by Lia Nox
It was useless.
I recognized the canyon, as I had been here before, but I had been under the impression that it was located someplace else.
Could we have made a wrong turn? It was entirely possible. The vegetation had grown thick and wild while we slept in our cryo chambers, and trying to find our way through a shifting landscape wasn’t easy.
We would have to backtrack if we wanted to continue west. That meant we would be travelling for a few more days, but I didn’t even know what that meant anymore. We didn’t have a set destination, so as far I knew we could be destined to roam the planet’s surface for months.
But not everything was bad. Our team remained as cohesive as it had ever been, and Erin’s presence acted as the glue that fortified our bond. Besides, the detour we would have to make meant I could make a little stop—weapon caches littered the region at regular intervals and I knew of one that was close by. There was a chance that the weapons were ruined, that water had destroyed components, or that some other team had gotten to the cache before us, but I tried to keep my mind focused on a positive outcome.
One last look at the canyon and I sighed. Hundreds of yards below me I could hear the roar of a raging river fighting against the rocky walls of the canyon, shaping it to its brutal will. I had been here many times before, but there had never been river, not even when it rained. The planet was slowly spiraling out of control, the laws of nature and physics slowly giving way to something as unknown as it was bizarre.
Turning on my heels, I ventured back into the woods and made my way back toward the group, who waited in a small clearing. Erin was trying to explain the meaning of some word to Kern, and Roth stood against a large tree, his eyes focused on the blue sky overhead. He didn’t look too happy.
“I don’t like this weather,” he told me as I drew close. “You don’t get that many clear skies in this region, and the air. . .can you feel it?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “It feels heavy.”
“There’s a storm coming.”
“A storm?” I echoed, turning my eyes up to the sky. It didn’t make much sense, but Roth was attuned to the land in a way that I wasn’t. “You might be right. We’re off course, just a few clicks away from the canyon that splits the region. And there’s water flowing down there.”
“That’s not good.” Frowning, he leaned back against the tree behind him and exhaled through his gritted teeth. “By my calculations, we should be much closer to a crossing point. The planet. . .it’s all wrong. I doubt our navigation devices are even giving us the correct numbers. We’re better off relying on what we know from memory. Still, we carry on.”
“Yes,” I said, grabbing my own bag from the ground and strapping it to my back once more. Minutes later and the four of us were back in the thick of the woods, pushing out way through the wilderness as we ventured closer to the coast once more.
As the hours passed, the air seemed to grow heavier and heavier, and the blue that colored the sky was turning dark and grim. If Roth was right and there was a storm coming our way, we’d be in deep trouble. There was no place that would give us suitable shelter around here, and we’d be at the mercy of the elements. Still, I tried not to let that get me down and led the group toward where I knew the weapons cache was.
“There,” I pointed into the distance, where a metallic antenna peeked above the vegetation. I didn’t know what that antenna was for, but had always assumed it was there as some kind of planetary communication relay. Either way, the cache had been buried just a few yards from the antenna’s location, and that was where we had to go.
We arrived there half an hour later, everyone laying their bags at the base of the antenna, and I quickly went to the cache’s location. Kern threw me a small shovel from his bag and I quickly got to work, burying it into the ground and smiling as I heard the noise of metal bumping against metal.
“It’s here,” I cried out, and both Kern and Roth quickly joined me. Ten minutes later and we dragged the cache, a large metallic container, out of its burying place. Popping the lock open with the butt of my rifle, I grinned as I saw the crates of ammo and the few weapons inside the large container.
While we didn’t need new weapons, at least some of them would be lightweight enough for Erin to use more easily. As for the ammunition, that was always a welcome find.
“Here, try this,” I said, tossing Erin one of the weapons. She smiled as she grabbed it, feeling its weight against the palm of her hand, and quickly started taking aim at the trees around her. Her posture indicated that she was a natural, but that didn’t surprise me. Saving Kern had already proved it.
I moved out of the way as Kern and Roth started transferring as much ammo as they could from the containers to our bags, and I let out a small sigh as I watched them work. Even though I should find some comfort in this find, I couldn’t dispel the uneasy feeling that had taken over me.
I had been awakened here, on this planet, countless times. I had lived through many trials, and learned how to survive the Master’s rule. And now, all of that was gone.
This was no trial, and there’d be no rewards at the end of our journey. The Masters wouldn’t come to reward or punish us. Everything I had learned to see as my compass in life was now gone. And, as much as I hated to admit it, this new reality scared me.
Gritting my teeth, I tried to regain my thoughts. Wallowing wouldn’t help me or the team.
“What’s this?” Erin said, crawling into the large container, now half-empty.
“Get out of there,” Roth growled. “It isn’t safe.”
“It’s a box,” she sighed. “Besides, the lock is broken. Not like it’s going to seal up and disappear with me into the night.”
A chill ran up my spine at her words, and I forced it away. “Of course not. But what are you looking at? That corner is empty.”
“This.” She ran her finger along the inner corner, where two walls met, and a slight ‘click’ sounded.
