Location: Unknown, A-class planet, C-zone (yellow)
Date: April 2 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)
Staring back at the mountain peeking between the trees, I strained my advanced sight but saw not a thing there.
Nor did I hear anything, except for the creaking and swaying trees or the gentle murmur of the river.
Dropping into my mouth the forgotten snack, I forcefully chewed on it, turning away and looking back at the river before me.
My gut feeling didn't fail me again. It never did.
For as long as I could remember, I had this squeezing, pulsing feeling down my privates, but it wasn't until I joined the Navy, until I got stuck in that blasted hellblade for weeks, that I realised what it was.
The danger sense, a premonition.
Picking up the paddle, I slowly moved back into the middle of the stream, suspiciously eyeing the hovering trees and the water beneath.
Unfortunately, my danger sense was not a panacea to alert me to every little thing, like a ripped boat or a low-hanging branch.
I needed to stay vigilant on my own if I wanted to survive.
There was no more Ateeve to fall back to, and even Lola had been reduced to a talking companion, incapable of saving my ass.
No more mistakes.
Briefly glancing at the sky, I put the paddle by my side and, noticing my glitching form, grimaced.
Staying vigilant was all well and good, but without knowing my powers—especially their limits—it was not enough.
They were literally alien to me. I didn't know what to expect from them, how they worked, or what made them fail.
Or glitch when exposed to aetherium.
I needed power testing—a proper one.
Taking off the holster rig, I put it under the cover, next to the backpack.
The glitchy patterns once more flared, testing my ability to resist the nausea, and closing my eyes, I blindly took the necklace off and placed it next to the holster rig.
If I wanted to learn my abilities' limits, I had to start from the ground level, without any interference.
But the glitchy pattern was still there when I opened my eyes again, though it was a bit less severe.
What did I forget?
Right! The choker.
This time, being smarter, I closed my eyes before removing it, and when I checked again, I saw no psychedelic camouflage, or my body for that matter.
No, it finally worked as it had to.
Bringing my hand before my face, I waved it—not even a ripple.
The pure, organic-based stealth ability.
And whatever was making me invisible had no effect on my vision either—the supposed main drawback of any stealth generator I knew of—I saw everything as usual.
Did the higher-ups know about that? Was it the actual reason for all the secrecy? Or was there even more?
What else would I uncover?
Putting intrusive thoughts away, I looked at myself in detail, searching for any weakness or glitches.
Everything that was on me had vanished from view, but the boat under me didn't.
It didn't hide the pressure I was putting on the boat either, leaving the body print visible.
The weakness to look for.
Picking up the paddle, I tried to make it vanish, too, but it didn't work. Or I didn't know how.
Dropping the invisibility altogether, I activated it once again. I wanted to see if it would catch on the paddle if I held it from the start.
Instead, I felt the invisibility stretching, catching not only the paddle but the boat itself, touching on aetherium and glitching out.
The effect was so unexpected and severe that I almost lost my sense of orientation in space, even just sitting in the boat.
That was how the aerial beasts felt it…
Practice, I needed to practice it more.
—
The forest was passing by in silence, and the river itself stayed calm, even docile—a stark contrast to my departure.
It had been hours since then.
Hell, it was a long day to start with, and I had left way after midday. It was no surprise that I found myself in a gradually approaching night.
The twilight had already fallen on the river like a blanket, and I saw stars for the first time on this planet.
Blinking above me, between trees' branches and below in the river, they were unknown to me, or I had failed to recognise them.
I needed a better view of the sky, and not just a meagre strip above my head, and then I might be able to pinpoint my location.
The testing I had been running until now was finished, and, after hit-or-miss, I finally learned to control the area of effect for my invisibility.
All I had to do was focus on the stretching feeling and define the boundaries.
Simple, if you knew what you were doing. I was not.
Although the more I tried to hide, the faster my energy was depleting. I learned that, too, after forgetting to practice drawing on energy through my breathing once.
All in all, it was progress, and only the logic behind the aetherium effect was missing.
I vividly remembered how invisibility had failed under the aetherium before I tried to improve it.
