Terra Mortem Read online

  Terra Mortem

  Aliens. Idolatry. Wrath.

  Ethan Proud

  Copyright © 2018 Ethan Proud

  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, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Published by Proud Brothers Publishing, Pagosa Springs CO, U.S.A.

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Printed on acid-free paper.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Proud Brothers Publishing.

  2018

  First Edition

  Other Books by Ethan Proud

  Rebellion: Book One

  Co-authored by Lincoln Proud

  Vengeance: Book Two

  Co-authored by Lincoln Proud

  Onslaught: Book Three

  Co-authored by Lincoln Proud

  Prologue

  The claxon rang out urgently as the red lights flashed in each of the corridors aboard the Shrike. The other ships in the squadron still bore ahead to the Second Earth, their new home, yet the passengers aboard the damaged ship could only stare helplessly. Their captain struggled to keep order as engineers and mechanics rushed from airlock to airlock, each carrying a kit of repair equipment.

  “Captain Smith, this is Eric Taylor aboard the flagship Gaia. Do you read me?” A voice crackled over the intercom, interrupting the alarms.

  Captain Smith sighed as he lifted the radio off the receiver. “I read you. There is nothing to be done for the engine. We are going to crash land on the nearest habitable planet.”

  Despite his outward calm, his stomach was in knots.

  “We’ve already run a systems check for the safest planet within your reach. It’s called AE625.” Eric’s voice came through again.

  Captain Smith swore. AE625 had been hailed as an alternate to Earth nearly half a century before, but their hopes had been dashed when the first satellites reported nothing but sand.

  “I said habitable,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “It’s the only planet you and your crew have any chance of surviving on, I’m afraid.” The voice coming from the flagship did not sound reassuring. “We will come back for you as soon as we can.”

  The radio sparked and crackled a moment later and the Shrike was offline. The Captain punched in the command for a crash landing on AE625. The ship jostled as it breached the atmosphere and its second engine almost gave out due to the strain.

  The ship picked up momentum as it neared the planet’s surface. In mere seconds the only thing visible from the starboard window was sand. The crew braced for impact.

  Chapter One

  The wind whipped the sand on the lonely exoplanet AE625 into a frenzy that pelted the two creatures slogging across its surface in search of water and sustenance. They were part of a larger colony formed when their ship, Shrike, was separated from the squadron due to engine failure and spiraled to the surface of AE625 three hundred years ago. The rest of the fleet of would-be-colonizers continued on course to Earth 2.0, which on clear days could be seen by those stranded on AE625. The planets were so close that they orbited each other while making a trek along the orbit of a sun.

  The human of the duo, Yuto, was male and eighteen years old, but he resembled an Earthling thirty-year-old. On AE625 the average lifespan was fifty years. He had black hair that hung messily in his face when he wasn’t wearing his goggles. Of course, with the wind picking up he had his goggles strapped on tightly. His slant eyes peered from behind the polarized lenses and tried to make out the lay of the land, but to no avail. The only part of his skin visible to the outside world was the bridge of his brown nose, which was scabbed and bleeding from the miniature sand-missiles that bombarded him constantly. His ancestors, at least from the time of the wreck, were Japanese and Columbian, and allegedly some of the smartest minds in the universe.

  Back in the day, Earthlings considered their planet constituted the entire universe, and despite that glorious notion they still destroyed the one planet they had. Since the Shrike and its accompanying ships began their sojourn, all mankind had died out on Earth except for a few pockets of people living in areas such as the Midwest and Mongolia. These isolated cultures managed to thrive when the rest of the population died off after the power grid failed. They had yet to turn the power grid back on, and their populations were reduced to living in conditions similar to the 1800s, but with much more knowledge.

