Boralene Read online

  Boralene

  Book One of the

  Stellar Merger series

  By

  Nathan Jones

  Copyright © 2018 Nathan Jones

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the author

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The events depicted in this novel are fictional. The characters in this story are also fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is entirely unintentional.

  by Nathan Jones

  POST-APOCALYPTIC

  BEST LAID PLANS

  Fuel

  Shortage

  Invasion

  Reclamation

  Determination

  NUCLEAR WINTER

  First Winter

  First Spring

  Chain Breakers

  Going Home

  Fallen City

  Badlands

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Links to books by Nathan Jones

  Prologue

  Alive

  Tycho heaved a final time, then straightened with a shuddering breath and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, grimacing at the acrid residue that lingered in it and burned in his sinuses.

  Combined with the queasy smell from the puddle of his own sick on the ground it was almost enough to make him heave again, and he quickly turned away and forced himself to take quick, shallow breaths through his mouth.

  Well, he'd gone on this excursion for new experiences. He could honestly say this was the first time he'd thrown up since, well, ever. He never would've imagined it would be so agonizingly miserable.

  That was probably why people kept their companions close by, to keep things like this from happening. He had to admit he was rethinking whatever independent streak had prompted him to leave Eva back with his starship.

  “Happy 25th Birthday, Mister Boralene,” he muttered sarcastically to himself.

  Tycho heard a soft whine from behind him and glanced over at Laird, who waited patiently by the carcass of the elk he'd just brought down. The hunting mastiff wagged his tail at the attention, but remained vigilant in guarding the kill site.

  Just like he'd trained the dog to, although it delighted him to see how well his faithful friend attended to his duties. He hadn't been sure if all their careful work back at the estate would pay off on a real live hunt.

  But now that this delightful interlude was over with he needed to get back to the task at hand, although now he wasn't sure if he even could. This was his first time ever seeing death in real life, ever even considering it as a reality, and it had shaken him more than he'd thought.

  He wondered if maybe his parents and allnet acquaintances had been right about avoiding the barbaric practice of hunting. Especially since the next step now that he'd actually brought the elk down was to field dress it.

  Or in other words, to cut it open and take out its guts. The very thought made him dry heave again, and he hastily swallowed.

  Was he actually up to this? He'd watched extensive informational material on the ancient, barbaric process of field dressing a kill. But as with so many things on this trip he was discovering that the real thing was nothing like what he'd imagined.

  He hadn't expected the carcass would stink this bad before he'd even cut it open, for instance.

  But he'd never considered himself one to quit once he'd started something, and this is what he'd come down to his world's Southern Preserve to do. He'd already taken the first step of shooting a living animal, now he owed it the respect of processing it for its meat and hide so the death wasn't wasted.

  Besides, this was pretty much the same as how the AI caretakers provided humans with the meat and other animal products they ate. The only difference was he had to see it in person and do the work with his own two hands, but every time he enjoyed a steak at his manor this was effectively what was happening to the cow somewhere behind the scenes.

  Although admittedly, he kind of wished he'd never drawn the curtain back on where his meat came from.

  What insanity had led him to choose this as an activity for his quarter century celebration? He couldn't believe people had once lived like this, back at the dawn of mankind in the distant shadowy time before they'd even taken their first steps into space. So far removed that returning to it for even something as simple as hunting his next meal seemed like monstrous savagery.

  But here he was. Gritting his teeth in determination, Tycho strode over to the elk and dropped into a crouch, brandishing the knife he'd had Eva fabricate for him. It took nearly fifteen minutes of shuddering and holding back his gorge as he worked to remove all the offal from the elk's insides, intact so the meat wasn't spoiled, and he wasn't sure whether to feel proud of himself, relieved the nightmarish ordeal was over, or sick again as he completed the grisly task.

  Not wanting to prolong the queasy sensation of holding the still-warm, slimy mass in his hands, he quickly tossed it over to where Laird waited. His friend had faithfully tracked the elk across the mountains of the Southern Preserve, and he deserved the treat.

  But once again Tycho was pleased to see that his training had been effective; while the dog gave the steaming mass a single, longing look, he then returned to his vigilant watch over the kill.

  Tycho wiped his hands on a cleansing cloth and ambled over to fondly rub between the sturdy animal's ears. “Good boy,” he murmured. Again, a single tail wag in acknowledgement. “Dig in.”

  With a joyful whine Laird buried his nose in the offal, rooting around for the choicest bits. Happy as Tycho was to see his faithful friend enjoying a well deserved reward, the sight made his stomach give another queasy lurch. He quickly turned back to the elk and got to work skinning and quartering it.

  The instructional material he'd watched had made it all look simple and easy, but this was apparently a learned skill that required finesse with his fabricated skinning knife. Not to mention experience with sawing through dense meat, tendons, and bone joints.

