Abandonment of Stars: Symbiont Wars Saga, #0

ABANDONMENT OF STARS

ALIEN OUTCAST

Chogan Swan

Copyright © 2019 by Chogan Swan. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT

CHOGAN SWAN

Visit my website at https://choganswan.com/

Dedication

I dedicate this story to you, reader. I may not know exactly who you are, but without knowing you are out there thinking, considering and—I hope—enjoying your time with my characters and thoughts, none of this would be worthwhile.

I hope this story helps you on your way, fans the fire in your soul and brightens your life.

With special appreciation for the work of:

Sir E.A. Wallace Budge for his two-volume

Egyptian Heiroglyphic Dictionary 1920

(now in public domain). All heiroglyphics and Ancient Egyptian words can be found there if you would enjoy curling up with a dead language on a rainy day. Though most Egyptologists now consider it out of date, it still works just fine for telling a story.

CHOGAN SWAN

A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices. - George Orwell

Table of Contents

ABANDONMENT OF STARS

CHAPTER 1 - Izhidra

CHAPTER 2 - Volunteer

CHAPTER 3 - Quarters

CHAPTER 4 - Medical Care

CHAPTER 5 - A Problem of Scale

CHAPTER 6 - Babies

CHAPTER 7 - Foster Mother

CHAPTER 8 - Falling

CHAPTER 9 - Deep Water

CHAPTER 10 - Wind

CHAPTER 11 - Shore

CHAPTER 12 - Bastet

CHAPTER 13 - Second Night

CHAPTER 14 - Cousins

CHAPTER 15 - Wolf

CHAPTER 16 - Viper

CHAPTER 17 - The Spa

CHAPTER 18 - Khopesh

CHAPTER 19 - Sabu

CHAPTER 20 - Horizon

CHAPTER 21 - The Charioteer

CHAPTER 22 - The River

CHAPTER 23 - Tabiry’s Gift

CHAPTER 24 - Intercept

CHAPTER 25 - Conundrum

CHAPTER 26 - Pursuit

CHAPTER 27 - Leviathan

CHAPTER 28 - Memfi

CHAPTER 29 - The Great Canal

CHAPTER 30 - Sacred Animal

CHAPTER 31 - Commander in Chief

CHAPTER 32 - Good Ship Destria

CHAPTER 33 - Great Green Sea

CHAPTER 34 - The Deep Abyss

CHAPTER 35 - Silverwax

CHAPTER 36 - House on the Rock

CHAPTER 37 - Turn & Depart

Epilogue

Glossary:

Bibliography

CHAPTER 1 - Izhidra

ÅTER (Orion’s Belt)

DEEP IN THE BOWELS of Berserker’s spinning life-support section, submerged in an algae tank far from routine foot traffic, Izhidra woke, listening.  Then, she took a long breath, pulling it through the breathing tube that ran from her mouth to the hiding spot behind a readout panel.

She puffed a bubble from her nose to evaluate the odors it carried. Death was looking for her out there—this she knew. But she detected no one of her own species nearby at the moment. The only warm-blooded life close to her was the rat tugging on the tough monofilament thread attached to the concealed trap below the tank. The scrabbling it made on the walls of the tank had roused her from the healing trance.

After checking to see how the bones of her leg were healing, she pulled the thread to her with slow, steady movements. The frantic claws on the side of the tank indicated a lively specimen, and the resistance on the line told her it would be large. Together, those facts meant this would be the last time she’d need to feed before leaving her hiding spot. Her leg had healed enough to do the task needed.

Exactly what that would be had occupied her thoughts between trances since dragging herself into the vat—she checked her time sense—almost three cycles ago.

The thread went slack as the rat slid past the overhanging side of the tank and plopped into the vat. Izhidra pushed her head above the surface high enough to spot her prey. With her tail hooked to a hold on the side of the tank, she snapped her hand forward to grasp the squirming rodent behind its head with her thumb and first two fingers then sank her finger filaments into its flesh, injecting enough sedative to silence its enraged screeching.

A few moments listening assured her nobody had paid any mind to the racket. She freed the rodent’s head and let the barbed hooks sink to the bottom of the tank. The unpleasant possibility of needing the hooks again was still undeniable.

She turned—lying on her back again, submerged except for her nose—and considered the unconscious rat on her stomach.

