The Forgotten Realms: Primal Instincts
The Forgotten Realms:
PRIMAL INSTINCTS
by
Raven Willow-Wood
© copyright Aug 2011, Raven Willow-Wood
Cover art by Alex DeShanks, Aug 2011
ISBN 978-1-60394-512-7
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
“Fucking jerk!”
Slamming her fists against the ship's control panel, Goldie Lockswood glared as the pumped up dick in the sleek velociship did a complete set of aerobatics around her clunky space freight shuttle. From loops to figure eights, the bastard flew so close to her fucking exterior propellers that Eve, her on-board computer, issued a warning and automatically took control of the shuttle.
The velociship sped off into the pitch black of space with a blazing trail, leaving Goldie pissed off with a ship that shuddered.
“Eve! Hand back control!” Goldie commanded. Seconds later she felt her heart lurch as a shower of rocks suddenly appeared out of nowhere and directly in her line of sight.
“Meteor shower approaching,” Even announced.
“I know, Eve! I can see that! Hand back control now!”
“Automated steering has a higher probability of protecting the hull than manual.”
The computer's droning voice worked against the fine hairs that covered Goldie's body in the same way that the high pitched whining of a badly tuned engine did. The hairs stood on edge and added to the irritation she already felt with Eve, who, over the duration of the trip, had started to take control of far too many of Goldie's responsibilities, deeming automated over manual as the best way to ride more often than not.
In cases such as these, it was well documented that manual steering through meteor showers ensured a safer and smoother journey for passengers. While computer monitors could and did analyze proximity and could steer through the clouds of rocks using their analytical data, it could in no way match the experience and skill of a space freighter driver's intuition. In today's world, the 2983 Earth government very rarely upheld the use of humans over robots, but, where haulage was concerned, it was one of the only transport sectors still using humans as drivers and not just as assistants.
Eve just had a tendency to forget that!
“Eve! Dammit! Hand back control or hibernate!”
Silence was Eve's response, which, where the talkative machine was concerned, never boded well, and this instance was no different. Out of nowhere, the belts on her Captain's chair shot out and locked around her body in crash mode. Crash mode was akin to being cocooned with supportive belts which ensured that if, on the rare occasions that shuttles smashed, very few bones would break upon collision. Not that that helped when most crashes resulted in human death! But with a cloud of meteoric rocks in the distance, no control over her ship, and every statistic in the book working against her, Goldie tried not to think about that.
“If I make it out alive, you bitch, I'm re-hauling the entire system!” It wasn't an idle threat. The current job's fee was heading straight to Dino's garage back on Earth where a complete reconditioning awaited the Freedom. Perhaps that was why Eve had become so ballsy lately, she knew that in a couple of months she'd be gone and on the trash heap. The more Goldie thought about that the more that prospect grew more and more pleasing.
“For your safety, I have taken control of the ship.”
“No shit, Sherlock!”
“I am not Sherlock. I am Eve two point six point nine point nine point three point four point one . . . .”
About to hear the rest of Eve's sixty digit registration code, Goldie interrupted. “I know who you are, Eve! If you want to take control and get me killed, then, seeing as I no longer have any say in the matter, get on with the job! Howdy death, I can't wait to meet you!”
Goldie's pursed lips and annoyed face slowly sank into a whitened mask of fear as Eve drove them through the shower, badly, very badly. Her greeting to the Grim Reaper seemed more and more appropriate as every scratch and whine of a rock as it hit a part of the engine and each smash as a piece shot into the reinforced glass based hybrid of the windscreen sent shards of horror rushing through her.
“Eve! Please! I'm begging you! Let me take control!” she cried hoarsely as she pushed desperately against the belts that damn near glued her to her bucket seat.
“Eve can steer Freedom to safety, Goldie.”
“No you fucking can't!” Goldie screamed and then froze in horror as her scream started to echo through the cockpit. The sound was followed by silence which reigned for what felt like a lifetime.
Goldie's heart began to palpitate. A spaceship was never silent. So much technology in one tiny space was never quiet. It just didn't happen, not even this close to the third Millennium!
“What has happened?” Goldie asked, swallowing past a knot of fear. Her question had sounded uncommonly loud. She was used to talking at a certain volume, and, now, without the sound of the engines, it wasn't necessary. Her question had been as loud as a yell.
“I have stalled the engine.”
“Fire it back up again then for fuck's sake!”
“The engine status is . . . .” There was a period of silence. “The engine is running at point three percent. The Freedom has experienced repeated engine failure. A crash is imminent,” the computer generated female voice calmly announced.
“What's the steering status?”
