by Jack Porter
Survivors
A Lost World Harem
Jack Porter
Ink Riot Books
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Afterword
Books by Jack Porter
Chapter 1
“Cryo pod integrity breach. Emergency resuscitation procedure commenced.”
It was the first thing I heard when I started to come back to myself. A metallic voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once, and which repeated itself again and again, almost as if it was some form of alarm.
At the same time, I felt a burning sensation, like a fire being lit inside me, as a cocktail of chemicals was dumped into my veins.
My skin burned as if I had been dropped in acid. I felt nauseas and sweaty, and my head was throbbing to the tune of my fast-beating heart.
Somewhere in the back of my brain was the idea that I might have been hanging suspended at an unusual angle.
Within the confines of my cryo pod, I took my first gulp of air in what might have been months and almost choked on the acrid, smoky taste it left in my mouth.
“What the fuck?” I grumbled, still not fully in control of myself.
“Cryo pod integrity breach. Emergency resuscitation procedure commenced.”
I frowned. The chemicals burning their way through my veins were sparking life back into my flesh, but it was far from pleasant.
On earlier journeys, they’d made me nauseous, but this was worse. Almost as if the resuscitation procedures had been accelerated.
I shook my head, grimacing in discomfort. “Let me out of here,” I grumbled, instinctively trying to move, to fling the cryo pod open and climb out.
It was then I remembered my restraints. That my wrists were bound by thick chunks of metal with a length of chain joining them, that length of chain strung behind me so that my own weight prevented much movement.
My ankles were bound in much the same way, the chain connecting them long enough to allow me to hobble about, but not to run.
And that chain was bolted to the cryo pod itself.
“Cryo pod integrity breach. Emergency resuscitation procedure commenced.”
I grimaced again, trying to block out the noise, trying also to figure out what was wrong, even as the feeling returned to my limbs at a much faster pace than it should have done.
I coughed, choking on the smoky air, and I finally remembered to open my eyes.
Instantly, a flood of data appeared before me, a barrage of information about my immediate surroundings, courtesy of the augmentation I had been given. I made a groaning sound, jammed my eyes shut once again and shook my head in an effort to clear it.
“Too much,” I muttered. “Too much.”
Too much for my drug-addled brain to process, too much, too soon. I mentally toggled the off switch, grimly aware that the only useful piece of data I had taken on board was the ambient temperature.
57°C. 135°F.
Much too hot for comfort, and in a temperature-controlled cryo pod, such temperatures should have been impossible.
“What the fuck?” I said again.
I blinked the sting of smoke away from my eyes, and for the first time since they’d closed the lid on me, I looked, really looked around, peering through the clear, crystal screen in front of me.
Somehow, I was no longer hurtling through space at a fraction under lightspeed.
Instead, I was on the ground, upside down, on an angle where my feet were higher than my head, with the burning remnants of the transport scattered around me.
The part of my mind that was capable of something like humor chose that moment to join the rest of me and wake up. As if being chained and transported to God knew where wasn’t enough, this was how I had to wake up.
It had to be some sort of joke. A cosmic joke aimed directly at me.
What fun.
I found myself thinking that perhaps it would have been better if the cryo chamber had simply let me continue to sleep. But such was not in its programming.
I drew a deep breath and tried not to choke on the smoke.
“Fuck me,” I said. “Let me out of here!”
I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. Just expressing my most urgent need. If I’d had the use of my hands, I would have hammered away at the pod cover with all of my strength.
But I didn’t have the use of my hands. Not with the chain around my back as it was. And the pod wasn’t huge. I had about the same amount of space I would have had if I’d been stuck in a coffin.
The best I could do was squirm around inside, trying to change position so that all of my weight wasn’t resting on my face.
In desperation, I started to yell.
“Help!” I called, coughing and hacking into the smoky air as I did. “Is anyone out there? Help!”
I kept shouting, calling out over and above the pod’s mechanical, repeated message, all the while trying to ignore the first hints of fear crawling up my spine.
I might actually be stuck in this pod for the rest of my life. And that life might be measured in minutes.
“If anyone is out there, fucking help me! Let me out of here!”
I didn’t need my readouts to tell me that the flames were getting closer. It was hotter in the pod than it had been even just a few seconds before, and I could sense the flames starting to lick all about me.
The cryo pod’s mechanical electronic voice was driving me mad, so I growled at it.
“Shut up!” I said, and to my immense, immediate surprise, it obeyed.
