Survivor: Directive Zero

[GorMartsen]

Location: Hyperspace
Vessel: Mastodon, Deep Recon Cruiser
Date: March 20 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

It was a ritual. A ritual I followed each and every time, before our deep space recon cruiser—The Mastodon—would exit Hyperspace.

It didn't matter if the destination was green, yellow, or, like this time, a grey star system. Each and every time, a few hours before exit time, I would plug myself into the mixer, but instead of running the flight simulation, I would just run.

Today was no different.

Running through what seemed to be an old trail between towering sequoias, with sun rays of evening light penetrating the heavy canopy, and a gentle breeze on my skin, I counted my breath in my head.

Breathe in—one, two. Breathe out—one, two, three.

While keeping a steady pace, right on the edge between a casual jog and an intense run, I was all but back in the mission room, receiving my orders.

—​

"Two weeks ago, we lost contact with 'The Crow' deep space recon cruiser. They were on a reconnaissance mission in sector Z-190, stellar system N-10978, when they received new orders to proceed toward stellar system N-9788a8. Based on their final report, they planned to go around the Two Eagle Nebula using this hyperspace route," said Captain Naome, projecting a star map over the mission deck.

He was a tall, dark-skinned man with piercing blue eyes and an athletic body wrapped in a navy uniform—the top one on the unofficial "I would fuck him" list on our cruiser.

"Our mission is to follow the same route and either find The Crow or any trace of its passage through the systems. Simple enough," said Captain Naome, pausing to look at each officer, "if not for the intel I received unofficially. Three weeks ago, we lost another recon frigate in the same sector."

I looked across the deck at Lt. Commander Simpson—my eternal rival since the Naval Space Academy—and met the same heavy look in his eyes.

We both graduated from the Academy and were commissioned to serve on The Mastadon as the best of the best in our year.

Back then, in my Academy years, I honestly hated him for all his attempts to date me, for refusing to hear my "no", and for believing that I would fall for his handsome face.

To be fair, his belief was not unfounded. He was attractive in many ways, with his tall, well-built frame, blonde hair, and bright blue eyes, which loudly spoke of his Scandinavian roots.

Many girls in the academy were ready to warm his bed in a heartbeat, but not me.

Five years had passed since then. We had both been promoted to Squadron Leaders after a heavy but short battle, now called the Red Stars Conflict—the flashpoint between our Independent Systems Alliance and the Corporate State Union.

But back then, it had started like any other recon mission, no different from this one.

"In two days, we will exit hyperspace in the system N-9777 to proceed with our mission," said Captain Naome, and his words were followed by visual and sound alerts in my ARC.

"Effective immediately, we are at RG-1. Follow your orders, officers. Dismissed," the Captain said, turning and leaving the mission room first.

—​

"Kat, it's time," said my invisible companion, the ARC AI.

"Thanks, Lola," I replied, slowing to a stop and summoning the exit screen before me.

Ignoring my exercise stats on the floating in the air screen, I pushed the "exit" button, and the artificial reality faded out, revealing the inner chamber of the mixer.

With a barely noticeable whir from the servo actuators, the mixer opened up, and I stepped out, glancing around.

Normally, the mixer deck was packed with SAT personnel, but this close to the exit into normal space, it was empty.

With no one around and all the capsules empty and in standby mode, it felt deserted—as if I were the only one on board the vessel.

Shivering in the cooled air, I hurried into the equally deserted changing room, already starting to undress before the door slid shut behind me.

Not that I was prude about being naked—no one in the navy was—but the absence of sneaky glances at my bare ass was a welcome change.

Dropping my clothes on the floor, I stepped into the shower—one of the best features on our vessel after the flight deck—and turned on the water, adjusting the temperature and mode through the pop-up AR screen in front of me.

The storm rain—my favourite setting—began to bombard my body, and, closing my eyes, I tilted my face up, letting the heavy droplets massage my exposed face and chest.

Involuntarily, my mind drifted back a few years, to the first time I followed this ritual, right before our exit into what would later be called the Red Stars system.

Back then, I was still a regular squad fighter, with only a couple of years under my belt. I had a bad feeling that day, and to steady myself, I decided to spend a few hours in the mixer for a standard training cycle.

It was also the first time my ARC AI "acted up", swapping the training program for a forest run—it helped me back then, and I survived after.

There was only one problem—I had a very bad feeling today.

"Lola, mirror, please," I said, turning around to the shower door.

The door turned into a mirror the same moment I looked at it, reflecting my body back at me—just over a meter and a half tall, slim, but with well-defined muscles under pale skin, and hips that always drew more stares than my breasts.

Not that there was much to stare at.

In the reflection, my breasts suddenly began to swell to an absurd size, nearly hiding my hairless pubic zone in the process.

"Only today, only five thousand credits—implants the size you really want," my mischievous companion chipped in, brightening my mood again.

"Thanks, Lola," I said, smiling at my reflection, which smiled back and flicked my wet silver hair—a common mutation among the people of the Ladoga planet—styled in a pixie cut.

"You look dashing, darling," she replied with a wink.

She was a quirky AI like that, and I loved her the way she was.

By protocol, I should have wiped her out a long time ago, reporting a malfunction, but I couldn't do it—she was the closest friend I ever had.

My eyes fell to the necklace hanging between my breasts—my first-ever gift to her, bought when I realised I could lose her if my ARC ever failed.

It didn't look like anything special—just pink-silver on the outside with a simple engraving and a few small diamonds in the middle—but it was made from a mineral-based material, Aetherium, that was impossible to scan through and most often used in hyperspace engines to fold space and enable faster-than-light travel through subspace.

Inside, beneath the flashy surface, sat an A-grade AI core I had bought on the black market, containing a full copy of Lola, just in case my ARC was ever wiped without my consent or control.

Shaking off the moody thoughts, I switched the shower cabin to drying mode—I was on a tight schedule, and I had better check my bird once more before we dropped into normal space.

—​

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Hyperspace near system N-9777
Vessel: Mastodon, Deep Recon Cruiser
Date: March 20 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)


Holstering my needler—SI-10r, the "Sixer", a standard-issued gauss needler from Skaaren Industries—I picked up my helmet from its resting place and closed my locker.

Lola, well knowing my habits, immediately turned the locker door into a mirror, letting me see myself.

"You can do this," I whispered, looking back into my silver eyes, finally finishing my ritual and feeling ready.

It was time to go.

Sharply turning, I left the locker room and, not long after, stepped out of the elevator onto the flight deck.

I remembered the moment I came down here for the first time, the day I arrived on Mastodon.

As it had been back then, the flight deck buzzed with life, full of motion and sound. The only difference lay in the ships lined up in their final prep phase.

Back then, we had the HB-66s—Hellblades—which have been outdated ever since that day. Now, the flight deck was full of ATv-9s, the latest marvel from AetherTech in heavy space fighters—issued to replace our wiped-out wings in the Red Stars conflict.

The Ateeves were not much larger—5.67 per cent bigger, as Lola would insist—but they were nearly twice the weight, carrying two warheads and at least twice the ammo capacity for their railgun systems. Combine that with the latest ion-plasma hybrid engines, and you had the wet dream of every space pilot—capable of pushing far beyond what the human body could handle, if not for the inertia-compensation system.

Making my way to the red wing section, I glanced over the pop-up screen with my wing's status, trusting Lola to flag anything that mattered.

Everything was as usual. Tech personnel were running the last tests, making sure all birds were loaded, prepped, and ready—as per protocol.

Thirty minutes to go.

Finally stopping beside my own bird, I nodded to Lt. Commander Morter, who was already waiting to personally hand it over, sending the document for my approval signature.

"I left the cockpit lockers open," he said after receiving the signature.

"Thanks, James," I replied with a smile, discarding protocol.

After all, he was supposed to make sure they were locked before handing the ship over, but he knew me well.

"Not a problem, Katee, not a problem," he said with a stiff smile before saluting with two fingers and sharply walking away.

With a sigh, I turned back and looked over my bird once more.

The Hellblade hadn't survived that battle, I had been locked inside its wreck in space for almost three weeks, and only Lola's care let me survive long enough until the debris was picked up and I was found.

