Winter Harvest

  Winter Harvest

  Space Seasons Book One

  Dawn Chapman

  Copyright © 2020 by Dawn Chapman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Newsletter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Afterword

  About Dawn Chapman

  About Mountaindale Press

  Mountaindale Press Titles

  2019 was one of the hardest years in my life.

  Dedicated to my husband, Paul, who almost didn’t make it and to the friends who saw me through it.

  This series and characters made a tough year bearable.

  x X x

  Acknowledgments

  I’m sending special thanks and shout outs to my writing buddy, Michael Chatfield. And also my other closest friends K.T. Hanna and Luke Chmilenko. Thank you for being you and being there for me as always, and of course just being plain awesome. Guys and gals, these authors books are mint, check them out!

  Of course, huge thanks also goes to my early readers who were fantastic, Tara, Zeb, and Adam. And to my editing team Nick and Evan. Without all of you amazing people this would not be as polished. You rock. There are also some extra people I want to thank in my wonderful discord group. Kajack, LFB, Chris, Chauf, Ever, V, and my mods, Carl, Zeb, and Richard. And those who support me on Patreon, love you too!

  Finally, to all who chat to me daily, and whom I adore, and to the extra special people in the office you all know who you are, and working alongside such professional people, is the best. I couldn’t ask for more. There’s also of course, an extra shout out to my publisher for working with me. MDP, you all have been a joy to work with. To the guys and gals who I already knew and now know even better.

  Love you all! 2020 is so on.

  Newsletter

  Don’t miss out on future releases! Sign up for the Mountaindale Press newsletter to stay up to date. And as always, thank you for your support! You are the reason we’re able to bring these stories to life.

  Chapter One

  Earth

  Date July 8th, 2629

  Colony ships landed on Sakron 170 years ago

  Today couldn’t get any better. The thrills of my future buzzed through my veins.

  I hitched my satchel higher up my back; it didn’t hurt as much there.

  If today went well, things would change. I’d have choices—choices which I wasn’t ready to make but I knew that I had to.

  Paul, Craig, and I walked through to the main college campus, each of us deep in thought. Craig hung back, checking his phone constantly for news updates. Several of our classmates already had their results.

  Craig was our internet watcher, and he reported all the activity to us, especially those who failed.

  Failing meant your life was over. Recruited. Tagged and bagged. Dead.

  I shivered.

  “Hey, Kyle.” Paul’s large hand slapped the back of my shirt as we drew closer to the college. The buildings loomed ahead, all concrete and plastic. The gardens beautifully landscaped with plants that flourished but felt and smelt unreal.

  “You still coming to Arndale after you get your results?” Paul asked.

  I glanced between the two of them, emotions washing over me. I wanted the best for them, even if they couldn’t get the best.

  Circumstances aside, they were my friends, and I cared for them. Craig was the richest amongst us. Good family, good jobs. Paul had the shittiest family upbringing ever. Bit like mine, and I thought for a moment about the day that mum left us and everything changed. If today panned out, my future wouldn’t be as lame as I had thought back then. Now I had hope.

  Craig moved farther ahead. Other kids were walking to the college, all laughs and smiles. Maybe their futures didn’t matter as much to them, or maybe they weren’t worried about where their next meal came from, their next payment to the heating company. I shrugged their laughter off. My belly scrunched, hungry, but nervous too.

  “You still going to tech school?” Paul asked. “If you pass?”

  “I think so.” Every idea in my head told me that was what I wanted. Creativity was never something I lacked, seeing the inside of computers, tech, coding. As for what Paul wanted to do, film school, to be that creative and have social skills, that was another matter.

  “What about the job offer?”

  That offer from Craig’s mum to join her “coding company” had also been tempting. Anything to help my dad pay the bills. But it would never amount to anything.

  “It’s nice and all, and I’m sure your mum’s cool to work with, but I can’t see me ever moving on from there.”

  “Easier to get a job when you have a job,” Craig laughed.

  The thoughts of just being stuck in a booth answering the phone and speaking to irate customers just wasn’t for me. Dead end, no thanks. I wanted to see places, do all the things.

  “There’s a big wide world out there.” I looked skyward. I knew there was more than that. I sucked in a cool breath. “If I get the grades, I’m going to tech school, then beyond to a really high-end tech coding job.”

  Leaving my dad and the only home I’d ever known would be difficult, but it would ease the pressure on him for sure.

