Rowdy Dead Productions

By David C. Daoust

‘Dreadcurse Taman’, that was what Zhou had decided to rename the small hidden moon, once she’d gotten her mitts on it. She spent a good two hours coming up with that name. Someone had named it ‘Parable’. Pshht- she thought that was a stupid name for any moon. What was there some lesson to be garnered from it or something? Not likely, especially not after the corporations stripped it. Of course, the name she’d chosen was more about what she thought a ‘Pirate Queen’s’ secret base should be called- eventually she would use the name for future products, or story lines within her comics and movies.

Her crew took to just calling it ‘Taman’ which meant ‘garden’ in some ancient language. She was born Royal, so had access to old histories, and old languages. She’d already forgotten which language ‘Taman’ came from, she didn’t have much care for details though, just what she could use…

Taman was one of the most beautiful moons she’d ever witnessed, an endless sea of leaves stretching in every direction, cut only by wide streaming rivers, which ran the length of the small moon. The brush beneath was heavily shaded, with only beams of light breaking through the canopy above. This was a rare occurrence among the terraformed moons. How so much life could spring forth so quickly, was astounding. Zhou was not one hundred percent sure, how these things worked. She knew there was a time period on each moon, called ‘Chronogenesis’. She knew it involved a lot of the same tech that was used for healing throughout the Onion. Meaning, it sped up natural processes and growth, though on a global scale. It was a process, in the terraforming of a moon, where humans were not allowed on the surface.

There were a series of movies of the same name, popular throughout the Onion, about a group of pioneers narrowly surviving a crash-landing on a moon, just to find themselves marooned during Chronogenesis. The first movie depicted the heart-wrenching story as the families prematurely aged, dashing all their hopes and dreams, the end result being their hastened deaths, all in quick succession. The only survivor, the infant child, born at the start of the film, rescued as an old crone by a passing Consortium cruiser.

Zhou knew more about how much money those movies grossed, than the actual facts behind the science. She also knew that the Royal Domes, built on the inner planets, protected the settlers there from the effects. Or would, once they reached that point in the processes.

In fact, the final movie in the series, depicted the old crone from the first film, given a home among the Royals, just to have the Dome malfunction, and force her to finally face the fate of the rest of her family. This was all in the first fifteen minutes. The call back to the old character earned them a pretty penny, but the depiction of the beloved Royals’ hastened deaths, which was the remainder of the film, made a fortune.

Ultimately, Chronogenesis gave the plant-life a head start, gave it a chance to flourish, to build up sustenance for future life. The animal life came after its completion. And then, after that, the humans started calling dibs.

Taman’s Chronogenesis had obviously ended years before, though what the process produced was a sight to behold. Many of the trees, throughout the moons artificially sustained ecosystem, were a couple hundred years old, though could only have existed on the moon for no more than seventy years. (There were older moons, though none so far from the Core.) She’d heard once that there were entire generations of trees, and other plant life, living and dying throughout Chronogenesis- but the facts were vague.

There were a lot of people that did not understand the details involved in terraforming. Most of them assumed there were smart people somewhere, that got it all covered, so they didn’t put much thought into it. Zhou was Royal, so she knew this tech was built by the same people that built the arks. She knew there hadn’t been scientists of that caliber, since the Royals seized the reigns, and the Arks started controlling the flow of knowledge.

“Craiden, Craiden…” Zhou tisked sweetly at the man she held closely to her side as she steered him down a long corridor. His hands were bound tight in front of him. She hugged the crook of his arm with both her arms, and set her head on his shoulder warmly, “The man that ruined all my plans. So selfish… just take whatever you like, use it however you want? Who raised you?”

He didn’t answer, he knew better by now. They were nearing their destination. She could hear, behind the wall, as the beast within scratched and beat against the massive chamber on the other side; its cell. She knew it could hear their approach. Craiden followed along silently.