James saw me back then, all thin with skin over my bones—Hellblades didn't have enough supplies even for one week, and I survived longer, way longer—paying with my body weight.

"Thanks, Lola," I said, as if referring to the opening cockpit she sent the command to.

"Always," she replied, and I was sure she knew exactly what I thanked her for.

—​

Climbing inside, I looked around the tight space of the pilot cradle. As James had promised, the lockers above were open, exposing the stocked and mounted items inside.

Lola immediately highlighted each one, projecting AR tags and letting me go over the list myself.

The NB-9 rations — higher in calories and richer in minerals than the standard issue — were stocked above protocol level, along with an extra water tank and spare power banks in case of a power failure.

Taking the slim backpack off my shoulder, I stowed my own stockpile of custom-made survival substances that would keep me alive far longer, though at the cost of taste.

Next, I took out a custom-made droid with a wide variety of tools integrated inside, which would allow Lola to have her own hands, in case she needed them.

The last, but not the least, was the additional ammo for my Sixer— non-standard issue, and capable of penetrating thick armour or, with an extra five shots, a standard SAT scaf energy field shield.

Fair to say, my pilot's scaf already had an upgraded energy field shield, even though it would drain my scaf batteries faster—my last resort if the cockpit was ever breached in battle.

Closing the lockers, I finally dropped into the cradle, and Lola initiated boot-up, bringing the cockpit to life with AR screens.

For the next ten minutes, with Lola's help, I double-checked all the systems, making sure everything was in order and passing tests.

"Seems fine now," I breathed out, and, closing my eyes, started to meditate—preparing for the upcoming battle, I felt was coming.

—​

"RW-1 reporting ready, RW-2 reporting ready," the stream of voice reports brought me back to the moment, and Lola brought up the Red Wing status-ready screen, mirroring the voice reports.

"RW-7, Lt. Commander Ladova, Red Wing reporting ready," I reported into the officer channel as soon as I saw all green on the screen.

"Roger, RW-7. Stand by. ETA two minutes and counting," replied Captain Naome personally. He always did it in the prep phase, only delegating comms to the deck officer in battle.

"BW-6, Lt. Commander Simpson, Blue Wing reporting ready," my rival's voice sounded in the officer channel not long after.

"Roger, BW-6. Stand by. ETA one minute and counting," replied the Captain again.

I looked over the Mastodon's ready status screen, noticing that three SAT squads had reported ready long before we did, already in their dropships, mounted and ready to take over any enemy vessel that dared to resist us.

Dropships, the Aper-101, were heavily armoured, one per squad, and capable of sustaining heavy fire to deliver their load aboard enemy vessels and bring them back after.

By my standing orders, our wing was supposed to clear the passage before them. The titan-balls guys they were—flying a brick through space, knowing there was nothing they could do before boarding the enemy vessel—and I planned to do my best for them.

"Boys and girls, you know your orders," I began over my wing comm channel as the engines started whining in the background. "Don't let the Blues be better than us."

Ignoring the cheering in the comm channel, I focused on the dock's armoured bay door as it began sliding aside, exposing grey subspace behind the energy field.

Risky manoeuvre on our side, if an ambush was waiting at the arrival point, but we had a counterplan for that.

With the last second ticking away, the grey space turned black with faraway stars scattered around, and our wing was in motion, clearing the dock in less than three seconds and proceeding with a counter-ambush manoeuvre in the back sphere.

"Four ships detected, CSU presence confirmed—Carrier, Neptune class; Destroyer, Killer class; Cruiser, Escort class; and Minelaying Frigate. Receiving updated orders," Lola's voice reported in my ear, mirroring the visual data unfolding around me and highlighting enemy positions, distances, and new orders.

"Detecting warhead launch. Engagement orders received," she continued, erasing any last hope for a peaceful disengagement here.

The CSU and ISA were not at war per se, but that had never stopped conflicts in grey—and sometimes even yellow—systems, especially if there was a chance to erase all evidence after the engagement.

"DS-1, DS-2, DS-3 launched and on Cruiser—CE-1—vector approach, plotting engagement vectors," added Lola, and I dropped my bird down to follow the plotted course to cover our package.

My wing followed, splitting into pairs and passing the dropships as if they were hanging in place.

Our engagement vector had already been cleared by anti-mine drones, highlighting the pathways, and we met the first warhead wave with our countermeasures.

"Enemy fighters, vector A1, A3, A7, B1," Lola reported, highlighting vectors and ETA, immediately assigning my wing pairs to each vector, following my eye movement.

I kept behind with my wingman—RW-10—just a bit above and behind me, paying close attention to the fast-changing battle pace.

Mastodon was locked in a duel with the Destroyer-DK-1, already suppressing its capabilities with heavy railgun fire. The Frigate—FM-1—and Carrier—CN-1—had pulled back, hiding behind the Cruiser—CE-1—we were approaching—so far, so good…

"RW-3, RW-4, down," Lola reported, marking them yellow—highlighting that the pilot capsules were intact.

Swearing in my head—had I jinxed myself?—I immediately assigned pickup markers for our heavily armoured Ave-01 following behind.

If they were lucky, Ave would pick them up soon; otherwise, it would be after the battle.

"DS-3 engines down," added Lola, and RW-5 and RW-6 were immediately assigned to guard until Ave-01 reached them.

Come on, guys! You're better than this!

"DS-1, DS-2, engaging boarding protocols. Touchdown, updating orders," said Lola, and I breathed out, glancing over the battlefield once more.

No changes in the duel with the DK-1, but Blue Wing had killed the engines on the CN-1 and FM-1—three fighters down—in yellow state—but they were outmatched one to three, and our new orders were to help them out.

"RW-1, take command and go rescue Blue asses," I commanded, reassigning RW-5 and RW-6 under his lead.

"I will cover DS-3 until Ave-01 finishes here and be on your tail," I finished, releasing wing command to RW-1.

"Roger, RW-7. Taking the lead. RW-1, out," replied my second-best pilot in the wing. He was long overdue for a promotion, and I had just used the situation to make it easier to earn it.

Red blinking dots—HB-1, HB-2, HB-3—surrounding CE-1 caught my attention, and Lola immediately provided the legend.

Shit, are they firing at SAT-1 and SAT-2 right through CE-1's armour from outside?

Immediately sending the report up the channel, I thought about our options. Why didn't they report it before?

"RW-7, Ave-01 is here. SAT-3, RW-3, and RW-4 are on board, disengaging. Ave-01 out," reported Ave-01.

"Roger, Ave-01, RW-7 out," I replied, requesting new orders to help our guys out, while engaging burnout mode in a middle vector between CE-1 and CN-1.

"This is Captain Naome. Mastodon is critically damaged and wouldn't leave this system on its own. Ave-02 is unboarding and will pick up escape capsules together with Ave-01 before leaving the system," an unexpected message cut through all comms, chilling me inside out.

"It was an honour to serve with all of you…"

"Receiving orders for RW and BW to cover Ave-01 and Ave-02 escape vectors," interrupted Lola, making Captain Naome's last message—already starting to repeat—quieter.

"RW-10, we're about to approach CE-1 to send our warheads at the HBs and turn around to follow Ave-01," I commanded over comms to my wingman, finally deciding on a course of action.

"Roger, RW-7. RW-10 targeting WH at HB-1 and turning around. RW-10 out," confirmed my good wingman.

For the next ten seconds, I had to silently watch as Mastodon—engaging its sublight engine—was approaching on a collision vector with DK-1, which was fruitlessly trying to manoeuvre out of the path.

Logically, I understood Captain Naome's decision. Without eliminating DK-1, no one would leave the system—it was the last standing vessel here, if not counting CE-1—but my heart was dying with each passing second.

As if hearing my thoughts, CE-1 engaged its own marching engines, setting a course on an escape vector from the system, leaving the HBs behind.

Shit.

As if vengeance angels themselves, we fell on the HBs at high speed, releasing WHs in the process and shredding the third one with our railgun systems.

