Carnivores: Ultimate Hunter

Chapter One

Donovan sat on the module of the spaceship. This was his last moment on earth, and he savored it. When he signed up with Indominable Expeditions he didn't know that he'd be sent into space, with a two hundred thousand dollar check clearing last month, and the absolute bender he went on through the month, drinking and partying most of the day, with wicked hangovers the day next, before drinking the headache away and repeating it until his bank account went under two thousand. 

Then the training, g-force stress tests, academic tests, and defensive offense tests. Indominable Expeditions sent over eight hundred men to Paradigm Shift Technologies. After the first and second tests only eighty remained. Then Paradigm Shift Technologies took the best forty and hired them for another three hundred thousand. Donovan found himself as number two. Through sheer dumb luck.

He wasn't the tallest or the strongest. He was 6'1 and could bench 315, most members on the team were 6'4 and could bench 380 or higher, but his expertise came down to the firearms. He was the only one with military experience. He was an Army Green Berets and was so until his dishonorable discharge. But the lessons never left his body or mind, nor his fingers. His shotgun skills were unparalleled, and using slug shot rounds exclusively he was a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. He'd rush up to the targets, and manage to shoot them before he was shot. He was brave, cocky, and borderline suicidal. He was surprised to get ranked the second best, and even more surprised that Daniel, his friend since he had joined Indominable Expeditions, was given number one.

Daniel, however, was the strongest and tallest and favored an M-14. His firearm that he used at all times, and always kept with him. Last night had been wild, and everyone on Artimes VIII felt it. Artimes VIII was the ship that would take the group to Artimes I, a giant ship that had been built roughly 400 miles above the earth's atmosphere, and had cost over 1.9 trillion dollars. The entire project took almost two hundred years, just stopping at 197 years worth of work. Seven different CEOs of Paradigm Shift Technologies had passed, eight project heads, and now it was finished.

Derek Shift, the current CEO of Paradigm Shift Technologies, gave a small speech to everyone on the team, Team θ, "Good job on being the best of the best. Your companions have moved on to other jobs, but you can see a project that your grandfathers and grandmothers saw and laughed at. Your parents saw it, and thought it was possible, but that some new CEO of the Shift family would step forward and end the entire project, that you saw as children and thought was a dream, that we've manifested to reality. Now, as you step forward and on to Artimes VIII, I believe that you will see just how great our dreams have manifested. Now, Director of Health, Jameson Frederick will speak to you."

Then Derek Shift stepped down, the frail old man replaced by a young and barrel-chested man stepped up, his shirt two sizes too small, showing the thick and heavy muscles to the world as this was broadcasted, "You are going to be faced with two massive problems. Entering space, and the start of Artimes I. I'll cover the first briefly. You'll be given a more in-depth on Artimes I about their start-up.

First off, You'll climb up the hatches, open them up, and step inside. Technicians will strap you down, and there will be a countdown. At zero the ship is going to turn on and shoot you up at 3 G's of force. The entire ship is automated, and it'll dock and you will listen to the crew of Artimes I on what to do when you lift off."

Donovan didn't listen to a word of it, he was upset about having to let go of the Mossberg 970 before the speech. He was even more upset about the height he had to climb up to get on the ship. When he finally stepped into the ship he was underwhelmed to see just how bleak it was. No color, no knobs, no buttons, just forty seats all pointed up.

Donovan found seat number two and sat in it. A man walked up, stepping on the part of the chair where legs went over, before stopping at Daniel. Donovan had strapped himself in and watched Daniel do the same before the man put his left leg on Daniel's left shoulder and pulled heavily on the right strap, before doing the same on the other side.