DOMINANT SPECIES.

by MICHAEL E. MARKS.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

This book would not have been possible without the immense help and encouragement of my very dear friends and family.

In the enthusiastic spirit of every NFL superstar who, in his first moment of limelight, looks at the camera and shouts "Hi Mom!" I would like first and foremost to thank my mom for instilling in me a belief that I could do absolutely anything -- even something as offbeat as writing a novel. Having lived through my science fiction writing since the sixth grade, only you can really appreciate how far this road has gone. Thanks for being with me all the way and encouraging me to chase whatever dream was before me.

Of my many confederates, I would like to single out Barry Solomon, who was there in the mountains of Colorado when the idea of writing a science fiction novel first gripped my mind. Barry walked by my side through each grueling revision, every wild new idea -- good and horrid alike -- sharing thoughtful a.n.a.lysis and his own boundless creativity... while never forgetting a single detail. Dude, you should have run when you had the chance.

I would also like to thank Andrew Remuzzi, paramedic extraordinaire, who when not risking death and disaster to save lives in the real world, chose to spend countless hours in mine. An unrivaled maven of science fiction, Andrew helped bring stark reality to emerging medical technology as well as traumatic injury and treatment, all factors of great importance in this story. He brought to this project a boundless zeal, endless research and that boot in the tail I needed to get out of the doldrums when words ran dry. I will never forget the light switches.

My unreserved grat.i.tude goes to the incomparable Susan Mary Malone, the finest editor an author could hope to find, for the expertise, guidance and firmness that helped shepherd a disjointed collection of POVs into a cohesive and professional ma.n.u.script.

A very special thanks goes to one of my dearest artistic collaborators, the peerless Greg De Santis, for helping me to visualize the environments and inhabitants of this book. His sketches and 3D renderings were both an inspiration and encouragement. To have Captain Marks, a Marine in powered armor, appear as one of the original displays in the Museum of the Improbable, remains a cherished honor.

I would also like to thank my friends at NASA and DARPA, nameless here by request, who were so generous with their time in discussing military exoskeleton programs, powered armor, and for not only indulging but actually embracing some of my own wild science like covalent rifles. Thanks guys!

And last, but certainly far from least, I would like to thank Ted Deeds, whose support throughout this long process took numerous forms. From discussing weapon systems to a.n.a.lyzing the tactics and motivations of special operations personnel in high-threat environments, Ted's expertise is without peer, eclipsed in sheer volume only by the depths of encouragement and friendship he extends every day.

PROLOGUE.

Her great engines blazing, the mile-long vessel thrashed against the relentless pull of gravity that dragged her toward the abyss. Violent tremors ripped through her hull like the convulsions of a dying animal.

The gaping hole in s.p.a.ce vomited tendrils of gravity that coiled around her. With each twist, wave upon crushing wave of force spiraled through her decks. Bulkheads crumpled beneath their own amplified weight. Support cables snapped from their moorings like steel bullwhips. Reality tore apart.

The launch bay bucked violently. Over six hundred feet in length, the structure contained flight decks, hangars, and vehicles. In a cloud of vapor and glittering debris the entire bay tore free from its pylon mounts amid the shriek of tortured metal. It tumbled away, dissolving into the vortex like a fading shadow.

Two of her engines died in quick succession and the great ship faltered. With a sickening lurch she slid backward, slowly at first, then accelerating, plummeting toward the cavernous hole in s.p.a.ce.

Mortally wounded and out of control, the Ascension fell into the void.

As she did, the screams of her crew fell with her.

CHAPTER 1.

Major Dan Ridgeway leaned against the curved inner surface of the transparent cylinder, allowing the overhead nozzles to pound his neck and broad shoulders with a ceaseless barrage of hot water. The marine's eyes were half-open, barely enough to make out the dull orange glow that suffused the lexan tube.

"Hotter. Pulse Two."

The water temperature increased by a pre-defined increment of two degrees. As it did, a second set of nozzles came into play. The rapidly pulsing jets hammered Ridgeway's torso, stimulating cell activity in a body that had been frozen for almost two years.

A dull groan crawled from the core of Ridgeway's chest. He didn't care in the least about the technical points of post-cryogenic hydrotherapy; the fluid percussion that worked its way across his six-foot-three frame just felt good. d.a.m.n good.

Ridgeway rolled his head to the left, stretching the taut muscles that fanned down from his neck to the starburst scar sprawled across his shoulder blade. Somewhere in the bone, a tiny fragment of mortar sh.e.l.l scratched at a nerve. He grimaced, feeling every bit of his thirty six years.

Waking years, he reminded himself, knowing full well that over a century had pa.s.sed since he was born. Thirty six years of consciousness, a great deal of that spent waging war on a handful of planets, and nearly twice that frozen in an ageless cryogenic sleep as he hurtled across the great voids that separated them. Even so, this was his first trip all the way to the Outer Rim.

