by Scott Baron
Daisy's Run
The Clockwork Chimera Book 1
Scott Baron
Copyright © 2018 by Scott Baron
ISBN 978-1-945996-18-4 (Print Edition)
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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
But wait, there’s more!
Freebies
Thank You
Also by Scott Baron
About the Author
Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.
- Stephen Hawking
Chapter One
“Should we wake them? I mean, the ship is on fire, after all.”
Barry didn’t seem stressed. In fact, his voice rarely showed any extremes of emotion at all, though that was to be expected of a cyborg.
“It is a bit early, but yes, given the problems I am experiencing with my internal sensors and fire suppression systems, I think that would be prudent,” the disembodied voice of Malorie, the ship’s artificial intelligence system, replied. “Though I would like you on hand, just in case there are any issues cycling the crew out of cryo-sleep so early, and on such short notice.”
“Of course, Mal. Understood.”
The handsome flesh-and-metal man with sandy-blond hair rose from his seat in the control room and stepped into the double airlock leading to the central passageway network. Starboard Peripheral Corridor One would have been the faster route, but after the impact, with the possibility of undetected depressurization in any of the damaged and offline pod sections or one of the unmonitored inter-compartmental conduit routing spaces, he’d just have to take the long way. The inconvenience, he reasoned, was certainly preferable to being unceremoniously blasted into space.
The Váli was a sturdy ship, and she had only been nudged slightly off course by the collision. There was time to set things right, but sooner was far better than later. At the speed and distance they were traveling, “slightly” could easily become “a lot” quickly.
Normally Mal would simply right the course herself, diverting a fraction of her attention toward adjusting the maneuvering thrusters to gently ease them back on target. In the event of a fire of any significance, however, protocol required her to wake the crew of the Váli.
The ship’s unusual name had been taken from old Norse mythology, given to it by a cybernetically-enhanced engineer with a fondness for ancient texts. Váli, the son of Odin, brother of Thor. A god prophesied to survive Ragnarok, the end of times.
She was a fast ship, no doubt, and extremely nimble, when not laden with additional research, living, and lab pods locked to her support frame for such a long voyage. That bulk-saving performance, however, came at a price. The multiple layers of outer shielding found on larger, sturdier vessels—the kind that would have prevented such a minor impact from damaging them in the first place—were sorely lacking, and so it passed that the ship had succumbed quite spectacularly to what would have been an otherwise minor incident.
Barry reached midship quickly, his flesh-covered mechanical legs pistoning rapidly as he rushed down the corridor. It would have made sense in almost any other situation to have Mal simply deactivate the artificial gravity and propel himself down the passageway between airlocks, but with a potential fire inside a ship, well, you didn’t want something like that floating into unexpected places once gravity was gone. It was one of the only things keeping it reasonably contained.
“Mal, I am in the central passageway halfway to the cryo pods. However, I detect a pressure variance coming from the lower passageway. Are you reading damage?”
“No, but with the impact, it is possible my readings are off.”
“I shall divert my route down a level to assess what I can while en route to cryo.”
“Understood. My sensors are experiencing faults in that sector, but are picking up some variances that seem to correspond to your observations. Until all systems are brought back online I cannot be certain. I am concerned that one of the pods down there may be breached. If there is severe damage, we may have to disconnect and jettison it. Do be careful.”
“Affirmative. Heading to cryo via the lower passageway instead.”
Barry stepped onto the ladder leading down the long shaft to the lower deck. Again, he thought how much simpler it would be without the gravity engaged.
We must work with the situation we are presented, he always reasoned. This was no different.
The lower corridor he touched down in looked identical to the one above, as did the topmost level. The Váli was quite symmetrical in design, with a core framework of passageways, central, starboard, and port, running in parallel from stem to stern. Three identical passageways on three levels. If the ship jettisoned the myriad pods of various length and purpose that formed its living and work spaces, all of them interlocked and connected by airlocks, it would still remain a fully-functioning vessel, though a rather cramped and uncomfortable one for any organic passengers.
The mission-critical pods were located between the central and peripheral passageways and housed crew quarters, the galley, engineering, and, of course, the cryo-pod chamber. Those pods only connected to the central passageway and the port or starboard one, depending on which side of center they lay.
While every pod locked into the framework of the ship could be moved and rearranged depending on mission parameters, the basic configuration was typically the same. Some pods were longer than others, but the height and width never varied, allowing for a seemingly fixed size and unibody ship that was actually highly customizable to fit mission requirements.
