by Ryan Kirk
Contents
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Thank you!
Primal Darkness
Copyright © 2017 by Ryan Kirk
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Cover Design by: Andrei Bat
Edited by: Sonnet Fitzgerald
To Bryce
Who truly makes these stories possible
Tev looked out from the observation deck of the jumper Destiny, his breath taken away by the unimaginable vista. Stars, each one a tiny explosion of light, shone constantly at him. The change in appearance was such a small difference, but one that fascinated him every time he stopped to stare.
Back home, Tev had always liked to look up at the stars. He had memorized dozens of constellations. The sky was full of stories, myths, and legends. He had watched Lys chase the deer around the sky more times than he could count, and her never-ending chase had always comforted him. He could navigate by the stars, their lights and shapes as familiar to him as the weight of his knife.
But they had always twinkled back home. They had been alive, full of energy and vitality. Out here, in space, they were cold and unblinking, their light hitting his eyes as straight as an arrow.
Out here, he was lost. The constellations that had once provided him such familiar comfort were gone. His hunt had taken him so far even the sky had changed.
Every day Tev studied everything he could get his hands on. Part of him was driven by a desire to learn. He burned to know more about space and space travel. But there was more to his research than just curiosity. He was in a new environment, and if he was going to survive, to become the best hunter out here in space, he needed to master his new surroundings. Right now, Tev was prey. But it wouldn’t always be that way. He had learned how to hunt once, and he could learn again.
But learning how to hunt wasn’t enough. His studies kept him busy, but not fulfilled. His days were full, but his heart was empty. He missed his home, but more than anything, he missed his clan. He hadn’t been ejected from his clan, not quite, but he hadn’t been welcomed back either. The Destiny was where he lived, but the jumpship didn’t feel like home.
Tev compared his experience to the concept of being in orbit. He had learned that orbit was nothing more than a constant process of falling, like tripping and never hitting the ground. That was how he felt most days. He was falling and falling but never found the solid bottom.
Tev prayed, but for the first time in his life his prayers felt inadequate. He had prayed to Lys every day since he was a child, and he had been convinced that Lys always looked after him. But out here, his belief seemed so small. Could Lys watch over all the planets that existed? It was one task to watch over the hunters of a few clans, but to watch over all this space? Tev continued to pray every day, but where the tradition had once provided him comfort, now all it gave him was a few moments of silence to himself.
Even though he was with Kindra and the crew of the Vigilance, the dropship that had landed on his planet, Tev felt more alone than ever. He had always had his clan. Even if he wasn’t partnered, there were always people around who he trusted and confided in.
The crew he met on Destiny were kind enough. Everyone was interested in him, and the questions he received were driven by genuine curiosity. But he didn’t have the years of companionship, the experiences of shared danger, with anyone here. He was closer to Kindra than anyone, but there was a distance between them that Tev wasn’t sure could be bridged.
She might not have been able to watch, but she had heard the battle Tev held with her clan member. Although she knew Tev had done the right thing in killing Kenan, and had even helped him do it, she wasn’t a hunter. Tev could see the change in her, see how she doubted herself. He wanted to help, but she wouldn’t let him get close enough to speak about the events.
Derreck became the center of Tev’s new world. The captain of the Vigilance was healing, thanks to the greater skills and resources of the jumper. It would be some time before he was at full strength, but Tev took every opportunity to visit with the captain. Like him, the man was a hunter, but he was also an explorer and warrior. The language barrier was a challenge, even with the translators, but there was a shared understanding between them. Tev had killed Derreck’s clan member; but Derreck, unlike Kindra, had found peace with the events that had happened on Tev’s home planet.
Then there were the mysteries, the questions that had no answers, the questions he had never been forced to think about before. The day-to-day concerns he had once obsessed endlessly over seemed so small and insignificant now it was laughable. To think, his biggest worry had been if he could mate with Neera. Out here, in the vastness, what did that even matter?
Kindra said that he and her clan were related, but how could that be if they came from different planets? Tev couldn’t even begin to wrap his mind around the problem. There was no way they could be related, but they were.
Tev stared into the unblinking void of space, adrift between worlds.
Tev didn’t like the medicines that put him to sleep for the jumps between the stars. Kindra had explained why they were needed, but he still didn’t like that he was giving away control of his body, even if only for an hour. He had argued, but when he saw the fear in her eyes, he relented. She had explained the concept of jumping, the process by which jumpships leapt amazing distances across the stars, but she hadn’t been able to explain why humans needed to be asleep. All she could say was that jumping caused people to lose their minds.