  The kids ahead of us mulled around, making their way into the school and coming out with different looks plastered on their faces. The old-school way of doing this was paper, but now, we got the results directly to our internal chips. Everyone always laughed about AIs and the mind melding with tech, but for us, now it was a reality. It made things easier, but it made it easier for them to watch our every move.

  As Paul and Craig slipped on ahead of me, going through the college doors, there was a fuzzy feeling in my mind, and all my senses tingled.

  “Come on!” Paul yelled, and all I could do was follow them. The hall opened, and inside were several stations with teachers sitting at them.

  I waited in line for an opening and moved closer and closer to my fate. The robotic teacher smiled at me and I took my seat before her. “Looking forward to seeing what you’ll be doing?” she asked.

  It always felt weird talking to them, the AI that ran the
school. “I—I a—am,” I replied, nerves coming through.

  With deft fingers, she typed on the desk’s sensors to activate the computer system, and my files showed up in 3D holo. I stared at it. This was everything I was and more. As students, we’d only ever seen them once, when joining the college.

  This now was weird. I had tardiness marks on it, things I couldn’t help. We’d had to get a bus through each day, and if we missed it, tardiness was a big thing. Hit too many lates and you’d be penalized in classes, too many of those and you’d be kicked out. Destined to factory work, or worse.

  Neither of those things was good. I was borderline for being booted and had been on the cards many times. These reasons were not by fault of my own, and the college teachers knew it.

  “So let’s see how you did.”

  It was agonizingly slow, but in less than a second the papers came on screen.

  There it was in big black and white letters. Failed.

  Everything around me pushed down. I felt hot, sick.

  The air in the college turned stale.

  I couldn’t have failed. I’d tried—I’d done everything I could.

  I’d studied so hard. What had gone wrong? Where had I gone wrong? “This must be a mistake, right?” I questioned, trying to seek out a reaction, anything normal. Human even.

  Her eyes met mine, yet she said nothing. Just her cold, hard eyes staring straight back at me.

  There was, after all, not much she could say. It was over, my life was…over.

  No going to college, no escaping it. “Kyle?” a voice resounded in my head.

  I wasn’t sure whose it was until I turned. Craig looked at me with a head tilt. Questioning everything.

  “I…” Words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. “What?”

  The robotic teacher behind me simply said, “He’s failed.” Craig took a step back. “No.”

  I could only nod. I was not going to cry over this, not in front of my best friends.

  I pushed the chair backwards and stood to leave. Craig shoved past me and stomped towards the teacher. “There’s no fucking way he’s failed. You need to check the database!”

  Blank eyes stared up at him, but I could have sworn there was something there, a flicker. Recognition. “The results are conclusive. Kyle Ranz failed on all counts.”

  Craig’s fists balled, and I knew this was going down only one way. I grabbed hold of him and pulled him back. “It’s not worth it.”

  Craig turned on me then. “You’re kidding me. This is your life. They’ve got it wrong!”

  “Hey!” I shouted in his face, channelling all my emotions into anger. “There’s. Nothing. We. Can. Do.”

  I heard an internal ping, and my vision altered as the paperwork came through.

  I pulled Craig away and back out into the sunlight. There I leaned against the wall while I brought up what I needed to know.

  I could hear Craig telling Paul the news, and Paul started to cry, while all Craig could do was swear.

  The images I could see before me were visible only to me. The implant in the back of my mind and the nanite tech that floated around my body allowed me to see many things.

  Now projected in front of me in full 3D glory was the contract for my death.

  Kyle Ranz

  Report to Annex 7, Room 172 at 22:00

  An AI will give a lethal concoction to you. Your heart will stop. They will download your mind into the network, where it will be transferred to the planet Gridon and your host body.

  Then you will receive your first mission.

  I shivered as I read the message. Gridon was the farthest planet in the sectors we knew the Vrolsh, our enemy came from. Known for its harsh icy conditions and the many monsters that roamed the surface, it was a “starter” planet, one where my mind would join a new body. One that I could lose and lose again if I needed to learn and grow into a fighting machine they would send into war.

  I struggled to breathe. I hadn’t taken in all the lessons on the Harvest. I hadn’t wanted to know what happened out on Gridon. The game seemed all too real. Now I wished I had paid more attention, learned everything I could. Studied it like I had my coding. I was an idiot. Absolute idiot.