The outer pods were designed for greater accessibility and had three connections instead of two. The airlock leading to the common passageway was located in the middle of each pod, regardless of length, while the airlocks connecting each external pod to the adjacent one were all mounted off-center, only a meter from the central wall.
While the outer wall had slightly thicker shielding protecting it from the harsh environment of space, should the unlikely event of an exterior layer breach occur, the off-center placement of the airlocks at each end was determined to provide a far greater likelihood of helping connected units survive intact.
Tedious as it would be cycling through each set of double airlock doors, if one truly wanted to, they could pass the entire length of the ship from pod to pod, avoiding the corridors entirely.
“I have located the problem,” Barry said matter-of-factly. “Debris has torn through Port Storage Pod Twelve.” He looked at the monitor flush in the wall beside the double airlock doors. “Extensive damage, but not catastrophic. The outer wa
ll, however, is breached. Recommend Level One Isolation.”
“As I feared. My scans are still non-functional in that section. Is nothing salvageable?” Mal asked.
“I cannot say for certain, but it would seem unlikely, at least not until we reach Dark Side base for parts. It does appear, however, that the pod itself can be salvaged.”
“Very well. Lower Port Twelve, isolating.”
No sound was heard through the thick doors as the airlock space between them was instantly flooded with flash foam. In under a second the pod was sealed off from the rest of the ship. Mal could have jettisoned it, blowing the external bolts holding it to the ship’s framework, but not now. Not if it could be salvaged at some point, and certainly not with the crew still in cryo.
“Proceeding to cryo pods,” the cyborg said as he made his way down the passageway to the next ladder and quickly ascended back up to the central corridor.
“Do hurry, Barry. On top of possible damage to an unknown number of pods and part of my sensor array, it seems the short-range navigation system is also damaged. I’m flying a bit impaired at the moment. Additionally, one or two stubborn little fires appear to be off sensors and evading the automatic suppression system.”
“Understood. I will make haste.”
Barry knew all the way to his base code that, while not too big a deal in planetary atmosphere, out in the vacuum of space, a fire on board a ship could pose a huge problem, and quickly at that.
“I’m here,” he said as he entered the cryo pod chamber. “Beginning cryogenic stasis awakening protocols. Spooling down neural stimulators.” He glanced at the readouts over the crew’s pods. “Mal, several are still in a deep neuro-stim cycle.”
“There’s little we can do. They must be woken.”
“Proceeding.” Barry’s hands flew over the control panels as the pods began cycling up. “Physio-stim systems increasing to eighty-five percent,” he noted as the crew’s muscles were gently triggered in a steady rhythm as they slowly emerged from cryogenic stasis.
The pulsing action not only maintained muscle tone while asleep, but helped keep their bodies ready for situations such as these. Just enough stimulation as they slept to keep them fit and stave off atrophy.
In a few experimental cases, the system had been used to build increased muscle mass in transit, but there were potential drawbacks, such as delayed-onset muscle soreness of epic proportions, often greatly hindering efficient performance of duties upon awakening. As such, the practice was largely avoided.
“Calorics have increased to eighty-five percent.” He stepped back and looked at the crew of nine as the systems slowly shifted states, rousing them from their long sleep as the pods unsealed with a soft hiss.
Daisy Swarthmore, the lean, twenty-five-year-old redheaded communications and electronics expert, was the first to wake, snapping to consciousness with a start.
“What? Who the hell—?” she croaked as her pod opened with a cold hiss.
“Daisy, it’s Barry. Don’t speak. You are waking from a deep cryogenic sleep. You need fluids. Drink this electrolyte pack, but slowly.”
She gratefully accepted the plastic pouch, cracking the top with a twist before eagerly sipping the contents. The feeling of soothing fluid in her throat was utter bliss.
“The crew is being woken from stasis early,” Barry informed her. His face was emotionless. Calm. “There was an impact. Some of the systems that have been compromised have also had their monitoring and control feeds damaged. Mal can’t see them on her scans, and I do not currently possess programming to affect repairs. This is one of your areas of expertise.”
Barry paused, assessing the groggy woman. Around the chamber, others were starting to rouse.
“Can you speak now? You’ve been in cryo for a long time. Your throat may still need time to adjust.”
“Yeah, I can talk,” she managed in a croaking voice. “Wait, where am I?” She looked around at the composite walls and artificial lights. A confused haze clung to her consciousness as she tried to clear her head.
This doesn’t look right, she mused, taking in the cryo lab around her. No, wait. I was walking down a beach. I was going home.
“Is everything all right?” Barry asked her, pausing his scan of her cryo pod’s vitals readout to survey the groggy woman.
