Chrysalis Corporation Read online

  Published by

  DSP PUBLICATIONS

  5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA

  www.dsppublications.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Chrysalis Corporation

  © 2015 T.A. Venedicktov.

  Cover Art

  © 2015 Anne Cain.

  [email protected]

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact DSP Publications, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dsppublications.com/.

  ISBN: 978-1-63476-171-0

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-63476-172-7

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909598

  First Edition November 2015

  Printed in the United States of America

  This paper meets the requirements of

  ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

  Annette: To our fans on DeviantArt who encouraged us to take Chrysalis Corporation to the next level. To our families, to our friends, and lastly to Requiem, for always reminding us that nothing is impossible. Thank you.

  Trista: There are so many people I need to thank, but this first book is for my mom and dad, Ivy and Louis, for always telling me that I could do anything I put my mind to. For raising me on a bookshelf, letting me read whatever I wanted to (even if it involved my elementary school principal handing them an Elfquest comic book in a paper bag), and for never stifling my imagination. Thank you for being the best parents anyone could ever dream of.

  And also to my coauthor, Nette, because without her this book and the ones following would never have been born. For fifteen years we’ve been dreaming up ways to get our characters into trouble. Let’s try and make it another fifteen more, plus some.

  Acknowledgments

  Without Tammy’s editing, this book would have been submitted looking like crap. Thanks for taking our rough-draft edit and polishing it into a gem.

  Prologue—Damion Pierce Hawk

  Mars Recruitment Center

  0726 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)

  DAMION HELD one bag. One bag that contained his entire life—nothing more than a few chips full of pictures and vids, as well as Stim cigs, spare clothing, and enough money to get him here. Chrysalis Corporation Military Recruitment Center. He was standing in line for the second day with countless other candidates, waiting their turn to sign up and get physically assessed before being approved for entry. The Recruitment Center only took in a certain number of candidates a day, and yesterday he had arrived too late. Today he made sure to arrive before sunup, and despite that, he was still behind twenty people.

  The Chrysalis Corporation brand displayed one long wing stretched outward from a perfectly cut crystal. Damion had seen it everywhere since he was a child. He assumed it was supposed to inspire hope, which was appropriate since this was his only hope to get off Mars. The Corporation kept their primary boot camp here on Mars, but if Damion made it through the ninety-day brutal treatment, he’d then be transferred to another planet for more training.

  The idea of going off planet was surreal. Damion had never been off world before. No reason to, since his entire family was here and they didn’t have enough money to rent out a shuttle to take them all. Despite his mother’s constant trips to the temple and laying offerings to Ploutos, they had never been blessed with riches. His family had settled on Mars before his father was born, and they made a meager living off the dangerous mining of Red Ore—the ore that was used in all spacecraft engines. His mother’s family had been part of it, Damion’s brother was part of it, and his sister would also be when she was older. However, he didn’t want to follow the family trade. The mining hazards included cave-ins about once a year, frequent equipment failures, and for many, a progressive lung sickness from breathing in the red dust. They lived near starvation, on the precipice of hope that their situation would become better over time. Damion knew it never would.

  When Damion left home, he knew that feeding two children instead of three would be easier on his family. And if he graduated from boot camp, he would be able to send his mother part of his military pay, which would make up for the lost wages the family was out since he quit the mining job. His father had told him not to worry about it, but Damion knew that meant the old man would just work ten extra hours a week trying to make up for the gap in the family income. His mother worried more about him being killed, even if there was no true war going on at the moment, only skirmishes against rebels who attacked numerous colonies across the solar system and, from the media coverage, continuously attacked Corporation shipments. The rebels would steal supplies, ships, and at times people. The rebel propaganda Damion had come across urged people to turn their backs on the Corporation. Damion, as well as many other people, considered that suicide. The rebels’ habit of putting innocent civilians in the way of their attacks was not gaining them favor.

  Damion’s gaze lifted higher, past the tall building, toward the stars. He let his mind wander away from the sweat pouring down his back and chest. Each star was supposed to be surrounded by planets, and Damion’s heart raced with the awe-inspiring thought of seeing different colonies.

  The sound of a large speeder roaring to a stop behind the long line of hopeful recruits broke his introspection. It appeared to be a private transport from the sleek look and lack of red dirt on the sides. He couldn’t quite make out who got out of the speeder, but he wasn’t a naturally nosy person. Damion Hawk had one person to worry about… and that was Damion Hawk.