  Next to Yuto, his companion floated lazily on the air, unperturbed by the wind. She was only as wide as Yuto’s chest and the bulk of her was comprised of membranous wings. She had two pairs of wings, a larger pair up front and a smaller pair in the back. The rest of her body was long and serpentine, her head flat with a wide mouth and large black eyes. The underside of her body was covered in little suction cups which allowed her to move around when not in the air. Her body was turquoise, and she lacked any hard bones except the casing which protected her brain, spinal cord and internal organs, and the tiny fibers which spanned the length of her wings. She was a goni, or at least that’s what the first humans had called them. They were a hermaphroditic species, and despite this Yuto had given her the name Aileen. She was pelted with sand as well, but her body was adapted to this particular set of living conditions. Her gelatinous cells absorbed the sand particulates through phagocytoses and expelled them through vacuoles on the other side of her body. She produced no waste, other than cellular byproducts. Once a month the gonis would excrete this from their pores. The gonis would then sit in the sun and allow it to harden into a film and then wriggle out of it, leaving an exoskeleton of waste behind.

  Yuto and Aileen were on their daily mission, to find water. Their small colony sent out hunters every day to find new water sources. They would map these underground springs and once they had used up a spring, they would search for a new one. The maps they synthesized could later be used to return to a spring after the passage of enough years that it might have accumulated enough water to restore itself. Scientists in the colony would observe the spring’s source and determine how many years before a spring might be habitable again. Gonis like Aileen were used to find water sources. The gonis did not need water, gaining enough from their diet. But the gonis did feed on the molla, which were fungal growths that proliferated on the rocks by the springs. It never took Aileen long to locate the delicious mollas.

  She let out a burbling cry and Yuto followed the sound until he saw her perched on a rock face. Just to her left was a crack in the rock big enough for two humans to walk. She scuttled inside. If Yuto had been closer and the wind not so infernally loud, he would have been able to hear her many suction cups squelching as she moved. Yuto slid into the cave, relieved to find it sheltered from the wind. He pulled the scarf from around his neck and took a breath of the fresh, clean air. As he followed Aileen deeper, she began to glow. The hard parts of her body, as well as the mouths of her suction cups (which were made from the same cartilaginous polymers, albeit they had a different structure) were bioluminescent. All that Yuto could see of her was her glowing skeleton. As she traveled deeper she continued to warble her excitement, until she stopped suddenly. She had found the mollas.

  Yuto flicked on the headlamp above his goggles and found Aileen perched above her find of mushrooms. The mushrooms had a thick dark exudate, which contrasted to their pale skin. Yuto drew a hand out of his glove and delicately cut one of the mushrooms at the base, careful not to disturb its hyphae. He ran his pinky finger across the cap of the fungi, picking up the dark gel that f
ormed. He rubbed it on his gums vigorously and his mouth went numb. Next, he dug his pinky finger into the gills and retracted it, a clump of spores sitting on top. He proffered it to Aileen who made a screeing sound before her eyes lit up and she slurped it off Yuto’s finger.

  Yuto repeated the process but this time held his pinky up under his left nostril and snorted. The spores traveled up into his sinuses fairly smoothly, with a taste akin to Earthling coffee. The majority of the spores were absorbed into the mucous membranes of his nose, where they were broken down into narcotics within his body. Yuto’s snot was always black and stained by the spores. Not all the colonists used the spores like Yuto did, most cooked the mushrooms whole. The heat caused the polymers within the fungus to break down far enough that the narcotic effect could not be felt, although the evaporating water was said to have healing effects due to the dispersed and weakened drugs.

  Yuto closed the empty nostril with one hand and with the other he stretched the skin across his cheekbone to open up his sinus more. He snorted and gagged simultaneously, and the spores that had remained lodged in his sinuses hit the back of his throat, a steady flow of coffee-tasting fungi beginning to drip from his nasal cavity into his throat. His body instantly felt cool, which was a relief in this arid climate. After the initial cool sensation his body began to buzz slightly and his mind was scattered and focused at once. His heart beat faster and faster in his chest before it settled into a galloping rhythm that excited Yuto for the sake of excitement. He dug out more spores and chased them up the opposite nostril. The feeling was amplified and Yuto began harvesting mushrooms and putting them in his backpack.