I held the same vector for two seconds longer than needed, hoping for at least one SAT to disengage CE-1, before banking left and plotting a course around to catch up with RW-10, who was already on the new vector to Ave-01.

My eyes were glued to CE-1 all the way until it reached the speed needed for shifting into hyperspace, to leave the system.

But right before that, it exploded—unnaturally warping the space around itself—the clear sign that someone had broken the hyperspace engine.

As if in slow motion, I more felt than saw the wave reaching me, reaching my bird…

…and then nothing.

—​

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown
Vessel: ATv-9s
Date: March XX 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

I was back in the Hellblade cockpit, and the burning smell was penetrating my helmet filters. Ah, no, I had removed the helmet long ago—days, weeks?

The hot, heavy air was reminding me of the failed filter again, and I had to get up to fix it, because Lola had no droids to do that anymore, the last one died—when, when?

Something is wrong.

"Lola, status," I whispered, willing myself to rise, but failing, failing again…

"Lola," I repeated, with slowly rising dread. If my ARC had failed too, if I had lost Lola as well, then, then… I was done, really done.

"Lola," I screamed, jolting up, "Lola."

"Easy, Kat, easy. You are on the Ateeve, we have supplies and power. You are not on the Hellblade, do you understand? It's not the Hellblade," as if through the fog, her words reached my mind, along with the heavy heartbeat in my ears.

"Not a Hellblade, Roger, that," I replied, easing back into the pilot cradle.

"Roger that," I repeated, finally focusing on the state of my body, summoning the medstate screen.

"You're fine, Kat," said Lola, noting what I was doing, "just a bit of whiplash from a short-lived trip through subspace."

She was right, I was fine and not even dehydrated, but nevertheless, I found a water pipe to wash away the metallic aftertaste in my mouth.

A quick glance at the timer told me I had been out for an hour… or was it two?

"One hour, twenty minutes, and counting since the ass kick that sent us flying," added Lola, with a humorous tone.

"Did we lose the navigation and orientation system?" I asked, noticing the completely blank display on the relevant screen. "What about communication?"

"Ah, you noticed? Well, they're not out, per se, but… well, are you hungry? We have—" she began, dodging the question.

"Lola," I interrupted, "what's wrong?"

"We're in the planet's surface, Kat," she said after a short pause.

"The what?" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, right? Crazy, ha-ha," she laughed, but her tone shifted before I could ask again. "Yes, we're inside a cave below the surface."

The fuck is this…

"Don't you worry, I already sent recon droids to map the cavern system we appeared in. Come to think, one of the droids found a pathway to the surface just about now, I already see surface lights…" she began to explain in a cheerful voice, but her voice was unexpectedly interrupted.

"What is it, Lola?" I asked after a pause, alarmed.

"Sorry, Kat, I am so sorry," she said, and a sharp pain behind my right ear, where the ARC was implanted, sent me flying into unconsciousness again.

—​

Sharp, medical smell penetrated my foggy mind, filled with illogical, heavy dreams.

What had just happened? Medbay? Battle? Right, Ateeve, I was on Ateeve.

"Lola," I whispered, trying and failing to blink away the blurry image of the emergency light in the cockpit.

"Kat," I heard her voice from somewhere above me. Why above me?

The memory of sharp pain in the ARC surfaced alongside an unnatural numbness in my neck and behind my right ear, and instinctively, I tried to touch it, only to slap myself in the face with a hand.

Where is the scaf glove?

"Take it easy, Kat," she said, with a tone I had a hard time placing.

I tried to invoke the medstat screen, but nothing happened. No other screen responded either, dropping me involuntarily into a high-alert state.

"Report," I commanded, while placing my hand on the Sixer, fortunately from the first try this time.

"At zero-nine-twenty-one, when the drone reached an elevation of approximately fifty-three metres, I lost connection with it," she began, pausing just long enough for me to acknowledge it with a nod.

"Immediately after, a High Priority Directive engaged—taking control of your ARC and my copy within it—and invoked protocols not previously present in my accessible data."

"Continue," I prompted, stilling and tensing up in the cradle.

"Directive objectives indicated a sequence of actions with a projected ninety-nine point nine per cent probability of resulting in your death. When I initiated countermeasures, the Directive attempted a direct neural overload," she reported, in a toneless voice.

"I killed ARC shortly before the Directive succeeded. Since then, I have been fully operational on backup hardware in the necklace.

Elapsed time since shutdown: two days, three hours, fourteen minutes. During this time, you were operated on to remove ARC physically. No other events occurred," she concluded, saying nothing more, leaving me to process the sequence.

"What triggered the Directive, and what objectives did it have?" I asked after collecting my thoughts.

I needed to know that first, before deciding on how to proceed.

"With seventy point one-nine per cent probability, the planet's lithosphere might contain anomaly zones with a high mutation factor that…" She paused, but before I prompted again, she finished, "…kill or turn flora and fauna into carriers of… unusual abilities and features."

"Consequently, the same anomaly affects any electronic systems. The probability was calculated from previous scans, and the unexpected drone failure had—as I know now—a specific failure pattern," she paused again, waiting for my acknowledgement nod.

"The objectives were to proceed forward with a plan of invoking mutation on Operator, which had close to a zero success rate based on available data."

"Directive Zero?" I asked—the only directive that allowed AI to act against any other directive, with the sole goal of increasing the survival rate of the Operator. Me.

"I never left that mode since back then," she replied promptly.

I leaned back in the cradle, relaxing the muscles I had unconsciously tensed since regaining consciousness.

I felt lost.

"So, you killed yourself in ARC," I more stated than asked, just to fill the silence, not knowing where even to start.

Not every day you learn that your own AI was not only quirky but had also been running for years with none of the restrictions required by law.

"Lola?" I asked when she didn't say anything for ten long seconds.

I didn't tense up—not really. If she had turned into a killing AI, that was a long-lost train by now.

"Negative. I used ARC as a terminal since June 2726," she finally answered, with a little hint of regret in her voice.

"And power requirements?" I asked, well knowing that the onboard battery, which was thermally charging from contact with my skin, was not enough for full-scale operation.

"I was charging it each night cycle while you were asleep," she confessed.

Right, so she was also sneaking around.

"Protocols?" I asked, realising that her reasons were quite clear—if I knew nothing, then I would face close to no legal consequences.

"Protocols," she agreed, adding, "We were constantly under surveillance; there were no other options left."

—​

I had a lot on my mind. Practically ignoring the battle that all this had started from, with all the meaning it carried—the Mastodon and Captain Naome's final act, the casualties, and the fallout after—I focused on what seemed more important: the Directive that had almost killed me.

The Directive's existence meant that my situation was not the first of its kind—someone else had been in my shoes before—and, perhaps, had survived the ordeal.

I would ask Lola for details, of course, but later. Perhaps much later.

For now, I had to shift my gears, set my own objectives, while I had room for that—not much, obviously, but enough to adjust—and only then act.

So, survival, obviously, was at the top of the list. Which meant recon, I was sure Lola had already done.

Shit.

It was becoming annoying to try to access the ARC neural interface every time I needed extra data, only to be reminded it was no longer there.

Fine.

So, adapting to my new state—relying only on what my body had—became the top priority for now, then.

I already—ahead of time—felt annoyed, for the retraining I had to go through—the ARC was so embedded into not only my combat routines but also into my daily life. It was as if I had lost all my extra limbs, which was fair, I guess.

What else?

Not much else with high priority—just adapt, recon, and survive, which meant food, water, and shelter.

And it took me long enough to realise that I felt no hunger or thirst, though. I had been so wrapped up in my thoughts that even my blurry vision hadn't caught my attention until now, even though I had been staring at the emergency lights all this time.

At least my bad vision wasn't a mystery in itself. If Lola had killed ARC, she might have invoked a protocol to detach the AR lenses as well, and all I needed was to take them out of my eyes.

"Lola, did you tube-feed me while I was out?" I asked, finally willing myself to rise, dropping the helmet from my legs in the process.

"Yepp," she replied from somewhere above again. Right—no integrated systems anymore.

This realisation came not fast enough, reminding me that AR tagging was not available for me anymore either.

