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Morph Planet
Morph Planet
Morph Planet
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Morph Planet

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Wellings is a criminal on his way to the Penal Colony on Callisto. The ship is attacked and he is captured by the Centauri Independent Front. He offers to work with them and is accepted, but has secretly allied himself with a Centauran government agent in an attempt to discover the source of the CIF weaponry and funding.
Near to death after an attack, he is taken to an unknown alien planet where his life is saved by the vastly superior medical knowledge of the aliens. The necessary repairs to the structure of his DNA turns him into a morphoid—but there are severe side-effects.
Together with some friends, who were being transported with him, and an android from the alien planet, he sets out to help the alien race whose population is being depleted by the effects of a past collision between their planet and a massive asteroid
Can Wellings overcome the severe side-effects, help the aliens, defeat the military occupation of Centauri Prime and ultimately make a difference in the goal to unify Earth, Centauri Prime and the newly discovered Morph Planet.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherTarry Ionta
Release dateMay 28, 2012
ISBN9781476024653
Morph Planet
Author

Tarry Ionta

Born 1933 of Italian parentage. He served in the RAF and worked at various occupations before entering Glasgow University at thirty, to study Maths, Physics, and Astronomy. He completed one year before dropping out to become a telegraphist. Finally, completing his working life with British Telecom Finance Department. His Interests and hobbies comprise mainly of chess, and reading science fiction. He has also had a keen, practicing interest in computing and martial arts (Judo and Shotokan Karate) and music (Saxophone, Clarinet, and Piano - Over twelve years with City of Glasgow Military Band). Now retired and no longer active in those fields, he prefers to concentrate on writing. He has been writing since 1988, having written over fifty varied short stories, a few articles, novellas, novels, and a children's fantasy book. Several short stories have been published in anthologies and on the Internet. A few have also been short-listed in the WRITER'S NEWS monthly competitions. He continues to write.

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    Book preview

    Morph Planet - Tarry Ionta

    Morph Planet

    By

    Tarry Ionta

    Smashwords Edition Copyright 2012 ISBN 9781476024653

    License Notes

    The original image used to form the cover of this book is in the Public Domain, to the best of the author's knowledge. If anyone knows of anything to the contrary please inform the author at:-

    ionta.books@outlook.com

    This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to the owner and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

    Chapter 1

    The control room was a mangled mess of torn metal and ripped cables. Severed conduits lay with bare ends open, displaying their ragged contents like sinews and nerves on torn flesh. A gaping hole lay open to space on the port side, and swinging cable ends sparked in the depleted air for a few seconds as they touched metal. Then they too gave up all signs of life as the control room lost all of its oxygen to space.

    The two crewmen had died within seconds, their bloated and bloody bodies still strapped to their consoles. There had been just enough time to re-fasten the seat belts after the explosion amid-ship, then the second missile had struck the forward part of the vessel.

    The emergency lighting had come on almost immediately after the main systems had gone down, but it too flickered and died. The control room had suddenly become a tomb, dark and forbidding, exposed to the freezing and merciless cold of space. Elsewhere on the ship, sounds of panic spread like a forest fire. People screamed, their fearful cries for help going unheeded.

    Karol Wellings shook his head several times before his brain started to function correctly. He was lying on the metal deck badly shaken and he ached all over, but otherwise, he seemed relatively unhurt. From what he could see of the converted cargo hold which held him and the other prisoners, it had not been breached. But that had not prevented the other six captives from being hurt. Two of them had been hurled against the metal wall after the first explosion. It was clear that neither of them had survived, their twisted bodies lying at impossible angles. One had a broken neck. The other had split his head on a projecting strut and was lying in a pool of blood.

    Wellings took stock of the situation in the dim light of the single pilot light, which had miraculously survived the blasts. Like himself, the other four were relatively unscathed. They were badly bruised and bloody, but none of them seemed to have suffered broken bones or severe lacerations.

    ‘Everyone okay?’ he asked quietly.

    ‘Yea!’ the reply came from one of the four as he stood uncertainly to his feet. ‘Kelvin and Sorrel didn’t make it. They’re both dead. But the rest of us seem to be okay.’

    ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ another voice chipped in hysterically.

    ‘Easy!ʼ Wellings commanded. ‘We’ve got to stay calm. Panic won’t help us any.’

    ‘Think anyone else survived?’ a female voice asked quietly, but there was a distinct tremor to her voice.

    ‘I’m certain of it,’ Wellings replied. ‘While I was lying here half conscious I could hear people screaming through the air ducts. Only just, mind you, but I’m sure there are other survivors.’

    ‘Yea, I thought I heard them too, but wasn’t sure if it was real, or just a hallucination. It was all I could do to keep from flaking out.’