The only known form of life to spread throughout the galaxy without building its own ships.

Berserker was infested with them, of course. The ship’s officers made sure of that. It gave the Marines something to do when rations were short.

The government of Niidra’s northern continent had declared ‘war on rats’—classifying the invasive species as a pervasive emergency combat threat. The declaration of war had been used as justification for the navy to use the beasts as ‘an emergency source of nourishment’ rather than bringing volunteer host-partner sentients along on military ships. The regional government of the northern continent had declared all alien sentients ‘a military security risk with a ‘low-efficiency combat contribution’. Now they refused to accept them as crew on North Niidra naval vessels, both space and maritime.

The decision had been one more item in the long list of conflicts between North Niidra and the southern majority in the planetary central government. 

South Niidra had criticized the ‘war on rats’ as a sophistry to justify reinstating the aberrant practice of meat-eating that had been outlawed two centians ago by the planetary government. Many aspects of the ruling had not been popular in North Niidra. In some places in the north, meat-eating was still practiced in secret. Over the last two centians, the two regions had become increasingly polarized. Carnivorism was only one issue among many. The only thing that kept the conflict from escalating higher over this issue was the bare truth that nobody liked rats. And though—like most primate species—nii were omnivores they couldn’t survive long on a strict vegetarian diet.

Growing up, Izhidra had never been interested in acquiring the understanding of political intrigue now crucial to her survival in the northern navy. When young, she’d hoped her mother’s high-ranking appointment as the northern liaison to South Niidra would keep her from the draft, though her mother had feared the opposite was more likely. The liaison office might hold the appearance of power, she’d warned, but the home government was more concerned with controlling her mother’s position than granting her the authority to do much more than act as a mouthpiece.

But though Izhidra had grown up in the south, her mother had made sure she developed crucial skills for surviving hostile environments ... and competitive associates.

When the navy drafted Izhidra—immediately after her sexual threshold—she’d found that serving on a navy cruiser as a marine conscript had plenty of opportunities for the practical application of those childhood lessons.

Well, mother. I hope you’re proud of how well I learned.

Though the thought had been ironic, Izhidra knew that—indeed—her mother would be proud. Showing approval for her daughter’s accomplishments was something Dezhidra always did without stinting. And despite Izhdra’s long absence from home, she was certain that her mother—despite all the enemies surrounding her—was still alive and practicing those same skills at an even higher level.

Izhidra was just thankful the training in self-defense had prepared her for the ruthless surroundings she’d faced after being drafted. Even though all the fights she’d faced in the military so far were against those who were  supposed to be on the same side.

She turned the rat over and twisted her lip in disgust. When she’d finally received her fighter pilot certification—a rating that had raised her from the ranks of ground-pounding marine to junior officer—she’d thought her days of eating rats were at an end, but now necessity had put the rodents back on the menu.

With methodical efficiency, Izhidra drained its blood, stripped the meat from the bones and swallowed that without chewing. Her stomach could process the protein, but mostly she wanted to avoid the foul taste of rat as much as possible.

When only bones remained, she tossed them out of the tank ... for later. She’d need every bit of calcium available for completing the mending of her right lower leg. She wondered what her southern acquaintances would make of her bloody meal. Then she shrugged. There really wasn’t any other choice for her, the situation was truly eat or die.

Izhidra drank from the vat, sucking the water through her teeth to strain out the algae. After a few disappointing mouthfuls, she scrubbed her teeth with her finger filaments. She’d hoped to wash away the rat flavor, but the stagnant water wasn’t improving anything.

Reaching up, she grabbed the lip of the vat and raised her eyes over the edge to survey her surroundings. With no sign of traps or ambush, she flipped over the edge and slid down the side of the tank.

Still listening, she reviewed her mental map of the ship.

Berserker was an ancient colony vessel refitted for troop transport. Huge and clumsy, she’d been built when graviton plates and inertia dampening had been an emerging technology too expensive for her construction budget. Most of her sections for processes requiring gravity—like the algae vats where Izhdira crouched now—only needed a simple rotating section as Berserker trudged from one stargate access point to the next.

The non-rotating bridge at the front had been refitted with graviton plates so the officers could move efficiently about their duties. But the long inner spine—running from the reaction drive section in the stern to the forward command center—required neither gravity nor air.

