Origins: Universe of Species, #1

By Raymond S Flex

Like all those surrounding him, from the neck downwards he had a humanlike body (albeit covered in tawny fur). He had wiry limbs and cablelike muscles, which came from the hare DNA his humanoid body was spliced with. All the same, staturewise, he was among the smallest crewmembers aboard The Origin of Species, the interstellar mineral-mining spacecraft where they made their home. He was well aware of the short guy stereotype, that they were quick to anger, and Elder made an effort not to provide evidence to further it.

 

THE UNIVERSE OF SPECIES

 

Elder, a humanoid hare, plays the role of the calm-headed ship's navigator aboard The Origin of Species, an interstellar mineral-mining spacecraft. Among his crew of other animals, they shuttle from planet to planet, pulling in credits, earning a living.

 

Predator and prey work side-by-side in harmony.

 

They are more than crew. They are family.

 

However when they make a life-changing discovery aboard an abandoned space frigate, the future of The Origin and its crew is thrown into question. The implications of which will threaten their place within the universe itself. And test the strength of the crew and their base instincts to their very limits.

 

Fight or flight. Life or death.

 

A galaxy-spanning space opera featuring anthropomorphic animals.

 

Origins is a Universe of Species novel

• Language: English
• Publisher: DIB Books
• Release date: Aug 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223893653

Raymond S Flex

From fleeting frontiers to your kitchen sink, with Raymond S Flex you never know quite what to expect. His most popular series include: the Crystal Kingdom, Guynur Schwyn and Arkle Wright. On the lighter side of things he also writes Gnome Quest: a high fantasy with . . . yup, you guessed it, gnomes! And not to forget his standalone titles: Necropolis, Ethereal and more short stories than you can shake a space blaster at. Get in touch, keep up, at www.raymondsflex.com

Book preview

PROLOGUE - THE BEAST

The night felt electric, fully charged.

Insects chirped away.

Some kind of animal cackled in the distance.

A persistent engine-like hum.

The beast knew it was time.

It felt as though it had slept for weeks. Its muscles stiff and unyielding. It had been lying in an awkward position on its side. It sat slumped up, its back supported by a firm surface, a wall. Still pressing its back up against the solid surface, the beast arched its shoulders, stretched its arms, breathed in deeply, feeling the blood rush up to its brain. Thoughts came in a kind of swirling soup.

Impossible to gather into any logical order.

The beast’s vision was fuzzy. Everything appeared just out of reach.

As if the world would forever escape its grasp.

This world—the one which surrounded the beast—was not its world.

But it soon would be.

Legs wobbling beneath its substantial torso, the beast eased itself up from its sitting position, arriving on its two feet. From the sway of the ground, the beast could tell it was in space. Aboard a spaceship. It sensed artificial gravity. How it was always slightly too strong or too weak. Every few microseconds the ship’s systems strived to strike the perfect balance. With all these designs upon perfection, humans trod on the toes of gods.

Perhaps humans believed they were deities themselves.

Or an even higher power.

The beast knew this. And that the time was ripe for change.

With one palm still flat against the wall, supporting itself, the beast studied its surroundings. The dimensions were square, even, so clearly human made. If the construction of the room had not made it obvious, then the pen, the prison cell, in which the beast found itself would have done.

Humans were the only species which imprisoned.

It was in this way the beast knew humans had made it a prisoner.

And humans were the ones who would suffer for having made it so.

With a strength until now kept at bay by sedatives, the beast gripped the reinforced steel bars of its cage. Its paws were the size of an African lion’s and the bars were no match for a true force of nature. From deep within its throat a guttural growl emanated.

An anguish encompassing the wrongful incarceration of millennia.

And all by human hands.

Now that the beast had awakened it would be held no longer.

The beast bent the bars inward, the steel creaking as they neared breaking point.

Overhead a surveillance camera whirred away. Its beady, never-sleeping black eye fixed upon the beast. It transmitted the images to somewhere off in the bowels of the spaceship. Whether or not an alarm was raised did not matter.

It was already too late.

The beast was released.

Having bent the bars sufficiently, the beast hauled itself out of its cage, its horned toes tapping against the concrete floor outside.