  He let out a small sigh of relief as he passed through the doorway and into the climate-controlled building. The air inside was easier to breathe and the temperature a good twenty degrees cooler. Corporation Infantry soldiers stood at attention, barely moving a muscle, their stances rigid. Living on Mars, Damion had seen the infantrymen get away with a lot of shit. He had a great distaste for the way they used their affiliation with the Corporation to break the most simple laws in his colony, such as night curfews and alcohol consumption on working days. Their presence would be tolerated by the locals as long as Red Ore was flowing from the mines and there was a chance of a rebel attack on the Corporation’s main source of clean engine fuel.

  Damion had no desire to join the Infantry. He wanted to be a pilot. He had seen the vids of ships chasing off rebels since he was a kid. He had no clue how to fly a spaceship, but he would do anything to learn.

  He stepped forward, and the man in front of him stepped to his right as they were ushered into different lines. At the end of each was a desk, and behind that desk was the person who decided if you continued on or went home. Damion stepped onto the scale. There was a small beep and a full-body examination scan rotated around him. His future was determined by his interviewer and the computer currently scanning his entire history. Damion was certain he would be allowed in since he wasn’t
overweight, didn’t have any diseases, and had no record of breaking the law. He was confident, but that didn’t mean he was going to get past that woman behind the desk.

  Her suit looked perfectly pressed, and a medal Damion didn’t know the meaning of was pinned to her right sleeve. Her nameplate stated that she was Lieutenant Orion.

  Damion stepped forward, dropping his bag in front of his feet.

  “Family name.”

  “Hawk, Damion Pierce.”

  “Age.” She typed on the transparent keypad, the monitor she focused on obscuring half of her face.

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Do you have any other markings on your body besides the tattoo on your arm?”

  “No, just that one.” A crystal Earth with wings coming from behind, protecting the home world of all humans. It was the only body art he had ever put on his skin. His father had been upset because, in his opinion, Damion had ruined his body.

  “Do you have a history of disease, including childhood or venereal?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have surviving siblings?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you or anyone in your family own a loan against a Corporation Banking System?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “No.” Damion said a silent prayer of thanks. He couldn’t imagine having children in the near future.

  “Do you have family currently employed by the military?”

  “No.”

  “What is your aspiration for joining the Chrysalis Military?”

  “To be a pilot.” Damion pulled back his shoulders and straightened his back.

  “Clarify.” An intonation of boredom entered her voice.

  “Oh, ah, to be a Spacecraft Fighter.”

  Damion felt these questions were rather mundane and asinine, considering the Corporation had most of this information on file from his application. However, he was ready to answer a hundred more if it meant getting him inside. The woman continued to look at the computer screen, moving her hands every five heartbeats or less.

  He swallowed a lump forming in his throat as the briefest seed of doubt began to eat at his gut. There really could not be any skeleton hiding in his past preventing him from enlisting. Neither his father nor his mother ever told him about any long-lost rogue pirates in the family line. They would have warned him before he headed out of the house.

  Right?

  “You’ve been approved.”

  The words seemed surreal until the lieutenant’s dark eyes tore away from the computer screen to glare at him. “Mr. Hawk. Please move to your left and go through into the medical clearance area.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He picked up his bag in a daze and walked past two more Infantry guards.

  The next five hours were a complete blur. Snapshots of events. The military police who monitored them and watched them their entire stay allowed Damion enough time to use the lavatory and head down to the mess hall to be served a meal by local workers. His clothes had been taken by the Recruitment Center’s LADDS—Laundry and Decontamination Dry-cleaning System—and he’d been issued a standard black suit that had his last name on the left side of his chest, along with matching black boots. Damion’s arm felt sore from the twelve shots the medical team gave him after clearing him. They said he would need another five rounds if he passed boot camp.

  Then he was stuck at a computer and forced to take the longest test of his life. Math, reading, problem-solving puzzles, and a few questions Damion had no clue how to even categorize. Thankfully, his mother had made sure he and his siblings went to school the entire time until they were eighteen, even though it wasn’t required on Mars. Damion knew his father could barely keep the budget and let his mother do it, since she had been able to attend school until she was fifteen versus his father leaving school after he turned ten years old. So he wasn’t completely lost, but it certainly droned on. If he had to pass the test to continue on with boot camp, he would do it.

  Taking a deep breath, Damion prepared himself for a long day and buckled down to finish the test.

  He was finally getting off Mars. He was going to see the stars.

  Prologue—Core 47

  Saturday March 12, 454 MC

  Destroyer Class Flagship Zeus

  2043 GMT

  CORE 47 managed not to wince as Alpha Fighter Morales, the man Command had assigned him to, roughly slammed him against the closed door to Morales’s new Alpha quarters. This was yet another assignment for the Core, or Corporation Organic Robotic Entity. Despite telling the Creators that 47 knew who his Fighter was, they had yet again gone against protocol and assigned him to a Fighter not of his choosing for the third time.

