Elsa lay panting for several minutes. The ache in her arms faded and the pinch in her side let loose, making her feel human again. All that remained was the ache to get out of her suit and stretch, but that was a luxury she couldn’t afford. She hoped this trip wasn’t like the one she’d endured on a mission to retake a mining complex in one of the outer systems — her unit had been trapped for nearly three weeks in their suits the entire time.
With a groan she pulled herself up to a sitting position and peered out of the opening. The sun had passed overhead, plunging the cliff into shadows. So close to the water that plunged hundreds of feet below the humidity was almost overpowering. She wiggled her toes in her boots, feeling them squish against the water that had pooled in them. With a reluctant frown she lowered her visor and called up the display of her suits internal sensors. She was carrying extra water, almost all the way up to her knees. That was impressive, considering how the suit had built in water absorption systems that would filter and reclaim it. Her pods were full and the suit couldn’t keep up. That was the same way the suit would process liquid waste, be it sweat or urine. Solid waste was another matter altogether and, ideally, one best avoided. During her three week stint alternative measures had been necessary but they were awkward and considerably unpleasant. She shuddered at the thought, then realized she’d be carrying more weight with every extra ounce of water the suit trapped and failed to process.
Elsa detached her water pods and opened them, dumping the filtered water onto the rocks beneath her. She took a drink from the last one, then secured it back in place. She’d rested longer than she should have. A final check of her clock showed that she was now nearly eighteen hours past due for the landing zone rendezvous. She had thirty hours from a full strike force being launched if no response was given from the First Insertion team.
What did she care? Elsa frowned and flipped up her visor. An orbital strike followed by gunships and a few companies of regular marines would wipe out everything for miles around. Even with that kind of firepower she was far enough away to be safe.
She watched as an insect that reminded her of a butterfly out of a science text fluttered into her hiding spot. It zipped back out just as quickly upon seeing her, reminding her that she was the trespasser, not it. Elsa sighed and looked at her fists again. The material was worn and showed some patchy signs of hairline cracks. She’d made it almost halfway up, another few hours of personal abuse and she should reach the top.
She gazed out over the jungle below, stricken by the beauty of the lush green vegetation and the contrasting flowers from trees and the few birds flying above them. A few creatures even darted in and out below, too swiftly for her to identify them, but she knew they were no more reminiscent of anything from Earth than anything else she’d seen. She remembered a parody of an old military slogan: “Visit new ports and new worlds; explore new cultures and meet diverse people; then shoot them.”
She took another deep breath to set her nerves at ease then drove her fist into the rock wall again.
Chapter 7
The sun was setting as Elsa pulled herself into a sheltered overhang of rock carved out ages past by the river. It thundered past only a few feet from her, promising a swift and unforgiving end to anyone caught within it. She lay on the wet rock shelf shivering. She curled up, her aching body betraying her. Tears ran from her eyes and sobs threatened to burst free of her chest. She gulped at the air, desperate to stay in control. Her body hurt in ways she’d never experienced in all her years with the Corp.
Laying there gasping, Elsa passed out for a while. When she woke she felt exhausted and thoroughly drenched. She groaned and tried to roll over. Her action triggered a reaction, that of a scuttling noise followed by a hiss. She jerked her head, craning to see, and saw a shelled creature that reminded her of a lobster, save for the tentacles that protruded from its mouth.
Elsa screamed, the sudden fright driving her to action that she’d have sworn her body was incapable of. Two of the tentacles lashed out, wrapping around her arm and pulling her off balance. She yanked back, grabbing her knife with her free hand and swinging. It took three hacks to break through the tough flesh, something she’d thought possibly only with metal. Another tentacle reached for her, grazing her cheek as it tried to grab the arm with the knife.
The agony that erupted in her face forced another scream out of her. She felt as though a thousand angry hornets had stung her in the same place. She writhed and pulled away, snapping the wounded tentacle and keeping her free from the reaching one for the moment.
