Feral Colony

FERAL COLONY PEREGRINE OUTPOST - BOOK 2 STAN C. SMITH Copyright © 2023 by Stan C. Smith All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. To those who strive to push humanity beyond savagery. FERAL COLONY I will point out that your own ancestors were wild and brutish at one time. PRESENCE CONTENTS 1. Proof of Concept 2. Ottavia 3. Coratune 4. Taken 5. Trade 6. Forty Kilometers 7. History Lesson 8. Crater 9. Artist 10. Footprints 11. Pans and People 12. Escalation 13. Crevice 14. Revolt 15. Turland Gate There’s more to come! Get my free Starter Set. Get a new short story every two weeks. Author’s Notes Review Request Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Stan C. Smith 1 PROOF OF CONCEPT Ember stared beyond the beam of her headlamps into the darkness, where monsters dwelled. In her former life, Ember had never been particularly afraid of the dark, but that was over a thousand years ago. A lot had changed since then. Now the human species was nearly extinct, replaced by creatures called whistlers. To say whistlers were less pleasant than humans was a gross understatement, like saying a parasitic tapeworm was less appealing than a blue morpho butterfly. “What is taking you two so long?” she muttered inside the helmet of her atmosphere suit. She had positioned herself outside the door to a small room where her teammates were scavenging for supplies. Kami and Joshie answered over the suit radios at the same time, both saying something about being pissed off they couldn’t find any of the items they had come to Earth to get. No extra atmosphere suits, no spare weapons, nothing. “Hey, these look like rolls of duct tape,” Joshie said. “Good,” Ember replied. “Bring what you can.” She doubted the rolls were really duct tape—anything here in the HopeWell Stasis Center would have been manufactured centuries after duct tape was even a thing. Still, maybe they could use whatever it was to fix the hole in the leg of Seven’s atmosphere suit. “There’s not much else in here,” Kami said. “We’re coming out now.” Ember scanned the darkness with her headlamps one more time as the other two quietly pushed the door open and stepped out into the vast open area of the Stasis Center. Joshie had three big rolls of tape tucked under one arm. With his other hand he wielded a makeshift weapon, a meter-long tool he’d found earlier in the Turland gate room. Kami followed, empty-handed but holding her sleeve-mounted air gun ready, with its trigger cord pulled over her index finger. “We need to give up the search and get back to the ship soon,” Ember said. “We’re pushing our luck staying here this long.” She turned to the nine-foot modular robot standing motionless a few meters away. “Presence, have you detected any movement?” The robot swiveled to look at her, and its calm female voice came over the suit radio comms. “As I have explained several times, I will alert you to any danger I detect. You should trust me, Ember, as our relationship is based on a mutual agreement of trust and cooperation.” Ember sighed. The truth was, she didn’t trust Presence. At least not entirely. “You could just say no, I haven’t detected danger.” “Perhaps, but this exciting excursion is overflowing with teachable moments, and as I am your teacher I cannot pass them up.” Joshie chuckled at this. The teen saw humor in just about everything—one reason Ember liked him—but this wasn’t a good time. She shook a gloved finger at the robot. “Just keep watch, and no more teaching until we get back to the ship. Got it?” Kami pointed along the wall. “The stairs down to the bodies are this way, right?” “Correct,” Ember replied. “The stairs can’t be much farther.” Ember had come here several days ago, before the debacle on Asur Tenoth, and she and Seven had found their way through the darkness to the vast chamber below where twelve thousand human bodies in stasis were stored. Kami had also been in this facility before, but that was back when the power had been on and the place was bustling with worker robots. And when the outer walls hadn’t yet been breached, letting in Earth’s contaminated air, not to mention bloodthirsty whistlers. The robot and the three humans made their way along the wall to the double doorway leading to the stairs. The lock on one of the doors was broken from when Seven had kicked it days before, which now allowed them to pass through in relative silence. Dark blood still smeared the stairs where Seven had killed two whistlers, and other whistlers had dragged away the bodies. Ember’s memory of the event did nothing to ease her discomfort now. The sooner they grabbed what they needed and got back to the ship, the better. The bottom of the stairwell opened to the huge storage chamber. Their headlamps played across the endless sea of black body bags arranged in rows stacked waist-high. “Looks the same,” Ember said. “Minus the whistlers, of course.” She glanced back at the stairwell, half expecting to see one or more of the creatures stalking them. “Those are all bodies?” Joshie asked, gazing at the rows of stacked bags. “We’ll never get them all moved to the ship.” “We’ll figure it out when the time comes,” Ember said. “First things first. For now we only need one.” She turned to the robot. “Presence.” Presence strode to the nearest row, grasped the topmost bag, and effortlessly hefted the body onto its shoulder. “I will gladly assist now as well as when we must move them all.” “Good, we’re counting on it,” Ember muttered. Wasting no time, they ascended the stairs and