Third Don: Ardulum, #3 Read online

  A NineStar Press Publication

  Published by NineStar Press

  P.O. Box 91792,

  Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87199 USA.

  www.ninestarpress.com

  Ardulum: Third Don

  Copyright © 2018 by J.S. Fields

  Cover Art by Natasha Snow Copyright © 2018

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

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at the physical or web addresses above or at [email protected].

  Printed in the USA

  First Edition

  June, 2018

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-948608-74-9

  Print ISBN: 978-1-948608-75-6

  Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content, which may only be suitable for mature readers, as well as graphic violence and instances of gore.

  Third Don

  Ardulum

  J.S. Fields

  Table of Contents

  The Charted Systems Map

  Glossary of Ardulum Talents

  Noteworthy Member of the Charted Systems

  Noteworthy Members of the Alliance

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For my father

  Prologue

  JANUARY 12TH, 2061 CE

  “I’ve just lost my last engine! We’re making repairs, but if we can’t dodge another hit—” The audio cut off. A small, blue light on Ekimet’s console went dark.

  Inside the Neek’s main temple to Ardulum, Ekimet laid zir head in zir hands and, not for the first time, tried to will the light to come back on. It didn’t work. It never worked. All the power of Ardulum, and Ekimet couldn’t save even one Ardulan life.

  The andal bench upon which zie sat lacked cushioning, and the wood was warm through Ekimet’s gold robes. Zir tailbone hurt from sitting and waiting—and zir heart hurt from watching and trying to coordinate a battle zie had no skills for. No one in the room did. The Eld had ensured that.

  Ekimet brought zir head back up. Next to zir, Miketh tapped on the andal table, a thin sheet of bioplastic just beyond her reach. Her black hair had lost its red highlights. Ekimet hadn’t noticed until now, and zie didn’t have time to consider what it meant aside from neither of them having gone outside in a month.

  The High Priest of Neek was on the other side of the wooden table. He was supposed to be helping, inasmuch as he could as a subspecies Neek amongst Ardulans. Right now, however, he sat, eyes unfocused, wringing his robes as he whispered, “Seven. Seven Ardulan cutters and fourteen skiffs lost.”

  “Central, copy? Copy, please!” The Neek accent was clear over the transmission and startled Ekimet. It was a settee pilot, one of the Heaven Guard.

  “We hear you, guard,” Miketh answered. Her hand shook as she reached for the bioplastic sheet. It was just far enough on the other side of the table that the high priest had to push it towards her. “Report?”

  “The Mmnnuggl pods in orbit, both big and small, are now guarded by at least four of the oval ships the Ardulans can’t seem to hit. There are Risalian cutters out here too, and a bunch of ships I don’t recognize. No matter how much interference we run for the Ardulans, it isn’t making any difference. Nothing is making a difference. The Mmnnuggls are picking off the cutters one by one.”

  “Is your squadron still intact?” Miketh asked. “No Neek casualties?”

  The voice came back confused. “No, no casualties to report on our side. The Mmnnuggls only seem interested in…” On the computer console in front of Ekimet, another pale blue light went dark.

  “We lost another skiff,” Ekimet reported in a monotone. “Only four remain, along with two cutters.”

  “One cutter,” the guard reported hesitantly. A red light went out on Ekimet’s console. “A group of four pods just disintegrated the largest one.”

  Ekimet squeezed zir eyes shut. There were over forty Ardulans on each cutter and two per skiff. It had been less than an hour since the Mmnnuggls had engaged the Ardulan fleet. What was happening? That the Ardulans and Neek would lose had never been in question, but they weren’t meant to lose like this.

  Ekimet leaned towards Miketh and the speaker. “Tell the remaining cutter to—”

  One of the skiff pilots cut into the feed. “We just lost our last cutter!” The last red light on Ekimet’s dash went out. “Ekimet, we have to land. We haven’t got a chance with the—” The line went dead. The final three blue lights died in quick succession.