She threw her V-Bar, a skill drilled relentlessly into every Marine FIST. It slammed into the lobsters face, carving a jagged wound in its mouth. Elsa used the distraction to grab the stock of her rifle and jam it between her legs. She reached for the other part and, after fumbling through the awkward position, released it and fitted it onto the other end. A twist and a button touch later and it was in working order.
The lobster had yanked her sideways, closer to the river. Another tentacle wrapped around her leg, dragging her away from the water. Elsa grabbed her rifle in her off hand and aimed it at the hard shelled assailant. “I’m gonna dip your ass in butter!” She spat out, then yanked the trigger over and over until it stopped screeching and exploded.
Elsa fell back onto the rock, gasping for breath. She was covered in hot fluid and chunks of flesh and shell. The fire in her cheek pulled her out of her shock, reminding her that whatever it was, it had poisoned her. She slammed her visor shut and called up the medical panels on the display. It flashed for an alarmingly long time as her wound was analyzed. The final verdict read off a neurotoxin distantly related to that used by invertebrates on Earth’s oceans. The prescribed medicine was lacking from her first aid kit. It could cause sickness and vomiting, local paralysis as well. One means of potentially neutralizing the poison involved… “Oh hell no!”
She read it again to be sure. The pain was spreading, but at the center it left behind a throbbing ache. “I fucking hate this planet!” She pulled herself upright, ignoring the bits of gore that fell off her armor. Her right arm felt like it was dislocated at the shoulder. She grimaced and tried to put it through a normal range of motions. Even the grimacing hurt, but it helped her take her mind off the pain trying to lift her arm over her head caused.
Moving stiffly and cradling her rifle against her side she reconnoitered the rocky shelf. It was a small area with a tunnel led up to the surface. A tunnel she could crawl through even in her armor, but it would be tight and she knew she was in no condition to try it. She slipped back down, pausing to kick a large chunk of the octo-lobster into the river.
Moving slowly she set her rifle against the wall and then put her back next to it. With her eye on the river and the passage up to the surface she began to unclasp her boots. She worked her way up, slipping the armor off of from the bottom up until she had only her torso and arms covered. She detached a water pod and took a drink, trying to fight past the pain in her face. That finished, she emptied the rest of it then squatted down.
“ If this is ever replayed or spoken about I will hunt down the person responsible for it!” She hissed, knowing her helmet recorded everything that had transpired throughout the mission. With that warning delivered, she took in a deep breath and forced her abdominal muscles into action. The water pod was never designed to serve as a bedpan, leaving Elsa to struggle as most of the hot stream ran down her fingers and hand.
She shivered, the poison making her body feel cold while her cheek seemed to be on fire. “I don’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, moving the warm pod to her right hand and then reaching up to unclasp her helmet and pulled it off.
She took the pod back, tipped her head to the side and, clamping her lips tightly closed in spite of the agony it caused, she poured to bitter contents of the pod over the scrape on her cheek. It felt warm at first contact, then cooler and soothing. The last of her captured urine trickled out, leaving a strange feeling li
ke an echo of a sting on her cheek.
She straightened her head and looked around, afraid somebody might have seen her. It was just her and remains of the shelled monster. Her cheek was still warm and throbbed, but the fire had been taken out of it. She chuckled at the ridiculous situation, then started laughing. Her laugh went deeper, erupting into fits of giggles and belly-racking convulsions that made her shoulder ache and her face hurt. When the hysteria passed she was sitting on the shelf with fresh trails of tears running down her cheeks.
“ I don’t want to die on this fucking planet!” It was whiny and she knew it, but with no one to stand tall for, she just didn’t care. She was a Marine, it was her job to keep her men in line and to protect others. She looked around: she had no men and women looking up to her and she had no people to protect. What does a Marine do when a Marine has no one to do it for?