The sound of freedom.

Through flaring nostrils, the beast drank the sterile air pumping through the ventilation systems. Standing at full height its ears nearly brushed the ceiling. The beast was a full head and shoulders taller than the average human male. Thick fur covered the entirety of its body, obscuring the rippling muscles of its biceps, abdomen, thighs.

Warnings of its brutish power to any who paid attention.

In the beast’s experience, humans did not often pay attention.

Pure arrogance was truly a uniquely human trait.

The beast puffed the contents of its lungs out through its mouth and nostrils, feeling a tingling sensation pass through its blood. The anticipation of what was about to come.

The insects continued to chirp.

An animal continued to cackle.

The beast turned its head in the direction of the sound and soon located the source.

A speaker was mounted on the wall, just out of the beast’s reach. The beast wondered what had prompted the humans to pipe in these sounds. If the humans had thought that jungle ambience might calm the beast’s temper, ease into its unconscious while it dozed away under the influence of the sedatives. Fool it into believing it was in its natural habitat.

As if the beast even had a natural habitat.

As if anything about the beast was natural.

Nearby, the beast saw a bright red fire extinguisher attached to the wall. It snatched the extinguisher off its hook. In human hands the extinguisher would have been a substantial size and weight but to the beast it was about as hefty as a loaf of bread. The beast bore the extinguisher over its head, arcing it back over its shoulders. Then it brought the extinguisher forward, sending it sailing through the air. It met its target with pinpoint accuracy.

In a burst of hissing, the pressure in the extinguisher was released, foam spraying the room.

Electrical sparks spat and showered as the speaker snapped off its bracket.

It fell to the floor, landing with a heavy thud alongside the still-gushing extinguisher.

A minute passed.

And soon enough all was quiet.

No more insects.

And no animal cackled.

The fire extinguisher spent.

All the beast could hear now was the rasp of its own breathing.

The sibilant flush of air through the ventilation system.

This was better.

Much better.

The beast looked back to its cage. The bars cartoonishly bent inwards which had allowed its enormous form to squeeze out. It was a sad sight. And one which the beast would no longer endure. Once the beast had its revenge it would try its best to forget. Still feeling the numbing, disorientating effects of the sedatives, the beast felt the wall, guiding itself as it trudged forward. With each step, the influence of the sedatives dissipated. The beast felt its senses slowly returning. Soon it would be at the peak of its power once more. The apex animal to end all apex animals.

Just as it had been designed.

When the beast no longer required the sure support of the wall, it drew its arm into its midriff.

It experimented taking several steps forward unaided.

At first it nearly lost its footing. But it recovered each time.

When it reached the doorway, it felt confident of its gait.

That it could rely on its own two feet.

The constant swirling sensation that had impinged its balance was almost gone.

Fresh strength flowed through its bones and muscles.

Along with the burning desire for retribution.

It was determined to set things right.

A security panel beside the door glowed red.

The beast did not have time for such human trinkets.

It swung its elbow back and then brought it forward with all the power of a battering ram, driving into the middle of the door. The steel buckled in the same way that the steel bars of its cage had buckled. The beast repeated the gesture half a dozen times, pounding, until a deep dent appeared. The beast held back a moment, not because of physical exertion, but to listen for any sign of response. For humans.

Hearing nothing, the beast resumed its barrage.

Finally the steel buckled.

And the security panel began to emit a flat warning note.

An error in the system.

The beast prised its claws in around the edges of the door, seizing it in its clutches. It pincered the steel. Its claws burrowed into the metal. As if no more substantial than the lid of a tin can, the beast peeled the door free of its opening and tossed it away.

It clanged loudly as it landed on the beast’s heels.

The beast was determined to think no more of the place where it had been confined.

There would be no more fences where it was going:

Home.

CHAPTER 1 - THE GHOST SHIP

E ase us in now, bunny. That’s it, nice and slow.

Elder, a hare—most definitely not a bunny—turned in his seat. His ears stuck up straight while his beady black eyes fell upon the maned wolf who’d just spoken to him.

The maned wolf who also happened to be the captain.

His name was Lucho.