I felt my first sense of real hope. Maybe I could get out of there after all.
“Pod, open!” I bellowed.
Hidden servos struggled to work, but then the pod’s irritating electronic voice returned.
“Unable to open,” it said.
“Figures,” I said.
I could have gone crazy. Could have thrown my strength about in the pod as best as I could. But that route only led to bruises and me using up more oxygen than I would like, given how foul the air was around me.
Likely, I would quickly lose consciousness, and that would be it. Game over.
Adam Mayfield, Rest In Peace.
And the secrets I carried would be dead and buried along with me.
Instead, I forced myself to relax. To think as clearly as I could in the increasing smoke.
To breathe.
The cryo pod was pretty standard, a wonder of technology while at the same time pretty simple in construction.
Way back when they’d first been invented, they’d been a medical marvel, and as invasive as hell. There were tubes that went everywhere, deep into the airways, up your urethra, and your ass as well, courtesy of a medical butt-plug that all by itself served to discourage more than a few potential travelers.
Sensors would be attached to a million different places so that the
cryo pod could keep track of everything that mattered and then some.
Now, there was nothing like that. The sensors were still there, but hidden within the cryo pod itself. And the whole process was much less invasive.
There was an IV line for the chemical cocktail, and that was about it. The cryo pod did the rest.
At the start of a journey, the passengers would lie down on a foam, form-fitting pad that was almost comfortable, and they would drift off to sleep.
For me, that form-fitting foam pad had taken the shape of not just my back, but the chain that held me as well. If I’d been lying flat, my weight would be even now pressing the chain into the foam, making it that much more difficult to move.
But I wasn’t lying on my back. I was dangling, most of my weight caught on the chain at my ankles, with the rest of it taken up by my face.
There were a good couple of inches between my back and the foam.
Which meant that perhaps I did have a chance after all.
“Let me out of here!” I bellowed once more, just in case there was someone nearby who could help.
Then, I very deliberately twisted my left arm, the one with the IV line and it, so that my hand was as far behind my back as I could reach.
This gave me a bit of slack to play with. With the front of the pod allowing me only inches to work with, I brought my right arm up as high as I could, scrunching my shoulder and elbow in close, maneuvering the chain to the outside.
I had a rough moment when it felt like I wouldn’t be able to twist far enough, when it seemed that the chain connecting my wrists wasn’t quite long enough. I was a big man, bulky and strong, but surprisingly flexible as well, and this was a life-or-death situation.
I forced my left arm even higher behind my back, jammed my head into my elbow, and actually snarled as I forced my right arm between my head and the pod.
Then I twisted my left arm even more, and brought my right arm down.
With the smoke starting to become intolerable, stinging my eyes in the pod even as the temperature continued to rise, I let out a chuckle.
I’d done it. The chain was no longer pinning my arms to my sides. It was no longer jammed behind me.
I’d managed to bring it in front of me so that I could now use both of my hands.
Now came the test. Man against machine. Soft, spongy human tissue against unyielding, durable steel.
The pod’s own servos couldn’t open the lid, not with the pod on such an angle.
In truth, I knew that normal human strength wouldn’t be enough to allow an escape, either.
But I was far from normal.
I figured I might have a chance.
With that thought in mind, with my lungs filling with smoke, I hammered away at the cryo pod lid with all of my strength.
Chapter 2
It took maybe five minutes before the first cracks started to appear.
Throughout all of that time, the internal atmosphere of the pod grew more and more hostile. The heat became unbearable, to the point where I was convinced my exposed skin was starting to blister, and the smoke grew thicker and more acrid.
I swore as I pounded the sides of my fists and my forearms—including the metal cuffs that bound me—against the unyielding surface, and I didn’t care if the flesh of my fists grew numb with the treatment I gave them.
As soon as the first cracks appeared, I redoubled my efforts, alternating pounding with doing my level best to force the lid open.
What’s that old line about an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object?
I didn’t know. Nor did it matter. All that mattered was that I was the unstoppable force in this case, and the cryo pod lid wasn’t such an immovable object after all.
The cracks grew wider beneath my efforts, and if the lid didn’t shatter completely, then at least I was able to bend the top part of it over.
If anything, the temperature grew even hotter without the full protection of the pod. I could see and feel the flames of the fire nearby, could sense that I had only moments if I was to avoid experiencing what it felt like to be a piece of meat under a blowtorch.
But at least the air was clearer. At least I could breathe something other than ninety percent smoke.