“ You pull your head out of your ass and you do the job!” She answered. Elsa reached across and unhooked the armor on her arm. Getting it off was a painful process that took several minutes. She studied her shoulder it as best she could, then reached across her body to feel the joint. It bulged from dislocation, an injury she’d seen on a few of her boys and girls over the years. It happened during training more often than in the field, so she’d seen veteran trainers put the tortured joint back in place enough times to have an idea what to do. The problem was there was only her, no one else to hold it and pop it back in.
“ Semper Fi,” She growled. Elsa slipped her glove back on, knowing full well that without being connected to the rest of the armor it would serve little purpose. She snarled in defiance and forced her arm out so it was only a few degrees forward of being held straight out from her body. She took three steps across the slippery rock and threw herself forward with a primal scream.
The resulting pain the erupted in her shoulder silenced her scream and drove her into a darkness free of monsters.
Chapter 8
Elsa woke to the feeling of something on her face. She swatted at it absent-mindedly, then jumped up in terror. Bugs, hundreds of them, were crawling across her or on the rocky shelf surrounding her. She bit down the scream and scampered back, slapping the chitinous creatures off of her. They were making short work of the pieces of dead monster, and she had no doubt she’d have been next. Individually they were smaller than the palm of her hand, but the sheer volume promised a painful, if quick, death.
She grabbed her rifle and fired a few shots into the thicker concentrations of them. The overgrown cockroaches superheated and exploded instantly. She barked out a laugh at them and fired again until they got it into their insect brains that she was a threat they didn’t want to mess with.
Elsa realized she was breathing hard again, then felt the pang in her stomach. It had been almost a day or maybe even longer since she’d last eaten anything other than water. Intel said there was lots that could be eaten on Vitalis, one such meal, pre-cooked, had just been disposed of by the bugs. Elsa sneered and set about putting her armor back on. She’d been caught with her pants down, literally, and she expected she’d catch hell when she was debriefed. Debriefed by her superiors, that is, not the debriefing she’d given herself the night before.
Elsa’s eyes went to the passage to the surface. Her instincts had been right, light was shining down through the tunnel. It was daytime again. That meant she’d been out for several more hours. Once her armor was clamped back in place she slipped her helmet on so she could see if anything had changed. No messages from her unit and nothing from command. She had been asleep for another five hours, time she knew her body needed but she didn’t have. She was down to twenty two hours before the deadline. Less than a day.
She paused on her way to the tunnel, eyeing a pile of dead bugs. She knelt down and reached for one with her right hand. She stared at her hand, realizing that the pain in her shoulder was gone. She picked it up and rotated it, grinning at how well it worked. He cheek felt smooth and flawless as well, as though she’d never been injured.
She picked up a bug and pulled out her knife with her other hand. She peeled away the shell then carved out a chunk of the cooked meat inside. Holding her breath she tossed it in, chewing quickly and swallowing before her stomach realized what she was about to do to it.
Elsa waited a long moment for the convulsions or tremors to begin. Nothing happened. She stared at the carcass in her hand for a long moment, then carved out more of the innards. Insects and stranger sources of nutrition had been part of Marine FIST survival training. She’d never enjoyed that part, but then again she’d never gotten sick because of it. Her luck held true as she worked her way through three of the partially cooked Vitalian insects.
“ Not quite eggs and bacon with a side of home fries,” she said. “Then again, even the synthetic version on the ship tastes like dead bugs.”
Elsa stood up and made her way to the tunnel. She had to push her rifle ahead of her and struggle to wiggle her way up through it. She consciously focused on not thinking about how tight the short tunnel was, nor did she wonder what the odds of the tunnel collapsing on top of her. Instead she stared at the bright disc that promised sunlight and the top of the cliffs.
Elsa emerged unscathed, if dirty. She pulled her helmet off and stared, letting the bright sunlight warm her face and bring tears to her eyes. A soft wind blew through her hair, reminding her how badly she wanted a shower. She felt alive and filled with sudden hope.
