The Daedalus: The Lives of Euphrates Miondor, #1

By G.I. Noah

Turns out...

In space...

People can hear you scream...

 

Euphrates Miondor had it all.

Good looks, good job, designer clothes, luxurious condominium and she was an extremely prolific serial killer.

The Daedalus is Space Force Global's latest class of Starsplorer propelled by a Faren Fusion Drive.The Virtual Engine Synaptic Simulation Associate is a first gen bio-organic computer processor powered by a harvested human brain.Through a series of fortunate events Euphrates brain becomes the ships VESSA organ.

The Daedalus 7 are SFGs' elite female crew and mapping of the Kuiper Belt on the outer edge of the solar system is SFGs' most perilous mission since the Orion's Eye disaster.

Euphrates desire to kill remains strong but with no physical body she needs a plan to execute her latest murderous mission.

She has plan... A good one! Who of the Daedalus  7 will survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baghdad Radio
• Release date: Mar 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215589496

G.I. Noah

G.I. Noah was born in Glasgow. Schooled on the Isle of Skye. Educated in Edinburgh Lives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Daedalus is novella 1 in The Lives of Euphrates Miondor series.

Book preview

The Daedalus

Prologue

EUPHRATES MIONDOR HAD IT ALL ; the life, the looks and the power of privilege. Born to two of the city’s most celebrated physicians, she was showered with silver spoons and groomed to be the perfect Ivy league darling. But at twenty-nine the only daughter of Raleigh and Dominic Miondor had traded in her parent’s medical aspirations for a lucrative career on Wall Street. The girl was it . Guys wanted her and girls wanted to be her – or at least, be in her company. That ended when she was exposed as the ‘Midnight Slayer,’ a serial killer responsible for at least seventeen gruesome murders. Her preferred killing time was the dead of night.

If anything, Euphrates was prolific. Her victims were exclusively female – Euphrates didn’t discriminate though. She targeted teenage girls, elderly woman – females from all backgrounds; black, white, Asian and Latino – she spared none. Her weapon of death and destruction was a custom-made titanium double-edged razor blade – a ‘DERB’ to those in the business of surgery. Euphrates left her victims so horribly mutilated that the police assumed a male sexual-sadist was the culprit – it was the reason she remained at large for so long. Euphrates didn’t care what the tabloid press called her; her only concern was to satisfy her blood-thirst. She thought ‘The Midnight Slayer,’ was funny – a character from a vintage Hollywood horror flick. Her reign of terror ended at the hands of an overly helpful traffic cop who’d pulled her over for a flat tire. The cop didn’t ticket her – the guy offered to change it; little did he know what lay waiting in the trunk. When he opened it and the head of Euphrates’ mother stared back at him with glassy eyes, he tossed his cookies there and then. Vomiting his lunch on the side-walk. At her trial she refused to explain her years of violence and bloodshed. When the prosecutor asked why she killed only at night, she replied with a nonchalant shrug, ‘Why not?’ The trial was quick – her death sentence swift. Euphrates last days were spent inside a Liberty Island Death Suite cell devouring the adventures of Patrick Bateman and laughing a lot.

Near Now

THE NARDINE NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE LED the world in bio-organic interface technology – BOIT. They specialized in neuro-interface assimilation. Synthetic synapses were precision designed at a molecular level and integrated into a donated human brain – allowing core neuro-communication and high-speed data optimization. Professors Ariza and Philip Nardine led the institute – both worked at the bleeding edge of BOIT. This work demanded long lab days together. Long days turned into long months and even longer years. They worked well together, at first but ended up absolutely loathing one and other. Everyone knew it. From the janitorial staff all the way to the board of directors. Lab Technicians hated working with Professor Ariza but loved working with Professor Philip. This only made matter’s worse. Philip and Ariza’s crowning glory was the Virtual Engine Synaptic Simulator – VESS. The long hours had paid off and they successfully created the world’s first organic computer processor – OCP. The VESS would replace power-hungry silicon processors with a human brain. A brain stripped of all human traits and over-clocked to produce raw processing power the likes of which the world had never seen. It was awesome to say the least, but instead of a celebration, Ariza was met with the cruel reality of divorce papers thrust in her face by her husband – with the support of the board, Philip ensured Ariza ousting. To say she was more than a little upset was an understatement. She was apoplectic, and unfortunately for her, she was out of the Institute that bared her name.

MOST FOLK HAD FORGOTTEN the time when the 45th President of the United States of America Donald J. Trump announced the formation of a new branch of the US Military called Space Force. He made the announcement, as he did many things, in front of a myriad of TV cameras in his trademark oversized suit, overly long red tie and ridiculous orange skin. The world laughed and continued to laugh at the Day-Glo buffoon for the duration of his presidential tenure. When he reran for president in 2024, he insisted on being called First Lord of the Admiralty. Turned out that this was the first (of many) signs of Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease. The over-tanned idiot had remained undiagnosed for years. The man who often liked to blabber on for hours about the existence of the ‘Deep State,’ had been assassinated albeit (very) slowly by the ‘Deep State’ who’d ensured that every burger patty he ate at his Turnberry Hotel golf resort in Scotland came from a mad cow diagnosed with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy – BSE. The ex-president spent his last days in Trump Tower, shitting into adult diapers and insisting he won the 2020 election.

Space Force, despite its comic beginnings, evolved over the decades. Key to this evolution was the realisation that one country couldn’t ‘guard’ space on its own. Space Force became a multi-national affair, assimilating NASA, the Indian Space Authority – ISA, the Chinese People Space Corp – CPSC and Japan’s Sony Space Division; SSD. The former armed forces branch rebranded itself as Space Force Global – SFG and assumed a new role as a space exploration company. With the construction of the Hadleigh Home Lunar Base and the installation of the Lunar Assembly Plant, SFGs’ deep space exploratory ships were designed in California and assembled on the moon. The golden age of space exploration had begun. The Huawei Star-Hopper launched from Hadleigh Home, becoming the first manned flight to land on Mars. The Microsoft Planet-Cruiser that landed the first team on Mercury was assembled and launched from Hadleigh Home. The moon transformed into a commercial hub and companies rented lunar base facilities from the Marvel-Honda ConGlom who built and ran Hadleigh Home for SFG. The recent upgrade which added several factory units to the base meant SFG could manufacture parts for spacecraft on the moon. Marvel-Honda’s support services extended to several other multi-national ConGloms, who had contracted them to ferry factory workers to and from the moon.

FIVE YEARS AFTER ARNETT Coulter Associates won the SFG contract to design a ship for the Kuiper Belt Mapping Project, Kaleigh Coulter was feeling pretty good. The components parts of the Starsplorer Daedalus were enroute to Hadleigh Home. Once they arrive on the moon the parts will be assembled at the Lunar Assembly Plant. The Kuiper Belt also known as the ‘Third Zone’ is a massive super-frigid region well beyond the orbit of Neptune on the outer edges of the solar system. Mapping the trans-Neptunium Region was crucial for SFGs’ Existential Solar System Project—ESSP. A path through the icy third zone was crucial for the planned deep space cruiser mission to Alpha Centauri. It wouldn’t be easy – the Kuiper Belt contains hundreds of thousands of