Pirates of Saturn (The Saturn Series Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Part One - The Help No Re-Entry

  Space Is Hard

  Whales

  Soul

  Rock-em-Sock-em Robots

  Auction

  A Reason for Being

  Sedition

  Part Two - Bandits, Pirates, and Raiders — Oh My! I Covet Your Sh_t

  Germs

  The Art Of Appropriation

  Marooned

  Damn Crab

  Impressment

  The Floating Island

  Breadcrumbs Always Lead to Trouble

  Come On In, The Water's Fine.

  Initiation

  Part Three - Freedom's Just Another Word Sisters

  The Plank

  Speechus Interuptus

  Exit Stage Left

  Club Fled

  A Wrench In The Works

  Friends Helping Friends

  Get Offa My Moon

  Initial Moves

  Treachery Can Be Treacherous

  So Many Too Many

  Dear Reader,

  Originally written to stand alone, Bastion Saturn touched a nerve with enough of you that I regularly received requests for a sequel. At that book’s publishing I was only just embarking on the third book in the Of Sudden Origin series, therefore pushing such fanciful notions to the back of the line (with the exception of a short novella to keep my brain in the Saturnian loop). For those of you who waited diligently, I appreciate your patience.

  Thanks once again to Chance, Peter, Robert, Dono, and my most critical critic, my wife, Joyce.

  For those in need of a brief refresher:

  Our tale left off with Caleb, Jennifer, Spruck, Natalie, and Saanvi having survived certain horrible death while in the clutches of Henry Lo and Wang Fat Industries. Saved by their sentient robot friend, Bert, they then became the victims of AI and the robot Samantha as she spread a nano-assault across the Titan city of Hanson. Bert, immune to this attack, selflessly sacrificed himself for his friends, thereby releasing Caleb to save the rest of the day.

  Having initially gone their separate ways, the five friends reunited with an eye to working together full-time.

  Pirates of Saturn

  Copyright © 2019 Christopher Harwood/ Fate & Fortune Press

  cchaseharwood.com

  [email protected]

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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

  Other Novels by C. Chase Harwood

  Bastion Saturn

  The Last Rats - A Bastion Saturn Novella

  Of Sudden Origin

  Children Of Fiends

  A House Divided

  The Ouroboros - A Novella

  PART ONE

  The Help

  NO RE-ENTRY

  THE SPACESHIP ROBINSON Apartments looked tired as it entered the edge of Earth’s nightside magnetosphere. The Hanson building appeared distressed from its long journeys to Saturn, then home again. Years of contact with micro-meteors had left the big white ship scarred, like the skin of a fabled white whale.

  The occupants were a mixed lot from all nations and many walks of life… well… the walks which provided a comfortable living, anyway. They were well educated and intellectually broad-minded, mentally healthy, but deeply unhappy. After facing the cold harsh reality of deep space, rather than slugging it out in the Saturn System, these ex-pioneers concluded that they would prefer to be inextricably mated to AI and the hive mind that was the population of Earth.

  Long before a robot named Samantha arrived on Titan and staged an assault with a nano-virus, the Robinson Apartments had left the Saturn System for the return flight home. Like pioneers in 19th Century America, some just weren’t cut for the rigors, and paid dearly to go back to civilization. The passengers on this return trip had endured years of hibernation to escape Earth and start a new life far away on Saturn’s moons. They’d landed and inserted their spaceship/apartment building into Hanson City grid Avenue E and 3rd Street, only to pull back out three months later and blast off to return home. Prior to this onetime-only event, suicides were the only method for a self-directed exit from the Saturn System. For these returning passengers, the postcard romance of a pioneering life clashed abruptly with the reality that there is no place like home.

  With suicides becoming epidemic, Bez Hanson agreed to the loss of a building. This would be the only ship back. The cost of return was billed at the full rate of the flight out to Titan. Despite this exorbitant price, every single apartment/hibernation chamber was claimed within a day, and a lottery system had to be implemented to avoid rampant murder.