I did so, and, with a convulsive heave, shoved the lid clean off the cryo pod.
Or at least, that’s what I would have done if it had been resting the right way up. As it was, I effectively pushed the pod base back and out. The pod had been precariously balanced, so it toppled, clattering me about within it before settling flat on the ground.
To my sudden horror, the lid crashed back down into place.
“Fuck,” I said.
But it wasn’t too bad. I’d broken the catch, and broken the lid completely. All I needed to do was fling it back open, and then I could rip the IV line out of my arm and hurl myself away from the burning wreckage.
Except that I couldn’t. The chain binding my ankles together was fixed to the cryo pod itself. The best I could do was tumble out, sitting with my ass on the ground, the flames of burning wreckage all about me, my feet still held dangling over the end of the cryo pod.
“Fuck!” I bellowed again.
I looked around for some sort of tool, but the best I could find was a chunk of rock next to my fist. Everything else was burning, completely useless to me, just as I knew the rock would prove to be as well.
I could pound that rock against the hardened steel alloy for a thousand years and all I’d manage to get for my efforts would be a palm full of pebbles.
The chain would be completely undamaged.
“Fuck me,” I said, and I knew that if I couldn’t think of something pretty quick, then I was as good as done.
In increasing desperation, I considered dragging the whole fucking pod with me out of this burning ruin. Perhaps I would have succeeded. I’ll never really know.
Because before I gave in to that desperate thought, I had another.
This cryo chamber had already proven itself responsive to direct verbal commands. None of the other cryo chambers I’d ever seen came equipped with the same sort of latch this one had, to keep my chains in place. Yet it didn’t seem to be a custom modification.
The latch seemed to be part of the original design.
Which meant that maybe I could order it to let me go.
“Cryo pod, unlock prisoner restraints,” I said.
“Denied,” came the immediate metallic reply. “Unlocking of prisoner restraints requires custodial clearance.”
Fuck, I thought. The flames were so close that I could feel them licking over my shirt at my shoulders. I shrugged away as best as I could and tried again.
“Emergency override! Unlock me!”
It seemed that the AI governing the pod was thinking it over.
“Override requires life threatening emergency. Is such an emergency occurring?”
“Yes! Emergency confirmed! Unlock me! Do it now!”
After what seemed to be an eternity, I heard a servo engage. Two seconds later, the lock opened, and I was free.
Not free from the chains. I still wore them around my wrists and ankles. But I was free from the pod.
I didn’t hesitate. As quickly as I could, I spun about and focused on a gap in the flames. As fast as I could, I hurled myself toward that gap, not bothering to stand up, just galloping on my hands and knees like a beast, caring only that the skin on my hands and forearms was starting to blister, that I could smell the stench of my own hair starting to burn, and that my shirt had already caught alight.
In seconds, I was through the worst of it and out onto the lands beyond.
I kept going until the heat of the fire had faded, then threw myself on the ground, rolled onto my back, and kept rolling until the flames on my shoulders were gone.
Then I lay there, breathing hard, the sweat starting to sting on my face, my eyes scratchy and painful.
I coughed the last of the smoke from my lungs and looked up into the sky.<
br />
“Fuck,” I managed.
I lay there, not moving, for long enough to bring my respiration and heartbeat under control.
Idly, I gazed at the numerous moons in the sky, visible even in the bright daylight. One of those moons was close and massive enough that it could have been a sister planet. That huge world was uneven, a long way from spherical. It was as if its own gravitational forces hadn’t had enough time to pull it all into shape after some long-forgotten catastrophe.
Between the moons, the sky was perhaps a lighter blue than Earth normal, and the only clouds I could see were delicate wisps dotted here and there.
It was my first chance to stop and think, and I wondered what had happened.
A catastrophic failure of some kind, that much was clear. Yet to even find myself on solid ground was a spectacular piece of cosmic good luck.
The emptiness of space was no joking matter. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, such a critical failure would have resulted in me being nothing but space flotsam, destined to float in the void forever.
I chuckled quietly to myself. Yes, I’d been lucky. Not just to survive the impact and to manage a way out of the pod, but also by the sheer fact that this world, wherever it was, contained a breathable atmosphere at all.
All I needed now was for that luck to continue to the point where I could find a steady supply of water, and food, and I might have a chance.
At this thought, I laughed even harder. Who was I kidding? With my arms and legs bound as they were, my chances of actual survival were far lower than they ought to have been.
I needed to find some way to remove them.