Elder clung onto the control stick. He was guiding the interstellar mineral-mining spacecraft The Origin of Species through the inky blackness of space towards the dock of the motionless frigate up ahead. The frigate was five or six times larger than The Origin and if Elder wasn’t careful he could do great damage to both ships if he got his sums wrong.

It was a good thing for Lucho that Elder had his hands full.

For now.

You call me bunny one more time, Elder replied, and I’ll kick your teeth down your throat.

That’s no way to speak to your captain, Lucho replied through a toothy sneer, a growling voice that nonetheless threatened to break into a guffaw at any moment. "And anyway I have fangs not teeth."

While there was no laughter, in Elder’s peripheral vision, he could sense the rest of the crew smirking. A typical group bandying around the alpha male. Lest they be next in line.

How tiresome. How predictable.

For Elder alpha was merely a synonym for bully.

And he had never backed down from a bully in his entire life.

His internal monologue racing, insisting he was the bigger creature for taking the higher moral ground, not burdening himself with petty squabbles at important moments such as this one, Elder shifted his attention back onto the screen before him. He had to focus. He couldn’t allow himself to get emotional. That was when you made mistakes.

Thirty seconds till impact, Elder called out to the bridge, reading and interpreting the data presented before him as easily as someone else might have read a dictionary. As he clung onto the control stick, he stayed focused, knowing everyone on the bridge and beyond was waiting on his cues. If he was out—even slightly—he would get them into major trouble.

A domino effect.

Lives were on the line.

As navigator, he was more than a safe pair of hands.

The whole crew depended upon him.

Was he really to blame that it irritated him when he was ridiculed before others by the captain? Just as Lucho insisted on doing? Lower ranks might not have known better but the captain was another matter. (And at least with lower ranks he could put them through the disciplinary process on the basis of insubordination).

Elder supposed the deal with him and Lucho was that old predator-prey dynamic. No doubt Lucho being a maned wolf thought that he could have Elder for supper any time he wanted. The joke was on Lucho because Elder slept with a flip knife in his boot. If Lucho ever did come for him he wouldn’t be the first apex predator Elder had drawn blood from. And even unarmed he could deliver a truly mean kick …

Twenty seconds, Elder continued, fixing upon the screen. Although he had known other navigators who would delegate direct control of their ship to their charges Elder was a control freak and liked to take over for particularly sensitive manoeuvres such as this one.

Fifteen. Ten. Five. Four. Three. Two …

"One," Lucho growled out, forever stealing Elder’s thunder.

Although Elder told himself deep down he didn’t care about Lucho’s treatment, it still rankled. And even despite trying to keep himself calm, he couldn’t prevent being tempted into getting the last word. Thankfully protocol allowed him to have it.

Contact, Elder said sternly as the ship buckled on impact, its feelers docking with the frigate, the ghost ship. Those standing on the bridge swayed slightly. Some braced themselves against bulkheads. Elder tapped the appropriate buttons on the side of the control stick and he heard the changing tone of the ship’s engines off in the depth of the ship. He ceded standby control to his second-in-command and then allowed himself to relax.

The tension eased from his stomach.

His heartbeat continued to tap away rapidly at his temple.

There was silence on the bridge.

The dozen or so clearly lost in their own thoughts.

They had stumbled across this frigate while on their current course. Captain Lucho had decided to explore despite there being no distress call. That was the strangest thing about a ship this size. It was just drifting about in the middle of space apparently unmanned. There were only a handful of explanations for the ghost ship. One might have been that the whole crew had already left, the captain switching off the emergency beacon before abandoning ship. A more macabre explanation was that there had been some malfunction to the life-support systems which had rendered the entire crew unconscious and so unable to activate the beacon. In a section of deep space such as this there was little hope of help arriving in time in that eventuality.

Elder had already prepared himself for the worst case scenario.

That this frigate was nothing but an interstellar tomb.

Only now that The Origin had come to rest did Elder switch his attention to the main screen on the bridge showing the view outside. In the background the stars appeared like pinpricks. Meanwhile the foreground was dominated by the enormous frigate.