  There was silence for a long moment, followed by the uncomfortable shuffling of feet. The Ardulans were dead. Every ship the Eld had sent, every Ardulan onboard, was now scattered in fragments across Neek space. Ekimet and Miketh were…they were stranded. Again. They, and the Neek planet, had no protection.

  “My lords?” The settee pilot was back. “The Mmnnuggl forces are leaving the engagement zone. Their allies are following. The Heaven Guard are still in orbit. Would you like us to follow instead of simply watching and reporting?”

  “No!” Miketh said quickly before Ekimet could answer. “You have no weapons. Don’t make a threat you can’t carry through. Just…just come back.” She looked at Ekimet, moisture beading in her eyes. She hastily wiped at it with the back of her hand. “Just come home, okay?”

  Relief flooded the pilot’s voice. “As you say. I’ll tell the rest of the Heaven Guard.”

  The transmission ended. Miketh sniffed, and Ekimet did the same, although zie was far too well trained to let tears form.

  “Is it over?” The high priest pushed his chair back from the dark andal table, his eyes on Ekimet’s chin, never higher. “Will they leave? What do they want?”

  We are about to find out. Miketh pointed at the yellow line streaking across the dash. Call for you, Eki. We both know how this ends.

  Indeed. They’d been sent here to die, the same as the fleet. Sent to appease the Mmnnuggls. Sent to keep Ardulum safe. Ekimet slid zir finger across the yellow line, and an audio feed beeped. Zie could have turned on the Neek’s archaic hologram projector, but…zie couldn’t look at a Mmnnuggl. Not right now. Not with so many dead bodies floating above zir.

  “You have lost,” a monotone voice said over the comm.

  “We understand that. Only two Ardulans remain, and we are prepared to surrender. We…we thank you for not harming the Neek forces.”

  A low trill resounded before it changed to words. “Only Ardulans harm unarmed civilians. Only Ardulans would use a seeded planet of primitive sentients as a sacrifice.” The Mmnnuggl screeched. “Do you think we do not see a ruse when we see one? We have no hands and no feet, so therefore we have no minds?”

  Ekimet tried to cut in. “We never meant—”

  “You are of no concern to us. Two Ardulans mean nothing.” There was a whirring in the background, and then a new voice came on.

  It didn’t have the usual clicking undertones of a Mmnnuggl accent. This voice, although deep and throaty, carried Common with ease. “Call your planet,” it said. “Call your planet and tell them to send the Eld of Ardulum and the flare named Emn. You have one week to comply.”

  “One week!” Miketh said, her voice unusually high. “The Neek operate on stable wormhole technology. The time frame is unmanageable. Beyond that, if you aren’t bargaining with Neek lives, what is your collateral? The Neek planet is self-susta
ining. They don’t care to travel. If you think Ekimet and I will get frustrated enough to call the Eld here so you can slaughter them, you’re as dumb as we thought!”

  Laughter, biped laughter, came from the other end. “Underestimating the Nugels is a really, really stupid thing to do. One week, Ardulans. I suggest you start moving the Neek people to the cities. In one week, if we don’t have the Eld and the flare in-system, then we are coming down to the planet. Well, the smaller pods are, anyway. They’ll come down in the middle of the night when all the little Neek children are tucked snugly in bed, and they will set your forests on fire.”

  “You will destroy the Systems if you destroy the andal of Neek!” Miketh exclaimed. “Their entire cellulose infrastructure is rooted in this planet. What happened to not harming the defenseless?”

  Chittering rose up from the feed before the male voice drowned it out. “The whole of the Charted Systems is behind this decision. They understand the threat Ardulum poses. Physically, the Risalians are here, along with Minorans, the Oori, and more than a dozen other species from the Systems and the Alliance. A week is plenty of time to move the forest-dwelling Neek out of harm’s way. The Nugels are going to have their vengeance, Ardulans, and we will find the altered Ardulan woman. You just have to decide how much of your planet you want burned.”