  In the end the hide was a laughably tattered mess with ragged bits of flesh hanging off it. He'd been intending to have Eva cure it and make a rug or perhaps a wall hanging, some sort of decoration he could display to commemorate this experience. But under the circumstances he'd be lucky if there was enough usable material for a pouch.

  As for the meat, well . . . he was hungry enough he'd enjoy just about anything right about now, but it was a far cry from the gourmet cuisine Eva cooked for him. And looking at the crudely sawed portions with bone and gristle sticking out everywhere, gruesomely disgusting to his sensibilities, he was rethinking his plan to have her take most of the meat home with them to work her special brand of perfection on.

  Well, at this point he was hungry enough to try anything, another wholly unfamiliar sensation. He'd see how he felt about the unappetizing hunks of flesh after roasting a few skewers of the stuff on a fire tonight.

  Assuming he could get one lit this time.

  Tycho selected out the choicest cuts, which was probably putting it more than a little g
enerously, then pulled out the portable stasis field he'd brought along and tossed it over the carcass to preserve it until Eva could retrieve it. She'd fabricated that for him, too.

  He was about to call Laird to his side to head back to camp when the mastiff abruptly lifted his head from the elk's innards, bristling. Bloody lips pulled back in a snarl from wickedly gleaming teeth, eyes focused and promising violence.

  Staring right at Tycho.

  He froze in a moment of blank panic at the horrifyingly savage change in his otherwise docile, obedient pet. His mom and dad had both recommended against trying to raise and train a living animal, especially something as dangerous and unpredictable as a dog. Even a breed with a good reputation that was well trained could suddenly become a threat, his mom had warned. Why take that risk when he could have a companion pet instead, one that would be better than the real thing and with none of the downsides?

  Tycho had insisted on his mastiff puppies, however, and had spent countless hours training Laird and Lady and fretting over their welfare in the last few months. And aside from a few minor setbacks the dogs had been everything he would've hoped, and more. Their affection and loyalty alone were something to be prized.

  What was wrong with Laird now? Had the taste of meat put him into some sort of frenzy? He didn't think that happened with dogs, but what did he know when it came to live animals? Or maybe being out in rugged nature had reminded the animal of some deeper instinct and made him turn feral.

  Or maybe Tycho was a moron panicking over nothing: Laird's eyes weren't fixed on him but on something behind him.

  Unfortunately his relief that his beloved companion hadn't suddenly turned on him was short lived, as it finally sank in that the dog felt threatened and alarmed by something behind him.

  Tycho whirled, eyes darting through the trees and underbrush blanketing the mountainside. It took an embarrassingly long few seconds before he caught a flash of gray creeping down the slope towards him. Then he caught another a dozen feet off to the right. Finally he spotted a third, out in the open long enough to reveal a long, lean shape.

  They could've been Laird's cousins, only bigger and leaner with longer legs, shaggy gray pelts, and long muzzles filled with wicked yellow teeth. They moved quick and low to the ground in a coordinated pack, stalking their prey with the familiarity of sharply honed instincts and a lifetime of practice.

  Mountain wolves, likely drawn by the stink of the elk carcass. They probably intended to claim it for their own, and while they were at it maybe make a dessert of him and Laird.

  He felt dampness spread down his leg as he lost control of his bladder, but hardly noticed yet one more new and unpleasant sensation in the face of the worst one he'd experienced so far on this trip: terror.

  It was the first time he'd ever felt fear about something that might actually hurt him. The emotion completely paralyzed him, so all he could do was stand there frozen watching as the wolves slunk closer, his high powered hunting rifle a dozen yards away leaning against a tree.

  Eva had fabricated that for him, too.

  She'll save me, he thought with a sudden burst of almost giddy desperation. Only he'd deliberately left his companion with the ship a few miles away, in spite of her strong objections to the risky decision. All so he could enjoy the independence of hunting on his own with just Laird beside him; two living creatures doing exactly what their kind had done hundreds of thousands of years ago.

  Including getting eaten by more dangerous predators, it seemed.

  The wolves finally drew close enough to abandon stealth, and at some unspoken signal all three burst from cover and closed in on the clearing as blurred streaks of gray. The suddenness and swiftness of their approach finally galvanized Tycho, and he made a desperate dash for his rifle.

  Halfway there a snarling gray thunderbolt hit him in the side, bearing him to the ground. The pack's alpha. Tycho tried to roll away and a blaze of agony erupted in his shoulder. Horrified, he stared down at the wicked teeth clamped down on his joint, gnawing and grinding the flesh there.

  He had never imagined pain could be this bad. It shattered all thoughts from his mind but one, that he was going to die. He was going to die. With a scream he batted helplessly at the attacking wolf's muzzle with his hand, as weak and ineffectual as a newborn.

  Impossible. This was impossible. He'd come to the Southern Preserve for a vacation, a weeklong jaunt to try roughing it in the wilds. How was he going to die here?