“Get down!” Kern snapped, reaching in to grab her by the waist, spinning with her to shield her frail form from whatever she’d triggered.
A trap that would seal her into the crate, until she starved.
An explosive that would tear her soft skin with shrapnel.
An electrical charge that would rip through her as her nerves screamed in agony.
Any of it could happen.
All of it had.
But this time, all that happened was a small panel slid open, revealing a hidden store of food packets.
Roth eased forward, caution wrapped around each movement. “They’re still cold,” he wondered, dragging a handful out.
“Let me see!” Erin squirmed from behind Kern. “Ew. Those things.”
I ripped one open, sniffed inside. “They’re still good.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “There’s a good version?”
As we ate, crouched around the hole, Roth clearly searched for words. “This was a good find. A good hunt.”
Her face broke into a smile.
“But please,” his voice dipped, ragged, and I knew he’d imagined everything I had. Maybe more. “Please be more careful. It’s not unheard of for supply caches to be booby-trapped.”
Her shoulders sank. “Who would do that?” she whispered. “Promise you food or weapons, and then hurt you for trying to get to them?”
“The Masters,” Roth answered, simply.
That was all the answer any of us had ever needed.
But not Erin.
“Why?”
And that, we couldn’t explain.
There had never been any answers.
Later, I grabbed a few clips to the weapon she had chosen. “Come on, I’ll show you how to use it.”
I walked toward her and, as she handed me the gun, I reloaded it and ensured it was in working condition. “You were holding it perfectly,” I said, placing the gun back in her hands and allowing my fingers to brush against hers. The touch of her smooth skin was almost enough for me to for
get about the direness of her situation.
“Alright. And what’s this button here for?”
“That’s the safety,” I explained. Then, as she turned the safety off, I placed one hand on her lower back and made her point toward a tree in the distance. “Now just breath out before firing, and hold that position. Once you’re sure you have your mark, squeeze the trigger.”
She nodded, breathing out slowly with the calm of an expert marksman. A fraction of a second later she opened fire, the sound of it echoing throughout the woods. Splinters flew from the tree she had been aiming at. Barely containing herself, she fired twice more and hit the same exact spot. She was more than a natural, she was an expert marksman in the making.
“You’re good at it,” I told her, and what she did next surprised me. Instead of just smiling in that half-shy, half-confident way of hers, she placed the safety back on and then closed the distance between the two of us. Throwing her arms over my shoulders, she then kissed my right cheek as she stood on the tip of her toes. “Show me more.”
“More?”
“More,” she laughed, and then I led the way toward the weapons cache. I spent the next half-hour explaining how most of the weapons functioned, and she seemed to take a liking to a pronged weapon that used an electricity discharge. It didn’t seem to matter how bulky or how small the weapons were: just as long as I explained to her how to hold it and where the trigger was, Erin always seemed to figure out how to properly take aim and use it efficiently.
For a moment, I even forgot about the forsaken planet we were in. I forgot about the Masters, the trials, and the punishments and rewards. For a moment, one that I wished would last forever, the only thought in my mind was one of happiness.
With Erin by my side, happiness could be a real, tangible thing.
She was all the proof I needed.
Kern
“They’re getting along pretty well,” Roth said, casually gesturing toward Talos and Erin. The crack of rapid gunfire echoed all around us, and I smiled as I saw that Erin was having the time of her life.
“Yes, they are.” Emptying the last of the ammo crates, I resealed whatever we couldn’t carry with us and pushed the container back onto its hole. With Roth’s help, I then shoveled some dirt on top of it and called it a day. As things were, I didn’t think it important to leave this cache behind us—after all, we didn’t even know if there were more teams in the region that could use it.
“What are we doing?” I asked Roth as we watched Talos tutor Erin on how to use a modified high-powered long-range rifle. She was laying down on the floor, the butt of the rifle pressed tight against her shoulder, and Talos was kneeling next to her, whispering his instructions. A moment later she squeezed the trigger and bark exploded off a tree trunk that was at least half a mile away from us. I was inclined to call it a lucky shot, but then I remembered how she had saved my life.
“What do you mean?” Turning to me, Roth raised one eyebrow.
“We have no answers, only questions,” I said with a sigh. “We no longer have a mission, so what’s our purpose now? To wander aimlessly until something hunts us down and finally kills us?”
Roth said nothing for a short while, analyzing my words from every angle. As he thought, he kept his gaze on Erin, unblinking as he watched her practice.
“That’s our mission right there,” he finally replied. “That’s our purpose.”
“Erin?”
He shook his head. “Not just Erin. We are a team. We stick by each other, and we have each other’s back. That’s our mission and our purpose. We’re going to survive, together. As for what comes next. . .I guess we’ll just have to take it one day at a time.”
“One day at a time,” I echoed with a barely noticeable whisper. Roth was right. We had no answers and no set destination, but as long we had each other. . .we would be fine. There was no other means of surviving through this now anyway, even if I’d decided to argue with Roth instead of sharing in his belief.
