Psyker: Hiveworlds, #1

By Rory Surtain

Book #1 of the fantastic Hiveworlds series.

 

A clueless noble, a clever outlaw, and the soul of a psyker in a dark deadly science fantasy mix.

They call it dark energy or chaos or the Warp. It leaks into our universe at an unpredictable rate.
Those sensitive to it can wield its immense power in unimaginable ways. In the Imperium of Mankind, anyone born with such a gift is labeled a psyker and outlawed at every level of society.

Enter Paric Kilhaven, a scion of a noble House and a young man as clueless as he is clever. His future was set until a genetic aberration, a freak encounter, and a curse turned his life inside out. Reality set in. He wasn't like anyone else. He wasn't even considered human, but at the end of the day, he was merely a pawn.

Paric navigates the darkly alluring world of his city's underhive, hoping to escape the fate of an outlawed psyker. Rival gangs and chaotic forces align against him in a fight for the planet's survival.

Can Paric outlive the nightmare? Can you? Grab your copy today!

Part adventure, part mystery, this dystopian science fantasy novel is appropriate for Adult and Young Adult readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rory Surtain
• Release date: May 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223885207

Rory Surtain

Rory Surtain stepped into the world of independent publishing in 2020 and hasn't been able to find his way out since. When he tires of writing, he edits, and when he tires of that, he publishes. Writing is an art and a long learned skill where each book is better than the last. Surtain resides in Texas, enjoying the gulf coast clouds, the people, the diversity of spirits, and great cuisine. As with any indie author, your kind participation and candid reviews are always appreciated.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Ground Zero

This is PDF Training Commander Mantis One. Switch to the encrypted channel for mission launch.

Acknowledged, Mantis One. Comms are now locked in for the duration, and our patrol beacon is live.

We read its location as Hydra Secundus Sector Double Zero, Service Lift 44 Echo.

Confirmed, Mantis One. We are ready to go.

Sector 99 Bravo is your floor. Mantis One will monitor and record your progress. Send your rabbit. Good hunting.

Ground Zero was the heart of the hive and the borderland between two halves—the dividing line between the governing above and the governed below. A maze of dull gray plascrete pilings, narrow ramps, and long dark trenches connected a vast sea of brightly lit service lifts. As the largest of Hydra II’s two hundred sectors, Sector Double Zero occupied a thousand square miles of Fulcrum IV’s largest continent. The Hydra cluster was a collection of six separate hive-cities, each with the same size, diamond-shaped architecture, and tenuous hold on its humanity.

Deep beneath the surface, nearly two miles down, another dividing line existed at Sector 99B, marking the border of the notorious underhive, the domain of the ungoverned. Perhaps ungoverned wasn’t the right word, but underhive society was far less rigid or accountable for their actions compared to the stacks and towers above it. The underhive was an exclusive neighborhood. While the hive’s sanctioned powers thought they could keep it in check, many believed it was the other way around.

The voice of sub-lieutenant Kytra Davn tickled my ear, Unit comms check.

I’d been given an augmented ear implant for the mission with access to all the hive nets, including those of PDF Command and the Adeptus Arbites if needed.

I responded in my huskiest sixteen-year-old voice, Say my name.

The surrounding troopers wore closed helmets with built-in comms devices and air filters. I wasn’t in the PDF—not yet anyway—but I had been training with that in mind since I was twelve. You could say that the Planetary Defense Force ran in my family.

A salvo of rapid replies rattled across the subnet, several of which were ‘Rabbit’ or ‘Cadet’ plus a few that were definitely raw. I took note of the best for later use.

My rank of cadet wasn’t really a rank as much as a path for me to follow as I completed schola. The rabbit run was an initiation of sorts, a ritual of my upcoming graduation. It allowed me to train in a limited fashion beyond the PDF’s massive armory and firing range.

I didn't carry any weapons other than a concealed combat blade and a flashlight. My backpack looked civilian, as did my clothes. I could pass for one of the many couriers that roamed the lower reaches of the hive.

LT Davn tightened a strap on my back, securing the beacon. It allowed her platoon to track me while the device scanned its surroundings for sanctioned or unsanctioned sensors, walls, power nodes, and inhabitants.

We’d be running a sweep through parts of Sector 99B, confirming that the sub-hive conditions hadn’t changed drastically since the last check. The device in my pack would do the work. I merely had to keep moving and stay ahead of the rest of the PDF patrol while they did their best to hunt me down.

Cadet, it’s time. Davn circled her index finger in the air.

Nothing came across the PDF Training subnet. Perfect. The rabbit was about to run.

