The Tomb World Ch1 (Patreon)

Kudzan

One Year before Alwen joined the Astaroth on Femeri

The world below them was a young one at only 1.5 billion years old, still older than human civilization but much younger than Earth as a whole. The atmosphere was warm and rich with carbon, the gravity was a low .83 Earth G’s, and the oceans were green with plankton. By Union metrics it was a 9.1 class world, much lower than Earth’s initial rating of 12. According to the algorithm for classifying temperate worlds Captain Daniels and his crew aboard the Staff of Loreshould have nothing to fear from this seemingly benign planet. However Daniels knew that the algorithm had many flaws, and there was no way he was putting one foot on that hellish overgrown planet.

Unmanned drones launched from the Staff of Lore’s ventral hull gave the Terran crew a good glimpse at a world perfectly built to chew them up and spit out their bones. Carnivorous trees 15 stories tall, polar bear sized insects that brawled midair, and flesh eating fungi potent enough to devour any deceased fauna in under forty-eight hours. And that was discounting the alien weed that moved across jungle floors so fast that Daniels suspected it might actually have little legs along the vines. The weed consumed entire swathes of jungle, leaving little of the original plant life behind. The only thing keeping the weeds growth in check were mile wide swarms of hamster sized alien locust. And the only thing the kept the locust in check were the sweet-smelling carnivorous trees branches that snared locust by the limb full.

The alien ecosystem had found an unusual case of harmonic gluttony, each part of the ecosystem devouring another as fast as it could before being consumed as well. It wasn’t a food web so much as a food ouroboros.

“What are you thinking?” his new lieutenant said in a crisp Victorian accent.

Eliza Finch began her term aboard the Staff of Lore as its chief science officer and had been a constant thorn in Daniels side. But in the events leading up to the mutiny of the original science crew she had proven herself worthy to hold her new rank as his second in command. Her calm composure and broad scientific knowledge had served the ship well, and her assistance in forming a new more trustworthy science division had been invaluable. They both held a great deal of respect for each other and the strengths they each brought to the table. They could have been a perfect well-oiled machine if there wasn’t one little snag in their working relationship.

During the mutiny Daniels had ordered the destruction of the Staff of Lore to prevent the mutineers from turning them over to the Union. He had decided to stay behind with his ship; and when he thought he was about to die, he had done something impulsive and kissed her on the lips before sending her off to the cold vacuum of space. He survived that day, and neither of them had talked about that moment since then, and it was a constant snag in their professional relationship.

“Kudzan” he said finally, his Texan accent putting a soft drawl on the word.

Eliza frowned “What?”

“Kudzan, like kudzu. It’s the perfect name for a world like that.” He said firmly.

“You want to name this planet after kudzu?” she asked flatly.

This was the fifth temperate world found by the Staff of Lore, or Lory as his crew preferred. The first two had been noted but were left unnamed for later explorations, the third one they found had been named Kunan’a by its native inhabitants. The fourth had been a class 10.5 deathworld with a very arid and mountainous climate that dominated the surface. The plant life mostly consisted of tall succulents that were analogous to cacti, one of the most prosperous species of cacti budded with beautiful red rose-like flowers. Eliza and Daniels had argued for days about what to name the world until they both settled on Rosario, for the beautiful desert roses.

“We can’t just name every world we come across after plants. There’s plenty of mythology and history to choose from.” Eliza chided.

“I’m not chosen plant names on purpose, but can you honestly tell me that Kudzan isn’t a fitting name?”

She turned back to the world and frowned. “No, not really.”

“That’s what I thought, the only other thing that comes to mind is Locus.”

She stuck out her tongue “Blech, no thank you.” She said as they watched a black cloud of Kudzan locus blot out a section of land below them. “But what would we call the colonists of this world, Kudzonians?”

Daniels scoffed “I doubt this world will ever see any serious settlement, Terran or otherwise. Even if we found a way to hold the native hazards at bay our interference might interrupt the very delicate equilibrium and cause the planets ecosystem to go into a tailspin. ‘Sides, the gravity’s to low for us. One year down there would turn our bones into jelly.”

“You have a point” she conceded “though I would still prepose at least a research facility. If we can study that alien kudzu then we might be able to find ways to put its rapid growth to use”

Daniels smirked at the irony “Kudzan kudzu.”

