Merchantman (The Girls from Alcyone)

By Cary Caffrey

MERCHANTMAN (a short story)

Sigrid Novak embarks on an all or nothing mission to secure vital supplies for the girls' homeworld of New Alcyone. But with a price on her head the size of a planet, and pursued across the galaxy by the Council for Trade and Finance, finding a willing trading partner proves a more complicated problem than Sigrid thought. Fortunately, there are always the Merchantmen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cary Caffrey
• Release date: Oct 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311398093

Cary Caffrey

I grew up reading vintage science fiction from the 60’s and 70’s, loving the works of Harry Harrison and Joe Haldeman, Ursula Le Guin, Andre Norton and, of course, Douglas Adams. I still think The Forever War may very well be the best Science Fiction novel ever written (discuss...!).I love music, I love comic books and historic non-fiction, but science-fiction is my passion. As a kid--and to this day--I was a Trekkie long before there was ever a debate between Trekkies vs. Trekkers. I suppose, technically, I’m a Trekker. I think I’m still a ‘rational’ fan. I mean, hey, yes, I own a classic gold uniform, and, okay, a hand phaser, but when someone stole my communicator out of the car I never got around to replacing it.As a reader, and then as a writer, I always dreamed of writing good, old-fashioned space adventures--except in mine, it wasn’t Kirk who was beating up the bad guys. In mine it was the Girl who got her man (so to speak). I always knew the stories I would write would be the ones where strong women would crush the wills of men who would stand against them, which is probably why I’ve always been such a Joss Whedon fan.

Book preview

The Girls from Alcyone

Merchantman

by Cary Caffrey

Copyright © 2013

Smashwords edition. The Girls from Alcyone: Merchantman. Published by Cary Caffrey. Copyright 2013 by Cary Caffrey. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information, visit Cary Caffrey at carycaffrey.com

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This story is a work of fiction created by the author. All characters, events and organizations portrayed in this novel are works of the author's imagination.

Copyright 2013 by Cary Caffrey

carycaffrey.com

Cover art by Anne Pogoda

Published by Alcyone Studio, NB, Canada

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

From The Author

Merchantman

From The Author

For those new to The Girls from Alcyone: Merchantman takes place directly after the events of the novel The Girls from Alcyone.

A brief history of Alcyone: The Girls from Alcyone is the continuing story of two very special young women, Sigrid Novak and Suko Tansho, who find themselves at the heart of a conflict spanning more than forty worlds.

Taken from their families when they are only children, the girls are brought to the remote world of Alcyone. Here they are trained in the most deadly of arts. They are also subjected to years of treatments that see them enhanced both genetically as well as bionically. The result: a group of girls that represent the next stage in human evolution, as well as perhaps the greatest threat to the ruling corporate patriarchy.

Word of their existence sends ripples throughout the Federation of Corporate Enterprises. Rival factions know they must either control these girls, or see them destroyed - something Sigrid Novak will never allow to happen.

About Merchantman: I originally wrote this story as a standalone adventure for Sigrid, but this ended up becoming the beginning of the novel The Machines of Bellatrix (The Girls from Alcyone II). Merchantman is now chapter two of that book.

Merchantman

Blast! Sigrid said.

Twisting, turning, arms spread out or tucked in, nothing she did made any difference. With nothing to grab hold of, no resistance, nothing could stop her as she tumbled out of control, moving deeper and deeper into the blackness of space.

Stars spun by her fractured visor. Every point-four-six seconds she saw the blinding binary stars of Alpha Phoenicis flash past. It was only Sigrid's enhanced physiology, the nano-swarms that surged within her system, that halted the rise of bile in her throat and kept her from losing consciousness completely. But she had greater worries to consider.

Debris from the explosion had penetrated her suit and damaged her oxygen feed; the mixture was far too rich. Her bionic systems did their mechanical best to compensate, but they were taxed at their limits. Worse, a chunk of the Merchantmen's ship had struck her, nearly cracking