NightPiercer (Published / Sample)

Changing Lanes

From: Forest Game [Crèche :: Biome Management]

To: Lachesis [Crew :: Crèche Division]

Subject : Hunt Request :: Recreation -> (Rabbit)

Your request for a recreational rabbit hunt has been denied. Please do not submit further requests unless accompanied by a Civilization Management endorsement.

Regards—

Lieutenant-Warden Emanuel

Forest Biome Mammal Management

Lachesis bit down a curse, just in case the comm nestled behind her ear overheard her cursing to herself and someone decided to compare timestamps of her reaction against her reading the denial.

She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling.

There were plenty of rabbits down in the Forest Biomes to hunt. She'd been managing three of the largest colonies that supplied Food and Biome the past two years. That surplus hadn't disappeared in the six months since she'd been promoted to Sheep.

Get a promotion, get more recreation credits, but get a smack across the snout by Civilization Management. Now she needed their blessing to go hunt a rabbit every six months.

Not good.

This Warden hadn't even made up any polite lies about Medical fitness certifications, an insufficient supply, or the Biome not doing recreational hunts to control the spread of fungus, or a cricket got loose. No, just the blunt truth: Civilization Management had concerns.

She rubbed the tattoo on her neck. She loved the hunt, the stalking, that feeling of being on a planet, breathing air that smelled like tree and dirt, then that sweet moment just before the final bite.

She ignored the tingle through her jaw, the shiver under her skin, and the predator's snarl in her throat.

One of her tablets pinged. Time to go.

The main corridor ran alongside the external hull and sported narrow windows that afforded a view of Jupiter. The planet's bulk was a swirling, unchanging, giant shadowed by an assortment of moons. Jupiter's bands of color didn't change, the show just rotated and sparkled with flashes of lightening.

Jupiter was more of a failed dwarf star than a planet. The auroras at the north pole were more than a little evidence of just how dangerous it was.

The LightBearer dangled in the massive planet's grip, thirty thousand kilometers away. Invisible to the naked eye, the other ark ship's tiny cluster of thousands of lights didn't match the rest of the starfield.

She cupped the bottom of her satchel, jostling the tablets inside. There wouldn't be anyone up in astrometrics this time of day. She'd have free reign over the CPU cycles Captain Ertsu had allocated to the LightBearer project. A new moonlet had appeared in Jupiter's orbit and needed more study. It threatened to throw their models and work straight into the trash.

No. Now she was making excuses. Navigation was her Dying Art. Crèche was her career, and Civilization Management had sent a pretty clear warning on their disapproval of how she spent her time.

So that meant... right now... she had to go... bowling.

New hobby. Social hobby. An I-can-play-nice-with-others sort of hobby.

Hunting could be that kind of hobby too, except werewolves were banned from hunting in packs. It had once been their birthright, the instincts cherished, the skills celebrated. Even when the werewolves had been driven into secrecy by the dominant human race, pups had still learned to hunt, even if many of them had become glorified ratters. Now hunts were organized and rationed, with a limited supply of culled livestock to teach youngsters the essential survival skills of hunting small prey and dressing a carcass.