Eliza sighed in exasperation.

He glanced at her before continuing on “Yeah I could see how it might be useful. One package of seeds would be enough to completely decimate any worlds ecosystem.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of natural carbon capture, less along the lines of war crimes and famine.” She said pointedly with a glare.

“That’s the thing about discovery Doctor, any thing that can be applied for the betterment of society can just as easily become the newest WMD. We at least have to acknowledge the possibilities.”

Eliza crossed her arms “And do you think your superiors would ever try to do such a thing?”

Daniels cringed internally as he once again blundered into a sensitive topic. Eliza was fully aware of the Hellworlder’s goals, and while she had taken the mark of Beelzebub she made it very clear that she was still a staunch pacifist. The meeting between Eliza and his direct superior, Captain Astarte, had been very heated and left both women fuming at the other. Afterwards Astarte had very pointedly asked Daniels whether Finch might be a security problem.

Her eyes had pierced into his soul, and he knew that she would detect any lie, omission or otherwise. He told her that Finch wouldn’t expose their operations, butnor would she ever betray her core values. Astarte tentatively let their argument pass, but also ordered Daniels to keep and eye on her behavior. He knew that if he and Captain Bell hadn’t vouched for Eliza then she would have  been dumped on the most isolated settlement on Pandemonium, the world the Hellworlder fleet had been colonizing in secret.

Daniels pondered whether Astarte might ever use a biological weapon like Kudzan kudzu. “I would say no, Astarte wouldn’t do something like that…” he said slowly.

Eliza continued to glare at him, urging him finish his thought.

“The Union likely has countermeasures in place for dealing with alien flora and fauna. It would be too costly to insert the weapon.” Daniels knew Astarte well enough to know that she would at least fret over using such weapons. But he also knew that if it really came down to it she would do whatever it took to win.

He knew that the Hellworlder’s had a facility on Pandemonium’s moon for the development and manufacturing of nuclear weapons. He only knew that the facility existed, but not what the weapons were used for. But it didn’t take much imagination to guess.

“Don’t you think that’s an issue?” Eliza pushed, sensing his unease.

“I do, but its also above my pay grade, and yours. But I don’t think you need to worry about Kudzan being weaponized in the near future. Even with Lory’s max speed 20.2 kilo lights it took us months to get here. Granted we did make regular stops for recharging and observation. It would be far too inconvenient to set up a base this far from our supplies.”

Eliza frowned “I guess your right. What’s next after we collect samples?” she said changing the subject.

“We’re running low on rations, so after this we’ll turn around and regroup with Galatea and the other explorer ships.”

“Oh, we’re going to meet up with Sooand Sheila?”

Soo, and Sheila were Lory’s sister ships. Their names were Sword of Order, or Soo; and Shield of Faith, or Sheila. They had learned a lot from Lory’s first foray into the dark unknown and for her sister ships they had taken two soon to be decommissioned Tempter class frigates and refit them for deep space exploration. They launched shortly after Lory finished her repairs and upgrades, and they had a number of important discoveries under their belts. Soo had even found a class 11.5 deathworld that looked like a good third colony.

“Yeah, Soo found something odd. It was significant enough for Astarte to order the rest of us back to checkpoint Sierra. We’ll know more when we get there.”

Eliza nodded “It must be pretty big to call us all back. Any guesses?”

Daniels pursed his lips “A few, Jefferson said something about structured radio signals”

Eliza looked surprised “An uncontacted species?”

So far during the two Terran centuries the Union had been involved in the Orion arm only six sapient species had been discovered, Terrans, Torweni, Balikstro, Kaydic, Icutoo, and the Kunan’ai. It wasn’t hard to imagine that there were more hidden within the unexplored depths of Orion, but Daniels wasn’t certain that was what Soo found. “I’m not sure, Jefferson didn’t want to say much over open comms, but it didn’t sound like they found alien radio chatter. We’ll know more when we get there.”

Eliza nodded and looked thoughtful as they glanced back towards Kudzan. “Are you absolutely sure we cant just hop down for a quick minute?” she asked hopefully.

“If you want to go down there be my guest, but I’m not putting one foot on the world. They have bugs the size of hamsters!” He said firmly, his spine crawling just from the idea of it.

She smirked, but otherwise didn’t bring up his fear of bugs.