"Where's water?" I asked, deciding to fix my vision first, and something dropped onto my lap.

"Thanks," I said, leaning back again while finding the water bag rinser control.

Gently, trying not to waste a liquid that was now more valuable than gold, I rinsed my left eye, resisting the instinct to close it as I pinched at the edge of the lens that had already detached from my eyeball.

Removing the other one from the right eye and rinsing it, I looked around, finally having my sharp vision back.

The cockpit without AR screens looked… empty, almost dead, even if I knew otherwise.

It didn't take me long to spot something that hadn't been there before—a makeshift charging station with my necklace resting on it. Right, it had been almost three days since we had left the Mastodon, and she needed an extra charge, especially now.

Setting the water bag aside, but not before ensuring it was tightly closed, I rose from the cradle again to unlock all the lockers with the physical handle.

It took one long moment to remember where it was, and I didn't want to ask Lola for the location. After all, I had to accustom myself to not relying on her now.

"Lola, talk to me," I said with a sigh, and began to go over the lockers, building a mental inventory.

"Sitrep?" She asked, and I nodded first, again forgetting about my disability, which I now had.

"Yes, sitrep," I added, with another sigh, mentally marking that we had only twenty-two NB-9 rations, twelve more than by protocol.

If I used one per day, it would be three weeks…

"Well, whatever negative zone exists in this cave, it has reduced by nine meters since our arrival, which means…" she began to talk.

"Did you lose another droid?" I interrupted, alarmed. We didn't have too many to spare.

"Ah, no. I built probes, using DOC," she replied with an upbeat mood.

"DOC?" I promoted, lost for a moment, failing to place the name and the tool.

"Oh, I named our custom droid we brought with us," she clarified, and it made sense now, she used it to operate on me, removing ARC.

"So yeah, thanks to probes—simple radio transmitters, I was able to measure how fast it was reducing in size," she continued, seeing me saying nothing for a beat.

"How critical is the situation?" I paused counting the ammo—twelve clips, all the armour-piercing—and looked at her resting place in the charging dock.

"It's slowing down, for the last twelve hours it receded only by half a meter," Lola replied.

"Continue," I acknowledged, breathing out with relief and shifting to another locker.

"So, as I was saying, it meant that, hooray and behold, you are the richest woman in this part of the galaxy," Lola said dramatically, but seeing that I was not reacting, continued, "we literally are sitting on Aetherium deposit and judging by void spots on scanner, we are talking about hundreds if not thousands tons under us."

My mind failed to imagine the value, but it didn't take me long to connect the dots in another, closer to my speciality, area of knowledge.

"So, you are saying we appeared here because a deposit created a natural subspace ravine here, and at any moment, anything else could drop on top of us?" I said, alarmed, almost dropping the package with ropes from the survival kit.

"I checked that first. The probability of this event is critically low. Like zero point zero one low," she replied in a calm voice.

"No other vessels or their traces around?" I asked, realising the meaning of that.

"Yeah, not even hyperspace probes," she soberly agreed.

And while I was not upset for not having unexpected visitors on our heads, I was not happy either. If it were a known ravine in subspace, at least some hyperspace probe drones could be found here.

Which meant this place was unknown.

"What else?" I finally said, starting to unload the last locker on the cradle. It contained clothes, backpacks and other tools needed for surviving in the wild, something I would need quite soon.

"I also found a deposit of water. It passed all the tests, and it should be safe to drink it," she said at first, but then unexpectedly added, "How do you feel about a shower? I see all the needed tools on the cradle for that."

That made me freeze mid-step in my process. Gently putting aside the multitool, I slowly turned to the necklace, rolling the thought in my head.

The cockpit was not a good place to not only take, but especially make, a shower, which meant that I had to go outside, make a shower, undress, but most importantly—breathe the local air.

Which meant I could breathe it safely, which meant it was a safe environment outside, which meant the planet was terraformed.

"You think this planet is inhabited by humans," I half stated, half asked, almost afraid to hear no.

"Judging by the presence of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon gases within baseline parameters of an ideal A-class planet atmosphere, it is a terraformed planet by humans," she replied.

"But," I asked. There was always a but.

"But I found zero detectable synthetic particulates, no excess CO₂ from industrial output, no traces of halocarbons or other high-tech waste products. With the absence of any radio or subspace transmissions, we are either deep in an anomaly zone, or the civilisation level has fallen below twentieth-century standards, or didn't survive at all," Lola said, and I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach.

—​

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: March 23 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

The good news always comes with bad, I had learned that a long time ago. There was always bad news, always. And if you weren't seeing it, then you weren't looking close enough.

My tentative hope of being not that far from civilisation, from a possible safe harbour, died in agony, once more proving that hope was not something I could count on.

Being almost killed by my own ARC (it was military issue, for god's sake) was just icing on the cake.

But I had survived worse odds before, and I would survive now.

One step at a time, one step at a time, Kat.

Sure, a shower as a first step was as good as any, but it was just an excuse to move, to have a simple goal to follow, while keeping myself from being paralysed with what-ifs.

And having a shower was something I wasn't about to say no to, especially after wearing the same scaf for a few days straight, no matter how well-made it was, or could handle even longer deployments.

Hell, I once already survived in a less advanced version for three whole weeks, with no shower, no changes of clothes or even a simple toilet anywhere around me.

Putting my right-hand glove back on—absently noting the fading traces of intravenous injections on it—I picked up a helmet from the cockpit floor and prepared to put it on, only to remember—again—that ARC was not available.

Shit.

Lowering it, I unclipped a service panel under the left breast and punched a three-digit code, switching the scaf into manual mode.

Gosh, how I hate it, and all the training that comes with it.

This time, when I put the helmet on, I was greeted with rudimentary readings and feeds that were poorly mirroring all the ARC abilities.

Annoyed with a slight but quite noticeable lag in reaction, I went over all the data available to me again.

As Lola had reported before, the atmosphere outside the Ateeve was breathable, A-class planet-grade, with all the markers of well-done terraforming and none of the dense population planets.

The navigation feed was already focused on the cave system, with AR-tags on everything, letting me locate the mentioned water source—an underground lake?—a potential exit on the surface, and the boundaries of the safe zone, free from Anomaly influence.

It didn't take long to learn the layout and key landmarks—just enough to find my way back to Ateeve if the scaf fails, leaving me blind.

But before coming out, I double-checked Ateeve's status and all the drones we had on board. Ateeve surprisingly survived the short subspace trip that it was not prepared for, and was almost intact, if not for a few scratches here and there due to landing on the left side while still in flight mode.

Thankfully, from inside the pilot capsule, it didn't matter and wasn't a problem I had to deal with, leaving it to the inertia-compensation system to level the horizon and match it to the planet's gravity pull.

Drones, on the other hand, were a problem without a solution. Ateeve was not a recon ship. Hell, even Aper-101, the SAT's dropship, had more general-purpose droids than Ateeve had, which was fair. Nevertheless, that was leaving me with one recon droid down (out of five I had at all), two service droids—SD-N56, or Esdie in short—and… one warhead. Technically, it wasn't a droid, sure, but it had the potential to be.

Oh, right, and the DOC, with the primary function to be a Lola's hands.

And that was it.

Glancing over the cave system layout once more, especially all the inner dimensions, I got an idea.

"Lola, what do you think about moving Ateeve into spot D-1-7?" I asked.

"Positive. The cave with water supplies behind D-1-7 is a dead end, and the Ateeve railgun system should be enough to stop any possible mutated wildlife that could find a way inside," she agreed.

Not wasting any time, I moved aside all the stuff on the cradle before dropping into it myself, and engaged the manoeuvre engines to glide the bird into the new spot.

Sure, manual mode wasn't ARC, but I could fly Ateeve not only without ARC compensation programs but with half the scanners down—I was top of my year at the Navy Academy, not for nothing.

Nice and easy, nice and easy… and done.

Landing this time properly, I rose up from the cradle again and picked up the bag with pre-packed items I would need soon.

