Classified Planet: Turongal (The Darvel Exploratory Systems Book 1) Read online

  Classified Planet: Turongal

  S.J. Sanders

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Other Works by S.J. Sanders

  About the Author

  Classified Planet: Turongal

  The Darvel Exploratory Systems

  S.J. Sanders

  ©2020 by Samantha Sanders

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without explicit permission granted in writing from the author.

  Editor: LY. Publishing

  Cover Artist: Pierliugi Abbondanza

  www.abboart.com

  Type facing and cover formatting: Samantha Rose

  This book is a work of fiction intended for adult audiences only.

  Thank you Octavia Kore for your insights and feedback on a few critical chapters, especially in creation of the little critter companion.

  Chapter 1

  Charlene “Charlie” Wallace drew up her shoulders so she could slip the broad band of her thermo regulation suit up around her mouth, seeking its warmth against her cold face. The chill brought to mind her childhood in Minnesota, where the winter air had been so cold that she would burrow into her scarf in the hopes that her breath in the fabric would warm her face.

  Of course, the lower colonist levels of the ship wouldn’t warrant much heating, in the minds of the representatives of Darvel Exploratory. Everyone was provided bare necessities for survival, which meant that if anyone wanted to be warm, one always had a small portable heating unit in their quarters. That was considered adequate for the lower levels.

  It didn’t surprise Charlie. Darvel Exploratory was known for cutting corners. Though it would never have been permitted among the decks provided for the citizens, or even the tightly rationed military class, they skimped on the lower decks as long as it was “humane.” Funny how the definition seemed to be flexible, depending on which people were being discussed.

  She had no doubt that the upper deck people wouldn’t find it humane if they were forced to suffer from the cold, day in and out, in their regular tasks. But it was fine for the grunts, the common workers who would be doing much of the labor for scouting the planet and breaking ground for establishing colonies. No one gave a fuck about them as long as no one keeled over from bad conditions.

  No surprise there. As “enlightened” as human civilization had become—cleaning up the environment, restoring the wilderness, and joining into one united federated government body that eliminated all necessity for war—there was one problem that could not be escaped. One problem that soiled the perfect view of paradise. Equality did not exist, and could not exist with such a massive population, or so Earth’s united government had deemed.

  There simply weren’t enough resources for the population booms that had followed the global plagues that ultimately united their world. The Global Federation dealt with it by creating the citizenship program, which offered benefits and provided reasonable comforts to anyone who had been able to buy or “earn” their way in, whether through prestige or service, or being chosen by the lottery. A citizen had social mobility and could reach for the stars.

  To not have it… Well, that spoke for itself.

  In Charlie’s opinion, the program was a fucking joke—and not the laugh out loud kind, but the kind that made her want to curl up and cry some days because of how unfair it was.

  Not that any of Earth’s allies ever saw it. The program made Earth look like a paradise of equals to the other races who shared the galaxy, and the nearest neighboring ones where species had established contact. No one but humanity knew the truth, and the human isolation laws on human colonies and on Earth reinforced this perception.

  The one-time lottery had been considered a “fair and impartial” way to determine who, among the masses in every region, would be allowed into the citizenry. Charlie doubted that her great-grandparents saw it that way. Citizenship provided comforts and allowed potential mobility through the higher social tiers. Those who didn’t make it were slapped with the label “non-gratas” and separated socially and economically from the citizens.

  Anyone who didn’t win citizenship in the lottery and who was born non-gratas in the generations following the event were told to take a number and hope for a chance at recruitment into the military. The slots were limited, and entrance was difficult to obtain unless there was a new colony being established with the intent of colonization and harvesting of resources from planets capable of sustaining human life.

  Many non-gratas, including Charlie, considered recruitment buy-ins a slap in the face. It was bad enough that the non-gratas lived their lives under constant restriction, their possessions provided by a government assembly who decided what was a necessity. That the only way to earn any sort of freedom enjoyed by the others was to put their lives on the line for a five-year term, after which they would be rewarded with full benefits of citizenship, was bullshit. There were those so against recruitment that they considered the acceptance of such an offer to be a sellout.

  Charlie didn’t blame those who accepted the few recruitment offers doled out. Everyone wanted a better life in the end. The idea of it still left a bitter taste in her mouth, and it was hard not to feel resentment toward those who were selected, especially during the last year when Earth decided to do a rapid recruitment as the colony ship drew closer to its destination.