  Captain Kelly Peel was the first to be woken as the Robinson slowed to its pre-programed stopping point — a geo-synchronized orbit around Earth. An android assistant helped her through the hours-long recovery period as her body was warmed and infused with a cocktail of drugs that brought her brain and internal organs back to full function. Throughout the ship, in each individual apartment, the same process was taking place; thousands of men, women and children were slowly becoming aware that they were almost home.

  Not for the first time was Captain Peel grateful for zero G as she came out of deep sleep. On Earth she would’ve needed a wheelchair. She glanced at the Mark IV nutrition injector strapped to her arm; the machine would be with her for days as her stomach was slowly reintroduced to actual food. Despite a drug that was supposed to offset it, the long empty organ nevertheless made urgent protesting noises. She also felt incredibly weak, as though her arms and legs were made from stretched-out rubber bands. Although she’d been nestled in the best hypersleep technology ever invented, her muscles had atrophied. Like nearly every other analog who’d left Earth to stay fully human, she didn’t have the benefit of nanobots coursing through her body to counter the effects. She thought about trying to walk on Earth’s surface again and almost laughed at what a chore it would be. Nanos were in her future now. She’d agreed to captain this ship knowing full well that she would have to accept being co-opted into the now singular organism that were Earthlings. The display in front of her with the word ARRIVAL rammed this notion home. Home: just a cleared-to-land order, then still a day away. She wondered how long it would take for her and everyone else on the ship to be… She shivered at the reality she faced. No backsies. AI didn’t look kindly on backsies. Her future was irrevocable, like a tattoo on the face, but instead within the mind.

  WTim567, her personal robot, noted her grumbling stomach. “A sip of nutritional jell might be in order now, Captain.”

  “First things first, Tim. I need to send a friendly greeting. Don’t need AI getting trigger-happy.” She noted her speech was slightly slurred as she focused on the big screen that stood in for an actual windshield. That was a bit worrying. Yes, she’d only been reanimated for less t
han a day, but like the rest of her musculature, her tongue and jaw muscles should have been routinely exercised with mild electrical stimulation while she slept. Micro strokes were not uncommon during long bouts of hypersleep. Like the bulk of the passengers, she’d hardly had time to recover and acclimate after the trip out before going back under for the return. She’d have to run herself through a full diagnostic after completing the next steps. She touched the soft pad on the arm of her pilot’s seat and thought about the screen and the various angles the external camera arrays could provide. Blue light filled the command space. Her dry eyes stung and blurred over as she looked at the massive screen and its central image of Spaceship Earth. Like countless others, she’d watched it recede as the Robinson Apartments pulled away from orbit a little more than four years before. Only now did she fully appreciate the fragility of her home. Only after experiencing the vastness of outer space, and observing the frozen gray rocks that made up the bulk of Earth’s utilizable celestial neighbors, did she truly understand the living miracle that was her home planet? If nothing else, the trip to Saturn had convinced her of one thing: Space was dead. It could be beautiful, it could be wondrous, but it was dead. Even the magnificent and mind-bogglingly complex systems that Bez Hanson had created were, when compared to home, but a few struggling plants clinging to a few lifeless rocks—bubbles of viability with nothing but harsh void beyond. Earth was life, and as far as she was concerned, it was irreplaceable. For everyone on the Robinson that fact alone made it worth accepting The Singularity.

  The Robinson’s repeated hailings weren’t resulting in a response. The apartment building/spaceship was too large for re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere. She needed orbiting coordinates and a shuttle schedule. Before leaving Titan, the Robinson had made several attempts to reach out to Earth to inform her collective residents that the ship and its occupants were on their way. The log showed that none of these broadcasts had been met with a response, nor from any of the additional broadcasts sent out weekly during the long cold trip through nothing. She frowned at this, but continued on with the arrival procedures. The ship’s sensors indicated plenty of human activity below. Per the exit agreement with Hanson industries on Titan, she checked to make sure her ship was sending video and audio of their Earth arrival and reception back to Saturn.

