SCS Dark Star Read online

  Broad target selection. Happy hunting.

  When the long-extinct Rovania are found still alive, steps are taken to integrate them into the modern age. When the newly commissioned Space Corps Ship Dark Star reaches Earth to pick up crew, Astrogator Cai and Captain Nick Steele come face to face with a dream made real—actual, living Rovania.

  Veloki has no interest in abiding by the wishes of his superiors, he wants a human to play with, and the other Rovania feel likewise. Within hours of arriving on Dark Star, they agree to catch themselves some humans and show them what the Rovania do for fun. There’s more than one way to integrate.

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

  SCS Dark Star

  Copyright © 2017 A.C. Ellas

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-1672-0

  Cover art by Angela Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

  Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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  www.eXtasybooks.com or www.devinedestinies.com

  SCS Dark Star

  Astrogator 9

  By

  A.C. Ellas

  Chapter One: Mapping

  The ancient complex had a long and interesting history. Built during the second age as a bombproof military bunker, it hunkered deep under a mountain in the Rockies. During the third age, the complex had been inhabited by the now-extinct Rovania as they waged war upon the Q’Kathi. Since the alien Q’Kathi were open sky-loving creatures with a strong racial tendency toward claustrophobia, the complex had been the ideal place to hide from them. Archeologists had explored the complex more than once in the centuries since, but few traces of the Rovania occupation had been found. The cats had left a minimal imprint on their final home, but the mystery remained—for no bodies had ever been found. The Rovania had simply vanished without a trace, and that, according to the scientists, was impossible.

  Lieutenant Harskel wasn’t interested in the fate of the Rovania; she was there to map the complex in preparation for its renovation. Admiralty had selected this location as their new HQ since it would be impervious to any space-based weaponry other than a direct rodding. No planetary location was safe from a rodding, so if the Space Corps had to have a planet-based HQ, this complex was as good a location as they would be able to find anywhere on Earth. Just in case some new trace of the Rovania was found, however, the lieutenant had been saddled with a science team in addition to her Marines.

  Doctor Nikolau Demos, an expert in Rovani archeology, was the senior scientist present, leading a team of post-grad students. They were everywhere, looking at everything, taking samples, measuring things, and generally getting in Harskel’s way. Their latest idea was to scan for hidden areas, using a device that could “see” through rock for some distance. According to Dr. Demos, nobody had ever tried this technique here. Harskel had sourly given them permission to proceed, but her mood improved as she found that the science team was now working in areas that didn’t interfere with her Marines.

  By the time the first week was over, the Marines had completed their initial survey and were in the process of the more detailed examination of the spaces and ancient equipment left behind. They’d set up a base camp near the entrance, positioned so that nothing could get in or out without their notice. Harskel and the Marines were eating lunch when excited shouts drew their attention.

  When the shouts didn’t die down, Harskel stood and went to see what the ruckus was about. Half the Marines accompanied her. “Maybe they found something,” Sergeant Kisov said. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

  Corporal Smith almost bounced in place. “That would be amazing. Just think, the Rovania were here, living here, fighting here. Oh, I hope they’ve found something.”

  Harskel only shook her head. “I’m sure whatever it is, it’ll be nothing but trouble.”

  They reached the scientists, clustered about their scanner and talking animatedly in their native Greek at great volume and with much waving of arms and hands. Greece was one of the regions that taught their children the ancient, native tongue before teaching them Standard, the common language used throughout human-occupied space.

  Impatiently, Harskel interrupted them. “What’s going on? Have you found something?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Dr. Demos replied after a visible effort at calming himself. “The scanner shows that there is a great deal of empty space about three meters below us. We are trying to determine the extent of this lower level and to find an entrance. They had to have gotten in and out somehow.”

  “You’re sure it’s not natural, a cave or something?”

  “It’s too regular to be natural. Come, see.” Dr. Demos traced a line on the scanner’s screen. The tunnel was straight, even, without variance in diameter.

  “Keep scanning,” Lieutenant Harskel decided. “We have to know how extensive it is.” She shook her head. “Admiralty is going to have a litter of kittens over this. That layer isn’t on any of the schematics we have.”

  Additional scanners arrived the next day along with trained crews to run them, more experts at underground exploration and mapping, and another squad of Marines to guard the scientists. It took another week before the extent of the lower level was determined. It was a regular warren down there, far more extensive than the ancient bunker that lay atop it. There were hundreds of small chambers all connected by a veritable maze of corridors. Only part of the lower layer aligned to the original bunker, the warren was deeper within the mountain, and it appeared that there was no way in or out.

  This occasioned much discussion among the scientists as they compared notes each night. Most of the team wanted to keep searching for the original entrance. Others wanted to blast a new entrance straight down into the rock. Finally, one of the engineers pointed out that the original entrance had probably been sealed on purpose. There might be an area of concrete above the warren that was newer than the rest of it.

