Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) (3 page)
Read Dominant Species Volume Two -- Edge Effects (Dominant Species Series) Online
Authors: David Coy
Tags: #dystopian, #space, #series, #contagion, #infections, #fiction, #alien, #science fiction, #space opera, #outbreak
“Damned rotten swamp.”
The blast shook the burrow in a single rumble that knocked him
down. The blast belched from the entrance and ripped the leaves from the
branches, sending them fluttering to the ground in a confetti shower of green.
He crawled in the burrow a ways to make sure it had completely
caved in. He didn’t think a Demolition Specialist could have done better. He
wished the act had given him more satisfaction.
He walked numbly back to the shuttle.
Much later, he slept a little more.
He thought briefly about doing as Carla suggested and sending
back fake survey data as a way to protect the planet. It would have been her
final wish.
He had a far better idea.
What he wanted was to see the planet scraped and dragged and
bulldozed and skinned until not one dram of copper or lead remained in its
rotten soil. He wanted the burrows of those giant bugs mashed flat and the
occupants gassed or irradiated by Bio-Control or crushed by the thousands under
the tracks of heavy equipment. He wanted the very climate to change from the
defoliation and to see huge sections of the shit ball laid to waste by drought
and wind in the years to come. He wanted the ocean to heat and everything in it
to die and sink belly up and rot to mud.
He wanted the whole planet to die.
He changed the data all right; he made the find look richer and
more valuable than it was. He turned it into a bigger plum; a literal gold mine
that would excite the ravenous greed of every money-grubbing opportunist in the
Commonwealth.
In short, he hoped and prayed that by the time year 3050 rolled
around, the entire planet would be dead; its blood-sucked corpse infested with
the absolute worst that Homo sapiens had to offer. He hoped the ball of shit
would become some mining “Center of Excellence” where new and exciting ways of
stripping and plundering and pillaging mineral wealth would be tested and perfected;
where blasting and pulverizing rock would reach the level of art.
Most of all, he wanted all life on the fetid ball to choke on the
fumes of human waste and to see the dead and dried carcasses of everything
that ever lived on it blown away on the wind.
Before he sent the data up to the orbiter, he exercised his
prerogative to name the shit hole. By law that right was reserved for those
who first landed on it and surveyed it. However, it was considered bad form for
someone who lacked real influence to name a planet, even if you had the right
by law. Such rights were reserved for executives and other VIP’s to be used as
political currency, not as perks for grunts like geologists.
This time he would make an exception. He didn’t care about the
consequences, and it was his right by law, goddamnit.
He looked at the field labeled
“Object
Name: WSXPSZ-56”
and remembered how Carla had complained about the
detached, cryptic and impersonal nature of the default planet names.
Not this time.
He pressed the edit key and typed VERDE’S REVENGE.
When he was just starting out,
Mike Kominski’s father told him he should do his best and be thankful he had a
job, no matter what. If a man does good work and works hard, then good things
will come his way, he’d said. That simple idea was his father’s rock. Stay neat
and clean and work hard. Be honest in your dealings and don’t lie. Show respect
to your boss and don’t steal.
When Mike came of age, his father helped him
negotiate his contract with the IRSG. Mike’s first assignment was working as a
Continuity Checker for a cable manufacturer in Cleveland. It was boring work,
but his contract went down a little each day, so he stayed with it.
His father got sick and died just two years
before his own contract was paid off. The last thing he said to Mike was be
glad he wasn’t working in one of the factories on the mainland. In order to get
your contract paid down in one of those places, you’d have to work fourteen
hours a day all your life in a hot, crowded place.
When his father died, the debt he left still
had to be paid off, and the remaining balance, fell on Mike, as the youngest
son. His only brother, fifteen years older than Mike, would share the debt,
only unofficially. Military duty, an official exemption from such indebtedness,
his brother would credit the account when he could, but would never let Mike
shoulder it alone. Together they could do it.
Mike was uncertified, and it would take years
to obtain certification in almost anything. He knew he would eventually earn
one; anyone with any ambition could do it. His lack of a certification and the
newly acquired debt of his inheritance made him an attractive commodity from an
employer’s viewpoint. The reason was simple: the more you had to pay down, the
weaker your bargaining position. Undaunted by that, and bored stiff by cable
ends, he took his contract to Richthaus-Alvarez, and they bought it right up.
He knew the contract wouldn’t be real good, but there were advantages to it.
Because he was uncertified and carrying a millstone, they could do just about
anything they wanted with him. He’d have to work hard, and there was no time
off in the first five years, but that was okay. Everything worked out for the
best. There would be opportunities ahead, and the chance to travel to distant
worlds was a big plus.
His first assignment with the company was as
a Maintenance Specialist Grade IV on board one of the massive transports. It
was filthy work, and Mike didn’t like working around toilets; but he did it
better than anybody. His supervisor was a good guy and took notice of Mike’s
hard work. As soon as he got the chance, he gave Mike a big reduction and got
him transferred to Transportation as a Light Expeditor, the promotion
confirming what Mike already knew: hard work always paid down.
