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    Alder's World Part II: Chlorophyll Probes
    Alder's World Part II: Chlorophyll Probes
    Alder's World Part II: Chlorophyll Probes
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Alder's World Part II: Chlorophyll Probes

    By Joel Stottlemire

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Time has passed since the crew of the League of Planet’s spacecraft “The Duster” played out a desperate gamble, crash-landing into the primal dawn of an alien planet. Alone on this sterile world, light years from rescue, Sam Alder, now commander of the survivors, faces desperate times. The ship is dying, the crew is dying, his beloved Elana is dying. Failure is not an option, Sam must find a new home...for the children.

    Chlorophyll Probes is part two in the three part Alder’s World series set in the Dryden Universe, a Creative Commons science fiction environment open for development by writers and artists of all kinds.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDryden House Publishing
    Release dateOct 29, 2015
    ISBN9781942138167
    Alder's World Part II: Chlorophyll Probes
    Author

    Joel Stottlemire

    I'm the founder of the Dryden Experiment and Chief Editor of the Dryden House publishing. We use a creative commons model to allow authors and artists to share their talents and their marketing reach without having to sell rights. Contact us at drydenexperiment@yahoo.com

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      Book preview

      Alder's World Part II - Joel Stottlemire

      Alder’s World Part 2:

      Chlorophyll Probes

      Copyright 2015 Joel Stottlemire

      Settings and Environments Copyright Creative Commons 4.0 BY-SA

      ISBN: 978-1-942138-16-7 (epub version)

      Published by Dryden House

      Unexpected Encounters

      The Journey to Dryden and Beyond

      This all began way back in 1974 when the three year old me first picked up a pencil with the intention of drawing. Between the ages of seven and eight I encountered the power of cinema, primed by the double-whammy spiritual shocks of 1978’s Superman and 1979’s The Black Hole, before discovering the world of grown up literature from the age of ten. I skipped over many stories perhaps more suited to my age group in favour of those available to my mother’s library card. Such material carried me into darker places than I’d walked before, whether it was Dean Koontz’s ominous town of Snowfield in "Phantoms or Stephen King’s brooding, quiet little town of ’Salem’s Lot. The power of the mature written word inspired my inner camera, a tool of the imagination which took me off the page and screen of such places, to explore beyond what was given - such was my sense of play. It took a little while longer before home computing power reached the point where I could create anything satisfying, but when that did eventually happen it opened the next door. My portfolio, which at that point largely consisted of still life" pieces, gave way to works of pure imagination and set me well and truly on the road.

      One of the benefits of working as a creative in your spare time is having the freedom to pick and choose your projects. When you throw yourself open to random creative experience there may come a time, as it did for me, when such adventure brings you to an unforeseeable nexus. For myself that was the day I became embroiled in the Dryden Experiment. Joel Stottlemire passed comment on a series of images, most of which I believe I’d literally posted online that day; creature-like forms which inspired him, and which he felt were both worthy and necessary for the future fantasy world he was building – the Dryden Universe. He introduced himself, explained his aspirations and before either of us knew it the Technoprey were born. In all honesty I don’t know where the name came from, though it was whilst reflecting upon a piece I’d created entitled Overlords that it seemed so apt; visually unsettling hybrid creatures, driven yet devoid of morality, conscience or judgment, presiding over a world transformed into a grotesque hive. It must have been something of this nature which struck Joel. Though the darkness (which continues) to befall the unfortunate crew of the LOP Duster began with a few digital pen strokes, they evolved properly in a creative crucible of three - myself, Joel and fellow Dryden creative writer/JPL Engineer Doug Equils, who for reasons best known to him challenged me to make these fantasy creatures as real as possible, through a lens of known and possible science. As though the chance to lock horns with a real NASA employee wasn’t inspiration enough, the thrust and parry of our emails created a slew of artwork (for commitment reasons most remain privy to that inner camera), and ultimately resolved the Alder’s World series. Unfortunately work commitments forced Doug into the background, but the project had its momentum and the experience became a cyclone of activity – my artwork inspired Joel’s words; his words fed back to my artwork, and as I write this we are two thirds of the way through a remarkable collaboration which has yet to see its closing act.

      It’s the wonderful freedom native to the Creative Commons model we use which enabled this story, and continues to help fuel all work created within Dryden. The independent, part-time artist presently typing these words at you will say that it’s inspired his own body of work out of all proportion, and that none of the Dryden projects I’ve been involved with thus far could have happened so easily without our collective. To anyone out there with a personal interest in achieving any goal, and who recognises the inherent strengths of diversity and cooperation, I would heartily recommend embracing the web and putting this amazing construct to good use. Liberate your ideas from any of the normal limitations; where financial and logistical pressures, even the overwhelming number of skills incumbent upon an individual, can crush an idea before it’s left the imagination. Trust me when I say that remarkable things become possible (and frequently happen beyond your control!) when you put your trust in others. If you have something itching to be developed then I hope you will take Alder’s World as proof that it can be done. Joel would be the first to champion the notion that none of this could have happened without assembling an armoury of colleagues, so I say make the leap, forge community bonds and beat a path. I’m very optimistic that this awesome experience will continue for many more years to come. From that perspective alone I would wish you well in your own endeavours, but also welcome you to join us on this journey - as a spectator or participant.

      Gavin Revitt, 17th October 2015

      Island

      Alder stumbled down the dark corridor, woozy and reckless. The passageway was littered with the wounded and pieces of debris. People were moaning and laughing. Someone was trying to walk with him, thanking him. He shook them off in the gloom around the cones of hand held, electric light. Ahead, the B-6.C bulkhead had been winched open and two crewmembers, indistinct in the murky light, were pulling a body from the wreck on the other side.

      As he approached, Alder groaned inside. The body had been sheared off on the left. The forearm was gone, the leg was gone, the pelvis and rib bones shown dully. The viscera hung loosely where the side of the torso had been ripped away. It was a male, he noted. At least it had been.

      Is this B-6? They told me the farming crew was in B-6. He asked one of the figures.

      The farming crew was on 7. Came the response as the body was heaved aside.

      But it fell. On 7 they told me the partition fell through to 6.

      The figure was already headed back into the opening and seemed half disgusted by Alder’s question. 6, 7 who knows. Mitchell, he nodded at the corpse, was on 9. The men were gone.

      Sticking his head through the bulkhead, Alder shuddered and almost vomited again. The smooth, orderly core of the biosphere, evenly lined with strapped in crew members was gone. A massive air circulation unit had broken loose on level 9 and crashed through three decks. It was wedged into the plating a level below him. The hole it left through the center of the ship was full of jagged edges of metal, broken water pipes, and parts of bodies strung out like grotesque ornaments; most just meat, not even recognizable as human.

      Elana. He had to find Elana. There were a dozen workers pouring over the debris as water from broken lines rained down on them, calling for survivors, moving what they could. In the glow of their lights, Alder could see the place where she had been attached. She had been mounted on an acoustic barrier between a set of pumps and the interior of the dome. The entire wall was gone, leaving the pumps exposed. There was no debris, just a smooth place, twenty meters above him.

      His mind raced furiously, if they came off in a single piece, they might have survived. The barrier had been chosen because it was reinforced. He traced the line of descent. Part of the debris jutting from the side of the air handler was a section of baffling. There. She had to be there.

      A hand grabbed Alder by the shoulder. Commander. The voice with the hand said. He realized that someone had called him several

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