    ‘Me too. You heard right, though,’ Wellings added. ‘Besides, a ship this size would need more than a couple of hits to destroy it completely. Unless, of course, it received a direct hit on the power source, or was nuked. There’s bound to be other survivors protected in their sealed compartments. But I expect they’re already heading for the escape pods and rafts.’

    ‘What do we do?’ one of the men asked.

    ‘Bang on the door and walls and shout for help for all you’re worth,’ Wellings added, instinctively taking charge. ‘With a bit of luck one of the guards will hear us.’

    ‘What the hell do they care? They’re probably too concerned for their own skins to worry about us.’

    ‘You could be right,’ Wellings agreed. ‘But we’ve no other option.’

    After a full minute of hammering at the walls and door, they were rewarded by a click of the lock. The door slid open cautiously and a uniformed guard stood outside, his plasma pulser pointed directly into the room. He seemed remarkably unscathed. ‘It’s chaos all over the ship,ʼ he said. ‘Everyone is heading for the escape pods and life rafts. I suggest you do the same. It’s every man for himself now.’

    ‘You won’t try to stop us?’ Wellings asked.

    ‘No fears!’ the guard said as he put the pulser back in its holster. ‘I’m heading for safety before we get hit again. You would be advised to do the same.’ With that, the man made a hasty exit, but not before calling back, ‘you’re lucky I was nearby!’ And then he was gone.

    Wellings and the rest of the prisoners made their way toward the back of the ship. The cargo hold was at the extreme end near the engines and well away from the passenger and crew quarters. By tacit agreement they had decided to stay together as a group. They were all aware that Wellings had a passion for spaceships; spent most of his time in prison reading and studying schematics and plans of them. Having trained as a ship’s engineer at one time he knew his way around most modern vessels, albeit mostly on paper, although he had traveled on them quite extensively when he could, in between spells of imprisonment.

    ‘Wouldn’t it have been better to go toward the front of the ship?’ the woman asked.

    They were in a narrow passage leading to the heart of the engine room. ‘We’re too far aft,’ Wellings said with a confidence he did not feel. ‘By the time we made our way forward, all the escape pods and survival rafts will have been boarded and jettisoned. Besides, you would have had to fight your way through the panic. And there’s no telling where we’ve been hit. There might be no easy way through.’

    ‘You’re sure there’s an escape pod in the engine room?’ the woman said.

    ‘Positive. It’s there in case there’s trouble while the engineering crew are working on the engines. Also, it’s not likely that anyone else will be heading in this direction.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Too bad if they are, we’re closer than anyone else. I only hope the guard that freed us, wasn’t aware of its existence.’

    ‘Will it take us all?’ one of the men asked.

    ‘It’s the smallest of the pods. Meant to accommodate only four, but it will take the five of us at a pinch.’

    There were sighs of relief as the corridor opened into the engine room. A flashing legend at the far end proclaimed, ESCAPE POD, in bold red lettering. Wellings knew that it was powered by the same emergency high-powered plasma cell that fed the explosive devices of the escape gear, allowing all the pods and rafts to eject well away from the main body of the ship and out of harms way, should the engines reach critical mass

    ‘Good,’ Wellings said with relief. ‘No one’s been here.’

    Once they were inside the vehicle, Wellings gave the order. ‘You three take a seat...’ He pointed at the men. ‘And strap yourselves in. Seizwell has the lightest build of us all, she can double up with me at the control position.’

    She gave him a look as if seeing him for the first time, then squeezed herself in beside him as he stretched the crossover seat belt to accommodate them both.

    Wellings had just enough time to be aware of her closeness, then he unhooked the safety catch on the control panel and pressed the release button.

    Chapter 2

    It was ironic. Here he was, for the most part of his life on the wrong side of the law. And now, having been sentenced unjustly, he felt betrayed. As though society owed him something. As though he had a right to be given just treatment. Somehow he could not accept it; could not come to terms with the fact that he was innocent but being made to pay for a crime he had not committed. The fact that he had been guilty so many times before and not been found out, just didn’t enter into it. It was upturning his whole view of society and his relationship with it.

    For thirty-three hours they had been on the cramped escape pod. There was little else to do but think; take a new look at his life. Maybe it was time now for a change. But could he change? Could he stay within the boundaries of acceptable social behavior? Certainly, he had never chosen to be on the wrong side of the law. It had simply been the way the dealer in the game of life had dealt the cards. And he had played them just the way they had been dispensed. But it had never occurred to him that he could place them back in the pack and take a re-deal; take a different course with his life.

    But was it too late? He still had a five year sentence to face. Though, with good behavior he might conceivably reduce that to three. And even if he did serve the full term he would still only be in his late thirties, not too late to start a new life.

    The incident, having placed him in very close proximity with his fellow prisoners, had not only given him a chance for reflection. It had also given him an opportunity to interact with the people who, a few days previously, had been little better than strangers to him. There had been very little intercourse during those few days in the converted cargo hold. They had all remained, for

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