  The next day, the scientists confirmed that some of the concrete was much newer than the original material laid down by the ancients—but it was a wall that was new, not the floor. They scanned the other side of the wall and found a tunnel that ended in a shaft. Miners were brought in, and within two days, they’d cleared out the false wall, laying bare the one-meter wide, two-meter tall tunnel with rough-hewn walls.

  Harskel put her foot down at this point. “The Marines are going in first. God only knows what’s down there.”

  The scientists weren’t thrilled by this and argued far into the night. “This is a discovery on the same order as King Tut’s tomb, and you want to risk damaging any artifacts by sending a heavy-footed soldier down first? It’s not like there’s anything down there that can attack us. That warren’s been sealed and dead for centuries.”

  In the end, Harskel won, but with the stipulation that she send her lightest-foo
ted, most careful Marine first, with the first science team directly behind the soldier. Gonzales was selected. The trooper was a small man, only five feet tall and exceedingly graceful to the point where his fellow Marines often teased him.

  * * * *

  Gonzales slid down the tunnel, shining his light in every crevice, every wrinkle in the rock. He was in full body armor and had his own oxygen supply in case the air was bad in the warren, which had been sealed for an unknown length of time. He reached the dead end where the corridor widened into a sort of rounded space. According to the scanner, there was a shaft in the floor, but a thin layer of rock or metal covered it. The tunnel had appeared hand-carved, which amazed him to think of, but there had been clear intelligence behind the design, and he was sure that the Rovania would have arranged some way to access the shaft leading to their hidden lair.

  A wrinkle of rock, more irregular than the norm, caught his eye. He stepped over to it, it was hard against the wall, in the corner and easily overlooked by anyone entering. In fact, it was only visible once one turned around and faced back down the tunnel. He shone the light into the darkness below the wrinkle. There was a hole here, and at the bottom of the hole, there was a button set in a metal plate.

  Without hesitation, Gonzales reached down and pressed the button. He tensed at the low hum of distant machinery. A much closer and louder grinding noise nearly made him jump, and he felt his eyes widening as part of the floor flipped up, revealing the shaft, a meter-wide square plunging downward into the darkness.

  The scientists clustered about the shaft, shining their lights down into it. “Look, there’s a ladder.”

  “An ancient ladder,” Gonzales replied patiently. “It might not bear my weight. I have antigrav lifters in this armor, so I’ll go first.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Dr. Demos waved him on. “Just don’t touch anything once you’re down there.”

  Since that was at least the tenth time he’d been given that warning, Gonzales was hard put to not sigh or roll his eyes. He nodded curtly, squatted down at the edge of the shaft, and reached for the first rung. Step by careful step he descended, pausing on each rung and testing the one below, listening for any sound of rock breaking or metal creaking that might indicate the ladder was giving way. The ladder proved to be remarkably sound; he made it to the bottom without any trouble.

  He was standing in a square room, perhaps three meters to a side. There were three doors, one in each wall, with the ladder occupying the wall behind him. These doors were not concealed, but they were bunker-style metal doors with round wheels to control their opening. He toggled his radio and reported his findings. Dr. Demos soon joined him.

  “Try the left-hand door first,” the scientist requested.

  Gonzales turned to his left and spun the wheel. It turned easily, and the hissing sound of bolts retracting probably wasn’t really as loud as it sounded to him. His heart rate had almost returned to normal when the door swung open. He stepped through cautiously, prepared for anything. Either the door opening or his presence in the corridor triggered something. One by one, inset ceiling lights flickered to life. There weren’t many of them, they were spaced five or six meters apart, so the corridor remained dim but no longer pitch black. The corridor was empty but lined with the dark maws of openings to either side.

  He walked down the corridor to the first opening and turned to face it. A simple cloth curtain covered the opening. It was remarkably well-preserved. “The still air and low humidity protected it,” Dr. Demos said in his ear, making him jump.

  He glared at the man. “You’re supposed to stay back and wait for my all-clear.”

  “Sorry.” Dr. Demos didn’t sound at all repentant. He gently pushed the curtain aside, revealing the small chamber. There was a pallet on the floor, neatly made up. An open box to one side held equipment—a harness of some sort, a belt, some tools. A shelf above the pallet held a few books. Demos walked right in and took a glove out of the box. “This is a Rovani glove.”

  Gonzales joined him. “How can you tell?” The glove was fingerless, like some bikers preferred, but didn’t appear to be any different than modern gloves.

  “Here. These grommets in between the fingers.” Demos pointed out the metal ovals sewn into the glove. “The claws could emerge through these openings, the metal rings served to protect the clawbases. The Rovania used them for hand combat.” The scientist looked around the small chamber. “A Rovani slept here. Amazing.”

  “There’s a lot more of these rooms,” Gonzales pointed out.