Splayed along the fringe of charted s.p.a.ce, the Rim was man's deepest probing of the unknown. Last stop on the road to oblivion. If the universe had an end, you could probably see it from the Rim.

For the last twenty-two months the marine transport had hurtled through the darkness, piloted by an array of redundant computers while it's crew and pa.s.sengers slept like the frozen dead.

Eight hours had pa.s.sed since Ridgeway first awoke in the sleek cryogenic tank that had been his home, or more accurately, his tomb. Although the first to be roused by virtue of his seniority, Ridgeway had been the last of his squad to seek the comfort of the lone recovery chamber. As always with Ridgeway, team came first.

Thankfully, he was as better prepared for that sacrifice than most. With twenty-four laps through the freezer under his belt, Ridgeway had long ago grown calloused to Frosty's Revenge, marine parlance for the hangover-like state of headache, nausea and delirium that often followed prolonged cryogenic suspension. Most newbies would kill for that tolerance, particularly those who got slammed with violent cramps and freezer-blindness.

Still, Ridgeway winced as he rolled his right shoulder under the oscillating spray, Frosty was a tenacious b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

The orange glow inside the chamber grew brighter and a delicious warmth enveloped Ridgeway's body. Curving around the tube's transparent wall, a full theraktin tunnel flooded the clear cylinder with far-infrared radiation. The pulsed FIR penetrated deep into waking tissues, accelerating the natural process of cell regeneration.

Ridgeway regarded the combination of radiant and percussive stimuli as the medical equivalent of a jump-start; just enough kick to get his body going and let it sort itself back into proper order. Beyond all of the fancy technology, he desperately needed some exercise and a decent meal before he'd feel completely human.

"Stop. Dry."

The nozzles immediately shut off. With a low sigh Ridgeway shifted his weight back from the wall of the cylinder, allowing the ring of nozzles to rise un.o.bstructed to the top of the tube.

A sharp metallic click preceded an electric hum as the overhead fan kicked into gear. The downwash of air was warm and clean, buffeting droplets of water from Ridgeway's skin. He raised his arms above his head, flexing the muscles of his broad chest as he allowed the breeze to flood over him.

A sensor buried in the grated floor monitored the diminishing humidity and killed the fan when the moisture dropped to some pre-determined level. With a soft hiss, a third of the cylinder wall shifted outward, then rotated around the tube's axis.

Ridgeway emerged from the shower and donned a soft pair of black sweat pants and a marine-issue, olive drab T-shirt. Lacing a pair of black nomex boots, he looked at the front of the open cylinder. Rivets and rough welds affixed the base of the unit to floor. Power cables snaked out to an exposed length of wall conduit, further evidence of a hasty, improvised installation.

The sight was nothing new. In spite of the huge funding required to train and equip an elite military unit, travel accommodations were always spartan. The decision, Ridgeway knew, had nothing to do with cost and everything to do with secrecy. Covert operators never got their own tour bus.

Over the years Ridgeway's marines had spent most of their transit time sealed far from prying eyes, stuffed into anything from a commercial freighter to a cruise liner. On one short hop they been squirreled away in the belly of a converted garbage scow. He had lost track of how many bas.e.m.e.nt-level storage bays like this one had been converted on-the-fly to accommodate the RAT Squad.

Turning towards the door, Ridgeway's gaze stalled on the image that stood before him in the mirror. Carrying two hundred and thirty pounds on his muscled frame, Dan Ridgeway still had the unmistakable look of an athlete. The connotation carried a measure of pride since his days on the university Hyperball field were now many years in the past.

He'd been a linebacker, a role which suited both his size and natural aggression. Hyperball was played in gleaming orbital stadiums where the zero-G environment allowed the game to rampage across the six inner walls of a forty-meter cube. Each wall had it's own relative gravity, allowing opposing twenty-man squads to run plays in three dimensions at once.

Dan Ridgeway had played the cube like a predator born to the game, crossing walls and ceilings with a speed that belied his size and strength. He had an uncanny ability to merge with the ebbs and flows of the game, sensing changes in a play as it unfolded all around him. A good player knew where the ball was at any time, but Ridgeway had a sense of where the ball was headed. Time and again he brought primal force to bear on an opposing offense with surgical accuracy. The game had left a permanent mark on Ridgeway's heart.

The chin as well, Ridgeway noted, tilting his head to see if he could still make out the faded traces of white along the length of his square jawline. He dimly remembered the lunge from high on a sidewall, an aerial blitz that blew three offensive linemen into the path of a zig-zagging halfback. But using his body as a battering ram came with a price, and the shattered jaw was just one of several injuries that Ridgeway racked up in a kamikaze pursuit of total domination.

