I was looking for a piece of art to inspire me to write a story. A quick search of "Creative Commons Science Fiction Art" did not disappoint. This particular piece called out to me as something I could work with. Before I begin, I want to share the web write up of the book this piece comes from.
Symbiosis is a Creative Commons licensed, world-building art book by comic and concept artist Steven Sanders. It explores a world in which there are no mechanical sources of power. Instead, humanity has learned to utilize biological engines that harness a “bio-ether” that is present on the planet. They can control and feel what these bio-engines feel via a “Resonance Tooth.” Consider it 1940s era bio-punk.
I am not sticking with the bio-ether framework as the story progresses. But certain thanks go to Steven Sanders for creating this art, and for making it Creative Commons allowing me to share it with you and work a story around it.
Falling
The sounds are the first thing I notice. Not just the sound of the wind. That's obvious. Bu the other sounds. Sounds you take for granted ninety-nine percent of the time. The long low woosh-woosh-woosh of the giant propellers pushing the air-ferry along as it transports hundreds of people across the city. The high pitches squeal of overworked wind pistons holding the food processing facility in a constant hover, 200 meters off the ground. And the hummingbird like wing flutter of a personal joy craft flitting past at high speed.
But of course it doesn't take long before the wind is all I can concentrate on. The wind that tells me "You're falling".
The alarm roared in the darkness, yanking me from my sleep. I grumbled at the damn thing to shut the hell up, but it was having none of it, making me get up out of the bed and cross the room to pound the button silencing the ear piercing squelch.
I had to have the alarm across the room. I had learned long ago that I was perfectly capable of turning it off in my sleep. That had gotten me fired from two jobs before I decided enough was enough and moved the stupid thing.
I rubbed my eyes trying to wash the sleep out of them. "Coffee" I uttered, or something that sounded vaguely like the word. The machine had learned over time to interpret my grumbles correctly and started gurgling away on a fresh pot of the bitter, dark, nectar of life.
Sipping on a cup before it had a chance to cool at all, I finally began to feel vaguely something like human. The news screen flicked to life as I turned toward it and the dull monotonous voice of the morning anchor filled my apartment with the happenings of the day. A house fire here, a politician getting caught with a prostitute there, three murders, two robberies, and all the normal drivel that you would expect from local news.
"In other news, the Trensic colony is rotating to position above St Louis this month." This gained my attention. Of course everyone who paid attention at all knew that the Trensic were rotating through this part of the country in their ever vigilant community outreach project. But every tidbit of information needed to be collected, and who knew if a simple newscast might provide a gem of information.
"The Trensic will be engaging in their usual regional upkeep of the food platforms, as well as providing additional resources to the Trens stationed in the region." The newscaster glanced down at his paperwork before continuing "We understand that this colony vessel is a special one, containing the Largnar" He gave a shrug as he tried to pronounce the foreign word "This is said to be the heart of the Trens collective. In fact, this Trensic colony ship is massively larger than the ships we have seen previously, and citizens of St. Louis can expect total darkness for a period of approximately eight days while the colony ship remains overhead and blots out the sun."
Confirmation! Finally! We had known the mothership had to be out there somewhere. But finally it was here! The rotation of the ships had finally brought the enemy to their door, and it was time to act.
I pulled up a global map on my deskreader, and called up the current location of the ship entering the St Louis Region. If only the Trensic hadn't knocked out the majority of our Satellites when they arrived, we might have been able to track each ship and had much more warning. But with only regional capability, we had to rely on the information hand fed to the media and local radar to tell us what was going on out there.
Sure enough, the radar was pinging off of something massive just coming in to pickup. The wedge shape crawled green pixel by green pixel on to the screen. Finally, it was time!
I called in to work. Sick, some kind of intestinal thing, can't get off the toilet, it's terrible. They bought it. Or at least they went along with it, which was fair enough by me. I dressed quickly, strapping my pulser to my hip, and made my way to the warehouse where the others would be waiting.
Upon arriving at the warehouse, I was greeted by about twenty of my co-conspirators in the fight against the Trensic. They had all heard the news, and knew that the time had come.
Twenty people, fifteen zip-ships. We would have to draw lots to decide who would go and who would stay. I knew I was going, even if I had to steal one of the zips. But it didn't come to that Hardin volunteered to stay back and work communications, and four others followed his lead, either too smart or too chicken to want to go up to the colony ship.