  In truth, no one wanted to be non-gratas. To be non-gratas meant a life where one was confined in a housing unit in an allotted area and put to work as a common laborer, or involuntarily entered into a planetwide raffle. The Exploratory Systems Lottery made up the bulk of the investigative teams dumped on new worlds to create colonies. Born non-gratas, she was used to miserable, cramped living conditions, and the constant threat of the lottery removing her from all that she knew. But the cold of space took it to an entirely new level of misery in the lower levels of the ship.

  Charlie slapped her arms, trying to work warmth into them as she followed the crowd into the assembly square. A few large lights were set up, brightly illuminating the area, which was unusual for the lower levels. She squinted against the glow as she watched their sector head stand on the podium and face the gathered crowd.

  “Wonder what bullshit he’s going to be spewing this time,” Doug muttered at her side as he took a long sip of the tar-like coffe e provided to their level. She knew from experience that it tasted like old socks, but no one complained because it was one of the few things that actually warmed anyone up.

  Charlie pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. “Shut up. Someone’s going to report you if you keep that up.”

  Doug snorted and took another sip. “What are they going to do? Throw me in the coldest, darkest hole they have—oh wait, too late,” he spoke into his cup.

  At her other side, Ben and Jace scowled at the podium.

  “Do we have any idea what the hell is going on?” Jace snapped.

  “Nope,” Charlie breathed into her TRS again. “Hope it’s worth all of us standing out here freezing our asses off.”

  The shared cabins didn’t have a lot of heat, but the small heating units in each one could ward off the chill if the occupants huddled close enough. She never imagined that anything would ever make her inclined to get that close to another person she wasn’t romantically or sexually involved with, but Darvel Exploratory proved her wrong.

  And since the company didn’t believe in segregating men and women, cabin assignments were random, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. It was how she ended up with a mountain of a man as her roommate with nothing more than a stern warning to behave themselves. Charlie knew that in many cabins sexual relationships developed among the occupants, but she wasn’t one of them. Doug was too much of a big brother to her.

  Not that sexual intimacy had been anywhere near her mind when they met. Charlie smiled at the memory. Doug had been half-hidden in the shadows on his bunk like a gargoyle, his pale, weather-roughened face set in grim lines. In the dim light of the space heater, she could make out his craggy features and the tangle of red hair that fell nearly to his shoulders. Not the most welcoming or comforting face, especially not with the hostility radiating from him as he sat, his massive frame nearly bent in half on his bunk.

  He hadn’t wanted anything to do with her, and that had suited her just fine. Wary of the large brute and his surly attitude, she had been determined to stay as far away from him as possible. Only the horrible cold of the lower level eventually convinced her to squeeze in beside him next to the heater. He had grunted, but said little else to her.

  Somehow in those first few weeks, he begrudgingly took her under his wing and protected her. He kept her safe, and that wasn’t something she could ever repay. Her good fortune only increased when Jace and Ben, determined to stick with them despite Doug’s best attempts to chase them off, adopted them. Far from Earth, the four of them became a sort of family over the three years they had been on the exploratory colony ship headed for the government classified planet.

  Three miserable fucking years.

  During that time, they looked out for each other, and for good reason. It wasn’t only the most cutthroat residents on their level they had to watch out for, but the officers from the upper decks who enjoyed coming down to the lower level to cavort among the masses. They drank, brawled, and fucked indiscriminately. As long as no one got too seriously hurt, a blind eye was generally turned toward such behavior, despite the complaints.

  Sector Head Mathews was among the worst the residents of the lower decks had to worry about on a regular basis. Tall, muscular, and as mean as a rattlesnake, over the last three years he had made an active pastime of the lower decks. Not for the first time, Charlie was thankful for Doug’s towering presence and mean mug that discouraged the sector head from noticing her petite 5’3” frame. For now, anyway.

  She couldn’t depend on anything forever. The wellbeing of a non-gratas didn’t mean shit in space any more than it had on Earth. Charlie wasn’t holding out hope for the colony being any sort of opportunity, despite the lies fed to them about seeking out a better future. Better future, my ass. Never once had a new colony government offered citizenship to the non-gratas workers who founded it.

  Everyone on the lower level knew they were nothing more than the destined pack-mules and labor for the scientific teams and military. Once the planet opened for colonization, they would continue to be worked. Charlie wasn’t a sucker. There was no gold star to reach for. She was going to be a grunt just like she always had been—just with different scenery and nothing familiar around her.

  “I see suck-head Mathews is really feeling his oats tonight,” Ben snorted.