A tired smile tugged at the corner of Ridgeway's lips as he glanced at the letters indelibly etched across his right bicep. The three-character monogram appeared in a blur of booze and camaraderie after his team won the Terran Divisional Banner.

DTO. Defense Through Obliteration, slogan of the 2108 SSU Predators defensive unit. Ridgeway's unit. He wondered briefly how many of the ten players who carried that mark were still alive after, what was it, eighty-something years? Ninety? He only knew of one, a big defensive lineman who remained the closest friend Ridgeway had in the world.

It struck Ridgeway just how much he missed his time in the cube, simple days when wars were won or lost in ninety minutes and everybody came home. No politics, no hidden agendas, just the good guys and the bad guys, no question as to loyalties or motives.

Now he was a Marine, and that was a whole new game. No cheering crowd, no stadium, and for the most part, no rules. Every match-up was single-round elimination and n.o.body was kidding about the term "sudden-death overtime." The only trophy was coming home in one piece.

Ridgeway ran his fingers through a ruff of short-cropped hair. The severe, sand colored flat-top bristled into place. For an uncharacteristic moment, Ridgeway took stock of his reflection.

Not that different, he thought with a trace of sobriety, comparing the image before him to the wild young man who ruled the cube. Maybe a few more scars, he confessed, noting the variety of curves and slashes embossed into his flesh. Grenade fragment. Couple bullet holes. Chunk of a mortar casing.

He paused, suddenly losing interest in the catalog of his injuries. He had a lot of scars, more than he cared to remember. Half a dozen other mementos of battle lay spread across his frame, wounds inflicted in dark, miserable corners of the galaxy where many of his friends had died.

Where a whole lot of people died.

Ridgeway's gaze tracked back up the mirror and fixed on the hard blue-grey eyes that stared back, eyes that at times had been unable to distinguish pieces of friends from enemies as they lay tangled in charred heaps on the battlefield. Staring silently from the mirror, Ridgeway thought the eyes looked very old.

A muted shout echoed from the next room. With earnest relief Ridgeway turned his back on old memories. The door slid open and Merlin's voice snapped into clarity.

"Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about!" The young marine leaned over a small holographic gamepad and moved his fingers rapidly in the air. Thin mesh gloves translated his rapid-fire gestures into chorded commands that fed the video game console. In response, an amazingly lifelike projected creature lunged across the battlepad and threw a brutal crescent kick.

Ridgeway glanced across the table. While Corporal Jim "Merlin" Prentice clearly enjoyed the contest, his opponent was anything but jovial. Corporal Andrew "St.i.tch" Remuzzi glowered as his fighter, a furry biped with lupine jaws, reeled from the a.s.sault. The medic's brow furrowed above the dark rim of his datashades as he motioned his gladiator back into the fray.

"Doesn't this get old?" Ridgeway's question was genuine, if not a bit rhetorical. Being cooped up in a storage bay was a study in boredom, but Ridgeway couldn't fathom what drew his two youngest marines time and again to such a mindless diversion.

He shrugged. If that's what helps them unwind, who am I to be the killjoy? The team's operational gear was stored until final approach, and given the absence of liquor, multivision, or anyone to pick a fight with, the alternatives were pathetically slim.

Ridgeway allowed his gaze to fall back to the game where Merlin controlled a reptilian humanoid with brilliant green scales. The lizard circled to the left and edged in for what promised to be the kill.

Just inches away, Remuzzi's holographic werewolf stood flat-footed, almost stooped beneath it's simulated weight. Ridgeway had seen that posture in a thousand real-life fights. The body language had 'casualty' written all over it.

"I've got five on Merlin." Ridgeway suddenly offered aloud, wondering if anyone would care.

"Your on." The deep, ba.s.s voice could only have come from Monster, and Ridgeway grinned as the giant rolled off of a metal-frame cot that squealed in relief.

Gunnery Sergeant Darius "Monster" Braxton was the only person in the drab grey room who could make Ridgeway look small by comparison. At six-five and three-fifteen, Monster was a walking mountain of muscle.

To Ridgeway's left, Lieutenant Darcy Lonigan looked up as she flexed through what looked like the pantomime of a one-armed curl. Although she held no dumb-bell, Ridgeway could see the swell of her straining bicep. A single point of red glowed on the back of the fingerless metal gauntlet that encircled her hand as she huffed in a steady pace "forty nine... fifty."

The sniper's fist unclenched and the tiny gravitic coil in the gauntlet powered off; fifty-five pounds of artificial weight evaporated in a disintegrating cloud of magnetic fields.

