REBOOTS Read online

  REBOOTS

  MERCEDES LACKEY

  Prequel Novelette by Cody Martin

  THE STELLAR GUILD SERIES

  Mike Resnick, Series Editor

  Phoenix Pick

  An Imprint of Arc Manor

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  Reboots: Bad Moon Rising copyright © 2012 by Cody Martin. All rights reserved. Reboots: Just the Right Bullets copyright © 2012 by Mercedes Lackey. This book may not be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise without written permission from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual persons, events or localities is purely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher.

  Tarikian, TARK Classic Fiction, Arc Manor, Arc Manor Classic Reprints, Phoenix Pick, Phoenix Rider, Manor Thrift and logos associated with those imprints are trademarks or registered trademarks of Arc Manor, LLC, Rockville, Maryland. All other trademarks and trademarked names are properties of their respective owners.

  This book is presented as is, without any warranties (implied or otherwise) as to the accuracy of the production, text or translation.

  Digital Edition

  ISBN (Digital Edition): 978-1-61242-050-9

  ISBN (Paper Edition): 978-1-61242-049-3

  Published by Phoenix Pick

  an imprint of Arc Manor

  P. O. Box 10339

  Rockville, MD 20849-0339

  www.ArcManor.com

  *****

  A Greeting from the Series Editor

  Hello, and welcome to The Stellar Guild, a new series by Phoenix Pick, the science fiction imprint of Arc Manor. I’m Mike Resnick, the series editor.

  Over the years I’ve worked with a number of beginning writers. Hugo winner Maureen McHugh refers to them as “Mike’s Writer Children”. The reason I (and others) do this is quite simple: in the field of science fiction, almost every writer who helped today’s stars and journeymen is either rich, dead, or both, and since it is impractical to pay them back by the time we’re in a position to, we pay forward. I have worked with eight writers who went on to be Campbell nominees (the Campbell is science fiction’s Rookie-of-the-Year award), as well as some whose success came later or occasionally not at all.

  The thing is, I’m not unique. Just about every writer I know pays forward in much the same way in this most generous of literary fields, and when Arc Manor publisher Shahid Mahmud was looking for a new line that featured a new approach, we put our heads together and hit upon what has become The Stellar Guild, in which each book features, not a collaboration, but a team-up between a superstar of our field, who will write an original novella, and a protégé of the superstar’s own choosing, who will write a novelette set in the same universe.

  You know what I love about this field? When I first approached each of our superstars—Kevin J. Anderson, Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, all the rest—and said I was editing a new line and wanted a novella, and we would pay such-and-so for it, everyone politely declined. After all, their services are in great demand, they’re contracted years ahead, and Arc Manor was offering substantial-but-not-Wall-Street pay rates.

  But the second I explained that I also wanted a novelette in the same book, with full credit on the front cover, from a protégé of their choosing, every last one of them instantly changed course and agreed to write for The Stellar Guild.

  So here you have it—a brand new line, in which today’s superstars strut their literary stuff, and also introduce you to the early work of the next generation of Hugo winners and bestsellers.

  Mike Resnick

  ***

  =REBOOTS=

  Cody Martin: A Long Strange Trip

  by Mercedes Lackey

  I first “met” Cody Martin in an online game.

  The game is City of Heroes, an MMORPG (massive multi-player online role-playing game). We both belonged to one supergroup (aka guild for you WoW players) in a loose organization of role-playing groups on the Pinnacle server. For the uninitiated, role playing is very much like partially-scripted improvisational theater. The folks we were with were very much involved in storytelling (as opposed to “grinding” their characters to the highest level possible in the shortest amount of time), so it was pretty natural for me to gravitate towards them.

  It turned out that he actually had been part of a “grinding” group of friends and was about to kill off his character and quit when he ran into us and got intrigued. Our characters meshed well and he quickly got involved in a couple of my story lines; I liked the introduction he had written and posted on the group’s website (we heavily encouraged people to write prose as well as role-play) and as the people behind the “toons,” we hit it off.