  The bridge door opened and her co-pilot, Dwi, entered with the assistance of his own robot. “Hello, Boss. Long time no see, though my memory makes it seem like yesterday.” Dwi’s speech sounded clear, almost peppy. He continued, “How you feeling?”

  “Um. Good. Stomach is doing some gymnastics.”

  Dwi noted her slight slur and scanned her face. Captain Peel looked stiff on one side. He glanced at her robot for confirmation. WTim567 offered a slight nod, acknowledging what Dwi heard and saw was something to be reckoned with.

  Peel spoke for the bot, saying, “Yes, I’m aware of it. I’ll get checked out after we establish contact.”

  Dwi nodded and leaned back as his robot helped buckle him into the co-pilot chair. “Weird, huh? The time? Really seems like yesterday when you and I last spoke. Well…” He stretched and massaged a shoulder. “…Yesterday, and after a bunch of hooligans roughed me up.” He absently massaged his thighs then nodded at the image of Earth. “So no word?”

  “Nothing. Not for the entire flight back.”

  Dwi frowned. “That’s…disconcerting.” He scanned the various diagnostic readouts. “Doesn’t look like anything’s gone wrong, Allah be praised.”

  Captain Peel nodded while looking at her own stats. “Scans aren’t showing anything unusual in the atmosphere. No major radiation for instance. Definitely picking up large amounts of electromagnetic energy. I can’t tap into any communication though—entertainment, government or otherwise. Seems they’ve been busy shielding things.”

  “Hmm. Shielding from what?”

  “Us, I guess. Closed the door to the party so to speak. Saturn folk not invited.”

  Dwi nodded slowly, looking at the blue ball on the screen, and considered the need or desire to do such a thing. He took a deep breath. “So beautiful.” Tears rimmed his eyes. He glanced at his humanoid robot for commiseration and received a slightly confused stare in return.

  The machine ran a quick calculation attempting to find an appropriate response. “The air in here reads a tad stuffy, sir. Would you care for a tissue?” Dwi chuckled. “That’s OK, Gina.” He wiped at the tears, flicking them to float away.

  Peel tapped at her armrest pad and a cascade of data went up on the screen, overlaying the image of Earth with hot zones of electromagnetic energy. “Concentrated in cities. Hopefully, human. Speaking of…” She shifted the view on the screen to multiple internal video feeds. Throughout the breadth of the ship the passengers, with the assistance of hundreds of humanoid robots, were slowly coming around — their minds lighting up with the notion of home, the smell of real air, water, plants, animals, food, fire, smoke, the Sun’s warmth, a winter’s cold. It was all within reach, all but a day’s trip away. It occurred to Peel that the sensations that they all longed to reconnect with would be supplanted by an artificial version. Once connected with the Singularity, most would find it impossible to disconnect enough to seek out an actual waterfall and feel the mist of it on their faces. Such was the new nature of mankind on Earth, the notion of which they had all paid so dearly to temporarily escape.

  “I’m going to try the personal touch,” said Peel. She slipped on her pilot’s helmet. “Port Los Angeles. This is the good ship Robinson Apartments inbound from Titan with a full manifest of citizens who wish to return to the fold. Please respond.”

  Far below the stationary Robinson, Mount Kilimanjaro wore a fresh dusting of early spring snow. Moon glow brushed across the frozen crystals, creating the impression of a mountaintop crowned with diamonds. It had been decades since the African monument had received any frozen precipitation, but with the drastic cutting back of human-produced greenhouse gases combined with a sun-reflecting nano-layer in the upper atmosphere, the majestic mountain was beginning to appear as it had in its halcyon days. The last tourist had reached the zenith a few years prior. Men’s triumphant footprints were now long scoured away by the elements.