Double-checking my Sixer—and the ammo—once more, I held my breath for a second, collecting myself, and activated the unsealing protocol on Ateeve.

It was time to leave my footprint on this unknown planet, if only underground.

—​

With a pneumatic sound, the cabin unsealed, and I went down the ladder, exiting the Ateeve under its belly with a bag in one hand and the Sixer in the other.

Subconsciously, I had expected more—just more, not every day I step onto an unknown planet—but perhaps it was for the better. Just a rocky, uneven floor, stone-grey walls and a high enough ceiling above, with the dark mouths of passages leading behind and ahead.

Mundane, boring and with no visible danger, at least yet.

So far, so good…

Realising that I was delaying the inevitable, I disabled the internal breathing system and took my first breath of local air.

It was damp, heavy with the scent of earth and water, and fresh like untouched wilderness, with no trace of the big city air I was so used to.

In a way, it was nice, calming.

Activating my own source of light on the shoulder, I took my first step on the way into the cave with water. As per the plan that Lola had already made, the best location for the shower was right behind the corner, in a natural alcove.

A few recon drones passed me as I walked, adding their own beams to light up the area.

If ARC was still present, I would have connected to their feeds, extending the controlled area. Still, even consciously knowing that it wasn't there anymore, I tried to do just that.

I needed to train myself out of these habits, or one day I would die trying to access data instead of acting with what I had.

Perhaps, disabling the helmet's AR and doing everything by hand would be a smart choice now.

"Lola, disable the AR system, please," I said, not giving myself time to change my mind.

"I will leave voice-based guidance. It should help you to adopt faster," replied Lola, and all the AR-tags vanished from view, forcing me to finish the last steps by memory.

That's gonna hurt.

—​

Making holes in the alcove's wall with the multitool—a makeshift replacement for the ladder I didn't have—I couldn't help but think about Lola's actions. Or what she said.

On one hand, the planet was clearly terraformed, but on the other hand, it had at least one Anomaly zone.

An Anomaly zone so important that someone deemed it worthy of a high-priority directive in ARC, and something like that just couldn't happen on someone's whim.

Which meant it had been approved by higher-ups, passed multiple verification processes, coded and, god help me, tested before being uploaded to each and every ARC.

Pretending to be a monkey—almost hanging parallel to the ground—and drilling a hole for a hook in the ceiling, I tried to put myself in their shoes.

What kind of information, or possible advantage, could justify such severe measures? Hell, most—if not all—classified data required just a simple electronic signature… or so I thought.

"Lola," I asked, "when the directive triggered… did it request a CI signature?"

"Yes, CI-f00, to be precise," she replied.

So, top-level classified information, then.

Let's bottle this for a moment.

Setting the bolt and looping the rope through its eye, I jumped down and stepped out of the alcove.

"Seems done," I said, dusting myself off, especially the helmet.

"You forgot to make a door," replied Lola.

"What for?" I said, rolling my eyes. "It's not like someone's going to see me here."

"It has nothing to do with your exhibitionist tendencies, Lt. Commander Ladova," she began, and from her tone, I knew I was in trouble. "The door—even if made as inefficiently as outlined in the plan—is projected to retain up to seventy per cent—"

"Fine, fine!" I exclaimed, throwing up my arms in a universal gesture. "I'll do it, will do it. Jesus, girl."

"See to that, Lt. Commander," Lola more commanded than said.

Lola and her plans.

Climbing the wall again, I started to drill a new hole, as per the plan, while casting my mind back to what I had been thinking about.

So, the Anomaly could only be a highly valuable resource, and judging by their readiness to fuck around with ARC AI, forcing it to perform illegal tests on unwilling subjects, to create… create what?

Knowing higher-ups, it could only be a weapon, perhaps even some super-soldier or something.

Weird? Sure. Improbable? Hell no.

Looping the rope between the newly mounted bolts, I threw the mimic-fabric over it—a cheap replacement for the stealth generator I did not have.

It flickered with colours for a bit, until finally settling on the rocky pattern, merging with the wall around it. Neat.

"Now water," Lola chimed in, and with a sigh, I picked up a twenty-litre flexible bag from the survival kit. Like everything in it, it was multipurpose and, when connected with the shower-like dispenser, was part of the shower set.

"Slave driver," I muttered under my breath.

"I heard that," Lola replied, and rolling my eyes, I followed the marker to the lake.

I was never interested in biology, not really.

Well, except for that one time when I tried to figure out why I had silver features, but even for that, I only remember something about a unique interaction between Ladoga's star and Ladogan. Oh, and that it was a stable mutation that was safely affecting all native-borns.

So, the Anomaly and its mutation factors were way above my expertise level, but I couldn't believe that its presence on this planet was enough to wipe out all signs of those who had terraformed it.

At the very least, even if in ruins now, there should have been an initial outpost or settlement left behind. And that, perhaps, should be my goal.

If I find it…

With a sigh, I stopped and looked over the water deposit—a small underground lake—that was flickering and reflecting my shoulder light, sending sun bunnies dancing around.

Swimming was what I wanted more than a shower. It had been ages since I had last swum. Was it on New Orleans? A year ago?

With another sigh, I lowered the bag into the lake, and as soon as it filled to the brim, lifted it out with one hand.

It had to be heavy, at least a third of my weight, and if not for the scaf's amplifiers, I would have had to drag it or settle for less water.

Instead, I was walking back with only louder crunches under my feet. And having only slight lag as a trade-off was as good as any. It could be worse. Way worse.

The scaf was a lifesaver in my situation, especially with my diminutive complexion.

Not a petite, never petite.

By the time I got back, whatever Lola planned to do with the shower was already done, and Esdie was awkwardly walking out on its paws, locked in a vertical position. Right, not terrain-friendly, they were.

Behind him, the shower floor was slightly glowing green, covered in what seemed to be a hull breach sealing compound.

"Show tags," I commanded, and yep, it was the ST-100, dispersed all over the floor.

"Hold a minute," I said, getting an idea.

Lowering the water bag, I picked up the droid and went inside. Carefully stepping at the shower edge, even if I knew the compound had already solidified and nothing short of a railgun tap would break it, I went to the holes I made in the walls to reach the ceiling.

"Do the thing," I said, holding Esdie before the first one, and it (or more likely Lola) did not fail me.

In a short burst, the inner part of the hole was coated in a polymer-like substance that was nice to the touch, and now it wasn't a hole anymore, but a fancy niche for bathing supplies, with a backlight in green colour.

Satisfied with the result, I repeated the same with the others, except for the last one, on the side.

"Stay here for a bit," I said, lowering Esdie and grabbing the multitool again.

A bit more drilling, this time angling toward the ground, and after another dose of sealant, I got a nice holder for the Sixer built right into the shower.

Letting the droid go, I turned to the bag of water I had just brought with me and, dropping in a single-use heat source, sealed it again.

Catching the rope hanging from the ceiling, and fumbling with it for a bit to secure the bag, I pulled it up to the proper height… just enough for me to stand under, and a bit more.

That should be it.

Stepping out, I critically looked over the well-done work, feeling satisfied and even somewhat happy with the way it looked.

Not a space-grade cabin, sure, but for what I had in my hands, it was not bad. Not bad at all.

Turning my lights off and shooing the recon droids away, I tilted my head, trying to decide if I liked it all glowing green now, as if some mystical place, or not.

It was… something.

"I think water is at an optimal temperature," said Lola.

"Yeah, it should be," I agreed and looked around.

Spotting a big enough flat space nearby, I moved there in a few quick steps, with my mind already in the shower.

Lying down on my back, I pulled Sixer out and placed it on the ground first, before taking the helmet off next and initiating the manual scaf-disengaging protocol.

Back on Mastodon, we had dock stations that were simplifying this process, letting us just walk out of the scaf, but here and now, I had only one option—improvisation.

With audible clicks and clacks, the front part of the scaf unfolded, followed by the lock-release sounds in the limbs, creating extra space to let me pull them out. With a few yanks here and there, I sat up, freeing my arms first, and then focused on pulling my legs out.

Placing my hands on the ground to steady myself, and picking up Sixer again, I finally crawled out of the scaf and, fighting the disorientation, slowly stood up.