At home, when Tev slept, he could wake instantly, a skill honed over years and years of training. As a hunter, it was essential to wake up and be aware in the same moment. With the drugs that was next to impossible. It took Tev a few minutes, at least, to bring his awareness back to full focus.
Those first minutes after he came out of jump sleep were miserable. After every jump he rolled out of his bunk as soon as possible, challenging his system to catch up. But he always had a hard time getting his feet under him, and his body always seemed to be a second behind the commands he gave it. He was used to his body’s instant response, and the inability of his limbs to keep up with his thoughts was beyond disconcerting. It was terrifying.
They had been jumping for months now. Despite the power of the jumpships, all humanity could do was crawl across the stars. Each jump could cover about a hundred light-years, but Destiny could only jump twice before she needed to stop to charge her capacitors. Combined with the fact that most jumpship captains liked to keep a jump in reserve in case of emergency, their progress had been slow.
Despite Tev’s inability to get used to jumping, and his general sense of being adrift, the past months had contained bright spots. He was learning more every day. On top of that, on the jumpship, he was well-known. At first, many of the crew had stared at him, but over time he had gotten to
know more of them. The language was sometimes a barrier, but the translator Kindra had given him back on his home planet had worked wonders in that regard, and Tev was learning their language quickly. Among those he was comfortable with he sometimes tried to speak their tongue without the aid of the translator.
What was more challenging were the concepts that governed Kindra’s people. There was so much he didn’t know, so much that Kindra’s people took for granted. Often Tev would have to stop someone and ask what they meant, and would have to keep asking until they could reduce it to the simplest terms. Even then, sometimes the concepts were impossible for him to understand.
One concept Tev found bizarre was the idea of money. In his clan all was shared. If one suffered from lack of food or water, it was only because the entire clan suffered from the same. Items were often traded back and forth, but Tev didn’t understand currency. He knew crew on the ship took the idea very seriously, but there was nothing physical that traded hands. No matter how many times the concept was explained to him, he still felt lost and confused.
It was endlessly frustrating. In the forests he called his home, he understood deep in his body what was happening. He could hear the call of the birds and know a predator was nearby. He could look at the tracks in the dirt and know, without a moment’s hesitation, what had occurred there.
But out here he was learning just how little he knew, and at times, his ignorance angered him. Too many people spoke to him like he was a child, and he recognized that by their standards he only possessed the understanding of a child. But they were foolish, too. Tev judged the crew of the Destiny by the way they walked, by the flabbiness of their skin. He may be a stranger in their home, but if their roles were reversed, the people here would need his protection.
At times the challenge made Tev want to give up. Those were the days when he wanted to go home and retreat into a comfortable existence. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. Tev’s only direction was forward, towards Kindra’s home planet. The moment of doubt would pass, and he would push even harder than before. He had always wanted to be the best hunter, and that meant perseverance. So although it was frustrating, he didn’t allow himself the luxury of sulking. Time and time again, he forced his mind open to understand new concepts.
There were other bright spots in his life too, and the brightest of those was that they continued to let him pilot the suit. He knew it had been a matter of fierce debate among Kindra’s people, but Kindra had fought for the privilege for him. The suit had been repaired, and all the weapons had been removed, but they allowed him to pilot it around the jumpship, and even a handful of times outside the ship.
Wearing the suit was the closest Tev came to pure bliss. His first experiences with it had been difficult, but as he had grown used to the power and feedback, the suit had become like a second skin to him, a skin that gave him power and ability beyond his wildest dreams. He had quickly adapted to the suit on the ship, but taking it out into space had been something else entirely.
They had matched him with another pilot, a hunter from another dropship like Kindra’s. The pilot was an older man, a man Tev had immediately liked. Kindra had tried to explain gravity to Tev, but he hadn’t truly understood until he went out the airlock, tethered to the older man.
Flying in space had taken more than a little practice, but Tev was learning quickly. At first, the emptiness of space had messed with his intuition, but he quickly learned the value of small changes in speed, and he had become intimately familiar with the laws of motion.
Like all of life, there were ups and downs, but Tev was finding a tenuous balance, a balance that was about to be upset again. They were approaching the frontier of Kindra’s people.
The jump had ended much like any other, but that changed quickly. Tev was, as usual, trying to get his body to respond to his commands when the lights in his bunk room flashed orange.
Tev noted the lights but kept practicing his movements. Kindra had drilled into him the importance of the lights, but her people were too cautious. He knew he was supposed to get into his bunk, but he didn’t want to interrupt his physical challenge. He didn’t want to waste a single jump of practice, and besides, all the warning lights he had seen so far had proven to be false alarms. There was no reason to think this would be any different.