  Charlie squinted up at the sector head. The smug look on the man’s face and the way he puffed his chest out with authority confirmed Ben’s observation. Sector Head Mathews was very pleased about something.

  “Good evening.” His voice rippled over the crowd by way of the vocal amplifier pinned to the collar of his TRS.

  Jace snorted, and Charlie felt her own lips curl. The day cycle was barely distinguishable from the night cycle at their levels for the sake of preserving power for the rest of the ship. It was obvious from the healthy color of the sector head’s skin that he had access to UV lamps. After three years confined to the darkness of the lower level, Charlie’s skin was so sallow that she looked like a ghost. Her friends looked no better, nor did any inhabitant below the main decks.

  Though they were provided with minimal amounts of light and heat to make sure that their workforce stayed moderately healthy, and plenty of cheap, low-quality foods so that the entire population didn’t become sickly and thin, no one looked like the picture of good health. Few complained because the food was filling, but everyone knew that it wasn’t healthy by any stretch of the imagination.

  Without room to freely exercise, only the most determined—like Doug—ran exercise drills in their cabins. He had pushed Charlie to do so as well. Not that it helped much with what little space they had. Charlie also had the misfortune of having genes that hoarded every calorie so that it stuck to her ass, giving her a plumper appearance no matter how many stationary exercises she did. Paired with new pallor, she was certain that at times she resembled a walking lump of dough.

  Staring at the sector head, she scowled at his perfectly tanned face. She couldn’t help the burn of resentment at the thought.

  “I have good news to report. Delta Stargazer 28754 is entering orbit around the classified planet codenamed Turongal. As many of you know, this planet is named after our benefactor David Turis and the discovery team Onward Galaxy who took the initial spaceflight and reported back their findings. They sacrificed years for the mission and wait for us below even now. Because of their efforts, we have the distinct honor of being the first colony on Turongal. That said, each of you are an important and valued part of Delta Stargazer colony settlement.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Valued serfs, that’s us,” Jace mumbled to his twin. “Work ‘til we die, and then still working when they run us through the organic distributor to provide fertilizer for their crops.”

  Ben chuckled under his breath.

  Charlie rolled her eyes at the pair. They weren’t wrong, though. Burial was outlawed over a hundred years ago and replaced with organic distributor programs that converted human bodies into natural fertilizers. It was considered revolutionary in human history. Few could afford the cremation services offered for those families who wished to keep their dead. It involved not only buying back the body from the government, but also the astronomical fees for cremation—an option only for the wealthy.

  “Shaddup and listen,” Doug grunted, his thick arms crossing over his chest. The gesture and warning glower effectively silenced the brothers.

  “What does it mean for us now?” Mathews continued. “Twelve hours ago, we initialized phase one habitat drop. Four temporary habitat capsules were dropped through the atmosphere. Upon touching down, the droids contained within them will erect the basic structure of the habitat dome, including residential buildings. You each have an assigned residence in your file. When the ship enters the atmosphere, it will break down and divide into four colonial pods, each directed toward a different settlement. Upon arrival, you will meet with me in the public commons and receive your residence card. You will be further dir ected at that time. Your assigned tasks will be based on what your strengths are determined to be, and how you will best serve our colonization efforts… There will be no contesting your duties. As you know, a colony needs many things to survive, to provide us with our basic needs and comforts. Laborers, cooks, launderers, entertainers, hunters—they are all valued positions to hold within our colony,” he announced with the broad smile of a showman. “Be prepared to disembark in six hours.”

  Charlie stiffened as several men laughed and cast looks upon some of the more attractive women among them as they speculated on what sort of “entertainment” they could coax from them. Her fingers balled into tight fists. A heavy hand settled on her shoulder.

  “Easy, Charlie,” Doug mumbled as the sector head stepped down from the podium. “Don’t get riled up over anything that bastard says. Just keep your head down and work. You aren’t as flashy looking as some of the other ladies to be leered at in the entertainment sector. You’ve got a strong build to you. They’ll probably put you in the fields like the rest of us.”

  She tried not to wince at the unintentional insult. She knew she had a little pudge because she loved to eat, plenty of solid muscle, and the misfortune of not being leggy to compensate. She was built sturdy. She wouldn’t break during a hard fuck, but didn’t turn many heads either. On the Delta Stargazer, she hadn’t been terribly broken up about it. Nor was she about to complain if she managed to get out of attracting unwanted attention in the colony. However, that didn’t make the observation hurt any less.