  At the time I thought he was a college student or even in his mid-twenties. I had no idea he hadn’t even graduated from high school. He was that good at character development.

  We came up with a way to “save” his character once John Murdock hit the endgame, and about five books’ worth of posted stories later, he, I, Dennis Lee, Steve Libbey, and later Veronica Giguere created The Secret World Chronicle, using some of the same characters, but a vastly different setting, and with some interesting personality or background changes for some. That started (and is ongoing) as a podcast (Podiobooks and www.secretworldchronicle.com) and is now a series from Baen Books.

  But meanwhile, Cody wanted to try his hand at something else, too. We’ve had some ideas for a couple of things, but this is what took off first.

  It all started with another writing acquaintance, Mike Williamson, asking if I’d commit to an anthology proposal, “Zombies in Space.” Now…I’ll be honest, that sounded like the most idiotic proposal I had ever heard, and I said, basically, “are you insane?” But as I was talking to Cody about it, and he (who like most men seems to be zombie-obsessed) suggested things, suddenly, it didn’t seem quite so insane. In fact, it had a lot of comic potential. In fact….

  In fact, it became what you are about to read.

  We’ve actually finally met and hung out in person; at a couple of science fiction conventions, and we’ve had him out to our place for a couple of weeks. In person, Cody is most decidedly not the pasty-faced, overweight geek you might assume from this introduction. He’s an incredibly fit climbing instructor, camping enthusiast, gun enthusiast, funny, witty, good-looking, and ladies, franchise opportunities are available, and I’ll be taking applications for introductions to him and his equally attractive brother shortly. The proviso being that I get writing time for our projects.

  In the meantime, please enjoy this, and keep on the lookout for more of his work. You won’t be disappointed.

  ***

  =REBOOTS=

  BOOK ONE: BAD MOON RISING

  CODY MARTIN

  You know what they said in that ancient movie, about being in space? Well here’s a news flash for you: in space no one gives a shit if you scream. Especially not your shipmates. Oh, you’d think your shipmates would care, right? I mean, it’s just all of you against all of the dark and vacuum and whatever crap the universe has dreamed up to kill you? Another news flash: no. Especially if your shipmates are a bunch of sociopathic dirtbags that think dead puppy jokes are a laugh riot.

  So the screaming and cursing in the aft drain-chamber was pretty much “Tuesday.”

  So much for the glamor and excitement of interstellar travel.

  We’d strapped Fred down for the blood-drain again, and since he was human, it was going well aside from all the no
ise. That would be me, standing in the corner, doing my best to look like an appliance, while Fred screamed and ranted. That would be the High and Mighty, watching, and occasionally changing out a blood-bag, since I wasn’t to be trusted with something as important as their property. Three pints down, two to go, and Fred was still in fine voice. That was the thing about Fred being a Fur (ah, excuse me, I should be more sensitive, a “Were-person”); he regenerated the blood he was losing almost immediately. A couple spinach salads and a slab of beef and he’d be fine. Turn him loose under this planet’s moons to let him feast on whatever he could catch and kill and he’d be more than fine. I never could figure out how it was that he could eat anything remotely living and carbon-based when he wolfed out, even if it would have poisoned him in human shape. Miracles of Were physiology, I guess, but hey, no one pays me to be the brains—hardy har har. Come to think of it, no one pays me at all.

  “We” had him strapped down, by which I mean “me,” since the Fangs (and I will be damned all over again if I call Our Vampiric Lords and Masters anything but Fangs) never got their lily-like hands dirty if they could help it. They were the “mission specialists.” Meaning they had an excuse to be divas, or figured they did. It was up to me and the others to do all the work. And Fred, because he was lowest on this particular food-chain. So yeah, that’s the shipmates. four Fangs and a Fur, and the hate and contempt is so thick most of the time it’s like a fog in the air.