“Steering status is . . . .” There was another pause as the bitch of a computer ran tests and analyzed the ship's capabilities. “Steering status is running at ninety-six percent.”
“Can we steer out of a crash?”
“That is possible.”
“Would I survive?”
“That outcome is possible.”
“Approximately how far away are we from our drop off point?”
“Approximately three billion miles away.”
“Approximately how much time do we have before atmospheric collision?” she asked and felt her mouth go dry with fear as soon as the words had escaped her lips.
“Approximately four minutes and twelve seconds, eleven, ten, nine . . . .”
Goldie interrupted the computer's countdown. “Why so soon?”
“The combination of Freedom's momentum and the planet's gravitational pull.”
“Okay,” Goldie murmured hoarsely, “release my arms and let me steer through the atmosphere.”
“Automated steering has a higher probability of protecting the hull than manual.”
That was exactly what Even had said before. “No, Eve. You caused this fucked up situation. Allow me to steer my ship through the fucking atmosphere. I joked about meeting the Grim Reaper It doesn't mean I want to see him in four minutes fucking time!”
“The term Grim Reaper does not compute.”
“I don't have time to catch you up on history so that you know who the Grim Reaper is. Hand over control!”
“Automated steering has a higher probability of protecting the hull than manual.”
“You're wasting time! Release me.”
“Eve cannot.”
“Eve can! Eve! Listen to me, either way I'm screwed. I could die on atmospheric impact or I could die when we crash into the planet's surface. Either way, my odds aren't that great.”
A slow hissing noise sounded from Goldie's seat. The belts slithered back into their holding positions.
“Thank you, Eve. As soon as I guide us through
the atmosphere, you can bolt me back into crash position. That's the only chance I have of survival anyway.”
Sucking in a breath, Goldie prayed and hoped to God that her father was watching over her and guiding her through the next several minutes. She sure as fuck needed it. The last time she'd negotiated this kind of maneuver had been back in flight school and that was almost fourteen years ago. The odds were stacked against her, but she couldn't let that weigh her down and make her concede defeat.
She flexed her fingers and stretched them around the controls. “Keep up a running countdown of time before impact.”
Eve started to count backwards as Goldie began to steer the engineless shuttle through the atmosphere. It was much more difficult than she'd ever imagined. There was a weight, like a specter, that seemed to bog the ship down and make it harder to steer. She'd known that maneuvering against the gravitational pull of the planet would make this all the more difficult, but it felt as though she were dragging the entire thing with only her hands! While she tried to keep herself calm and focused on the task at hand, it was nearly impossible with the running countdown that was Eve's contribution in the background.
The realization that in two minutes and six seconds she could die made her heart pump at an abnormal rate of speed and made adrenaline shoot through her system until she felt almost high with the emotions her body was producing.
The planet took up almost all of her screen now, so close were they to its surface. Eve's countdown ran to its natural conclusion as Goldie angled the shuttle and managed to slice through the atmosphere as though she'd slipped a knife through butter. Relief instantly assailed her senses, but, before she could celebrate, she was once more trapped against the bucket seat by the belts that wrapped around her securely and kept her braced into position.
“Total brace, Eve. Take charge of steering and land us as softly as possible.”
The computer complied.
Goldie closed her eyes to stop the sensations of claustrophobia that rattled through her as the belts swept around her throat and over her face and cheeks. This ensured that her neck would not break or her head would not jar forwards and cause any damage to her upper spine.
It was tight enough for discomfort but not enough so that she couldn't breathe. Just the thought of it had her panicking though and clutching at the manual pulls in her hands that she would have to tug were the computers to completely break down.
The feel of the tabs against her palms calmed her down more than anything else and she was almost grateful for the belts as the shuttle began to shudder and jerk as the planet began to batter her shuttle with high winds. While it was uncomfortable, the winds were a huge advantage for them. They slowed the Freedom down greatly, but it made for a damned uncomfortable ride, even as securely bolted into place as Goldie was.
When the freight shuttle crashed, the intense force of the impact was something that Goldie had not expected. It was almost a thousand times worse than what she'd only had nightmares about!
It jolted every single bone and piece of cartilage in her body and slammed her against her bindings until she knew that she'd be one huge bruise. The ship's jarring landing against the planet had every part of the machine shuddering against the reverberations that knocked through it, and she could only imagine that the planet's crust was far denser and rockier than Earth's. It was like crashing into a concrete wall!
“Status report, Eve,” Goldie croaked when everything seemed to settle.
“The shuttle has made impact.”
“For fuck's sake, Eve. Don't point out the obvious! I can tell we've made impact. In fact, every fucking bone in my body can tell that we've landed! Give me a detailed status report.”
“I have done so.”