"I'll take a piece of that." Darcy said as she rose and tossed the glove into the open footlocker at her feet. Her skin shone with perspiration and a V of sweat darkened her T-shirt. As she circled around Monster, she thumped one of the big man's melon-sized biceps with her fist. "Easy money."

Monster flashed a crescent of gleaming white teeth and nodded wordlessly.

The response was not at all what Ridgeway expected. Given all that he knew about his team, he paid little attention to their videogame prowess. It now appeared that he might be alone in this particular indifference.

Darcy leaned down to St.i.tch, close enough that her shoulder-length blonde hair brushed against the medic's ear. The sniper's eyes flickered up to Ridgeway and a devilish smile crossed her face as she whispered softly. "Cannonball."

While St.i.tch gave no outward sign of acknowledgement, Darcy stood back with a lingering grin. Monster leaned forward, nodding again. Even Merlin's c.o.c.ky banter dwindled to silence.

That's not a good sign, Ridgeway thought ruefully.

St.i.tch moved his hands vertically, one rising as the other fell, then reversed the direction. In response, the lupine form began to bounce up and down on its haunches.

"Oh s.h.i.t." Merlin's mutter did nothing to bolster Ridgeway's confidence.

The reptile lunged in a windmill of aggression but the wolf dodged with equal speed, using the bouncing momentum to carry it out of range. Twice again Merlin pressed the attack and still St.i.tch evaded, his bounds growing higher with every leap.

Without warning St.i.tch s.n.a.t.c.hed his hands into a sudden joined fist and brought them slamming down to the table. The wolf leaped, knees drawn to furry chest like a kid on a high dive. It crashed down in a blur of descending claws and fangs, crushing the lizard into the floor. The wafer-thin speakers did remarkable justice to the sound of a snapping neck. A flashing orange beacon confirmed the game's obvious outcome.

Merlin cursed as he shoved back from the table as the lycanthrope spun through a victory dance in a puddle of red blood and green scales. "How the h.e.l.l do you do that?"

The medic's face remained expressionless as he stood up from the table and peeled away the sensor-studded gloves. Angular datashades slid down the equally straight bridge of his nose. St.i.tch turned and peered over the lenses at Ridgeway with dark, piercing eyes. Only then did a smile creep across the medic's face. "Sorry Major, you may be CO, but cash is king."

The comment drew an explosion of laughter from Monster and Darcy. Feeling all-too-much like a well-played mark, Ridgeway fished the military dog tag from beneath his shirt and slid a gumstick-sized plastic strip from it's sleeve on the back. Tapping the end of the wafer with his thumb, he cycled past his identifile and medical history to financial management. He keyed up a pair of transactions and brushed his strip against identical ones held out by Darcy and Monster. Five credits soundlessly transferred with each contact.

Winnings in hand, Darcy turned and strutted off with an exaggerated swagger and a lilt in her voice. "Like candy from a baby."

St.i.tch and Merlin had already fallen into post-game a.n.a.lysis and they too wandered away from the table. "You watch, you smug SOB," Merlin bl.u.s.tered, "I'll figure out that d.a.m.n cannonball trick yet. And then it'll be your a.s.s." St.i.tch only laughed as his lanky frame ambled across the room.

Ridgeway felt a presence loom on his right and turned with theatrical deliberation to acknowledge Monster's barely restrained gloat. An unrelenting smile gleamed beneath the ebony dome of Monster's cleanly-shaven head.

"Looks like I haven't been keeping up on the scoreboard." Ridgeway muttered.

The right side of Monster's brow arched up as he dipped his head in a slow nod. "Oh yeah, St.i.tch has that d.a.m.n cannonball maneuver down."

"Nice of you to share that bit of a.n.a.lysis."

"Sorry Major. It's my job to know everything these marines think, see and do," Monster placed his hand over his heart as he recited the sergeant's role with feigned earnesty, "but that was 'need to know' information and since you were putting up the money--"

"Yeah, yeah," Ridgeway cut in, an accusing smirk spread across his face, "I didn't need to know."

Monster's grin broadened through another several degrees of arc and a deep laugh resonated within his chest.

Ridgeway shook his head in chagrin, caring little of either the game or the loss of ten credits. All that mattered was that his marines were healthy and, at least for the moment, enjoying a well-deserved bit of relaxation. With less than 36 hours before the rapidly decelerating transport reached it's rendezvous point, the window for meaningless diversion would evaporate all too quickly.

Ridgeway's gaze swept mechanically across the storage bay. As he did, his mind ticked through a silent checklist of people and equipment.

Amid the numerous containers made of high-impact therm.o.f.orm, one olive drab footlocker caught his attention. The name 'Caslin' was stenciled carefully along the container's long side. In their rushed departure, there had been no time to remove the designation.

"We doing all right?" Ridgeway asked the question in a flat, detached voice.

"Everyone above room temperature is just fine."