  Although it felt like the wolf savaged him for an eternity it was probably only a couple seconds until another snarling shape, smaller but just as heavy, slammed into the wild animal in a fury of flashing teeth and raking claws.

  Laird. His faithful friend had just saved his life.

  The weight of the dog's attack tore the wolf away from him, and the two rolled and snapped viciously across the clearing together. Meanwhile the other two wolves, dismissing Tycho as a threat, rushed to the aid of their leader.

  They would regret that. He might've been scared helpless when his own life was threatened, but seeing his faithful friend snarling and yelping as three sets of teeth ripped at him made something inside Tycho snap. He scrambled to close the remaining distance to his gun and snatched it up, aiming at the alpha just as it pinned Laird to the ground.

  “You want to ignore me?” he screamed as he pulled the trigger, barely aware of even speaking the words. The gun bucked in his hands and the mountain wolf lurched as if kicked, stumbling drunkenly to one side with a yelp. Tycho aimed at another wolf and pulled the trigger again, missing by a hair. That only fanned his fury as he kept screaming and firing. “I'm the threat here. I'm the intelligent one! Leave my dog alone!”

  He'd practiced with the gun for weeks so he'd be ready for this hunting trip. Both with the scope and without it. It was optimized for minimum recoil and maximum penetration, and with its sophisticated alloys and polymers weighed far less than the crude ancient projectile weapons it was designed after.

  It wasn't a fair fight at all once he had it.

  By the time he'd stopped screaming the alpha was dead and the other two wolves had fled, one leaving a trail of blood from a severe wound. Tycho shook his rifle over his head and yelled after them in giddy relief and victory, voice hoarse and raw, and kept it up until they'd disappeared up the mountainside.

  His shoulder was still a white-hot stellar core of pain, his ears rang from the roar of the gunshots since he hadn't had time to put in the ear protection, and he was shaking so hard he nearly lost his balance and stumbled drunkenly even though he was standing still.

  And in all his short twenty-five years in this universe, Tycho had never felt so alive.

  For as long as he could remember he'd existed in a bland world of ease and comfort where all his needs were catered to. He never felt anything unpleasant, which made all the pleasant things he felt blend together into unexciting sameness since there was no contrast.

  Perverse as it sounded, the rush of surviving a fight for his life, even the pain of a serious wound, was more real than anything else he'd ever experienced. He wondered if it was possible to feel this way, feel alive, without nearly getting eaten by wolves.

  Then with a sick lurch in his gut he remembered Laird. His voice faltered in the middle of an elated whoop, and when he turned and saw his faithful friend lying still, coat ragged from several severe bites, his gut clenched in sudden horror.

  With it came a growing fear that while Laird had saved him, he'd failed to return the favor. He'd failed his best friend.

  “Eva!” he screamed, rushing over to fall to his knees beside the injured dog. Laird whined, and was such a faithful beast that even with his horrible wounds he still tried to give Tycho's hand a comforting lick when he heard the distress in his voice.

  “Shh,” Tycho soothed, gingerly patting an uninjured spot on the dog's neck. “Shh, boy. It's going to be all right.” He threw back his head and raised his voice as loud as he could. “Eva! Help!”
<
br />   Where was she? He knew he'd told her to stay with the ship so he could hunt on his own, but she should've been here. He'd almost gotten eaten by wolves, this was exactly the sort of thing companions were supposed to prevent! How could she have failed him so miserably, when before now she'd been a perfect companion?

  After screaming until his voice was a barely audible rasp he finally accepted that she wasn't coming.

  His communicator was back at the camp, almost a mile in the opposite direction of the ship. He cursed himself for being foolish enough to leave it behind that morning, especially when Eva had warned him to always have it on him in case he ran into trouble. But he'd been afraid if he had it he'd be tempted to ask Eva for help doing something he should be doing himself, like gutting the elk, and his stubborn streak had insisted he wanted to do everything on this trip on his own.

  This was all his fault.

  But being angry at himself was an indulgence he couldn't afford when time was running out for Laird. The ship wasn't that much farther away than camp, and anyway the wolves had fled in the direction of camp so he certainly didn't want to go that way.

  The ship, then. It was his beacon; if he could get there Eva had all the medical equipment and other emergency gear waiting. She would solve everything.

  With a shuddering breath to steady himself Tycho stumbled over to where he'd left his jacket beside his gun, returning to Laird to gently wrap the dog in it. “Shh,” he soothed when his friend yelped in pain. “I need to pick you up now, bud. We need to get you back to the ship. Be a good boy and stay calm.”

  The hunting mastiff might not have understood his words, but he was a good boy. He didn't try to kick or struggle as Tycho lifted him up into his arms, although from his whines and whimpers he was obviously in pain. He left a frighteningly large damp spot where his blood had soaked into the ground, mingling with the wolf's.

  Tycho grunted slightly as he adjusted the solid weight of his friend in his arms. Could he even make it almost two miles with this burden? For Laird he had to.