I knew, somehow, it was connected to the energy shield or whatever the hell it was. They even shared the same stars for their constellations. But why or how it was working, even with glitching, I had no clue.
Perhaps after I test it, I might think of something, but until then, I was cautious about using it on the boat.
Not with the strange interaction it had with the claw knife before, extending the blade of it.
For all I knew, it might just do that again, tearing the boat in the process or something.
Sure, back then I also had the other three claw knives in my backpack, and they didn't react, but… the possibility was there.
And it was enough for me.
—
The waterfall.
I started hearing it perhaps an hour before I reached it.
The river was taking a right turn ahead, and I moved to the right bank, leaving the current.
Slowly moving along it, making sure I didn't get pulled back, I was getting closer and closer to the sharp curve ahead.
Until finally, I reached it and saw the opening, the waterfall.
And stars above. And below, mirrored in the water. They were beautiful. Breathtaking.
Just for a moment, I was back in space, surrounded by scattered stars and nebulae in a deep, dark void.
There were no moons in the sky to outshine them, and the Milky Way core before me was so bright, so visible.
Where the hell am I?
—
The advanced hearing played a trick on me.
The night silence, the sharp sound of falling water—it all made me believe that the waterfall was a huge one, perhaps with a great drop.
In reality, it was about fifteen metres high—barely above the tree line of the forest below.
Still, it was enough of a struggle to get past.
But before going down, I stayed on the edge for a bit longer, looking over the horizon and the sky above.
And if a horizon told no story, the sky was different.
I knew astronavigation well, and I remembered all the celestial marks for the Orion Arm to figure out my relative position.
That was why it did not take me long to come to a simple conclusion.
I was too far away from known regions.
Why?
Because I was fucking above the middle of the galactic plane, at the edge of the Orion Arm or even further.
That was why I saw the Milky Way core as bright as if it were a moon itself.
"Lola, I have bad news," I said barely above a whisper, but my own voice rang in my ears, as if I screamed at the top of my lungs.
"What is it?" she asked, equally whispering, but I heard her well.
Still loud enough, though, to risk talking casually on the water. I just hoped that the waterfall would mask our voices well enough.
"We are above the Milky Way plane. Give or take thousands of light-years from known regions," I said plainly, looking up into the sky, mesmerised by the core view I had seen only rendered.
"I am failing to locate any known G-class stars in that direction," she replied, which I knew myself.
"It is also supposed to be a young region, improbable to contain golden strata stars with viable planets for terraforming," I replied lightly.
"Quite right," she agreed.
We fell into silence, a comfortable one.
A few shooting stars sliced across the sky, leaving a burning trail behind—a blue-white one.
"You think it was one of the Five?" I asked.
The Five still missing colonial ships from the twenty that left the Earth in the First Exhale Wave, almost six hundred years ago.
For a hundred years, their fate was unknown, until new hyperspace engines were built and one by one new colonies were found… or ship's remains.
Except for the last five.
Accord. Ark Zayin. Meng Xiang Hao. Gaia. Resolute. The Five.
The mystery of the ages.
How lucky did I have to be to find one? Or the planet terraformed by them?
"Most likely," she agreed.
Looking back at the stars, at the galaxy core, ever-brightly shining, I had just… been there. Alive.
I knew astronavigation well, perhaps too well. And I knew that if not for the aetherium ravine that had pulled us out of the hyperspace…
I had crossed easily thousands of light-years in an hour or an hour and a half. We were deep into hyperspace, so deep that there was no other way back… Not with Ateeve's capabilities.
I was this close to being lost in space—hyperspace—never to be found.
—
The dawn I met on the boat, surrounded by chilly morning fog. Mentally tired, even exhausted.
The terrain had changed from flat forest to hummocky after the waterfall, and it affected the river flow dramatically.
The river, turned into a water snake, had been banking left and right, left and right, keeping me on my toes most of the time.
With a few aggressive rapids on my way, my night had turned into a battle with the current, with exhaustion, with myself.
I didn't flip the boat, no, but I had to walk through the shallow waters often, with the boat on a rope, soaking wet.