“More than six weeks I was waiting…” Zhou pouted, she was talking to hear herself talk- she didn’t care what he thought. “Do you know how hard it is to pacify so many contracted workers? -for six weeks!? I swear, I got those men to pilfer so many Alliance shipments, just to hide the production loss, I’m probably going to be renamed the Pirate ‘Empress’, any day now.” She said this with a gleam in her eye, maybe even a bit of hope, that it may be true, appeared in her voice.

“Well, I’m nothing if not malleable,” Zhou continued on sweetly, “Thanks to you, I learned of that broken ship with my drones packed within, the goings on of Twin Crown, and of course, what the media dubbed, the ‘black tide’ infection. Or, what those of us in the know, call Black Tide ‘nanites’…”

Zhou paused to try and read his reaction to the ‘nanite’ part. She wasn’t sure how much he knew about that part of it.

“All of which gave me a new idea!” Zhou announced wickedly as they rounded the corner. They were now in front of the makeshift cell, the massive beast within lunged at the two of them. Zhou laughed as Craiden jumped back, though the feral bot was sealed behind a field generator. She witnessed the relief register on his face that it could not get through the transparent shield.

“Meet one of my ‘Cats’,” Zhou introduced, “This one was still with us, before the rest got so naughty.” She pouted with displeasure as the metal beast fought against the force field to try and get to them, presumably to rip them to pieces.

“That’s no cat…” Craiden said aloud.

“Of course not,” Zhou confirmed, she didn’t mind his speaking out -this time-, “That’s just the Project Name, what we call them to mislead the competition.” She then cupped her mouth with her hand and whispered, “You’d be surprised how much espionage there is throughout the Consortium,” this delighted her, considering he had no clue what she was really about, then continued on in a normal tone of voice, “Can’t have people knowing exactly what’s going on.”

Zhou felt ‘Cats’ was a lot better code-name than the previous project name. Her mother’s legion of ‘Assault-bots’, were classified under the name ‘Peaches’. This thought put her in mind of Suzanne Otomo, eating that peach in front of her. The hate for that woman coursed her veins, though the physical manifestation for that hate only appeared as the sweet, sweet, smile that suddenly crossed her face as she took in the sight…

The feral bot’s metallic body was four legged, though much taller than even a jungle cat. Its long neck curved from a thick strong barrel chest, which held a horned head, and rows of gnashing massive teeth. It had two ‘nubs’ at its shoulders, which Zhou knew, given the space and freedom to use, could generate huge working wings of solid light (currently deactivated). The tail was twice as long as the creatures neck, thicker at the base and tapered down, like a lizard tail. All at once, it suddenly sucked in air, and blasts a strong stream of fire from its gaping maw!

“That’s a fucking Dragon!” Craiden exclaimed.

“Yeah it is!” Zhou practically cheered, clearly pleased with his reaction. The flames splayed out as they made contact with the force field, though could not penetrate it.

“This is my problem,” Zhou said to Craiden, not noticing as the bot suddenly fell silent as she spoke, “A small legion of my kitties, have systematically taken over the moon! I was going to use Battle Drones to deal with it,” she sneered at him, “Though you ruined that idea!” She then smiled sweetly, “At the same time, your little Black Tide incident, gave me a whole new idea.”

Zhou paused for a moment, in her mind, to build suspense.

“Project: ‘Plaguecat’” Zhou came out with it, she paused a moment, then added with a gesture to the dragon, “Meet Plaguecat.”

“Obviously, the Black Tide nanites aren’t really in my control,” Zhou explained with displeasure, than beamed as she continued, “But I can infect this Cat with a corrupt strain of, well, ‘common’ nanites, then set it free on the moon. He’ll be immune of course, but all those he comes in contact with, will be slowly dismantled from the inside out! These stupid beasts won’t even know what hit’em.”

“I can tell what you’re thinking…” Zhou said studying the man, “You want to know why I’m telling you?”

Craiden didn’t say anything.

“As an added bonus, I’m going to drop you on the moon with him,” with this she leaned in and gave him a long deep kiss, as the two broke, she finished wickedly, “All so I can watch my little kitties tear you to pieces, once and for all!”