  On a pillbox-sized building nestled into the mountain’s zenith, a panel slid back along its roof revealing a super-cooled 2 petawatt laser-weapon. There was a deep humming sound from within, and the top layer of snow nearby shifted slightly with vibration. The device fired for 10 picoseconds into the night sky. 500 milliseconds later, the pulse ran into the bow of the Robinson and vaporized a path through its guts, exiting through the liquid/solid-propellant fuel-ball at the stern of the ship.

  Captain Peel was briefly cognizant of her tumbling inside what seemed like a waterless wave. She caught Dwi’s eyes and saw the confusion registering on his face. WTim567 spun past her, its expression passive, as if it was merely standing up to a stiff breeze.

  Before winking out, the big screen showed multiple video feeds throughout the ship as an assortment of awakening humans suffered a similarly abrupt change in perspective, their minds registered confusion, and for an unlucky few, terror.

  A rapid cascade of rips, tears, explosions, oxygen fires and hydrogen bursts, shattered the ship into the equivalent of mylar confetti, mixed with the remains of 16,620 men, women, and children — a torrent of callous action now floating in a geosynchronous grave.

  SPACE IS HARD

  THE SATURN SYSTEM — Year 2102

  In the Mid-Twenty-First Century, the European Space Agency sent the research vessel, Oceanis, to explore the large, icy, Saturnian moon, Enceladus. Beneath the moon’s thick crust, a vast ocean raged—roiled by the mighty gravitational forces of its parent planet. One of the Solar System's great wonders, Enceladus’ instability sent geysers of ice blasting off from its surface, the detritus ultimately feeding Saturn’s rings. Oceanis’ mission: discover once and for all if that distant ocean harbored life. When its lander, Alvin 3,
failed to deploy, the dream abruptly came to an ignominious end. Sent before humans had physically conquered the system, there were no mechanics aboard to solve the issue, no repair-bots. A frustrated international team of scientists was forced to accept a drastically reduced mission. Teasingly, as they instructed the lame ship to fly through the moon's geysers, the fundamental organic building blocks of life were found; evidence of a pulse was not. Disgraced, the ship was abandoned and its vast robotic laboratory never activated.

  Nearly three quarters of a century later, Enceladus had a thriving colony on it, its residents extracting almost any ore or mineral the Saturn System could need. The Oceanis remained in orbit, and because of its unique onboard laboratory filled with ancient tech, it was once considered to be a museum candidate. Lack of funding ultimately scrapped the idea, and, like so much space-junk, the abandoned machine was marked as a navigational hazard and forgotten. That left it as potentially the perfect place to discreetly dissect and analyze an unexpected prize. Originally intended to receive ice cores drilled and pulled out of Enceladus by the lander/retriever, its lab worked in complete isolation from the rest of the ship. It was a clean-room filled with robotic arms designed to slice, probe, saw, and analyze ice and water. Now it would be used for something else almost entirely.

  Rather than an ice core, a very special android was inserted into the long dormant operational chamber. The robot had been immobilized, and was still encrusted with the fast hardening foam that had been used to capture it. The foam, an anti-piracy device, had rendered the robot incapable of completing its devilish mission. Her name was Clarice. She had an identical sister named Samantha, a sentient bot who had nearly achieved her objective of killing all the humans on Titan. To the bitter disappointment of her masters on Earth, Clarice had never infiltrated her target. AI had not considered nor planned for the often hostile interactions that took place between Saturnian’s. Banditry and theft had forced people to develop anti-boarding measures to fend each other off. Clarice’s mission ended before it truly began; when she piggybacked onto a ship to infiltrate Hanson’s sister city of Soul, the ship recognized an alien parasite and coated it in a durable, fast-hardening foam. On high alert after the assault on Titan, her jailers identified her for who she was. But rather than destroy her, by say, ejecting her into Saturn's ferocious atmosphere, greed, a lust for power, and plain foolishness caused them to set out to extract her payload instead. The perceived safety of the isolated lab in the Oceanis, would prove to be less than adequate.