  Chapter 1: Mmnnuggl Pod

  So help me, Neek, if I ever get out of this mess and find you alive, we are getting so damn drunk on Oorin whiskey that we’ll be pissing blue for a week. Just like a fucking Risalian.

  —Etched note found in a cell of the Mmnnuggl pod Bysspp at Xinar Station’s shipyard

  DECEMBER 12TH, 2060 CE

  He’d lost the Pledge. He’d lost his clothes. He’d lost his crew. The strange pellet food his Mmnnuggl captors were feeding him had significantly reduced his bulk, but Yorden Kuebrich, captain of the exploded tramp transport Mercy’s Pledge, was going to get off this damned Mmnnuggl pod with his remaining crewmember, no matter how many beings he had to injure to do it.

  His room—all low ceiling, jagged floor, and vomit-green lighting—stank from his sweat and various other bodily excretions. His guards had kept him fed, but little else, and after a week of captivity, Yorden was done. If the spherical Mmnnuggls weren’t going to tell him what was going on, where they were, or why he was locked in a cell, then they could all go to hell.

  The round door to Yorden’s room was open for his meal interval, the edge of the sliding biometal just peeking out from its wall pocket. A lone guard nervously chittered just beyond the opening. Normally, the guard would have brought the meal to Yorden’s door, opened a lateral gap near the floor, and slid the plate through it. The door, it seemed, was having a bad day, and the Mmnnuggl had been surprised when it had rolled back into the wall instead. Yorden was delighted. Either he’d finally jammed enough plates into the door’s mechanical lock to break it or ramming his fist into an interface panel—after getting a decent look at the ship’s schematics, of course—during his last escape attempt had affected a lot more systems than he’d thought. Either way, he’d take it.

  The pellet food, balancing on top of the guard, rolled onto the floor as soon as Yorden stepped into the open doorway. He supposed he did make for a disconcerting sight—all greasy skin and hair that likely deserved its own zip code. The Mmnnuggl was clearly hesitating, but if she didn’t like his naked buttocks, she could bring him some clothes.

  The guard now levitated just beyond Yorden’s reach, her purple-black, ball-shaped body rotating counterclockwise. Her pale, Terran-like ears were curled tightly and lay plastered on either side of her spherical form. From her body dripped a viscous purple goo—a sedative the Mmnnuggls wore anytime they were around him. Probably a good idea, too, since the last time the door had “malfunctioned,” he had backhanded one of the smaller spheres and—he? she? they?—had hit the wall hard enough to black out.

  Yorden dared to take a step forward, just out of the doorway. In response, the sphere increased the speed of her rotation, the goo splashing out horizontally and landing closer to Yorden’s bare skin. He took another step, challenging the guard. She eased back and chittered nervously.

  When Yorden remained still, the guard slowed her rotation. The goo no longer splattered. Huh. So, drugging him was clearly not the first tactic for keeping him imprisoned. Did he have some sort of value he wasn’t aware of? Did the Mmnnuggls have a biped zoo that he was being shipped to? Maybe there was a black-market trade in Terran organs, and sedatives could spoil their quality?

  Yorden shivered. That was a very unappealing thought, one that he did not want to linger on. Instead, he looked up. The ceiling was clean of goopy sedative and so, too, was the top of his guard. To keep the pellet food from being doused, no doubt.

  “I’m leaving, and so is my crewmate,” Yorden growled at the Mmnnuggl. “I’m no one’s carnival attraction. Get out of my way. I’m not playing anymore.”

  The sphere let out a short, high-pitched shriek, but stayed where she was.

  Yorden took another step forward, putting himself once again in range of the goo. “Let me out.”

  No verbal response came from the sphere. Instead, she began to spin again, the sedative spraying outwards.

  Yorden took a running leap and launched himself forward, as if he were belly flopping into a pool. The guard had just enough time to squeak before Yorden’s gut smacked on top of her. His mass crushed the sphere, sending purple sedative and purple Mmnnuggl innards across both the floor and his torso.

