved on. Yajain took everything in and kept listening.

  She waited for the particular sound, the one she had never heard quite the same way before this expedition, the one last heard about forty-five seconds ago judging by the chronometer. The sound of the new predator.

  In the field, she was a hunter as much as a scientist. She hated to admit it. Her father’s people valued the hunt. But her mother’s people loved their experiments more. Part of her guessed father understood this kind of work, despite how he had been raised in the Ditari culture.

  The scrape of heavy claws followed by a long sighing breath made her smile. The previously unconfirmed local predator was approaching.

  Yajain checked her corners and then behind her. She had split from Dara’s group to make sure none of them interfered with her hearing. Now she wished she had backup closer at hand. Joyful adrenaline came with anticipation of seeing the creature, like a gift to a child.

  She peered over the rise by which she crouched and into the wider cavern. The tiny cameras set beside her faceplate captured everything she saw.

  Ebarrai Pillar’s resident apex predator, classified as Animal 4512, crept toward her position on eight legs like those of any other spider. The bulbous gas sac on the animal’s back sighed out hot breath and deflated to rest atop a smooth black exoskeleton. Animal 4512’s mouth hung open, wide and mammalian. Drool ran along its sharp fangs and thin lips. The creature had to be at least six meters long, and it was almost as wide with legs hunched close to its body.

  “Dara,” Yajain said into her mask’s microphone. “I see the subject.”

  “My team is almost to the central cavern,” Dara replied through the radio feed. “Be careful.”

  Animal 4512 snorted with all five nostrils set above its mouth. Unusual to see an arachnoid with that much sensitivity to smell, though the trait appeared more often in carnivores. Yajain kept her eyes on the predator as it prowled toward her. That nose might be what had drawn it back in her direction. If that was the case, getting away might not be as simple as she hoped.

  Yajain activated her arc lifts by pressing a finger into the button at the base of her palm where her heat suit’s sleeve extended past her wrist.

  Animal 4512’s large, human-like, all black eyes widened.

  Yajain grimaced. Apparently, the creature sensed arc changes. It detected her arc lifts from a distance. She made a mental note of the fact.

  The animal charged. Yajain launched herself to one side, swimming through the arc-charged air within the cavern as if it were liquid instead of gas using her lifts. Her spread arms kept her stable as she kicked out of reach of 4512’s snapping jaws.

  Yajain glanced at the black orbs of the animal’s eyes. It roared. Spittle flew from between teeth.

  The hunter’s ears carried the roar so well it made Yajain’s ears ring in the aftermath. She darted higher into the cavern, looking for an exit at an upper level.

  Dara’s group would arrive at any time. Yajain wanted the situation better controlled when they did.

  Animal 4512 drew in a deep breath. Its gas sac inflated and it lifted off the floor of the cavern.

  Yajain swallowed in surprise.

  “Note, Animal 4512 can fly. Not sure how nimble.”

  Dara answered her calmly.

  “Don’t get eaten, Yajain.”

  “Count on it.”

  She couldn’t fly to the roof in case the only exits were nearer the bottom of the cavern. Then animal would cut her off if it flew with any speed. It folded its legs tightly to its body and wiggled the limbs as arc fins to steer its ascent. Jaws slavered.

  Yajain out-paced 4512 to hover near the ceiling. Her guess at their being a high exit proved wrong. A good guess isn’t a good decision, mother used to say.

  Sometimes one has to hypothesize, mother, thought Yajain.

  The predator accelerated far faster than expected. Jaws widened in anticipation of catching her at the rooftop. She turned onto her back and kicked to dive downward at an angle, taking her far from 4512’s bite.

  She glided along the wall, still floating on her back, gaze on 4512 perched on the ceiling, all eight legs finding purchase. Yajain approached the floor when a sighing sound came from above and the animal leaped from the ceiling.

  The huge spidery form stretched out, dragging in air as it fell toward the floor a few meters from Yajain, where she had been a moment ago.

  The animal lacked the time for the air resistance to help. A sinuous neck extended two meters from 4512’s armored thorax. Its jaws snapped at Yajain’s boots, just out of reach.

  Animal 4512 hit the cavern floor with a crunch. Yajain grinned as the predator’s head recoiled on its long neck. A dazed expression appeared on its face as its eyes rolled in its head.

  Not very nimble.

  Too bad for you, big guy, Yajain thought. All that mass added to your impact.

  She floated to a stop near the wall a moment later and lowered her legs to the floor, then deactivated her arc lifts. From a passage lit by the same green fungus as the cavern, came footsteps. Dara Merrant and the rest of the survey team walked into the room behind Yajain.

  She turned and nodded to Dara, who wore a suit similar to Yajain’s but with a sleeker coat than Yajain’s poncho. The rest
of the team wore heavy outer suits with masks and sensor sets. Dara nodded to Yajain.

  “Looks like you found some action.” She gazed at Animal 4512’s supine form. “You don’t have to hurt all the predators, you know.”

  “Judging by how he’s moving, he’ll get over it,” Yajain said with her eyes on the dazed creature. “Don’t get too close. His neck can extend two meters further than it looks.”

  Dara smiled through her faceplate, the thin lines at the sides of her mouth folding.

  “Looks like those hunter instincts of yours came in useful.”

  Yajain’s smile went rigid.

  “Maybe.” She didn’t choose her father.

  Dara mentioned her heritage blithely and thought nothing of it, but those had been rough years as bruises long-healed could once have reported. Dara clearly intended her words as a compliment.

  “Thank you,” Yajain said.

  “Decent work. And you’re still alive. That’s always good.” Dara turned and gave orders to the rest of the team to collect samples from Animal 4512. They sprang into action, circling the stunned creature carefully to avoid its bite. Yajain waited beside Dara as the team took a blood sample from 4512’s leg, then tagged it with a blood tracking device.

  Dara waved them all toward the passage her team had entered from.

  “Alright, people, back to the tumbler. We’ve got a rendezvous to make.”

  Yajain glanced at her in surprise.

  “Is something wrong? We just got here.”

  “Emergency,” Dara said with a frown. “Captain Ettasil wants everyone aboard Solnakite as soon as we can get there.”

  Yajain’s brows knit together.

  “Everyone? What could it be?”

  “This far from the central clusters? Don’t know, but he sounded worried.”

  “We need to take this opportunity. What’s more important than the survey?”

  “Who knows. But it can’t be Ettasil just getting spooked,” Dara said. “The captain has a priority transmission from Habandra. He doesn’t have any more choice than we do.”