From what we’d seen, the Masters were no more, and without them we’d been left to rot alongside the damaged, crumbling buildings of our past lives. If we had any hopes of making it through this to ensure a better life for ourselves, should the worst be confirmed and the other teams fallen, then we needed to do it together. That was what I believed in and, as I watched the strong bond that had formed between Talos and Erin, I found that my belief stood on strong foundations.
Talos wasn’t a man to suffer fools, nor would he spend so much time training with Erin unless he felt it worthwhile; if Erin had proven to be nothing more than a shiny bauble, he’d have ignored any chance at being close with her. Yet he was by her side, losing himself to the possibility of her meaning more to him than what he’d be comfortable saying out loud to us.
“I’m going to join them,” I told Roth and, with my own rifle slung over my shoulder, I made my way toward Erin and Talos. I sat next to them on the grass, but said nothing as I realized Erin was taking aim at something in the distance. When she finally fired, she let out a frustrated sigh.
“I missed.” Looking at Talos with her lips pursed, she looked disappointed with herself.
“We don’t hit our targets every time.” Smiling as kindly as I could, a small laugh climbed up my throat. “Well, Talos doesn’t anyway. I’m an extremely good shot, and I’ve never missed a target in my entire life.”
“Seriously?”
“He’s joking,” Talos smiled, hitting me in the ribs with his elbow. “Kern is a good shot. . .but he isn’t the best one around.”
“That’s because my specialty is suppressive fire,” I retorted, realizing by Erin’s confused look that she hadn’t understood my words. “I fire my rifle at everything,” I explained, “so that Talos and Roth can move and strike.”
“Ah,” she smiled, her eyes widening with understanding. Pushing herself off the grass, she sat down on the floor with her legs folded under her backside. She looked just like a small kid, one that was completely fascinated by the subject at hand. “So is that how you work?”
“Well, that depends.” Scratching my chin, I tried to think of a simple way to explain things. “We have different tactics for different situations. It all depends on who we’re facing. Change the enemy, we change the tactics.”
“What about your enemies?” she asked, and I knew that behind that one question were a thousand more. Erin had an inquisitive mind and, as curious as she was about the world around her, I knew that I wouldn’t have all the answers that she needed. Still, I would do my best not to disappoint her.
“We’ve faced all kinds of enemies.” I started by listing a number of races and creatures we had fought against, but her vacant stare immediately let me know that my words didn’t mean a thing to her. I paused and then tried another approach. “Remember the creatures we faced after we left the station?”
“When I shot that one?”
“Exactly,” I nodded. “These ones work in packs. During one of the trials, we had to cross an entire region and they were our first obstacle. Then, we faced a swarm of big creatures that you’d call insects, and that went on and on until we reached our designated checkpoint. Each time we defeated an enemy, a new one would be waiting for us just ahead. And with every enemy we faced, we changed the way we fought.”
“Yes,” Talos nodded with a low grunt. “We fought in waves. Destroy one wave of enemies, and then the next and the next. We only stop when no enemies are left.”
“Just like that?” Erin asked, and this time her confusion had nothing to do with the words were using. “But why do you have to do that? Why do you have to fight against these creatures, over and over again?”
“Because that’s what we’re told to do,” I said with a shrug.
“I don’t understand.” She frowned, lowering her gaze.
“There are things in life that are not meant to be understood,” I merely said, even though it bothered me not to have answers to her questions. I was a warrior, yes, bu
t why? Who had assigned me that role and for what reason? The Masters were behind it all, of course, but I didn’t even know what it was that they wanted. They used us like puppets, and that was the extent of my knowledge.
“I mean. . .is this a war? Or is this just a game to your Masters?” she insisted, almost spitting out the words ‘masters’. She sounded pissed at them, and the expression on her face reminded me of the way some warriors started nurturing thoughts of rebellion. In my experience, rebellion was futile, and it only achieved one thing: the death and complete destruction of your team. But now that the Masters had abandoned us. . .was it such a great sin to wonder about their true nature?
“Perhaps this is all a game to them,” I offered. “The faster we move, the faster we kill and the faster we return to our base. . .the better our prize is. And there’s always a prize in these trials. If more teams are competing for the same thing, then usually only one of them gets the prize.”
“And the losing teams? What do they get?”
“Punishment,” I smiled sadly. “Sometimes that means you get whipped and tortured. You have to go without food and sleep, and you’ll have to endure so much pain you’ll believe you’ll go mad. If you survive that, then you can carry on as a warrior. But sometimes you’re not so lucky.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes a losing team is set free on the planet,” I whispered, “and they become the mission for other teams. They’re to be hunted down and destroyed, and no mercy can be shown.”
“And all because the Masters say so?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
She licked her lips nervously and stared down at the various weapons in front of her. What was she thinking? As she reached for one of the guns, the little pronged device she had taken a liking to, she turned it around in her hands and let out a sigh.
It was in that sigh that I finally realized that although she couldn’t understand our situation, she could definitely understand our pain. For such a delicate creature as she was, she seemed to harbor enormous pain, almost as if an entire lifetime of suffering rested on her shoulders.