She paused, going over her plan. Since she’d concocted most of it while enduring the agony of shattered leg bones, she wasn’t certain she’d brought her best thinking to the effort. Her lips twisted in disgust. Considering who’d been responsible for breaking her leg, she’d need to revise her earlier ideas. Hunting them down and killing them had seemed a good idea when she’d been in pain and recovering from the ambush, but of course the plan was full of holes. Sadly, her options were limited. 

After all, on this ship she had no reliable allies. But there might be enemies of her enemies who could be inclined to act in their own interests in a helpful way.

∆∆∆

(Three Cycles Ago)

Izhidra moved along the track of the inner spine, performing elementary systems checks on the electromagnetic spin couplings for the rotating section. Although the spine could be pressurized, it generally wasn’t—a practice the navy had adopted to keep rats out of systems-critical wiring and conduits.

The only sounds she could hear inside her pressure suit were her own body functions and her skin rubbing on the inner fabric. The monitoring display required constant visual attention for long periods. So when the metal container smashed her leg into the bulkhead like a giant hammer on an anvil, she’d neither seen, smelled or heard the attack coming.

Since the first rule of unexpected engagement was don’t get surprised, she gave that one up, ignored the pain and moved on to the second rule.

Assess threats while taking cover or increasing range.

The nearest cover downrange was ten stands down the spine toward the stern. She untangled her injured left leg from ‘anvil’ and pushed the container into the bulkhead with her right foot, sending it rebounding into the center of the spine.

Now the container was providing cover as she retreated—zigzagging down the passage by kicking from wall to wall at breakneck speed. 

Each time she pushed onto a new vector, pain flared anew as the mass of her boot wrenched at the shattered bones. As she fled, Izhidra glanced back to identify the threat. Two figures, in pressure suits like her own, floundered in the center of the corridor where their inertia had left them to drift after they’d shoved the container into Izhidra. Both of them were untethered and at least ten heartbeats away from reaching an anchor.

Izhidra snarled in frustration. With both of them drifting like that, she could’ve easily dispatched them using the cutter on her tool belt to slice holes in their pressure suits. Now she was too far away. But at least she could identify who was trying to kill her ... sub-lieutenants Kyghan and Druze.

Though they’d both covered their identity patches, they hadn’t shadowed their faceplates. They may have been so confident they could take her out without a struggle they hadn’t bothered.

Druze was the female member of the highly connected on-again-off-again sex partner duo. Druze hadn’t bothered to conceal her disgust when Izhidra had been assigned to the same fighter squadron. Soon after that, Druze had enlisted Kyghan in a plot to make Izhidra look bad on routine missions, positioning their fighters to make it look like Izhidra was out of formation.

But they’d only managed to lower their own rankings when the squadron leader, Senior-lieutenant Glayd, issued them demerits for their clumsy exploits.

Within three cycles, Izhidra’s scores in the squadron had surpassed theirs, and she’d been promoted from probationary pilot to sub-lieutenant—making her of equal rank and eligible for further promotion—ahead of them.

And neither of those two wanted the daughter of a civil servant passing them in the squadron hierarchy.

And of course that means Izhidra must die.

Izhidra’s upper lip twisted in a snarl.

By the time she’d crossed the length of the spine to the drive section hatchway, the immediate shock was gone, and her leg was in fiery agony.

At the hatchway, she punched in her repair access code, unlocking it and pulling herself through. On the other side, she used her handheld programming pad to enter a false reading of excess pressure on the spine side of the door. Now someone would have to find the bug she’d slipped into the lock’s program or pressurize the spine to open any hatchway. Her pursuers might even die unless someone could figure out the problem before they ran out of air.

In spite of the pain, she snorted in amusement at the thought, but didn’t stop to celebrate. Until she could get out of her own suit, she couldn’t set her bones.

Hand over hand, she pulled herself to the cross passage leading to the revolving habitat. At the Section-4 airlock, she unlocked the portside hatch, pulled herself inside and locked it behind her. With both sides of the airlock secure, she slapped the button to pressurize. After a few moments—that she spent drinking all the liquid nutrients in the suit—the protective shell began settling closer to her skin in response to the returning atmosphere.

When the lock finished equalizing pressure, Izhidra opened the helmet seals. Working fast, she shucked off the suit and stored anything remotely useful in her tool belt’s pouches.  Then she pulled open the habitat-side hatchway. The opening matched the habitat’s spinning bulkhead with a gentle curve. From Izhidra’s perspective, the smooth surface outside the hatch slid past like a conveyor belt as the huge cylindrical habitat rotated around the electromagnetic bearings at either end of the ship.