LT Davn tapped me on the shoulder twice for good luck, and I entered the service elevator alone, selecting a non-stop ride to the basement of Sector 99B. I’d start at the bottom, working my way up through 99B’s maze of varying levels until I reached service elevator 50E, after which I would circle back. Davn and her crew would use the same lift down to begin their chase, giving me about five minutes to get lost.

The twenty troopers in Davn’s squad would coordinate using their heads-up displays and hand signals as they patrolled the sparser depths, hunting for one motivated rabbit. They were under orders to limit chatter whenever possible, simulating a communications failure for training purposes. Jammers were common the deeper one went. It was entirely unfair.

In less than two minutes, the elevator doors opened. A wall of humidity and stale air gave me a welcoming embrace. I slipped out of the service lift into a vacant alley and took off at a jog. I was in an entirely different city; a dense array of huge habs, manufactories, and commerce extended from the light-gray plascrete floors to a false sky hundreds of feet above. The huge structures divided the landscape while avenues, bridges, and ramps tried in vain to connect it all. The weak glow of artificial sunlight barely penetrated the gloom.

Miles above, the hive-stack offered plenty of light for those that lived at the top. For those that lived nearer the planet’s surface, well, the experience varied, and for those that inhabited the depths of Hydra Secundus, the lack of fresh air, sunlight, and open spaces was uniformly challenging. But hey, not my fault. We each found our place in the world, or we didn’t. Maybe that was why I was drawn to the lower reaches of the ancient hive-city, wanting to see how the other half lived, the other half making up the vast majority of the inhabitants in Hydra cluster’s six densely populated cities.

The beacon chirped in my ear, signaling that its task had begun. It stored its sensor data locally. Every sector had built-in comms networks for public and private use, but there were connectivity dead spots here and there, and the beacon logged them as well. At the end of the mission, the device’s logs would be uploaded, filtered, and analyzed by officers in the PDF, Adeptus Arbites, and Engineering Corps. More importantly, the beacon would also allow PDF Command to keep track of my position and status.

The hive-cities of Fulcrum IV depended on technology born thousands of years ago. Current Engineering efforts went into servicing the existing infrastructure that kept billions breathing, bathing, productive, and fed. Other Houses were tasked with maintaining civil stability, producing whatever the Imperium required, and keeping everyone in their proper place.

With Sector Double Zero being the prime example, access between certain sectors was heavily guarded and controlled. My standing opened plenty of doors. Most levels of the hive’s substack were accessible if not inviting, but 99B was considered off-limits without official approval. Like most teenagers, I felt the need to explore every sector of the city. That was a given for many of my peers, and I would be the first of my class to make a pass through the subterranean borderlands skirting the underhive. Would I brag about it when I got back? Feth, yes.

My older brother, Ram, joked that I’d been born with spatial implants. I could navigate anywhere in the city stacks and not get lost—call it a knack, for I really couldn’t explain it—and my talent seemed to extend down to the primordial maze below it. I knew where I was relative to the many service elevators used to get down here, in which direction the city’s deep-seated reactors were located, and how to circle back if needed. Most of all, I had a good idea of how I would stay within the mission’s designated subsector and still evade the PDF training squad.

Dead-ends were my nemesis. The trick to not getting caught in a rabbit run was avoiding all the seemingly random dead-ends while pretending that I hadn’t. Was I as good as the beacon at mapping my way forward? No, but that was part of the challenge.

I zigged and zagged my way across the dank sector. The lowest level within 99B offered plenty of poor ventilation and a few dusty tracks to follow. As hive sectors went, the inhabitants here were relatively scarce. For a hive-city that averaged a million or more citizens per horizontal sector, the next to last sector at the bottom of this inverted pyramid was creeping me out. Most of the inhabitants that the beacon detected were hidden behind walls or doors. Windows onto the dimly lit streets were covered with security screens. Sunlight pipes were in dire need of cleaning or replacement.

I’d seen a few scattered scratchings and droppings of what appeared to be giant rats or maybe feral canines. The non-feral types were outlawed by the Adeptus Arbites along with everything else that could disrupt the lives of Hydra’s citizens, but the arbiters had their hands full and couldn’t police everywhere at once.

Bathed in the weak glow of an artificial sun, I slowed to a walk as the avenue opened into a broad, high-ceilinged plaza surrounded by massive habitation blocks. Through a tall opening on the far side, maybe a hundred meters away, I could see my target ramp, one that should bring me up a level into a more heavily trafficked neighborhood. The ramp in question was barricaded shut and wrapped in razor wire while the area around it had been turned into a makeshift camp or maybe a brothel.