  Yorden groaned at the impact and scrambled around on hands and knees for a few moments before he managed to stand up, careful not to splash any goo on his head. The Mmnnuggls had never adjusted the concentration of the sedative to his physiology. The damn stuff only worked if it was applied directly to his head, specifically near his orifices, and even then, its effects only lasted a few minutes. Covering his chest and hands, it would have little effect. He hoped.

  Clearing away the purple slick as best he could, Yorden recovered his breath and limped down the hallway. If he’d broken something and got caught, the Mmnnuggls would fix the damage. They’d fixed the bones in his hand after he’d crushed them punching the interface panel. They’d fixed his tibia when he’d tried to soccer kick one of his guards and had landed wrong. They’d fixed his ear when one of the younger Mmnnuggls—the ones with the red-tipped ears—had bitten off part of it during a heated exchange in which Yorden had demanded clothes and the Mmnnuggl had told him that no one cared about his reproductive organs.

  He was tired of playing nice.

  And he was sick of the low-ceilinged Mmnnuggl pods. Yorden’s back was already aching from his stooped posture even though he’d only passed, what, four wall panels? Five? It was hard to tell. The corridor was divided into sections approximately four meters long and was Yorden’s only real way of measuring distance on the damn ship. These panels, the ones Mmnnuggls used for their ship communications, were completely black, barely illuminated by the pale-green lighting. It was, however, bright enough to see that the corridor was deserted.

  Around the next bend, Yorden began to slow. The lighting here was a bit brighter and more of a neon green than a lime, but that might have just been his eyes playing tricks on him. He was bad with color. The corridor was also empty, and that was odd. The security alarms would usually sound by now. Maybe they’d installed a new color-based alarm system instead? Regardless, the hall should have been swarming with Mmnnuggls. Yorden began to walk more cautiously, listening for the telltale whirring of spherical bodies, and wondered about color, interfaces, and how the Mmnnuggls managed to pilot the damn ships in the first place, especially since they didn’t have hands.

  Except, thinking about pilots was dangerous, and he had been consistently trying to avoid it. Yorden rounded a corner to a new hall, checked behind him for signs of a pursuit, and tried to force out thoughts of the Pledge’s destruction. The loss of his crew. The loss of his pilot and friend.

 
A whirring sound caught in Yorden’s ears, and he froze, trying to discern what direction it was coming from. He backed against the nearest panel and tried to steady his breathing, but his mind refused to stay focused. An image of his pilot tormented his vision. The exiled Neek he’d picked up in an alley on Mars had flown the Pledge for him when no one else was anatomically capable. She’d never asked awkward questions about the cargo, never cared if they sidestepped a few laws. She was good with antique guns, amazing at maneuvering a retrofitted Terran shuttle through space, and could drink him under the table when she cared to.

  And she was dead. Dead along with his Journey youth, Nicholas, and Emn, the Risalian-Ardulan-whatever child they’d inadvertently ended up with during their last haul. There was only one member of his crew left alive, and she was here, on this Mmnnuggl pod. She was imprisoned in the med bay, the door of which was at the end of this hall, according to the schematics he’d peeked at. He hadn’t been able to save anyone else, but he was going to get the Ardulan woman out and return to the Charted Systems so he could retire into the peaceful bitterness he’d always envisioned.

  The whirring faded, and Yorden chanced a look around the corner. The hall was empty, and the light had reverted to its normal lime green. Maybe he’d gotten lucky and some external force had the Mmnnuggls occupied. Maybe a Risalian cutter was trying to blast them out of the sky! That was a delightful thought.

  Yorden took a few steps back and ran at the metal door to the med bay. He slammed his shoulder into the center, denting the biometal aluminum. He hit it again, and the door pushed in further, this time opening a gap at the bottom large enough for Yorden to grab the metal and start prying it open.

  He eventually managed to create a vertical opening wide enough to crawl through if he sucked in what remained of his gut and prayed a little bit. A sharp edge cut his outer hip as he pulled himself in, and Yorden cursed the Mmnnuggl biometals that were so much sharper than the Cell-Tal products he was used to.