Serpents of the Abyss (The Darvel Exploratory Systems #2) Read online

  Serpents of the Abyss

  A Darvel Exploratory Systems Romance

  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

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  Coming soon

  Author’s Note

  Other Works by S.J. Sanders

  About the Author

  ©2021 by SJ Sanders

  Original copyright 2019 as short erotica story “The Serpent of the Abyss”

  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.

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

  Editor: LY Publishing

  Cover Artist: Pierluigi Abbondanza

  www.abboart.com

  Many thanks to all the people who made this book possible!

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  Lori Straford stared at the datapad in her hand, unable to comprehend what she was looking at. The recruiter sat opposite her, the woman looking almost constipated in her too-tight uniform as she gave Lori what was likely supposed to pass for an apologetic look. The shiny badge identifying her as Recruiter P. North gleamed as the woman shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

  No doubt, as the bearer of bad news, she was wishing to be anywhere but there right now. Lori was sympathetic. Still, her sympathy warred with the shock that threatened to swamp her.

  She hadn’t expected this. She had assumed she would be offered a position in Darvel’s Luxury and Tourism Department. Zeril Prime would have been nice, with its lush tropical landscape and friendly locals. She found the fuchsia-scaled males with their frilled crests and brilliant blue plumage quite attractive. Even working as an occupational masseuse for the field workers during their monthly rehabilitation on the agri-farms of Botan-7 would have been preferable. Instead, she was assigned as a miner on M285, a big ball of rock that didn’t even merit a proper name.

  “I… I don’t understand how this happened,” Lori mumbled, rereading her assignment for the third time. “There must have been some mistake.”

  “I am afraid not. While your assessment scores in the service, tourism, and reception industry are more than satisfactory, the company needs employees stationed at Raza on planet M285.”

  Lori’s eyes lifted. “But I’m a citizen. I know nothing about mining or labor. This is work for non-gratas. What am I even supposed to do?”

  The non-gratas, the serving and laboring class, had been the solution to prevent the world economy from plummeting when United Earth formed so that the citizens could live in base line measure of comfort. It was a status that was passed on hereditarily, and with licenses required for marriage and procreating, it made certain that non-gratas populations stayed limited and kept them from marrying out of their station. Only with specific services could a non-gratas earn themselves, and their descendants, citizen status.

  It didn’t need to be said that many non-gratas openly disliked and distrusted citizens. Not that she could blame them, but it wasn’t going to make fitting in any easier. Non-gratas and citizens did not socialize. She would be alienated the moment she arrived at the colony.

  Her childhood anxiety came rushing back. Being a citizen didn’t magically make everyone as equal as the government liked to advertise to interstellar coalitions. Everyone had the same access to education and the common foods available in the markets, but luxuries were made on one’s own merit—or that of their family. And while citizens could test into different career paths and marry who they wanted, it wasn’t unusual for children to test into similar paths as their parents, just as it was common to marry within one’s own strata to avoid messy social situations.

  Being born to parents of the lower tier pleasure arts strata, those who filled the occupations of various artisans and attendants, she had been an easy target. The child of a baker and a weaver, many of her peers considered her to be barely above the laborers of the non-gratas. Not that the latter would accept her among them even then. She had worked hard to become a skilled spa attendant and masseuse, and yet this assignment felt like a slap in the face.

  An unhappy sigh escaped her.

  North shrugged, her smile becoming increasingly uncomfortable. “We have capped our annual limit of non-gratas recruits with our latest colony crews going out. But do not worry, Ms. Straford. You will be thoroughly trained on site.”

  Lips pursed, she glanced down at her own datapad, and the tight lines around her eyes faded. When she met Lori’s eyes again, her smile was noticeably less strained, although still a far cry from her projected cheerfulness.

  “Also, since Darvel Exploratory Corporation understands that this neglects your actual skills, they are prepared to offer you a generous compensation. Not only will you get reassignment to one of our premier pleasure planets, but you will have some nice bonus credits in your account when all is said and done. All you have to do is hang in there for a year until a replacement arrives.”

  Biting her lip, Lori considered her options. As a citizen, she could decline, but that wasn’t much of an option. Given that her previous position had been terminated last week with the sale of the spa she had worked at for the last several years, she had nothing to fall back on. She couldn’t even go pick up a new job because Darvel would mark her employment record, making her unemployable for months until it expired.

