Alder's World Part III: Technoprey

By Katie Papilio

The end of the Alder's World series. The attacks from the Technoprey have become more deadly, the human's position more desperate. Alder and an inexperienced crew must set out on a perilous journey with one goal; destroy the Technoprey once and for all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dryden House Publishing
• Release date: May 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310315008

Book preview

Alder’s World Part III: Technoprey

Katie Papilio

Story Copyright 2016 Katie Papilio

Cover Copyright 2016 Gavin Revitt

Settings, Characters, and Environments Creative Commons SY/SA 4.0

ISBN 13: 9781310315008

Forward

It’s been around a year and a half since I met Katie through a request to read and review one of her books. After that it was another one and another one. One of these books was Flash Master. This was simply a collection of macabre and science fiction short stories and flash fictions. In there was Alder’s World Chapter 1. I fell in love with Sam Alder and with the crew of the LOP Duster.

I had to know more. I HAD to know how it all turns out. If any of you have read that first chapter, then you know how I felt. We couldn’t just leave them like that, in such limbo. What was that cube? What ate Martin’s suit? After having a chat with her online, she sent me a couple more chapters. I couldn’t be satisfied. So I begged. I pled. I almost started bargaining in order to get her to write Sam’s story. See, it NEEDED to be written. It just had to be.

Then little over a year ago, she published Alder’s World: Mass 17. The first part of this trilogy. I was blessed with writing the foreword in that as well. And here we are, one year later, the final chapter of Alder’s World: Technoprey has been written. She has asked me to write this foreword as well.

So much has changed in our dynamic in that length of time. Shortly after writing that foreword, I started working at Dryden House Publishing with Katie. I’ve even written a story or two myself, with much encouragement from her. We’ve gotten closer as work associates, but more importantly as friends.

That being said, this final chapter of Alder’s World isn’t really a final chapter at all, but a wondrous beginning. I do hope you enjoy this installment as much as I have.

Oh and I’m still so in love with Sam and the entire community on Alder’s World…

-Tracy Vincent 5/23/2016

Chapter 1 – Amphitheater

‘Sam, wake up. It’s almost time.’

Alder opened his eyes and looked around blearily. He was in the amphitheater just outside of the village of Feldt; Billet stadium he thought, but he wasn’t sure. The amphitheater seemed to flow naturally out of an already existing ravine. Glass houses rose to the left and right of the ravine like squat sentinels. They glowed with a rose color in the early morning. The whole of the ravine, right up to the bases of the houses, was covered by a thin fabric mesh. It served both as a shade the amphitheater and to provide shielding for any electrical activity. While there were not supposed to be any electrical devices above ground and the glass houses, theoretically, provided shelter from roving technoprey, accidents had happened. Adding a fine, steel wire to the shading gave it strength as well as decreased the odds that the humans’ presence would be noticed.

The gate that led into the fully underground city of Feldt was to Alder’s left. The amphitheater spread out from it in a long oval, ending in the roadway that led, by five days travel, back to Homestead. Architecturally, the site reminded Alder of the open air, all-stone meeting halls of Su-Fin, or maybe an open air theater from Earth, though it wasn’t Greek or Roman in design. The aisles, benches, the whole structure, had been carved directly from the rock and had a smooth, almost old earth art deco feel. The section breaks and inner ring were large and featured pronounced second and even third ridges of stone. It was big too. Altogether, it could seat around five thousand people more than twice the entire population of the planet and many times more than the two hundred or so souls who called Feldt home. It was part of the Great Dream. Given the advanced nature of the tools that the survivors on Mass 17 had, and the relatively small population, there had been a decision, many Sols ago now, to build on the scale of the potential future population not on the scale they actually had. Alder liked the idea. It was easy, on a small planet far from any other human contact, to revert to a sort of tribal mentality. Keeping the population, particularly children, focused on what they could be, bold colonists building a new civilization, kept them from being overwhelmed by what they were, a parasitic species who survived by remaining unnoticed by their hosts.

Even at the early hour and under the shade, it was already getting hot. Alder puffed on his oxygen tank unconsciously. The balance between what they were and what they hoped to become was teetering dangerously and he didn’t have a good solution.

He turned his attention to the people around him. Almost the entire population of Feldt had come out. They were scattered around the oval in clumps. Their fury ball team as well as the one from Homestead, who had traveled with Alder, were standing in rows midfield. They were teenagers mostly. Just about half of the population of the planet was in their teens. After the issues with the techoprey, Alder considered the fact that they were being overrun by teenagers to be the most serious issue on the planet. Due to the curious construction of Mass 17, rains fell regularly over the ocean that circled the equator but rarely more than fifty kilometers north or south. Feldt was an oddity, the swirl of the hilly ridge that ran all the way from the ocean to the south diverted humid air from the sea to this otherwise remote location. It didn’t rain often here but there was enough moisture that the field was real grass.

Just to his left, Chyth Wei, Mayor of Feldt was giving opening remarks. Although, Alder’s visit was considered a major event, Wei was naked from the waist up. Alder completely failed to notice. In the sweltering heat of Mass 17, no one ever wore full clothing unless a job task demanded it. Sometimes a nursing mother or woman with naturally large breasts would wear some sort of support, but even then it might not cover. Clothing was so sparse that, from time to time, Alder overheard children commenting on how old fashioned he was because he wore shoes.

Looking at Wei’s profile as she spoke, Alder found himself wondering how old she was. She had a strong, lean face that complemented her tall, thin mother, and her Asian father. There were crease lines around the eyes and the corners of the mouth. It was just after Sol seventy-three. If there were two Sols per year