  Barnabas was in charge today. Oh Barnabas, who really got the short end of the vampiric stick. Someone had bit him late in life, and as you are when you get Turned, so you stay. So there he was in all his sagging, jowly glory, looking like a basset hound in a tailored jumpsuit. Can’t really wonder why he’s a douche; he has to look at the others, who may not be the supermodels of the Fang world but certainly are not coyote-ugly, and at himself, and grind his fangs. Even their jumpsuits look good on them, while his looks…like a janitor uniform. Yes, here we are, hopping stars, and the attire de rigueur for space travelers is still the jumpsuit, go figure. Must drive the Fangs crazy, with their obsessive-compulsive fashion sense; kind of hard to get designer labels hundreds of light years from the nearest retailer.

  The rest of the Fangs were lined up, waiting for their liquid lunch, and Barny was making them wait, which was not exactly quelle surprise. Barny was his usual patronizing self. He smiled snarkily down at Fred, who glared up at him. “Good boy, Fred. Nice doggie.” He patted the top of Fred’s head, then quickly pulled his hand out of reach when Fred snarled. Granted, he was in human form, but some of the wolf carried over, and he’d been known to bite.

  “Shut up, Barnabas,” Fred said, then told Barnabas what he could do with himself and where he could put that hand in long, loving and profane detail, using only Barnabas’s full name. Ol’ “Barny” hated his full name; believe it or not, in the Before time there’d been some sort of soap opera with a vampire in it by that name, and…well, let’s just say for the aristocratic Fangs, a soap opera was to the Grand High Literature of their kind (snork) as Mexican lucha libre wrestling was to the Olympics. Fred and the others chose to use Barny’s full name as often as the occasion warranted to get under his skin, which happened pretty often, because he was really easy to aggravate. But with Barny sticking the verbal knife in and rotating it, as well as being none-too-gentle about the drain, and being parked on a world where he mostly couldn’t go outside the ship, Fred was not happy at all and he was really heaping on the verbal abuse today. Not that I blamed him.

  This particular dirt-ball must have had a dozen moons, maybe more, I hadn’t counted. It wasn’t my job to count things, just like it wasn’t my job to think. I was just the guy they got to sweep up the shed fur and whatever else the Fangs discarded, strap Fred down in case he wolfed out in the middle of a drain, fix the ship’s systems occasionally under strict supervision, and rehydrate the dehydrated cattle brains the zombies ate so they wouldn’t waste away to nothing but bones. Of course, they could still do the job as bones except they tended to fall apart when they tried to pick up anything heavy, or when they were backhanded by a pissed-off Fang-face. Inconvenient. God knows the Fangs shouldn’t be inconvenienced by anything. Dicks. Oh, had I not mentioned this before? Yeah. I’m a zombie too, which is why nobody gives a shit what I think, because I’m not supposed to be able to think. More on that later. Everybody has rude names for us. Reboots. Shambler. Dead Head. Bone Bags. Rot-pot. Corpsicle. Mikey Jerkson… You know, I never did figure out where that one came from. Only the older Fangs seemed to use it.

  The Fangs—who really, really hate that name—finished up feeding on Fred and took their time in turning him loose. He did his usual ritual of pissing and moaning, cursing their families and hoping all the demons in the universe chose to pay them a visit, but he put more feeling than usual into it today.

  “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the kennel this morning.” The Fangs never, never lost a chance to get in a dog reference. The few Furs I’d run into before this cruise all seemed really self-conscious about their animal sides, and Fred was no exception. Maybe it was because when they morphed out, they were pretty much ravening, mindless beasts on steroids. Poor Fred. All those moons meant he was wolfed out most of the time if he went outside or got near an unshuttered viewport. It wasn’t that he had any choice in the matter; it was just automatic, as much of a physical necessity as the Fangs’ need for blood, or a person’s need to breathe.

  When he did go all wild-eyed and hairy, it was best not to be anywhere nearby. Imagine a 5-foot-4 accountant-looking guy turning into an eight-foot-tall unholy terror that basically wants to rip apart and eat anything that looks like it might be made of meat. That’s what Fred becomes whenever he gets hit with the light of any moons, if they’re full. You would think that the moon phase wouldn’t matter on a spaceship; hell, conversely, you’d think that being in a spaceship wouldn’t matter if the moon was full. What do I know? Maybe the Norms figured out how to put anti-moon-phase shielding on the hull that didn’t work on the open viewports. I’m just the janitor, and I wasn’t exactly a rocket scientist when I was alive. Besides, in a ’verse where vampires, werewolves, and zombies exist as a matter of fact, some things just are and it doesn’t matter that they don’t make sense.