Elder turned in his seat, feeling the springs in the cushion slink about beneath his bony buttocks. Like all those surrounding him, from the neck downwards he had a humanlike body (albeit covered in tawny fur). He had wiry limbs and cablelike muscles, which came from the hare DNA his humanoid body was spliced with. All the same, staturewise, he was among the smallest crewmembers aboard The Origin of Species, the interstellar mineral-mining spacecraft where they made their home. He was well aware of the short guy stereotype, that they were quick to anger, and Elder made an effort not to provide evidence to further it.

The hardest part of his work completed for the time being, Elder allowed himself to breathe easily. To relax his muscles. The naturally high level of alertness bestowed upon him from being a prey animal was a great advantage in his role as navigator.

His attention to detail was second to none.

However it did have its disadvantages.

Chief among those was that since it was a natural instinct it was near enough impossible to switch off. That was what had led him to practising yoga and tai chi in his quarters while he was off duty in an effort to unwind. He especially liked tai chi given that it was known colloquially as shadow boxing. It dug into his natural boxing hare instincts.

Elder flashed a look across the officers on the bridge. He was pleased to see that the group’s attention had shifted away from him. Lucho’s gaze had moved onto his next victim. This was Nanie, ship’s engineer, a female ring-tailed lemur. She was currently providing a report on The Origin’s system status following their attempted docking to the frigate.

We’re running a little hot in the core, Nanie said, without looking up.

There was a kind of perpetually bored hunger in Lucho’s eyes. We’ll stop here as long as we can, Lucho replied, pushing himself up from the captain’s chair in the centre of the bridge.

His legs were long and slender. Like the others on board he wore the blue-grey uniform of The Origin. The fact they all wore uniforms perhaps suggested a greater level of discipline on board than there was in reality. When they got down to it they were all mercenaries. If they hadn’t been they would all have signed up for a medical or disaster relief service rather than mineral mining. Almost without exception their uniforms were tired, worn, threadbare in places. All the tell-tale signs of their core business: mineral mining. Regardless of their condition, all the uniforms had a removable patch punched into the seat of the trousers so that a tail could protrude. The kind of alteration which put Elder in mind of those human pyjamas that had a flap at the buttocks.

In Lucho’s case, his tail was long and elegant; fluffy, flamelike.

Elder’s tail wasn’t much more than a bob: tawny, flecked with white.

Tails of all shapes and sizes were observable upon The Origin.

Reaching to support himself against the bulkhead, Lucho’s jaws gaped wide in a nonchalant yawn, showing off a mouth full of pointed white fangs. Doesn’t seem like we’re likely to come up against hostiles. He flashed a toothy grin in the direction of Adilha—a pelican, and head of security and logistics. Unless we’re dealing with zombies.

Perched in her chair, Adilha sawed her pink beak back and forth. Her gaze softened, apparently in thought. Finally, she spoke up, the muscles in her feathery white throat tensing and relaxing as she did so. We’ll go in prepared. More hands on blasters never hurts.

Lucho nodded along. How we doing with the walkway?

Without needing to clarify who he was addressing, Nanie responded.

We’ll be ready to go in the next five minutes. It looks like the airlock on board is still fully functional. Air mixture appears safe. No signs of any structural damage to the hull. Still—she fired a look at Adilha—probably best to suit up all the same.

Adilha nodded. We don’t know what kind of localised toxins we might be dealing with. She stared at her screen once more. Whatever took this thing down it was a significant threat. We don’t know what we’re walking into.

Stretching his arms up to the ceiling—and just brushing it with the very tips of his claws—Lucho said, There much criminal activity in these parts?

Adilha shook her head. Nothing significant enough to take this kind of ship down.

Lucho thought this over a few moments and then fixed his stare upon Elder again.

Elder felt his stomach twist into knots. Even just looking at Lucho he felt the anger stirring in his gut. Every time he woke for his next shift he was horrified anew at the fact that Lucho had somehow managed to ascend to the rank of captain.

That he was his boss.

It had all come about after the sudden death of Igaluk, their previous captain. He had been a polar bear splice. Elder recalled how he had often felt frustrated by Igaluk’s constant calm even in the face of the most stressful of situations—situations which required quick decisions and swift action … but Igaluk had always been introspective, wanting to take his time and weigh all factors before acting. If he acted at all. They had discovered his enormous body one morning, slumped,