“I was having a dream,” she said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“A dream? No one dreams in cryo,” Barry replied, eyeing her with an odd expression. “Perhaps it is merely data ghosting. I had to pull you from the neuro-stim cycle prematurely. That might be what you experienced. You have had many years of information fed into your mind as we traveled, after all. Do you know the crew roster? Your duties? All the relevant data for the voyage should have been trickle-fed through your neuro-stim unit during transit.”
Daisy looked at him, confused.
“You’re aboard the Váli. We’re still six months from the moon’s Dark Side base, orbiting Earth. I understand you may be feeling groggy or disoriented, but I really do need to tend to the other crewmembers. The cycle was not complete, and you are all still coming out of your stasis-sleep. The neural stimulators were—”
“What in the hell is going on with my ship?” Captain Harkaway bellowed as he lurched from his cryo-pod, yanking the physio-stim electrodes from his skin as he hopped to his feet. His metal leg impacted the floor with a jarring clang. From hip to tip, Daisy noted, his left leg was entirely mechanical. He rubbed a hand through his gray crew cut.
“Dammit, Mal, what’s the sitrep?” he growled to the ever-monitoring computer.
“We have experienced an unexpected impact, Captain,” the AI calmly informed him. “Short-range nav is down, multiple communications systems and sensor arrays are compromised throughout the ship, and there is unknown external damage. Port Storage twelve has been sealed, and we have been knocked slightly off course from the impact.”
“You’re designed to handle these things, why did you wake us up? Hell, you could have sent Barry out for that. The whole point of having a cyborg with us is he doesn’t have to go into cryo-sleep and can do—”
“There are also several small fires on board, and my sensors have been unable to detect them all.”
“Oh. Shit,” he said as a burst of adrenaline flooded his system. “Get the others up!”
“On it already, Captain, as per protocol,” Barry replied.
“I’m heading to the bridge.” He cast a curious look at the groggy tech. “Swarthmore, you all right?”
“What?”
“Daisy, are you with me?”
“Yeah. Just feeling a little weird.”
“It’s to be expected. Try to pull yourself together and get your head on straight. This is what you do. You’re the tech guru. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be needing your expertise once we get this whole burning-to-death-in-the-void-of-space thing under control.”
“Yes, sir.”
Daisy slowly slid to her feet, steadying herself on awkward-feeling legs.
“Mal, send a full report to my station in the command pod. Barry, get the others up and moving. If we’ve got a fire, I’m going to need every damn hand on deck, ASAP,” Harkaway barked.
A shining metal fist smashed through the hardened shell of the stasis-pod nearest the cyborg.
“Barry, handle it,” the captain grumbled, then stormed out of the chamber’s airlock doors.
The fist belonged to Tamara Burke, a sturdily muscled brunette with wisps of gray hair streaking her temples. Her entire right arm from the shoulder down was metal, thin seams and indentations crisscrossing the surface at the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints. Where the metal met her flesh, the foreign material seemed to meld to her body, a faint scar the only sign she wasn’t born with it.
Her metal hand began tearing free of the pod as if it were paper, not heavily-reinforced polymer.
“Tamara, calm down,” Barry soothed her from a safe distance.
She paused, the
stasis fog clearing from her head. A slight blush colored her cheeks.
“Oh hell. Sorry, Barry. Training. What the hell happened? I was mid-upgrade when you snapped me out. You know what can happen when you interrupt a neuro-stim cycle.”
“I am aware. However Mal and I concurred it was best to have the entire crew awakened at once. We suffered an impact, and there appear to be one or more unlocated fires on board.”
She rapidly scanned the chamber until her eyes fell on Daisy, standing unsteadily beside her pod and looking groggy, while the rest of the crew slowly clambered from theirs.
“Shit, you really did mean everyone. Hey, new kid. Good morning.” She nodded a greeting to Daisy.
“Hey.”
The occupants of two more pods sat up. One was a middle-aged olive-skinned man with thick black hair. Gustavo, Daisy found herself knowing instinctively. The navigator and third-in-command. The other man was in his early thirties and sported a short haircut and muscular physique. Vincent, the mechanic. The name came to her as he swung out of his pod and onto unsteady legs. He stumbled a few steps, clumsily stepping on Daisy’s foot as he nearly fell over.
“Ow!”
“Oops,” he said, regaining his balance and stepping back.
“You nearly break my foot and all you can say is oops?”
“Seemed appropriate.”
“How about, ‘Sorry’?” Daisy groused.
“Well, if you’d given me a chance, that would have come next,” he replied with more than a little snark.