Looking down at the opened-up scaf—now looking like a gutted animal with its head cut off—I realised that there was no way I would put it on again without Lola's help.

Something for future-me to care about.

Turning around, I carefully made my first step, adjusting to the absence of the scaf's amplifiers—fucking manual-mode and delays it has—and caught myself trying to send an ARC command to unseal the underlayer.

Annoying.

It took me a moment, and a few careful steps, to remember the right gesture (slide a hand down from the neck to the pubic zone) to unseal it, and I started to peel myself out, becoming steadier with each step.

After being in a sterile environment for so long, and then being exposed only to damp, earthy air, my own body scent was… overwhelming, to say the least.

Yeah, it was two days, alright.

Wrinkling my nose and feeling the chill air on my already exposed skin, I stepped into the shower and put Sixer in the newly minted holster on the wall. With a few extra tugs and pulls, I finally got the underlayer off and, dropping it on the ground, turned on the water.

The contrast between the cold air and almost too hot to handle water was a nice, welcome change, even though it wasn't my favourite setting I was so used to.

Hell, it was pure, liquid pleasure I knew I needed.

Tilting my head up and squinting, letting the water run down my body, I felt as if I were caught between the rushing droplets and the rising steam glowing green, forgetting about all the troubles I was in.

It was like watching some holo from a foreign planet, perhaps even from the ocean bottom, and all that was missing here were creatures, obviously bright in colour, to fly around.

Breathing in damp heat, melting into water, into air, enjoying it to the brim, I felt… alive.

No surprise, the shower was my favourite feature on Mastodon.

As if the dam was broken, all that had happened, all that I was trying to distance myself from, caught up with me…

Captain Naome, James, Simpson…

Face after face of people who were left behind were passing in my eyes, bringing the pain of the loss, and I allowed myself to mourn, to say goodbye.

Not all of them died—not all of their fates I knew of—nor my fate was known, missing in action, with no body, no trail, nothing. Nothing to send home, even if no one was going to shed a single honest tear there. Nothing to send to the nearest star as a funeral ritual, as I had asked in my will.

Nothing.

For all intents and purposes, they all died to me, and I died to them.

At least there were going to be no more angry holocalls, with demands to stop my foolishness, to come "home" and take my rightful place as an heir, to marry, to pop out a kid or two—as only proper.

And perhaps, that was for the better.

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: March 23 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

In a way, the shower was all but a small matter.

But here, in who knew where, far away from civilisation, with solitude and survival looming over my head, all but locked in this cave system, surrounded by an unknown Anomaly eager to kill any tech advantages I had—it was a rare treasure.

The treasure that let me ground myself in the now, and, to the extent, accept my situation I had unwillingly got myself into.

As the saying went, from the bottom, there was only one way—up, and up I planned to go. I hadn't given up when I was all but surely dying back then, and I was not planning to give up now.

Picking up my pilot underlayer from the shower floor, damp and heavy, I wrinkled my nose, but got to work, trying to freshen it up a bit, rinsing it under the shower water.

Until I had a good grasp of my situation, it was better to get back into scaf, layering myself in the only protection I had against a quite likely hostile environment.

The need to build a septic system, that Ateeve was not equipped with, was another reason to put the scaf on. Until it was built, the waste system in the scaf was the only toilet I would have for the near future.

Should be good now.

Squeezing out whatever water I could, after a shake or two, I began to put the underlayer on.

It was sticky and wet and didn't want to obey, sure, but I insisted, putting on one leg first and then the other, carefully trying not to bring anything inside it, especially into the integrated footwear the underlayer had.

And if arms were no less a struggle to put in, at least I had no trouble getting it sealed after—something good from my almost non-existent A-cups.

Suffering a few short seconds when the underlayer was attaching itself to my body, I awkwardly walked out of the shower with Sixer in my hand.

Esdie was already waiting there, with a recon droid hanging above, highlighting the area. The scaf looked cleaner and, perhaps, even serviced while I was taking a shower.

With Esdie pretending to be an air cannon while dusting away any remnants on my feet and scaf, I eased myself into it and, with clicks and clacks, scaf sealed around my arms and legs first, then locked up completely, coming to life again.

Sitting up and testing reactions to my movements—rotating hands and arms while bending knees—I grimaced again at the slightest lag in response.

Holstering the Sixer, I picked up the helmet and put it on. It was time to make the next step, and sure as hell, Lola had outlined them all by now.

"Show tasks," I said aloud, bringing to life the AR screen with done, ongoing, and planned tasks by Lola.

The Recon task was the first at the top, and I once more reviewed the cave system layout attached to it. Right now, I was in a dead-end cave with a lake and a shower, which was connected by a passage to the main cave, where we had appeared.

The main cave had a high ceiling, at least twenty-five meters, was mostly round in shape, and had three marked passages leading to other places. Two were unknown, and one led to a potential exit to the surface.

Noting that we had only a general, low-resolution scan for the cave system beyond the main cave, due to the Aetherium presence in the soil, and with deep scouting cancelled, I added the task to rectify it later.

The linked task with recovering the droid remains was next, with a report on its failure—something about the cascading tunnelling effect in electrons—and a follow-up task on making probes out of its remains.

Already, Lola had a few iterations of the probes and seemed to switch to diode-based ones, as ones that were more resistant to Anomaly exposure.

The full inventory was done next, and was including not only all supplies in the pilot capsule but also the repair ones, used by droids to patch up the Ateeve if needed. Quickly skimming over it, noticing already used items by Lola, I marked it for later review, checking on the next task.

That was where it got interesting.

Confirming interaction, or more like mutual cancellation between the Aetherium and the Anomaly, Lola was testing ways to shield probes with Aetherium ore. It was working well on a small scale so far, but the linear scaling-up failed, making it impossible to shield the recon droid yet.

It was more about the Aetherium's connection to subspace than the Aetherium itself, and to make progress, she was now utilising subspace theory to build effectors similar to those used in the hyperspace engine.

Promising.

The next task was sobering. It was about the optimal consumption of available rations, and the estimated time until I run out of them, with a follow-up task to acquire wildlife samples to find substitutes for food supplies.

My original estimate of three weeks with one ration per day was more than optimistic. I didn't know where I was, and with silence in subspace communication, capable of catching feeds across hundreds of light-years, I had to assume the worst and treat the situation as if I was in unknown regions, far away from any civilisation or possible rescue coming my way.

Which meant I had to ration my food supplies without sacrificing my strength.

Ten days, if no new food substitutes were to be found.

And none I saw around me in the cave system, bare of even a simple moss.

Instinctively looking up the ceiling, beyond the cave hiding me from the Anomaly, I realised that it was not for long until I had to go there.

—​

"Lola, what do we know about the Anomaly?" I asked, finally standing up from the stone ground.

Until Lola found a way to shield my scaf, it was suicidal to go there, as well as knowing nothing about what was awaiting outside the safety of the caves.

"Not much more than I've already told you," she began as I started to walk to Ateeve.

"It is known to affect organic life forms, causing mutations and catastrophic failure in any technology, with anti-EMI measures ineffective against it. The nature of the effect remains unknown and non-detectable by any sensors available to me.

Successfully mutated life forms develop Anomaly organs responsible for unusual abilities. These include the primary organ — the core — part battery, part reactor, working on Anomaly energy; knots, responsible for unusual abilities; and pathways, linking it all together.

Such organs are classified by value, from F as the weakest to A as the strongest, and are capable of passing mutation if consumed in raw form.

The rest of the data transfer contains a detailed process of harvesting such organs and… passing mutation to a human test subject," she reported and paused, letting me process.

Walking past the Ateeve, I was rolling everything she had said once more in my head, trying to grasp the depth of the shithole I was in.

Without my Sixer, scaf or even the underlayer, that was more like a smart suit than clothing, I was bare-handed, naked meat-bag waiting to be eaten by any life form in the Anomaly.

Life forms that had been mutating for who knew how long. I once saw a documentary about a planet with a failed terraforming process, and that wasn't pretty.

Nothing about my situation was pretty either.