The fifteen of us who would be going up entered the makeshift hanger and walked over to a vat where we had stored the pollen. The Trensic were an evolved plant base, relying more on their "smell" than on a poorly developed sight. We had found that by spreading their pollen over us we could effectively slip through them without being noticed, we were just another plant life to them. And that was how we had stolen the zip ships.
Satisfied with how we had covered ourselves in powdery dust, we quickly reviewed the plan. None of us had seen the mothership before, but we assumed it was much like a larger copy of the regular colony ships. Each of those had dozens of ports where zip ships and other craft poured in and out carrying the needs of the plant based race. Primarily, the Largnar paste that all Trens needed to survive. Our objective, to steal or destroy the Largnar to make the Trens leave the planet.
The Trens were photosynthetic, having developed on a planet that hovered between two stars. There was no night on their planet, they were bathed in constant sunlight.
As the Trens had overgrown their own planet an reached for the stars, they quickly realized that they would need to create something to take the place of sunlight to keep them "fed". Their scientists came up with the Largnar. From what we could gather, the Largnar was almost light a solar panel, a rechargeable battery, but instead of creating energy, it created this goo that the Trens used as sustenance. With the goo, they could survive the rigors of space, as well as the environment of a world that did not feed them constant sunlight.
The fifteen of us would each enter the mothership from a different port. We had no idea where the Largnar would be situated, so we felt that splitting up gave us the best chance of success. We had hand coms, but no idea if they would work on the Trensic ship, so we would each effectively be on our own. Alone, in an alien ship, covered in alien powder, a pulse pistol, and a flashlight.
It took hours, but wouldn't you know it, it was me who finally found the damn thing. And the Trens didn't even have it guarded. I guess they were so confident in their damn superiority to us that they didn't expect anyone to try anything like coming aboard their ship to steal the damn thing.
The Largnar didn't look like much. A red spongy looking plant in a glass tube. On top of the tube was a port aimed at the sun, sucking in the rays of light. The other end spewed out a constant stream of the pink goo the Trens soaked through their skin as food. There were a couple of Trens wandering back and forth in the room monitoring the work, but they ignored me.
I walked over to the object of my hunt and examined it carefully, trying to figure out how to remove the precious plant from the glass. In the end, I realized that the tube it was in made a pretty convenient carrying case, it looked simple enough to screw the whole thing out of its seat and take it intact. I gently moved to twist the tube, a half rotation freed it from the mechanism and it came lose with a slight sigh of air.
That sigh somehow caught the Trens attention! They turned toward the sound and recognized that the Largnar was no longer in place. Their tentacles waved about frantically as they moved toward me.
I ducked between them and hurried for the door, and the chase was on. Largnar strapped over my shoulder I tore through the ship, searching for the nearest port. I hadn't marked my way in, so I had no way to discover my original way out. I would just have to hope I found a port with a craft I could steal in it.
I don't know how many of the Trens were behind me, I didn't plan on stopping any time soon to count. But there were more than the two that had been in with the Largnar, of that I was certain. I could hear their odd root-like feet dragging across the floor. They had always been slower than us.
I came around a corner to find myself staring straight at one of the access ports! And a zip ship had just landed, the Trens inside crawling out, with no idea what was coming at it. I took of for the ship a fresh burst of energy giving me speed I had long since lost. I was almost to the zip-ship when the pilot reached out a tentacle and tripped me. I fell to the floor, sliding. Clutching the Largnar I scrambled backward away from the oncoming Trens. A tentacle reached out and grabbed the strap hanging from the Largnar, pulling against me, trying to free my treasure from my grasp.
I pulled back with a mighty tug, unaware of my position. The tentacle lost it's grip, and I fell backward, over the lip of the port, and in to thin air.
Tentacles reached for the Largnar, trying to capture it before it could fall with me, but they were to late. I was in free fall, and the Largnar with me. That's when I started hearing the sounds of Falling.
Great story based on a picture.
Dude!
This is awesome! You created a whole entire galaxy based off that pic (incredible image btw). There were a couple of spelling errors in there, but this was awesome. I read it way too fast seeing how it would all come together... you've clearly got the writers talent! I can't even imagine how you'd start something like this...
Thanks for sharing! I'm reading so much more short fiction thanks to Steemit, great to see talented writers putting themselves out there!
I'm amazed to see that you used creative commons art for the inspiration of your story. I would encourage you to also use the #creative-commons tag next time, so that it's easier for me to upvote and share your post.