Feth.

Narrow corridors and streets angled away from the plaza in several directions. I circled a few busy kiosks that sold unsanctioned meds or narcotics, and I tried to get a feel for the best passage to pursue. Mapping out the possible dead-ends in my mind, I was drawn to the path least taken. I spied a single set of boot prints in the dust of a small side alley and followed them into the dimly lit corridor.

The jammer was an early indication of my fatal mistake. As I rounded another corner, the beacon on my back chirped out a complaint, signaling that its comms were interrupted. High on the alley wall, an illegal device blinked back. It had a lens indicating a video feed and a small antenna.

I expected this alleyway to open up eventually. It was a shortcut over to another broad avenue and a working ramp up. What I didn’t expect was company. From around the corner behind me, I heard the growls of canines and the scrape of claws on the plascrete floor. If anything could catch a rabbit, it was a pack of feral hounds.

I didn’t wait there to greet them. Sprinting around the next corner, I tried to remain out of sight of the unwanted pets. There was another avenue ahead and surely plenty of people to help sort the dogs. As I turned a final corner on my way out of the alley, I found the corridor blocked by another makeshift barrier. Given enough time, I could have forced my way through it. With only one panic-stricken option, I veered left down another, more narrow passage as the howls behind me grew louder.

It wasn’t my lucky day. The alleyway of last resort was a dead-end, and the ravenous snarls were coming closer by the second. I didn’t dare look back. I couldn’t climb the filthy walls, but a circular service hatch at my feet flashed green and opened with a tug. A steel ladder disappeared down into a narrow shaft.

I didn’t hesitate. I slammed the hatch shut above me as the hounds reached it. Their claws scratched at the blue-gray polysteel, mere inches from my head, and their muffled growls aired their eagerness to wait me out.

Feth.

I hung on a ladder in a vertical service tunnel, hundreds of feet from the floor below. The air smelled different, cleaner, maybe, and I swear I could detect the scent of someone cooking. Maybe that’s what the dogs were after.

My hands were shaking as I climbed down, checking the welds on each rung.

The PDF subnet remained silent in my ear as I asked for a comms check, and I concocted a path in my head back to the nearest service elevator.

Kytra Davn would kill me if I disappeared from her grid for too long. The presence of the illegal jammer and the dogs should have set off warning bells with PDF Training Command, but I couldn’t tell if the beacon had managed to reconnect. Let’s say it was a dumb mistake all around and call it even. Unfortunately, others would disagree.

A small service door at the bottom of the ladderway opened into another alley, equally as remote as the last.

It took me a few seconds to sort my general location and choose a direction home. I was now in Sector 100B, the underhive. I’d crossed the border into no man’s land.

The foot traffic was heavier here than in the sector above, and the floors were cleaner. Supposedly, access to the underhive was as exclusive as the overhive towers miles above me. I would never fit in, but I had to try by keeping my undershorts dry and my head down. I kept a steady pace as I crossed another plaza onto a wide boulevard and backtracked my earlier path, one sector above me.

It didn’t take long to pick up a tail; a watcher in a black dura-leather coat stalked me from a short distance. The woman’s complexion could have used more artificial sunlight, but her straight black hair had a vibrant cyanic sheen to match the laspistols that hummed on her hips. Her eyes were distracting, but her aura didn’t seem threatening, at least not yet.

They caught me looking back.

The sharp scrape of a boot was my first and only warning. From my right, out of the corner of my eye, something blurred, snatching the beacon from my back.

I dove forward into a roll, coming up with my combat blade as another dark form circled me. It was human, I think, but the face was wrong, part man, part elsewhere.

It wore an aura of aggression, purple-black like a bruise, and it hissed like a lunar snake, What are you doing in our house?

At that moment, weapons fire sounded somewhere in the distance, filling the area with a million muted echoes and pings.

Contact, contact! filled my ears. LT Davn and her crew had stolen my line.

Before I could respond, the underhive menace launched itself at me, catching me center mass and bowling me over. I stabbed it once in the side as it rolled past.

The man stood up, showing off my knife and the bloodless hole in his shirt. His smile said, Game over.

Still having a path to follow home, I charged him.

My foe countered.

We collided, finding ourselves locked eye to eye in a desperate embrace as a bolt of black lightning struck us.

My nemesis flew backward into the wall while I was thrown in the opposite direction, landing flat on my stomach ten feet away.

Neither of us was about to get up.

I spent the next several seconds struggling to take a breath. It didn’t work. My lungs seemed as wracked as the rest of me, and I couldn’t even scream as darkness settled in.