Izhidra rolled out of the lock onto her back—her flesh skidding for a moment when the inertia caught her and pushed her against what was now—to her—the floor.

In response, her broken bones grated against each other and jabbed at her flesh, but she swallowed the impulse to whimper.

I suppose I’m lucky it’s only a third of g-normal.

Her mother had hired martial arts instructors who’d been thorough enough that Izhidra had plenty of opportunities to practice mending minor bone fractures from a young age. But even though she was focused on escaping, she knew this break was much worse than anything she’d faced before. Both of the lower leg bones had snapped just above the springheel joint with the main bone broken in three places. At least her springheel joint hadn’t been smashed. That was something, but she needed to get her leg set and splinted now.

On her hands and forearms, she slithered across the floor, stopping at the entrance to Life-Support Algae Vats—Section 1.

When the navy had assigned her to Berserker, Izhidra had spent every free minute over the period of a dozen cycles searching for an onboard hideaway. Fortunately, the huge troop carrier had many out-of-the-way nooks and crannies.

Upon reaching vat forty-two, she opened a cabinet on the side and pulled her kit from where she’d stored it in a thin box she’d made to look like the back panel of the cabinet. She emptied it on the floor then repacked it with the items she wouldn’t need until after she’d healed. Finished, she put the box back in its hiding place.

After setting the rattrap, she slid the mouthpiece of the breathing tube into her mouth, and slipped below the surface.

With her body submerged, she pushed the bones with her fingers to manipulate them into contact with each other while pulling down on her springheel joint with her tail. When the bones lined up, she delved into her flesh with her finger filaments and started the long process of knitting them together. It took her a full tenth of a cycle’s work before it was safe to take her hands away and rest.

Bones were so much more difficult to work with than flesh.

CHAPTER 2 - Volunteer

BEQUENU (Soldier)

CHIEF SENIOR-LIEUTENANT Glayd placed the heels of his hands on his temples. It looked as though he was attempting to keep his head from exploding. Izhidra thought the effect quite dramatic, especially when he moaned as though in pain. Sub-lieutenant, can you explain to me how those idiots managed to get close enough to do such a thing? he said in a weary voice—his cultured coastal accent coloring every word of his northern nii dialect. It’s not as though you couldn’t dodge a two-ton hydrogen tank. You do have eyes after all. And surely, it wasn’t moving very fast. Why weren’t you watching your back?

The repair-suit helmet the chief engineer issued to me didn’t have a working rearview camera display, Senior-lieutenant.

And you didn’t ask him for another? Glayd glared at her; she could almost feel the heat emanating from his eyes.

Yes, Senior-lieutenant. Izhidra said. I did ask him for a working helmet.

Glayd growled. Don’t make me dig for information any more than necessary, Sub-lieutenant. Just tell me what happened.

Aye, sir. The chief said all the other helmets were checked out because of multiple breakdowns in the drive section.

Did you log that in the record?

No sir, Izhidra frowned, seeing where things were heading.

Did you even ask for a mirror?

Izhidra stifled a moan. No sir. No excuse, sir.

Yes, Sub-lieutenant ... ‘No excuse’ is correct.

He snorted in disgust. I don’t understand, Sub-lieutenant. You are the smartest junior officer I’ve ever had under my command. You’re tough. You fight like a tazen cat, and you’re the best damn pilot on my squad even though you only completed flight training 25 cycles ago. It’s obvious to me your performance makes my squad’s rating look better. But how could you make such a basic strategic mistake?

Izhidra knew the answer to the question. She’d grown up where sentients didn’t have to watch their backs constantly. At the time, she’d thought to stay there forever—which was just another example of her naivety betraying her. But still, she wasn’t so stupid that she would try explaining that to Glayd. No excuse, Senior-lieutenant, she repeated.

Glayd’s glare softened a fraction. I don’t suppose a childhood on the southern continent prepared you for this brand of navy, even with Dezhidra DarkKnife for a mother.

He turned away and ran his hands over his face. "Sub-lieutenant, they’re accusing you of attempted murder because you locked them in the spine. Cameras in that section were all off-line during the time in question, so it’s