  “We’ll be cataloguing these finds for years,” Demos replied cheerfully. He replaced the glove and motioned Gonzales onward.

  Chapter Two: Discovery

  In the weeks that followed, the scientists and Marines mapped the Rovani warren, marking the location of each chamber and denoting its probable purpose. They found artifacts of all sorts, not just clothing, but tools, weapons, ammunition, toys, musical instruments, cooking implements, even the mummified remnants of the pantry. What they didn’t find were bodies.

  They brought the scanners in again and discovered another layer below them. The entrance took a day to find and another day to clear since it had also been sealed with concrete. Here, they found the machinery keeping the lights on and the oxygen fresh—the tech was old but perfectly functional, even after all these years because it was mostly mechanical with few moving parts. A well-shielded reactor powered the computer which controlled everything.

  The scientists quickly realized, however, that the reactor was putting out a lot more power than could be accounted for. Where was all the energy going? That was the question on everyone’s mind. The lower layer was much simpler than the warren above, and it seemed that there should be nothing further, but on a hunch, the scanners went back to work and quickly discovered yet another level below.

  This level was the simplest of all and seemed to be comprised of only two chambers, one small and square, directly below them, and one very large and long, extending an unknown length into the mountain. There was no entrance or any place where concrete had been poured. There was an airshaft, a foot-wide cylinder set with metal grates every foot, and a power conduit, but that was it. They brought the miners in. A spot was selected—a corner of the small chamber—and a shaft was dug out over several days.

  Once again, the Marines went first. Gonzales was lowered slowly into the shaft. Kisov followed him then Smith descended. The three men swept the small room with their flashlights. Predictably, the lights came up. The room was empty and there was but a single door. They studied the walls and saw where a ladder had once been set—the rungs were gone but the holes they’d been set in remained.

  They went through the door into the larger chamber. The lights were already on. To either side of the doorway, the round ends of metal cylinders, stacked ten high, stretched the length of the chamber.

  “Stasis tubes!” Kisov gasped. “Hundreds of them!”

  “What?” Excited voices babbled over the radio. “Wait there!” Dr. Demos commanded.

  The Marines glanced at each other. “Let’s check them at least,” suggested Gonzales.

  Kisov nodded. The Marines advanced, pausing randomly to check the displays on the ends of the tubes. Halfway down the chamber, Kisov radioed up, “So far, they’re all occupied and all in the green. These sleepers live.”

  “These tubes are antique,” Smith added, “First, maybe second gen, at the most.”

  “That would make them hundreds of years old.”

  “Can anything survive in stasis that long?”

  “Theoretically, yes. It’s just never been tested for obvious reasons.”

  “What do we do now?” Kisov turned back toward the entrance. “There aren’t any windows or cameras or anything that would let us get a look at them from the outside. For all we know, they could be Q’Kathi—these are Q’Kathi tubes, from the markings.”

  “We should open one,” Dr. Demos
said, emerging from the entry room. “Just one, to start with. I agree we should be cautious... but these aren’t Q’Kathi, they’re Rovania. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Lieutenant Harskel said with surprising gentleness. “It could be a bunch of rich humans who think they can cheat death by sleeping until cures for their ailments can be found.” Several caches of just such a thing had been found over the centuries, lending credence to her words. But everyone wanted it to be the Rovania.

  “That one,” Dr. Demos decided, pointing to a random tube on the ground level.

  * * * *

  Yeraki blinked at the ceiling. It refused to come into focus. Where am I? he wondered dazedly. He did not feel well. His stomach was queasy, on the verge of outright rebellion. His bones ached. Someone was using a jackhammer on his skull. His mouth was as dry as the Sahara. Oh, that’s right. Stasis tubes. We decided to hide in the stasis tubes to wait out the backlash. This led, inevitably, to the next important question.

  Why am I awake?

  It took an enormous effort to move, but he had to know what was going on. Who had found them, friend or foe? It wasn’t an academic question, his entire species was under a death sentence. Their human allies who’d remained awake had sworn to return when the backlash against them had died down and it was safe for them to emerge. He hoped that was what was going on here, despite the lack of friendly faces when his tube opened. His tube had been set to cycle automatically if the lights were tripped. Only something with the mass and heat signature of a human would be able to trip those lights, so if the lights were on—and they were on—they’d been found.

  He crawled out of his tube. Every muscle in his body protested the motion, claiming abuse. He ignored them. He crept to the edge of the platform and looked over the edge. Humans. Too far away from him to identify by scent, the airflow was top-down, unfortunately. The humans were in uniform. It wasn’t a uniform he recognized, but it screamed military to him. That complicated the situation. These were not people who could just disappear. If he killed them, there would be a response. Other humans had to know where they were. They would come looking should these fail to report in. The humans might never forgive the death of their soldiers.