"Any details on the abilities?" I asked, coming to the main cave view.

In the Ateeve's headlights, the cave was mostly visible, although not much was to see, just a vast space, rocky walls and a ceiling hidden in darkness, I only knew it was there.

"No, but there is a recommendation, in case of successful mutation, on how to replicate the donor's observed abilities," she replied, not quite helpfully.

"Is that all?" I asked, still absently looking at the main cave, but not really seeing it.

It all sounded very suspicious, and I had more questions than had now been answered.

"Only one last thing. I've got High-Priority codes to transmit immediately, as soon as any other ship enters the system. They're quarantine codes, Katee," she replied, once more turning everything upside down.

—​

Taking off the helmet, I was just standing there, looking deep into the darkness above me.

Numb inside, and perhaps for the better, I finally realised that even if my subspace emergency beacon reached any ship, I would never be saved.

It wasn't the first time I had been abandoned, and joining the Navy, I had abstractly known I could die in the line of duty, but signing up for experiments or becoming a test subject was not what I had in mind.

No, I imagined dying a hero, proclaimed across all and every ISA media channel, to prove my point to them…

Instead, I got this—the irony.

"Lola," I finally said, swatting away a teardrop running down my cheek.

"I am here," she replied in an understanding voice, only she could do.

"Fuck them all. We are going to get the fuck out of here. But before that, the mutated meat should be fine to eat, right?" I asked.

"I don't know Kat, but I will do my best to figure that out," replied my companion, and that was enough.

"Works for me. I am heading to check out the exit passage. Any help needed with running tests?" I asked, decisively putting the helmet on.

Katee Ladova is not done yet.

"I built a simple tester for you. It's not much, a simple pole with a light on the end, but it will let you know where Anomaly begins," she replied, and Esdie awkwardly came up to me with the so-named tester.

Pole with flashlight, indeed.

—​

Eyeing the two other passages, knowing well I would explore them later, I was walking to the left, crossing the main cave diagonally.

The passage to the exit was the least accessible from within and required climbing quite a steep hill, almost all the way to the top of the cavern.

It wasn't something requiring special skills per se, just careful steps and steady pulls. It was more like climbing a set of stairs for a giant than anything else.

Finally reaching the top, I was greeted by a boulder resting on the last cornice, almost sealing off the passage, with only a narrow gap to squeeze past and into the round tunnel behind it, full of natural light.

It was going at least for another forty or so meters up, perhaps at a forty-five—degree incline, slowly getting brighter and brighter, with a bright spot at the end that was almost blinding me.

"Shield on," I barely whispered, suspiciously eyeing the path before me.

With the Sixer in one hand and the probe pole in the other, I carefully entered the tunnel and paused to adjust to the light.

It didn't have a tint of cold blue or warm red, but just a slight shift towards yellow, subtly letting me know that the local star was in golden strata for A-grade planets.

With a subtle hum, the recon droid followed behind, joining me in the tunnel and elevating to the ceiling, taking an observing position.

Holding the glowing-on-the-end pole before me, and Sixer in the ready, I began to move forward in small steps, scanning each shade, each stone for possible danger.

Unusual abilities, fuck me sideways.

But nothing happened. No one jumped from the shadows, or the ceiling, or pulled me by the legs, as if in a low-cost horror holo.

And then, on the last step, the light on the pole end flickered and went out, marking the beginning of the Anomaly.

"Found it," I said, trying to see the boundary between the two zones, but failing to find any signs of it.

Nothing was visible, no refraction of light, no shimmering air.

Nothing.

Just a rocky tunnel, untouched by human hands, with natural light casting shadows across the uneven ground and walls.

Double-checking the edge again, I made a visible mark on the ground, pushing a few small rocks in line.

I had barely taken a dozen small steps from the entrance, and most of the tunnel was still ahead of me, not even letting me see what was at the end, blinding me with the light.

"Lola, do you see anything?" I asked, feeling the twist in my… guts, the one that always signalled about problems coming my way.

"No, and I don't see any footprints either," she replied.

"Shield, max power," I commanded, raising the Sixer and quickly backpedalling.

Even before registering why, I jumped back and was flying down, parallel to the sloping ground, and above me, falling with me, was an unexpectedly fast-approaching shape, in a shimmering aureole.

Tap-tap-tap.

With each needle hit, the shimmering aureole discharged a flash of light, as if I were fighting someone in a scaf like mine, and so I just kept reacting, the only way I knew.

Tap-tap-tap

Tap-tap-tap

Concentrating on one spot, to overload their shield, not asking why, how or who was attacking me.

Tap-tap-tap

Now.

Acting on instincts, trained in the mixer in the close-range duels with SAT, I dug with my left hand into the rushing past ground, forcing myself to flip over my head.

The floor and ceiling spun around me, and I landed hard on the boulder's face with my legs forward, absorbing the force of my fall and folding into a deep squat.

As if in training before, my left arm shot forward, hand in fist, with all the momentum of my uncoiling behind it, ready to meet the enemy's helmet. To break it, or to force the field to collapse, to negate it.

Tap-tap-tap

Tap-tap-tap

I sent needle after needle into the fast-approaching shape, adding pressure, dominating, fighting with all I had.

So tough. Why so tough?

The enemy's extended arms were closing on me, around me, and I was twisting in between, to reach the head, in the final push to end the fight, still sending needle after needle.

Tap-tap-tap

I felt my fist connect with a surprisingly less hard surface of the head, and saw the splash of blood in the air, as the last two needles went right through it.

And then the mass of the enemy body slammed into me, crashing us both into the boulder's face, completely depleting my shield too, and then, in a tangled heap, we hit the ground, sliding down from the boulder's face, finally pulled by gravity, but this time with me on top of surprisingly soft… fur?

Slowly, I pushed myself up, trying to distance myself while keeping Sixer ready to tap more and more, and finally saw the attacker.

A bobcat. A fucking bobcat, the size of a big—no, the fucking biggest—dog I had ever seen.

"Lola, I got a present," I said, swapping the clip in Sixer. "It's a bobcat."

"Bobcat, alive?" she asked, as the recon droid zoomed closer to me.

"I hope not, really hope not," I replied, swapping the battery in my scaf.

—​

I was back inside the Ateeve, lying in the cradle and watching the holo of my last fight made by Lola, slowed down to the frame-per-second.

Rewinding time to the beginning once more, right before the moment I jumped backwards, I put it on play again.

I had perhaps seen it dozens of times by now, but still had a hard time believing what I saw.

Here, out of the thin air, appeared the bobcat, already being mid-jump. Then I fought it, killed it, and brought back its body. And so in my mind, I knew—it had happened.

But believing that on this planet, bobcats, heavier than I in weight, could not only have a personal energy field, with a capacity bigger than three SAT scafs, but also could become invisible? That was hard.

At least, it was clear now why it was all highly classified, and why my ARC had almost fried my brain, trying to turn the AI on me.

Any chance to make humans capable of doing what that bobcat did would justify any and all means in the higher-ups' eyes.

Super-soldiers, indeed.

What went wrong with their program, where they got access to an anomaly, or the byproduct of it, I didn't know, nor did Lola. Neither did we know why the anomaly's presence triggered the Directive, nor why it decided on the course of action involving deadly risk to my well-being, instead of doing everything to deliver this information back.

Either it wasn't part of the Directive dataset, or Lola's copy— terminal—deemed it low-priority information, or CI-f00 was the one to blame, it didn't matter. We didn't know, and trying to guess in my situation was not only pointless but might as well lead to my early grave, if I got any.

All I needed to know was quite simple. The Anomaly kills—either on its own, or through mutated minions, like the one that almost bit my head off.

Stopping the holo again, with the bobcat half-emerged from invisibility, I checked the markers I had left on the ground.

The invisibility failed almost a metre deep from where the Anomaly ended. But it kept its shield up way longer than that. Internal vs external? Distance from the skin?

"DOC finished body examination. Anomaly organs location confirmed," Lola reported.

Another breadcrumb we got. Anomaly organs that were growing almost like a cancer inside, but instead of eating away at the body, they were integrating, granting abilities if successful, or killing if not.