“Details, Eve. Details. Run a diagnostic, calculate why we experienced engine failure. Tell me how damaged the hull is, the likelihood of making the shuttle fly again. The goods we're carrying, are they damaged? You know, that kind of thing,” Goldie said irritably. Struggling against her restraints as she tried to get up, she stopped and sighed. “Also, while you're at it, you can release me from the crash position now.”
The belts slithered away once more, and, as soon as Goldie looked outside, she knew how lucky she was to be alive. The screen that shielded the ship and enabled space visibility was decimated and the glass titanium hybrid of which it was made, what the manufacturers classed as unbreakable, lay in huge shards around her feet.
Had she not been protected by the steel, silk, and titanium blend belts, she would more than likely have been shredded into pieces.
She stood up on legs still shaky from her adrenaline rush and stretched the kinks out of her body as she waited on Eve to tell her the condition of the ship. A few minutes later, Eve still hadn't said anything. “Well? Report?”
“The outer hull has separated from the main frame of the ship. There is no way to repair the damage without additional materials. The engine has meteor segments embedded in its electronic circuit boards which is repairable but the nanobots have been working non-stop throughout the long duration of this trip. They will need to be recharged and left to rest for at least eight hours before they can get to work on the engine and the hull. The goods are fine. The boxes have not sustained any damage.”
Goldie sighed with relief. Everything was repairable and within the time limit she had left. There was still over two hundred and seventy hours until she had to make a delivery and at least her load was safe and sound. “Give me our exact coordinates, Eve.”
“We are currently on Sirius A, in the Milky Way Galaxy.”
“Hang on a minute. Why the fuck did you set course here?”
“Sirius A, while the largest planet close by, has the weakest gravitational pull. It's gravity, atmosphere, and conditions are most similar to Earth's.”
Gritting her teeth with exasperation, Goldie closed her eyes and begged for peace and sanity! Dammit, she needed some human interaction, someone with some sense to talk to her and make her realize she wasn't going around the fucking bend! Eve had accompanied her on this eight lunar month trip, and, after talking to a computer for that length of time, she had often wondered if striking up human conversation was even possible anymore or whether she'd lost that particular skill set long ago.
The prospect of having another eight lunar months on the return journey with Eve was almost suicidally depressing. “So, we are fuck knows how many miles approximately off course?”
“We are approximately . . . .”
“No,” Goldie said, effectively stopping Eve. “No. I don't want to know how far off we are.” Racking her brain, Goldie tried to recall everything she knew about Sirius A. Was it even inhabited? Because that would be just fucking wonderful, wouldn't it? Her egomaniacal computer had set them on course for a frigging dead planet where they didn't have a cat in hell's chance of escaping! To survive the atmospheric collision and the crash was already pushing her luck, after all.
“How many inhabitants are on Sirius A?”
“Twenty-three billion, four hundred and ninety-two million, six hundred and eighty-nine thousand, seven hundred and three inhabitants live on Sirius A.”
Upon hearing that small note of good news, Goldie exhaled a sigh of relief. “Okay, at least we're not stranded. How large is Sirius A in relation to Earth?”
“One half of Earth's size.”
“Hang on. It's smaller?”
“Yes.”
“But it's population is three times the size? How the fuck does everyone fit?”
“One person accounts for two inhabitants.”
“And that's possible how?” Goldie asked as she scowled at the wrecked hull of what had once been a pretty good freight shuttle.
“Sirians are renowned Shifters.”
“Shifters? You're making that up.”
“My circuits are incapable of making falsehoods.”
“No,” Goldie said through gritted teeth, “but you can sure as fuck twist the truth.”
“I know what shifters are, thank you very much! I just didn't realize Sirius was a shape shifting colony, that's all.”
“Very few are allowed into the Sirius system, which was so named for the Earth colloquialism of the brightest visible star in our solar system.”
“Yeah, yeah, the dog star.”
“It is factually incorrect, however. Sirius A shifters contain a variety of shape shifters, from bears to wolves to big cats.”
“Can you locate the material necessary for repairs or are we in the middle of nowhere?”
“There is an abundant source of metal a few miles away.”
“Hang on just a minute, bears . . . . When the Sirians have shifted, do they pose a threat?”
“Naturally. They are feral once shifted. The animal is in control, not the humanoid.”
“Great. Tell me the length of time until the sun sets. That is, if the sun sets here.”
“The two suns are due to set soon. The first sun, Andromedie sets in eighty-two minutes. The second sun, Lorimea sets in one hundred and fifty-three minutes.”
“How far away is this metal source?”
“It is four point six miles away.”
“Do you think I can make it there and back before the suns set?”