Book Excerpt
During the first ten minutes immersed in
the tank Roger desperately wanted to vomit. His mouth and stomach having been
filled with the most foul tasting substance imaginable. Obviously Keith had
failed to warn him this would happen. Perhaps he had even taken pleasure in it.
He rephrased, of course Keith had taken pleasure in it. He used the resultant
anger to sustain him, imagining the punishment he would mete out when this was
over. A hammer blow to the head would be nothing compared to what he would do
next.
Slowly the anger
subsided, and the gagging reflex with it. His body had acclimatised to the
liquid, and while the experience was less than pleasant, it was not
intolerable. In fact he may have even slept for a short time. He wasn’t sure, his
eyes had become very heavy and the hum of the ship’s engines had become nothing
more than a distant monotonous vibration that lulled him through the plexifibre
material of the tank. As minutes surely turned into hours, he flexed his
fingers, digging the nails into the palms of his hand, trying to use the pain
to stay alert. In the back of his mind he was aware that he was being drugged.
The contents of the tank were designed to preserve and nourish the biotech
subject but not to keep it conscious. There would be no point, not when that
consciousness was elsewhere. It made perfect sense to him, and he realised that
in a few more hours he would have no more say in the matter. No amount of will
or pain would keep him awake. He would be in a vegetative state just like the
biotech units in the other tanks.
Keith must have known. He must have.
Roger gritted his teeth. The renewed anger was not as strong as before, but
somehow it allowed him a few moments of clarity. If he didn’t stay awake, then
his world might be lost, and his family with it. He had to concentrate, he had
to fight. He vaguely recalled the klaxon of the first airlock alarm sounding
ever so silently in his ear, the nutrient liquid having made it nothing more
than a shrill distant repetition. What if he had missed the second alarm? What
if it was already too late? He kicked his legs in panic, his arms flailing
along with them. In a frantic motion he reached up, hoping his hand could break
the surface. But there was no surface to break. He needed to get out. Get out!
The manual release button, he
remembered it now. He could press it and be free.
The sudden whirr of machinery distracted
him, the lights above blinking into life as something loud and heavy grinded
overhead.
Through the thick green liquid he saw
the rough shape of a three pronged metal pincer descending from its housing.
Had he been discovered? Was it all for nothing? No, the pincers were
positioning themselves over one of the other tanks, the hatch opening. With
unerring precision the pincers reached down and closed around the female body
within, lifting her out. For a brief moment she hung in the air, and then, like
a bullwhip, an overhead cable snaked down and connected itself to the base of
her neck.
For a few seconds she writhed within the
pincer’s grip, her limbs askew in all directions, then, as abruptly as the
process had begun, it completed, the cable detaching and retreating whence it
came. Very carefully, Josella was lowered to a metal draining grille and
released, collapsing onto it prone and exhausted. As Roger looked on, helpless
to move, she struggled to her knees and vomited violently. With a growing sense
of dread he waited, knowing that when she looked up, she would see him...
About The Book
Title: Hunter No More
Author: G.D. Tinnams
Genre: Science Fiction
-ATTENTION-
The Hunter Class Spacecraft
designated ‘The Amberjack’ disappeared during a routine mission to Seek,
Locate and Destroy the enemy Machine Mind contingent known as ‘The
Ochre’. Conclusion: It was either destroyed by the Ochre or went rogue
for reasons unknown. If sighted, approach with extreme caution.
On the planet Borealis, a violent
revolution forces Samantha Marriot and her parents to flee their home
for the relative safety of ‘The Rainbow Islands’. Once there, Sam
discovers a secret her father has been keeping from her all her life, a
secret that will change everything.
Meanwhile, The Machine Mind Hierarchy of
Earth dispatches a ship to rid themselves of the planet’s troublesome
human population. The only hope of a defence lies with a damaged binary
Hunter unit that has long since abandoned both its programming and
weaponry.
In order for the unit to succeed it must
call upon the aid of an ancient enemy, and prove, once and for all,
that it is a Hunter no more.
Author Bio
G.D.
Tinnams has worked as a barman, a call centre operator, an IT support
analyst, and a software tester. But during all this time he was also an
insatiable reader of science fiction and fantasy books like Susan
Cooper’s ‘The Dark Is Rising Sequence’, Orson Scott Card’s ‘Ender’s
Game’, Robert Charles Wilson’s ‘Blind Lake’ and Greg Egan’s ‘Permutation
City’. He is very fond of weird, mind-bending stories and decided quite
early on to try writing some. ‘Hunter No More’ is his second novel.
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