But that wasn't the only problem I had.
Since I left the cave, the detector had not changed the density reading. At all. Or I was blind.
I estimated that I had crossed at least twenty-five, but most likely close to fifty kilometres, and I was beginning to worry.
Checking on the reading again, I almost put the detector away, believing it had read the same in my lethargic state.
It did not.
With a jolt through my foggy mind, I looked at it again, to see a greenish shade of yellow.
I was moving in the right direction.
It somewhat broke me out of my exhausted state, and reaching for another strip of meat, I began to think again.
It was clear that I couldn't continue this way any longer. I needed a break. I needed a place at least to meditate, to reset my mind.
Or sooner than later, I would make a critical mistake that would cost me.
A short power nap was all I had been asking for.
It also helped me to realise that… it had been a while since I paddled the boat. Perhaps, the last time I did so, the fog had only just fallen over the river.
And that I didn't know where the riverbank was.
Picking up the paddle, I began to move the boat slowly to the right, at an angle to the previous direction.
I expected to meet the riverside soon, like really soon, but minutes ticked one by one, and it simply wasn't there.
How did I miss it?
Twenty minutes in, and I was still paddling, with no shore to be seen.
There was nothing but fog, the river and the splashing sound of the paddle around me. I was beginning to question my sanity.
And then, out of the blue, I hit the ground, the shore.
Wiping away sweat from my face, I put the paddle down and carefully stepped out, while holding the rope to the boat with one hand and the needler with the other.
Shore was good if real, and shore was bad if real, too.
If some beast were to come at me, even by accident, I doubted my glitchy invisibility would help. I barely saw beyond a few metres myself.
Waiting.
I had to wait for the fog to lift, trying not to fall asleep.
There were no other options.
Tying the rope around my waist to avoid losing it by accident, I crouched to check the ground.
It was a mix of sand and dirt. Perhaps a regular occurrence for rivers. Or not. I knew nothing about that.
Sitting back on the boat's side, I blindly looked forward, into the fog, hoping I would notice any danger before it noticed me.
I was sure I had stayed vigilant, but perhaps I blinked too slowly. Because one moment the fog was there, and next… not, and the rising sun was burning my spine.
Shit.
And behind me, instead of the river, I found a lake, and not a small one at that.
But the most hilarious part? I paddled along the shore before I hit this place.
Or at least it seemed that way.
Getting back in the water, I paddled away for a bit to get a better look at the shore, to find a place to stop.
I learned to cook not for nothing, and some hot soup and tea would have been nice at that.
Before me, it wasn't a lakeshore I had hit before, no.
It was a tree and bush-filled island, away from the actual mainland.
Not really the best place to stay, but I didn't see any better.
—
The island I was on was even smaller than I thought. It was barely twenty metres across and clearly had been a part of the mainland not long ago.
Not anymore, though.
Looking over the strip of water, with submerged, burned, and torn-apart trees, I saw the charred land on the other side, a wasteland, burned to the point that nothing was growing there.
Whatever did it had the power to spare, and then a bit more. A stark reminder that I wasn't safe even on this cut-out land.
Getting back to the boat, I set up a small camp, unpacked the stove, and put water to boil.
The tea, or whatever those teal leaves were, first and a soup later.
"Morning, Lola," I muttered, dropping leaves into boiling water.
"Morning, Kat," she greeted, and asked, "Have you found a safe enough place?"
"Small island on the lake. Isolated enough, but let's keep it low," I muttered back.
"Understood. I did some analysis on the data I have about the Five. Awake enough to hear?" Lola asked, bringing me back to the moment spent by the waterfall.
Before I saw the sky, I had hoped we were on one of the recently terraformed or even military-classified worlds, somewhere… reachable.
"Sure," I replied, pouring myself a cup of tea with a fresh-ish smell of a thunderstorm.
"Based on the flora and fauna we saw so far, it is most likely that the planet was terraformed either by Accord or Resolute. They both carried primarily a North American set of bio materials for seeding," Lola said.