  The backpack was a myriad of patchwork, a relic from the first stranded Exos. Exos was the phrase used by Earthlings to describe the humans who would be inhabiting Earth 2.0, or in this case AE625. Each of the two thousand five hundred Exos on board had a backpack similar, and only three hundred and two survived the crash and many of those survivors met their ends on AE625. This meant that Yuto’s backpack was three hundred years old, patched together with pieces of other backpacks, canvas from the ship, and fabric that was made from the molla (both the molla and the canvas were repurposed to make clothing as well). The pack was ugly and grey and sandblasted, but it had never failed Yuto. The backpack had been jury-rigged from its original multi-compartment form to have only three storage compartments. The first compartment on the bottom and was waterproofed and the largest. It was used to bring water back to the camp. The second was slightly smaller and used to carry mollas. The third was a small zip up pouch on the front of the backpack in which Yuto carried a knife, a compass, and other necessities. The compass had been a gift from his father, who in turn had received it from his father. It was useless, however, as the poles of the planet were constantly moving due to the molten layer of steel beneath the planet’s crust.

  Aileen continued to lap up the exudate happily, which made Yuto’s job easier. It had a vile, bitter taste and most of the colonists refused to eat it and washed it off before cooking the mollas. They also frowned on it being used as a narcotic, but short of stealing and murder everything on AE625 was legal. The black fungal sweat did have one drawback. It stained the user’s gums and nostrils a deep purple or black color. In his youth, between the ages of seven to nine, Yuto had experimented with the molla along with his other friends, but unlike the rest he developed an addiction to it. Most of the hunters were addicted to the mollas or enjoyed using them recreationally, which made them the perfect candidates to go exploring unknown and dangerous regions for the little mushrooms.

  When he had finished harvesting the bulk of the mushrooms, he began to explore the cave deeper, looking for water. The mollas only grew in dark caves that had water, so some of the life giving fluid had to be nearby. The water on AE625, however, was full of heavy metals and nearly killed the first settlers. Their gut bacteria couldn’t handle breaking down the harsh chemicals and died in droves, leaving the settlers susceptible to dysentery, before chemical poisoning killed them. The gonis, perhaps looking at them as a new and exciting food source, investigated. They crawled all over the settlers for several days, attempting to eat the humans with their toothless, soft mouths. When the surviving settlers awoke, they found that the gonis had accidentally transferred their commensal bacteria flocs to the humans and the humans could now live on the planet. Since then, the two species had entered into a mutualistic relationship. The only anatomical differences Earthlings and the Exos on planet AE625 had, after three hundred years, was that the Exos had more robust livers and kidneys.

  Yuto’s headlamp illuminated the grotto and he finally saw the source of the water, a single drop that fell from the ceiling of the cave and into a tiny pool—no, puddle—only two inches deep, save for the tiny abrasion in the rock surface that allowed the water to seep back into the sediment. Yuto swore viciously and kicked his foot against the wall of the cave. His headlamp showed that it was a single hollow, with no side-branches or tunnels.

  Aileen cocked her head and stared at him with her large, black eyes. She gently floated over to him, flapping her wings only once and landed on his shoulder, her tail wrapped around his throat for stability. The suction cups tickled his neck slightly, but he had grown used to it over the years. He glanced at the entrance to the cave and noted that the wind had abated, the sun beginning its descent towards the horizon. Yuto could see Earth 2.0 like a distant moon. As far away as it was, it was close enough that he could make out the swirling blue of its waters and the vivid green of the land masses. He often dreamt of rescue, though he knew it would never come.

  Yuto and Aileen began their trek back towards their camp, following the cairns of stones Yuto had stacked to mark his path. Some of the cairns had been knocked over by the wind, while others still stood erect.