  I checked the time. 15.23

  I had just over seven and a half hours to live. There was so much I wanted to do, to see. I couldn’t believe I had failed after everything I’d been given. Between the Internal AI Chip for my seventeenth birthday and the severe study regime my father and Craig’s mother pushed on me, on all of us, there was no way failure was an option; it was impossible.

  But I had. It was in black and white.

  My heart beat in my chest, every breath I took. It meant everything.

  I felt a hand on my arm and I looked out from reading my sentence into Paul and Craig’s worried faces.

  “What are we doing?” Paul asked.

  “We should hit Arndale just like we planned,” I replied.

  “You sure of that? Isn’t there anything else you’d like to do?”

  “You want to just hang out like we always do, the night you’re gonna…” Craig didn’t need to finish that line.

  “Yes, I want to hang out. With you guys. This is my last chance. Come on.” I tried to laugh, afraid it came off fake, though, and I moved away. “Days a-wasting and I’m not throwing any of it away.”

  While walking with them laughing and joking all the way there, I remembered the one thing I kept going back to the Arndale Centre for. The one thing the guys ribbed me on, every damned time. Lyndsey.

  A crush, lust, whatever you wanted to call it. I was obsessed with her.

  Her fiery red hair, sultry laugh and sparkling eyes. Of course, her tight yoga pants helped too, and we’d all play the part, trying to get her to bend over—that part at least they did understand.

  They had built the Arndale Centre over a hundred years ago. Its large walls and rooms had been a school for disabled kids. But it went to ruin when technology changed, and, like me, all kids had implants. It evened the score against many disabilities, and although some were horrifically against the implants, the need to have them was obvious the more society let them in. The centre was bought by a couple, and they’d renovated it when I was still in preschool. When they opened it as Arndale Core VR and called in testers for their games, I’d stood many times at their gates wanting in but never being allowed.

  We were sure Craig had won the credits that got us in; he loved gaming. But I think his mum was softer on him. Knowing he needed his friends to play with.

  Paul, however, was winning every award going from his skills in gaming to his skills in coding games himself. I think it was natural for the owners of the Arndale to send him these extra credits and passes. He thought he’d won some competition, but I knew different. Complete strategic planning on their part. They wanted him on their developmental teams. Get him in, get him hooked, then when he was the right age, steal him from his mother.

  I’d tried to tell them both once, but they wouldn’t listen. Happy to tag along, I didn’t always put out my best strategies, my best plays. I knew Arndale was always watching. I wanted to work for someone else.

  Someone better. I wanted to develop the next best game myself.

  Craig’s dreams involved university like mine had, but instead of coding and gaming he wanted a different job, he wanted to become a vet. He was smart enough, so I’d no doubts he would do it. Me, I wanted to be a top coder, working for games industries or the government on whatever secret project I could get my hands on.

  For me the games in here were great, don’t get me wrong. I loved being a part of their group. But their gameplay to me was boring. They never risked things. They’d set out and accomplish their goals, sure. Go in and take down the hardest enemy the quickest. But they were doing just what the owners wanted. Nothing new. I liked to test out other options, find all the different ways to win that the dev team had put in, not the easiest.

  The guys walked through the
doors, not as enthusiastic as usual, but they still loved the place. The smell hit me. I’d never get to smell that ever again. Fresh and antiseptic—ugh, the smell of the fluids in the tanks. Arndale Core always tried to mask it with the fresh baking going on in the café by the doors, but it never did. Once you’d been in their tanks, you could never forget it.

  Paul and Craig spoke to her at the desk while I watched. I moved to the bakery and picked up two nice treats. Maybe she’d hate me for trying to get her fat, but I’d seen her eating one a few times. I hoped they were her favourite. Just a simple Danish pastry with apple and custard. I’d tried one before. They weren’t bad. They were still warm, and the smell was damned mouthwatering. I wanted to eat one now.

  I waited while the guys paid their dues and went through the doors. I had been almost sure of the games they’d pick, but they didn’t. They went with one we used to play, one we first loved when we got time in here. They waited for me, but I flicked them a glare, and they moved on. I wanted a little more time with Lyndsey.

  When I reached the desk, she looked up at me, and her smile could have melted my heart any day, but even more so today. Her smile, however, soon faded. I smiled back, trying not to stumble over my words or my feet. I noticed there was an odd look to her now, puffiness in her eyes, flushed cheeks, had she been crying?