  Her parents would put her up, of course, so her situation wasn’t as dire as it might have been for others, but the idea of returning in defeat to that old brick house when her parents had been so proud that she was going offplanet for a brighter future… She couldn’t face the shame.

  It was only for a year. And there was the promise of the bonus…

  She cleared her throat. “How much exactly are they promising as a bonus?”

  The recruiter gave her a knowing look, her practically painted-on smile widening as she began to run her finger over the datapad. “I figured you for a smart one. A year is really very little time, and with your days kept busy it will pass quickly, I assure you. Now, let’s see… Ah, here it is. A promissory of fourteen thousand credits will be allotted as a bonus at the end of your term. Given that your wages will equal roughly fifty thousand credit per annum for your work at Raza, you
can see just how generous that is.”

  Fourteen thousand credits in addition to her salary… Lori’s mouth, which had fallen open at some point, snapped closed. If she were thrifty, she could have enough credits to put a down payment on a nice condo when she finally arrived at her destination on whichever of the pleasure planets she was assigned.

  What was enduring a few hellish months as the butt of jokes from the non-gratas in the larger scheme of things? She would get out of there with something that most of them could only dream of having.

  The recruiter pushed her datapad forward, and Lori leaned in, flicking through the contract as she read the promised terms again, just to make sure, until she came to the bio-signature page at the end.

  That was all that was left. All she had to do was place her hand there and let the system scan her in, and everything she wanted would be guaranteed for her.

  She clenched her hands in her lap as a wave of nerves assailed her, but there was no doubt in her mind. This was her shot.

  “Okay. I’ll do it,” she whispered, her right hand sliding into place.

  The warmth from the bio-scan was quick and absolute. Within seconds, it beeped, and the datapad was whisked out from beneath her hand before she even had a chance to move it.

  North ran her hand over the pad a few more times, her once friendly demeanor disappearing as she rattled off instructions.

  “As per standard contract, you have one week to prepare for transport. Since your residence at Raza is for a contractually short period, Darvel Exploratory Corporation will allow you one storage unit to keep your belongings in until final transfer. Once you request them, however, they will be sent to you, so please make sure you don’t leave anything important in them. If you request the storage unit to be sent to Raza for any reason at all, you will have to empty it and make other arrangements for your belongings. If you end up entering into a marital agreement with any of the civilian crew on M285 during that time, the promissory will be null and void. This offer is for you and you alone. Do you understand and agree?”

  North’s eyebrow rose.

  “Yes, I mean, sure, that’s no problem. I don’t plan on settling down with anyone in the near future, I assure you,” Lori said. If it weren’t for the fact that she had completely sworn off men, an engineer might have been tempting once given their elevated strata, but even she didn’t want to pass the rest of her life on a mining planet either. “As for my belongings… I don’t currently own much, but what I do own I will be certain to be very careful with.”

  Although every citizen was given a quarterly shopping credit to acquire necessities—almost as much for the equality laws as it was to keep the economy stable—Lori didn’t spend it as freely as some of the others she had worked with. She preferred to save her credits for luxury items that were technically out of her strata. It meant she had few personal belongings, but what she did have was worthy of a woman who planned to work her way up from spa attendant and masseuse to supervisor of one of those affluent establishments in the Senthal Planetary Coalition, of which Earth was only one member.

  She gave the recruiter a practiced, professional smile and waited. She knew exactly what sort of image she presented. She was an ambitious woman who had not—and would not—be distracted by creature comforts. Anything that was left in the storage that she needed she could do without, and any temptation on Raza would also be ignored.

  Both of North’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but she nodded and turned her attention back to her datapad and made a note on her screen. Lori’s own screen pinged a moment later with the necessary details.

  “The storage unit will be sent to your domicile on the date you see before you, in two days. The evening before departure it will be picked up, so please have it ready by then. The remaining information is your departure itinerary. I cannot stress enough to please be on time.” She gave Lori a critical once over and smiled once more. “Welcome to Darvel Exploratory.”

  Chapter 2

  Her thermo regulatory suit sticking to her like a second skin, Lori plucked at the material as she descended the transport vessel ramp. The faint morning light was visible outside the reflective surface of the barrier dome, but from their position in the docking bay, what little she could have seen of the terrain was blocked off by buildings and equipment. Only that faint glow in the sky was visible in a stratum of violets she had never seen on Earth, telling her that she had indeed arrived on another world.