Grinning widely Elsa turned away from the morning sun and saw another ridge ahead of her, several miles distant. It was jagged, promising to be more mountainous and hilly instead of a vertical line of rock. Her smile faded slowly, then was replaced by a feeling of numbness in her chest when she saw a small herd of massive creatures on the plain between her and the ridge.
Chapter 9
Against her wishes, Elsa had to put her helmet back on. She used it to gauge the distances and size of the animals. They were the largest things she’d seen so far, some of them close to thirty feet tall. Smaller animals stalked about on four legs but the largest ones had six.
Not only were the animals massive, so were the grasses growing out of the plain. They were tall enough that Elsa was able to slip through them without crouching to stay concealed. Her global positioning might have been useless but the smart armor was able to track her movement based on the images she’d taken of the plain and the pedometer tracking her movement. A small corner of her display had a localized map rendered on it. The only thing she couldn’t do was mark and track the indigenous animals.
Elsa’s concerns had grown to a point where the sweat now beading on her forehead was caused by concern more than the humidity and heat. As if in answer to her unspoken prayers she stopped abruptly before a large mound in the dirt ahead of her. It rose up to nearly twice the height the grass, rising to a spire at the top that resembled a stalagmite. She studied it for a moment, noting the oddity of it in the middle of the otherwise flat plain, then shrugged and broke her rifle down so she could climb it to get a better view.
Movement at the base of the mound stopped her. She studied it, but couldn’t be certain what it was. Her helmet cycled through multiple display modes until the thermal imaging picked up movement near the base again. She studied the entire mound more carefully, noting the temperature of it was a few degrees warmer than the ground beneath it. Perhaps it absorbed the sun’s radiation. It was either that or the mound was something else altogether.
Else reassembled her rifle and held it in one hand. She drew her vibro-knife with the other and approached close enough to jam it in and pull it out. The knife sliced through easily but she noted the outer layer of dirt was crusty, almost like a shell. She stared at the wound in the earthen mound and saw it begin to shift. Dirt sprinkled out of it for a moment then a multi-segmented insect crawled out at an alarming speed. It had to be at least six inches long, but that was the last thing on Elsa’s mind. She was already back peddling and bringing her rifle up defensively.
More of the Vitalian termites poured out of the opening, some even leaping in her direction from the hole. She stumbled backwards, tripping on some grass, and then scrambled to regain her feet and put more distance between herself and the newest alien terror.
A blur of action burst through the grasses to her right, flashing in front of her and then disappearing to her left. Two more followed, sweeping some of the bugs with each of them. Elsa saw just enough to know it was a sort of animal. Smaller than everything else she’d seen but fast.
The bugs fell back to their mound, retreating from the newest threat. Elsa gathered her feet under her and rose carefully, watching carefully around her. She turned slowly, cursing the thick grasses for preventing her sensors from seeing any further than her eyes.
Her rotation stopped when she saw one of them on the path she’d made through the grass behind her. It stood a little over half her height on four legs. Elsa thought it looked feline, but it had a long neck and a head filled with teeth. The critter in its mouth crunched with each chomp, then it straightened its long neck out as it swallowed the mouthful. It’s appetizer out of the way, it turned to stare at Elsa.
Elsa returned the stare, although hers was down the barrel of her rifle. “There were three of you, where’s your friends?” Whether it could hear her or not it lowered its body down into a crouch, gathering itself to spring. Teeth bared it hissed at her. “Really? You’re going to try that? Is everything on this planet stupid?”
She fired her rifle, sending it spinning around in circles as it hissed and spit at her. Smoke rose from the scorched region along its flank where the ions had cooked the meat. She tracked it and fired again, scoring a hit on the center torso of it. It jumped into the air before falling flat to the ground and convulsing. Elsa grinned, she’d guessed right and cooked off some of its important organs.
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