  Chapter Two

  Yuto returned to the camp, his pack full of mollas but devoid of any water. The camp was comprised of canvas tents around two holding tanks for water. One of the tanks was filled with fresh water, although rarely ever brimming. The other tank was for the Exos to relieve their bladders in. Each of the tanks was collapsible and could be brought along with the Exos. When times were bad, which they were now, the Exos would cook their mollas using their urine, and drink the broth afterwards to hydrate themselves. Currently, the water tank was empty, the urine tank beginning to go the same way. On Earth, drinking one’s own urine was only done in times of dire need, or by a few strange individuals. On AE625 it was a way of life, and until the urine tank was a dark brownish gold color, it wasn’t considered disgusting.

  Yuto relieved himself in the second tank and took his day’s treasures to the central tent where the other hunters were gathered. Yuto’s childhood friend, Rio, had just exited the central tent, his own goni perched on his shoulder, snacking on a molla clasped between its forewings. His goni’s name was Herma, shortened from the word hermaphrodite, since Rio wanted to name the creature something gender neutral. If Herma ever knew that its name was a slight to its sexuality, it never showed any indication. Rio was the youngest in the colony, only fifteen years old, but by that age he should have been married. Yuto himself had married when he was only eleven years old, which as a member of a dying species had not been viewed as irresponsible of him. However, with the water shortages, it had been impossible for any other children to be born. Pregnancies were commonplace enough, but the child never received the nutrients needed to survive to full term. Half term or shorter pregnancies were common but all ended with spontaneous abortions of desiccated fetuses. With food in such short supply, the fetuses were often cooked with the mollas and fed to the gonis.

  Many of the women in the colony wondered why Rio had not married them or one of their friends. He was tall, broad-shouldered and extremely handsome. He could have any woman in the colony, even some who were already married. Yuto, however, knew why Rio shunned the advances of women. When Rio was six years old he fell ill to a serious bacterial infection that killed his parents and r
endered him impotent. He found his encounters with women frustrating and embarrassing. The one female he allowed to be close to him was Deirde, a pretty girl with smooth alabaster skin, blonde hair and perfectly straight teeth, a rarity on AE625. She often tried to coax Rio into trying anything sexual, and when he relented nothing ever happened. Yuto often thought that Rio and Deirde would marry one day, if Rio ever warmed up to the idea. On AE625, marriage wasn’t like it was on earth, with no ceremonies, no vows, and monogamy not the main goal. Marriage on AE625 had the sole purpose of picking a lifelong mate in order to raise children and make life on the planet a little more bearable. Infidelity was not taboo and was often encouraged. Shacking up was simply a way to make life easier.

  “Find anything good today?” Rio called to Yuto. His gums and nostrils were as black as Yuto’s. Snorting molla was one of the only pleasures Rio found in life.

  “No water, if that’s what you’re asking,” Yuto said glumly. He hated to admit when he had found nothing.

  “Damn, well after you check in today let’s smoke some molla,” he suggested and Yuto shrugged in acquiescence. There wasn’t much better to do, other than return for the night and have sex with his wife, which was always better after smoking molla.

  Yuto entered the central tent, seeing several crates full of mollas and those backpacks with any water stacked in a corner. Three old men and two ancient women were counting and distributing the day’s finds into crates, each crate marked for a family or individual. The Council of Elders always counted the day’s find and were often up late into the evening and up again early in the morning. The Elders were aged thirty-eight to forty-six but looked like Earthling ninety year olds. They were wizened and hunched over, their joints swollen with rheumatoid arthritis, which made their task of counting and weighing the mollas even more painstaking. Yet somehow they managed. The oldest woman, Treya, tsked her disproval at Yuto for not returning with water. She took his day’s find, turned her back and waved him off. Aileen, sensing her derisiveness, spat a gob of black molla cud at the woman’s frizzy expanse of grey hair. She didn’t feel it, and Yuto quickly took his leave.