  “Come on, people! Hustle, hustle,” a man standing in a dark uniform barked from below so loudly that she jumped, bumping into the woman standing behind her.

  Lori turned to smile apologetically before jogging forward to keep pace with the person now hurrying down the ramp ahead of her. Whoever was bellowing orders at them effectively hurried them along, despite most still being groggy from cryo-sleep. From where he stood on the ground just below them, arms clasped behind his back, she had a distinct impression that he couldn’t care less.

  “We have much to do today, so everyone needs to hurry and disembark. I’m your supervisor lead, Jack Dowry. I will be directly responsible for getting you sorted out, and for some of you I will be your direct supervisor. For now, I want everyone to line up here in front of me so I can transmit your assigned placement, your shift rotation, and your assigned quarters to your personal com.” He gave an aggravated sigh as someone up ahead turned theirs on, the sound chiming loudly in the bay. “Please make sure your comms are on.”

  A number of individuals brought up their comms to do as instructed. Lori was one of them, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. How was she to know that her comm needed to be on?

  From the corner of her eye, she could tell who were the experienced employees among them. The majority of the group leaving the ship were filled out with muscle, their faces harsh and shuttered. Non-gratas. She swallowed and shrank into herself just a little. They intimidated her—she wasn’t ashamed to admit it. For all the crap they got politically and socially, they were imposing enough in person that she didn’t see how anyone could possibly not be a little scared around them.

  Her eyes turned again to the woman standing behind her. Gray eyes met hers, and the corner of the woman’s mouth quirked as she leaned forward.

  “Don’t worry. Everyone fucks it up the first time,” she whispered. Her smile widening, she stuck out a hand. “I’m Vi.”

  Lori glanced down at the gloved hand and returned Vi’s smile, clasping it. “That’s an interesting name. I’m Lori.”

  “Hi there, Lori. And thanks. It’s short for Violent,” the other woman said nonchalantly and then chuckled when Lori gaped back at her. “Kidding,” she whispered. “It’s short for Violet… as in the flower.” She shuddered. “I think my mother was on some rec stuff when she picked that out. No non-gratas should be named for something as delicate as a flower.” She looked at Lori speculatively. “You could be a flower. You a citizen?”

  There was no condemnation in the question, just curiosity. Lori nodded.

  “Of the pleasure arts strata,” she acknowledged.

  The other woman let out a soft whistle. “No offense, but pleasure arts are usually filled with soft types—not to say you’re weak or anything. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Lori shrugged as she moved forward. They were almost to the bottom, and she didn’t want the cluster of people lining up to overhear her.

  “Things just spiraled out of control,” she admitted. She didn’t want to say that she had already been having second thoughts before she boarded the transport vessel, but by then it had been too late.

  “They must have gone left in a serious way to get sent here,” Vi observed, her voice sympathetic.

  “What about you?” Lori whispered, drawing the conversation away from herself.

  Vi smirked. “Non-gratas generally get schlumped along wherever they decide they want us. Any place that’s the most profitable, I guess. This will be my twelfth colony assignment since I left Earth nine
years ago on my first offworld assignment. I’m trying to keep an open mind about this place. Some of the grunts I’ve run into call this place Hell’s Gate. You get shipped out here and never leave again.” She shrugged. “It’s all the same to me. I’m tired of being moved around. This likely won’t be any worse than any other hellhole I’ve been sent to.”

  Lori shivered and absently plucked at her suit again as they descended the last few steps and took their place at the end of the line.

  “You’ll also get used to that,” Vi laughed. “Your TRS will be a lifesaver when you are working outside of the dome.”

  “Is there something you wish to share with the rest of us, grunt?” Supervisor Dowry demanded, his eyes focusing on them in a frosty glare.

  Vi’s eyes snapped up to him, her smile dropping away as she shook her head, her long brown braid whipping behind her with the movement.

  “No, sir. Just giving the newbie some pointers.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he nodded approvingly. “Good.” He spun to face the group. “We approve of team building here. The rock is a hostile world. We call M285 the rock because it is the miles of the most barren wasteland that you’ve likely ever encountered. We have regular seasonal sandstorms. We have a buddy system in place. Each of you will be paired off with someone. You will share a dorm and will come dependent on each other out there on the rock. You will also be matched with an experienced worker in your field to show you the ropes so that no one gets killed or gets anyone else killed. This is not a vacation holiday,” he growled. “Nor is this a place for showing off. We work as a team. Is that clear?”