The transport’s destination was General
Settlement’s new mining project on a planet called Verde. Mike had no idea
where Verde was, but he knew it was exciting anyway. No one in his family had
ever traveled off-world as far as he knew, not even his brother.
His quarters onboard ship were cramped and
grimy, but at least he didn’t have to share his sleeping quarters like he had
back home. The air was stale, and he didn’t like that much. The walls felt damp
when he touched them; and every morning when he woke up, the walls dripped
water as if they’d collected dew. The bed itself had a musty smell, but it was
still the best one he’d ever slept on.
Mike pulled his clothes on, washed his face,
combed his hair, brushed his teeth and headed for the commissary. The commissary
provided three meals per day, free during the trip. Next to the bed, the
commissary’s food was the best thing onboard ship. They had corn flakes.
* * *
Eddie Silk and a couple of other guys were
already there leaning against the counter with their arms folded, waiting for
Mario, the cook, to open up. Mario was always a little late; the guys were
always a little early. Eddie, just three years older, was Mike’s lead. Mike was
encouraged by the fact that you could get a leader’s contract at such a young
age in Transportation.
“Howdy, Mike.”
“Howdy.”
“I heard one of the riggers saying that Ed
Smith’s a real penny-pincher,” Eddie was saying.
“Yeah,” Nelson Santos threw in. “That’s what
I heard.”
“Yep. They say he’s a real hard-driving
sonofabitch, too.”
“I heard he cuts corners—doesn’t obey the
law,” Nelson added.
“Could be. Shit, you have to make the
schedule,” Eddie added.
“I also heard this was gonna be the biggest
installation ever. Bigger than Fuji-3.”
“I doubt that,” Eddie said.
“That’s what Dintler said.”
“Dintler’s an asshole. Fuji-3’s been going on
for twenty years already.”
“I’m just repeating what he said.”
“He’s a bullshitter, too.”
“They got cereal today?” Mike asked.
“They always got cereal, Mike,” Eddie said.
Mike leaned against the counter and folded
his arms, too.
“I heard there are man-eating plants on
Verde,” Nelson said.
“Who’d ya hear that bullshit from?” Eddie
wanted to know.
“I heard it from an Expeditor who knows one
of the Defoliators who was on the orbiter.”
Mike swallowed involuntarily.
“Do you believe everything you hear?” Eddie
asked.
Eddie gave Mike a look like Santos was nuts.
It put Mike at ease.
“Besides,” Eddie went on. “What do you think
the defoliators do? They defoliate. So if there were any
man-eating plants,
they’re dead now. Those defoliators kill everything. Plus, it would be
illegal to send us down without clearing away any goddamned man-eating plants.”
“Only if you obey the law,” Nelson persisted.
“Man-eating plants my ass,” Eddie said in a
huff.
They heard the clasps unhinge on the big
sliding door and turned around. The door rolled up noisily and slammed into the
stops with a rattle. Peter Ho stiffened at the noise.
“Who’s first?” Mario said, pointing a thin
finger at no one in particular. His apron was streaked and smeared with
foodstuff
* * *
They were scheduled to transfer to the
orbiter the next morning; so after his shift, Mike packed his things into his
bag and cleaned up his room as best he could. He didn’t want to leave it all
messy for the next person.
The transport docked with the orbiter, and
Mike got a good look at the planet from the gangway going over. It was his
first view of anything outside the ship in a month, and he spent a few minutes
just staring at the sight. The planet looked smoother than he thought it
would, and the silver band of ocean that wrapped around it made it look like a
big, hard jewel floating in space. He had expected the planet to look brighter,
friendlier than it was, not so spooky. It was dark green, almost black, with
patches of heavy white clouds scattered over it. He’d heard it was hot on the
surface. He didn’t like being too hot
.
* * *
They spent the next day moving their
equipment over to the orbiter and preparing all of it to go down to the
planet’s surface. Eddie knew exactly what he was doing, and Mike and the guys
were good at following orders so the operation went real smooth. They were the
second team of Light Expeditors from Transportation to go to Verde. According
to Eddie, as the project progressed and more and more contractors took up residence
on the planet, the need for Light Expeditors increased, too. Eddie was taking
the lead position on the planet itself but would report directly to Joan Thomas
who’d be the boss of all the Light Expeditors. Mike, Bruce Smith and Peter Ho
would join with Joan’s people for a full crew of seven for now. Their team
would have the job of moving all light goods and materials on the planet—food,
tools, clothing, toys—anything ordered through procurement that would fit in a
Number 10 container—would wind up on Joan’s dock to be distributed by her
department.
Mike thought the whole thing was just glorious.
Eddie told him the food would be great, but the best things of all were the
shelters. Used but clean, the shelters had built-ins and running water. And the
best part, the very best part, was that the law said only two people to an
entire shelter. He’d have more room to himself than he’d ever dreamed, his own
room and a shower.
“Do we get to order our own food, Eddie?”
Mike asked.
“Order? What’d ya mean order? Shit, we get
our pick of whatever we want. We don’t have to order nothin’.”
This job was getting better and better.
Except for the heat.