  Fred was going on with his cussing for longer than usual too, his tirade becoming less profane and more inventive as time went on. “I’ll tear you in half and throw you out of the airlock when we’re parked next to a yellow star.” That was new. Death threats are not anything that this lot hasn’t already made before, but when you start working in the specific weaknesses, it strikes a chord. Fred’s idea would probably work, too. Class G yellow stars and those close to them in stellar classification are deadly to Fangs; the light crisps them nicely, and if they are out in it long enough, it reduces them to ash. There actually was a coating on the viewports that prevented yellow sunlight from hurting the Fangs—probably some kind of UV coating. That vulnerability was what had kept the Norms on top against Fangs. Norms were top-notch at finding and exploiting weaknesses.

  Antonio sneered. Antonio loved his full name. Antonio della Contani, supposedly some sort of Venetian royalty, right? I’m laying bets on him actually being plain old Tony Conti from Brooklyn who was Turned in the ’50s, based on his taste in music and the fact that he acts like a punk thug in nice clothes. “Promises, promises. Puppy didn’t get his walkies.” As usual, they were at each other’s throats, verbally if not actually. Not that it mattered if they did tear pieces out of each other, they’d just regenerate. The same wasn’t true for the likes of me. I would end up in a not so neat pile, with my parts wriggling around until my brain got tired, unless my bits got shoved into a recycling unit or someone was kind enough to stitch me up. And this wasn’t exactly a kind bunch, if you get my drift. Besides, zombies are a dime a dozen; we’re nothing more than part of the inventory.

  Yeah, that’s the other thing about being a zombie. Being undead is totally rad unle
ss you’re one of us. Vampires are strong and fast and persuasive. Werewolves are giant hairy woodchippers on legs. Zombies are janitors. Smelly janitors. Disposable janitors. Whenever one of us breaks, they just shove the bits into the recycler and grab another one out of the hold. I used to have a name, forever ago. I don’t remember those days all that well. Now I just go by Skinny Jim, when there’s someone that bothers to speak to me. Which, let me tell you, isn’t all that often. Zombies are not exactly what you would call stellar conversationalists, so why would they?

  That’s another thing. Not a lot of zombies can talk. Most of us really are mindless; burnt out or burnt up by whatever made us the way we are. We can do simple tasks, sure, especially if shown what to do a few dozen times. But there’s not a lot of intellectual stimulation amongst zombies, if you don’t count munching on the occasional rehydrated brain. You don’t find us sitting around discussing Kierkegaard. So, I’m special in that regard; I’ve got some of my mind left, but no opportunity to show it. And no incentive, to tell the truth. The Norms—well there were no Norms out here in any great numbers so that was moot—still, what the Norms would do, I didn’t like to think about. And the other Undead don’t like the manual laborers to be too bright, and I’m not sure what they’d do if they found out I was different. They’d probably do what the Norms would do, and sad as my existence is, it beats the alternative.

  “Fuckin’ elitist bastiches,” Fred muttered under his breath. Fangs. Thought they were the kings of the universe. Ask any of them, and they’d tell you. Not a one of them was ever some wino that got rolled for Type O-Pos in an alley, or would at least admit to it. Oh no. All of them had longer pedigrees than the winner of the Kennel Club trophy. And they all had the goofiest names you’ve ever heard of. Always something faux-fancy or exotic sounding. You never met a Bob the Vampire. Fred hated them, this ship and—well not the job, exactly, but after the first few new planets it had gotten…routine. But this was a paying gig. Not the greatest gig in the universe, except for the pay, but it’d do for now. Now, of course, being quite a stretch— he’d signed on for 300 years for this tour, give or take a decade. They were about halfway through their supply of Reboots, with the other consumables—spare parts for the hardware, mostly—at about the same level.