###

My arms were cuffed in place behind my back. A tingling sensation of electric current rose and fell in every breath I took, driving my diaphragm and forcing my heart to beat in a regular rhythm. It was better than the alternative, but not by much. The tidy avenue had become the hard floor of a storage room, and there was movement all around me.

Somewhere in it all, I’d bitten my tongue. The iron-rich pool of blood beneath my cheek helped center my waning hold on consciousness, and the scent of hard spirits hinted at harsher company. All I wanted to do was sleep. The bud in my ear was dead silent, fried, no doubt.

Finlo, I told you to dial it down. He’s just a fething kid.

The smell of charred flesh resonated off of a man with wiry gold hair and a yellow-tinted aura. Demps was about to break his neck. I had to drop ‘em both.

Find me Lyst, the boss barked. He had the voice for it anyway. What the feth was he doing here?

He’s wearing PDF-issued body armor under his shirt. He had a full squad of PDF on his tail.

Did you ID him?

Of course. His ID came back Silver Restricted, whatever that means. Nothing else.

The sound of a door opening added to the room’s host of onlookers. A thud on the floor ended with a PDF boot resting against my chin. It was a size eleven, if you were wondering, and it didn’t move after it was dropped beside me.

The boss was at it again, And who is that?

PDF Trooper Nevyl Dale, Silver One.

They must have used the code from Dale’s ID tag. The underhive locals somehow had access to both Civilian and PDF Admin networks. Trooper was Dale’s military rank. Silver One was his citizen rank, the lowest of the fresh air breathers. The air was never that fresh, not even at the top.

Trooper Dale wasn’t a bad sort. He’d come from just below the horizon line, getting a bump up in civil rank when he’d completed his PDF enlistment training. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or whether he still wore his tactical helmet.

You had to bring him here? said the boss.

We ditched his helmet in the 99’s backyard. They’ll have fun finding him.

A large mitt reached down, grabbing a handful of my hair, and lifted my head off the deck. Who the feth are you, Silver Restricted? And how did you get into the underhive?

Those were good questions. One, I would never answer for the instant, lethal reaction it might bring. Beside me, Nevyl Dale murmured something incoherent, and my face splashed back into a shallow pool of blood.

What did you say, Trooper?

Dale coughed, Don’t mess with the rabbit.

In my mind, I could almost see Nevyl’s grin. It was a dumb thing to say in a room full of aggression, but it hit the mark, and I laughed involuntarily.

Give him to me, Lalo. Demps had lost most of his lisp, but I would recognize that snake-filled voice anywhere.

I struggled to look in his direction. Not having control of my arms and legs, it was all I could do to blink.

A female voice added her concern, Keep that snake in your pants, Demps. If it weren’t for you, we’d be having a quiet afternoon instead of having to sort out how we’ll dump the bodies.

She had a sincere voice. I liked it.

I bagged him, Breezy. They’re only Silvers. Nobody will miss them, and besides, they’re in our domain now. The military scanners are all jammed around here, so why don’t we keep them and have some fun.

Trooper Dale had a ten-year-old sister, and he was all she had in terms of family. She’d miss him for sure.

The boss ended their line of thinking, We’re running hot with the new shipment coming in, and you want to draw more attention down here?

Keep your scars on, Lalo. What’s the point in trying if we don’t get to enjoy our share?

Lalo was the boss.

Demps, you were given your share, and like Breezy said, you can barely control it. Anyone else here got any better ideas?

The half-pack of a PDF beacon dropped on the floor beside my head.

Another man, another voice, arrived, this one a bit smoother than the rest. Lalo, the PDF is mobilizing, and the Arbiters are already en route through 99B. The beacon he was carrying is dead, but I’d say we’ve got five minutes max to clear out.

Lalo didn’t panic. This was his domain, and there would be a cost for entering. How did he get in here?

Shrugs and blank stares were the only replies.

Feth it. Breezy, get our stock rolling. Lyst, bring me two doses from the new shipment and pick a color that we haven’t tried before. I bet rabbits make for terrific trial runs.

That might kill them. Surprisingly, Lyst seemed to care about our well-being.

Then, we’ll have learned something valuable about which doses work and which belong in the pit. Now, hurry up.

The room emptied, except for the boss, Lalo. In less than a minute, Lyst was back with a set of what might be construed as syringes.

What is that? I mumbled.

Start with the trooper. Give him the shunt, said Lalo.

I tried again, What is that? I blew bubbles of blood as I spoke.

Settle down. The shunt will only knock him out, make him forget the bad day. It takes the edge off the real dose.

After the initial injection, Dale continued to breathe deeply, relying solely on his lawyer