"Great. Corporates or Cultists," I quipped back, setting up the pot for the soup.
"Not Cultists. They were reenactors who believed in the medieval caste system," objected Lola.
"Cultists," I agreed, nodding and asking, "Why not Gaia? They were all about bioengineering and spiritual powers."
"I thought as much at first, but ruled them out after cross-referencing articles about Gaia's mission. Let's just say that if they terraformed this planet, we would have been fighting orcs and elves by now," she replied.
"We still might," I commented, stirring the pot.
"Perhaps, perhaps not. How is anomaly density?" she asked, sidestepping.
I let it slide.
"This morning it finally began to shift into green," I replied and reached for the detector again.
"Yes, I see green clearly now," I added after checking the reading.
"That's great news. What about your powers? Any changes?" Lola asked.
"Oh, right," I muttered, remembering the need to test the shield, or whatever it was.
"So, the invisibility began to work, somewhat, but it is glitching now, if I have any aetherium on me…" I began updating her on progress and everything she had missed while we maintained operational silence.
—
Standing over the fallen tree, freshly cut down by me, I was looking at the claw knife and the hexagon-shaped sabre over it in my hand.
Whatever this ability was, it wasn't just an energy shield. It clung to the claw like a glove, extending it and even copying its ability.
I looked around and, landing my eyes on the fallen tree, came closer, getting an idea.
The local flora was active, and I was curious if the same effect, like with the claw knife, was possible with a wooden sword.
The swordplay was my first defiance of the family, of the fate they were grooming me into.
My father, my only positive memory from those times, was the only one who stepped in and supported me. He gave me the first lessons and later organised daily training.
And now, it might actually come in handy.
Sadly smiling, I cut out a basic army sword, with a guard and everything, and tried to swing it, testing in a few well-practised paces.
It lacked a counterbalance and was pulling my hand forward, but that was fine.
The hex-field—yeah, that was a better name—didn't envelop it automatically, and I tried to direct it, but failed to control it.
I dropped the hex-field and activated it again next, but it didn't act the way I hoped.
Sure enough, it covered the wooden sword all the way to the tip, but no clinging, and—as a test-swing it at the tree—there were no extra abilities.
Just a stick with hexes around it.
So, it had to be organic? With its own original properties, then? Or was this tree just not compatible?
Something to test more, at a later time, though.
The sun was rising over the lake, casting long shadows and reminding me of the need to go.
Last test then.
Choosing the most accessible tree, I climbed to a height of three metres and looked down. As usual, the height from above seemed higher than from below.
It was the best idea I got to test the hex-field for resistance, deflection, and momentum absorption—if it had any. I surely was not going to try slashing myself with a claw knife for that.
Slightly smiling, I jumped down, ready to roll if the ground hit harder than I hoped.
It didn't. I barely felt the landing.
"Hex-field is absorbing momentum. And it's still on," I said to Lola, picking up the choker and putting it on.
"Did you check your core rank?" she asked, and I paused mid-step to the backpack.
"You think I evolved? But when? I would have noticed," I objected, finishing the step.
"We don't know," she replied, and I agreed, we didn't.
She had a point.
Opening the backpack, I reached for the tester—the one I had used on the snake core before—and pressed it under my ribs, to my own core, pushing the button down.
The lights blinked, calibrating, and after a few moments, stopped on indigo.
"It is still F-rank," I said, putting it back and adding, "No, it must be something else."
"Aetherium," replied Lola.
"Aetherium," I said at the same time, putting the holster rig around my waist and beginning to count seconds.
Thirty seconds, and I felt the sucking feeling in my core again, as the hex-field blinked out. It was about the same timeframe as before, when I activated it for the first time.
As I began to breathe, to draw on energy, I realised that I might hold the hex-field longer if I kept drawing on it.
But how long that would be, I didn't know. I needed to figure out the timing, the rate of energy depletion, and how much and how fast I could draw on the energy, with or without the exercise I had developed.
Something to work on.
Putting the backpack into the boat, I checked around once more, making sure that nothing had been left behind.
All was packed.
It was time to go.