  He was bred by the Creators, a singular group of scientists who lived on ship and were rarely seen by lower personnel, for the purpose of strengthening the Alpha Zodiac spacefighter systems. The Fighter whom 47 had chosen was coming soon. Damion Hawk. 47 had been tracking him for a little less than two years, ever since the Fighter’s initial training test scores had come into the system. And he had not been disappointed, because the Fighter continued to improve as time and training went by. He had known since then that Damion Hawk was the Fighter he wanted to fly with, for 47 was the best Core the Chrysalis Corporation had, and he deserved to be assigned to the best. Together 47 and Fighter Hawk would be able to achieve great things for the militaristic Corporation, as well as further advance their technology and battle tactics for the battle against the rebels, which would protect the colonies.

  Another teeth-rattling slam against the metal door shook 47 out of his thoughts. The shooting pain up his spine and into his head forced him to pay attention to the present instead of his future plans. The fingers digging into his shoulders and holding him harshly against the door tightened and were accompanied by the nasty voice of 47’s newly assigned Alpha Fighter—Riviara Morales: a man who was an undiscovered murderer and a mediocre pilot. 47 was also aware, from performing a check into the pilot’s background, that Morales was cruel to his Cores, his last one having been taken away and plugged into the Zeus’s main control system since his body had been too damaged to walk again. All this would have caused any normal human to be terrified of their fate, but 47 was a Core and didn’t have the ability to be afraid.

  “Are you even listening to me, you little shit?” Morales growled as he shook 47 so hard that again 47’s teeth rattled, his head hitting the door. But 47 didn’t raise his gaze from where it had focused on the zipper of the Fighter’s black flight suit, nor did he answer. The Fighter’s right hand left 47’s shoulder, only to grab his throat. Using his thumb under 47’s jaw, he forced 47’s glacier blue gaze to meet the anger in his chocolate brown eyes.

  “You are mine now. Crow and Luco may not have been smart enough to keep you under control, but I promise you that I won’t have that issue.” The Fighter’s thumb dug painfully into the soft space right beneath 47’s jawbone, so much so that it pushed his tongue up in his closed mouth and forced his head back farther. “I’ll bring you to heel quickly and to the point that you’ll be so respectful of me that you won’t even think about offing me like you did those two pilots. That’s why the Commander pressured the Creators into giving you to me. He knew I could control you and beat that rebellious and holier-than-thou attitude right out of your machine brain. Do you understand me?”

  “Core 47 understands your words, Fighter Morales,” 47 replied in a monotone voice as Morales’s grip loosened. His gaze locked with the tanned man’s.

  He said this, and he did understand the man’s words completely, but he would never submit to this Fighter’s commands because he was not 47’s Fighter, the only person, besides the Creators, from whom 47 would take commands. While he could bond with Fighters whom the Commander matched him with, he would not with this man. He would go through the motions without forming the connection. Cores were made to merge with the Zodiac systems, including navigation, life support
, engine performance, and programming high-response protocols for the Zodiacs. The bond aided the Core to modify those systems to suit the individual Fighter. The bonding process allowed the Core to sense the Fighter within the system. It made them able to recognize the way their pilot worked within the Zodiac. 47 would be his Fighter’s key to unlocking optimal performance.

  “Glad we have an understanding,” Morales said with a smirk, his massive ego showing through. “I have no idea how a weak-looking thing like you got the best of two other Fighters. You’ll be a good little dog soon enough.” He yanked 47 away from the door by his throat before throwing him toward the bathroom door. 47 managed to catch himself with his hands on the floor before his face smashed into it, and he stayed there, knowing better than to get up without permission. 47’s body had been modified since his creation, but he still bled from his nose and mouth as a normal human would. Bleeding was apparently not enough for the Fighter, though, as the swift kick in the ribs that flipped 47 onto his back showed him. He kept his gaze lowered, locked on the boot that had nearly cracked a rib, his face expressionless, not even showing the pain throbbing through his neck and chest.

  “Get up and strip. Your first lesson is going to be how to please me, and I need a shower. You’re going to wash me as well as make sure my cock is properly drained. I don’t care how long it takes or what I have to do to you, as long as I am satisfied in the end. Do you understand me?”

  “Affirmative, Fighter Morales, I understand you,” 47 said clearly, getting to his feet and beginning to unzip his flight suit.

  Oh yes. This man was going to join his former comrades. This man, who was not his Fighter, was going to die.

  Chapter One

  Tuesday March 22, 454 MC

  Destroyer Class Flagship Zeus, 1208 GMT