Suddenly, Tev felt his feet come unglued from the floor, and he immediately regretted his decision. Deep in the ship, he could hear the hum he had learned to associate with the artificial gravity increase, and gravity returned to normal. Tev only fell a few centimeters, but his body was unbalanced, and he couldn’t command his legs to get under his center of gravity quickly enough. He fell roughly to the floor, grunting in annoyance.
A few seconds later, Kindra’s voice came though his earpiece, as Tev suspected it would. “Tev, are you okay?”
Tev fought the impulse to groan against the pain of his recent fall. He grimaced and spoke as normally as he could, glad she couldn’t see his face. “Yes. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, yet. But I got an order. They want you in your suit, now.”
Tev’s mind raced as he tried to put the pieces together. From the gravity changes, it was clear the old jumper had been forced to make a quick maneuver; but if there was any trouble, he didn’t understand why they would ask him into his suit. He knew, even if they never said as much, that the only real reason he was allowed to pilot was because they were testing him. He had never imagined he would be used in an actual situation.
Regardless, Tev would never say no to any opportunity to pilot the suit. “I’m on my way.”
Kindra took a few seconds to respond, and Tev imagined she was doing multiple tasks at once. It was behavior he had observed in her and her clan many times, and it still frustrated him. He couldn’t understand why they allowed the machines into their bodies. At best they served as nothing more than a distraction, but at worst, they were a desecration. When Kindra responded, her voice sounded as though she was somewhere far away, focused on something else. “Great. I’ll meet you there and help you suit up.”
Getting his feet underneath him, Tev stood and exited his bunk room. His mind was still a second ahead of his body, but he knew another minute or two would cure that. He could walk relatively quickly, and so long as there weren’t any more sudden gravity shifts, he would be fine.
The hallways of the Destiny were a nightmare. He had grown up in a world full of textures and sights, but here in the jumpship, everything was a flat gray color. Kindra told him that most people used the technology they had embedded to paint pictures over the hallways, making them appear to be all sorts of different passages. But Tev, unaugmented, saw only meter after meter of flat, gray hallway.
There weren’t even any directions in the ship. The crew relied on their implants to overlay their directions for them. Tev found the entire situation ridiculous. Kindra’s people relied on their technology far too much. If something ever happened to their electronics, they would be helpless.
It had taken Tev a long time to figure out how to find different places in the ship, and at times he still got lost, but he had no problem finding the room where his suit was stored. That was a route firmly stored in his memory.
He got there before Kindra, but didn’t waste any time. He had put the suit on dozens of times now and knew the order of operations. While she was still on her way, he began donning the suit.
Kindra arrived a few moments after he did. Without a word, she saw where he was in the process and jumped in to help. Together, they had him inside the suit in under a minute. The last piece was the helmet which settled over his head with a soft click and a hiss as the suit pressurized itself. The display came up in front of him, a minimalist display programmed for him by Eleta, the Vigilance’s technology wizard. It allowed him to focus on his own senses instead of the blast of visual information the pilots of Kindra’s clan preferred.
With the suit on, Tev waited for his orders. Kindra was doing the same. H
e could see her eyes flashing left and right, and he knew she was reading something coming across her vision. Mentally, he shook his head. There was a better way to live, but that idea was something they would never see eye-to-eye on.
Kindra finished reading and focused on him. “There is a ton of debris in the system we jumped into. The scraps weren’t large enough to trigger our warning systems prior to the jump, but they were large enough that the captain had to pull emergency evasive maneuvers in-system. It looks like a large ship was destroyed here recently, and there is a dropship broadcasting a distress beacon.”
Tev didn’t understand everything, but he understood enough. There was another ship in trouble.
“What do they want me to do?”
Kindra shook her head. “For now, nothing. A while ago they assigned you to the powered suit reserves for certain mission parameters, so the computer sent me an automated order for you. Other suits are on the rescue mission, but they are asking you to stand by.”
Tev nodded. Now that he was in the suit, he wanted nothing more than to move around, but he forced his body to be still. He imagined that he was out on the hunt, and that his success required patience and calm. He focused on taking deep breaths, holding them for a second, and then releasing them. When the moment came, he would be ready.
After a few minutes of his deep breathing, Tev entered a trance-like state. He was aware of everything but his own body, and his muscles relaxed. He lost track of time as he waited.
Kindra’s voice snapped him back to the present. “Are you sure, sir?”
There was a moment’s pause, and then she replied. “Yes, sir. Understood, sir.”
She looked up at Tev. “They need you. The rescue suits are working as fast as they can, but the rescue is going to be a close call. They’ve located survivors, but oxygen is running low in the space they are trapped in.”