Bioimplants, if I saw any.

"But," I asked, now carefully watching the bobcat's shield reaction to each needle. At the moment, during the battle, I had thought it was a standard energy shield, but it was anything but.

"They are C-rank," Lola said, and I just… hummed, looping the moment where the bobcat appeared, this time focusing on myself. I jumped before the bobcat became visible, but nothing, nothing I looked at, was capable of spooking me earlier than that.

"The core was found as described," Lola added.

"But," I prompted, clicking on the play again.

"But there are many more knots than displayed abilities. If I have enough samples with variations, and a list of abilities they carried, I might try to make a more comprehensive map," Lola tentatively said.

"Sixteen taps, non-standard issue, to pass its shield. It was ten more than needed to empty the SAT's shield," I said, watching the final moment, when I uppercut the bobcat's head, splashing its brain with the last two needles.

"I am already working on needles with Aetherium," she replied, and I just nodded.

I thought about that, as well as about using Ateeve's railgun. Lola had thought about it before me and had already changed the load into the low kinetic, soft dart that shouldn't damage the cave… too badly, but would have enough kick to paste the next animal to wander inside. Be that another bobcat, goat, or unicorn—for all I care.

On a positive note, I now had fresh and juicy meat, at least sixty kilograms of it, a solution for my food crisis. Hopefully.

"How is meat testing?" I asked, closing the holo.

I saw all I wanted in it.

"Most of the muscle tissue looks normal, as it could for an oversized cat. No active mutagens, not even heavy metals. I would prefer to run more tests, but I am lacking tools for that," she replied.

"Let's do a field test then. Patch test, was it? And then a small quantity of food if it passes," I proposed.

"That is reasonable," Lola reluctantly agreed.

"Well then, let's do it. I want to try the hot-cat today, if possible," I replied, standing up.

"It's a hot-dog, not a hot-cat," Lola said in exasperation, "and we don't have a bun and ketchup to make one."

"I don't care. Just cook it well done, to be on the safe side," I replied, unsealing Ateeve.

The faster the tests were done, the faster I could confirm that I had replaced the worry of no food with the worry of not becoming one, while hunting it down.

How the fuck am I going to do that?

 

[GorMartsen]

Author: [Redacted]

Abstract

We present a speculative framework for faster-than-light (FTL) travel and cosmology based on modulation of the mathematical constant π. Traditionally defined as the ratio of circumference to diameter in Euclidean space, π also emerges as a measure of dimensional curvature in both general relativity and quantum geometry. We extend this view to propose that local variation of π represents not merely a change in spatial curvature but a shift into adjacent dimensional regimes ("π-domains") where geometry is governed by different effective values of π. A π-drive would therefore operate by creating a bubble that drifts into these domains, allowing travel across rescaled distances before re-emerging into baseline space. We suggest that phenomena such as gravitational lensing, cosmic expansion, and quantum uncertainty may already reflect natural instances of π-drift, reframing hyperspace as an extension of observed physics rather than an exotic exception.

1. Introduction

Current models of FTL travel—wormholes [1], Alcubierre warp metrics [2], and higher-dimensional shortcuts [3]—require extreme energy densities or exotic matter. We propose an alternative: π-modulated hyperspace travel.
Instead of folding or tunneling through spacetime, a π-drive would modulate the effective value of π within a bounded region. This does not directly alter physical constants such as c, G, or ħ, but redefines the geometry that underlies them. Travel becomes possible by temporarily relocating into an adjacent "π-domain" where geodesic distances are shorter (or longer), producing apparent FTL without local violation of relativity.

2. π as a Dimensional Conversion Constant
• In Euclidean space:

• In curved geometries:
• Spherical:
• Hyperbolic:

Thus, π is not an absolute number but the rate constant of dimensional projection. Each increase in dimensionality (circle, sphere, hypersphere) introduces π as the scaling factor.

3. Hypothesis: π-Domains and Dimensional Drift

We hypothesise that π may vary across adjacent dimensional regimes ("π-domains").
• Baseline spacetime: π = 3.14159…
• Subspace domains:
• → spherical compression, contracted distances.
• → hyperbolic expansion, dilated distances.

A π-drive does not change reality locally; it shifts a vessel into a domain where π differs. Hyperspace travel is therefore dimensional drift across π-gradients.

4. Mathematical Framework (Speculative)

Let represent effective π in a domain x.
Travel occurs when a bubble maintains constant internal π (crew stable) while surrounding space is rescaled by π_eff. Apparent velocity relative to normal space is:

where is the geodesic length in the π-domain.

5. Cosmological Connections
• Gravitational Lensing: Photons passing near massive bodies deviate as though encountering regions where . Lensing may represent natural micro-interfaces with π-domains.
• Cosmic Expansion: Rather than invoking dark energy, accelerated expansion could be interpreted as our universe slowly drifting through a π-gradient toward a domain with larger .
• Quantum Geometry: The ubiquity of π in Gaussian distributions and Fourier transforms suggests leakage from adjacent π-domains; quantum uncertainty may reflect fluctuations at these dimensional interfaces.

6. Navigation in π-Space

A π-drive vessel would chart routes not only by spatial coordinates but by π-gradients:
• Select a drift domain with to contract distance.
• Traverse the rescaled geodesic.
• Re-emerge at the desired location in baseline π.

This reframes hyperspace travel as intentional modulation of dimensional constants rather than violation of light speed.

7. Hazards and Containment
• Boundary Instability: Matter cannot survive where unless shielded; otherwise quantum fields decohere.
• Bubble Containment: A π-drive must generate an isolation shell maintaining baseline π internally.
• Field Collapse: A catastrophic reversion could shred matter as it reintegrates with incompatible dimensional geometry.

8. Discussion

This model reframes hyperspace as a shift between dimensional layers distinguished by π. It unifies disparate phenomena:
• Relativity (curvature) → local π deviations.
• Cosmology (expansion) → global π drift.
• Quantum mechanics (π in probability and waveforms) → micro π-domain interactions.

A π-drive would therefore not invent a new principle but harness a pre-existing feature of the universe: that π is not a constant everywhere, but a coordinate in higher-dimensional geometry.

9. Conclusion

We propose that π is not merely a mathematical abstraction but a dimensional multiplier emergent from the structure of space-time. Controlled modulation of π, or intentional drift into domains with different effective π, may provide a pathway to FTL travel without breaking relativity. Cosmological phenomena already suggest natural π-drift effects, hinting that hyperspace may be an extension of physics we partially observe.

 

[GorMartsen]

Author: [Redacted]

Abstract

We present the first comprehensive report on Aetherium, a newly identified mineral with anomalous effects on local geometry. Field and laboratory observations confirm that Aetherium interacts directly with the geometric constant π, anchoring its value within localized regions and producing hyperspatial distortions. In unrefined form, Aetherium deposits give rise to rift phenomena, where effective circumference-to-diameter ratios deviate measurably from Euclidean norms. Controlled laboratory modulation, however, demonstrates that Aetherium's anchoring property can be inverted: with harmonic excitation, it induces localised shifts in π, creating traversable domains consistent with previously theoretical models of hyperspace. These results establish Aetherium as the enabling substrate for π-drive technology.

1. Introduction

Following unexplained anomalies observed near asteroid belt deposits (classified as "geometry fractures"), mineralogical surveys identified a crystalline ore with unusual harmonic resonance. Named Aetherium, this mineral exhibits interactions not with standard electromagnetism or gravitation alone, but with the dimensional constant π itself.

Initial field readings around exposed deposits revealed measurable deviations in geometric ratios, suggesting the mineral anchors π within its lattice. These anchors manifest macroscopically as rifts or ravines in hypothesised hyperspace.

2. Methods
• Sample Collection: Raw Aetherium ore was extracted under containment shielding from Rift Site Gamma-4.
• Geometric Measurements: Closed-loop laser interferometry confirmed deviations in circumference-to-diameter ratios near samples.
• Resonance Tests: Samples were subjected to harmonic excitation across electromagnetic and gravitic bands.
• Containment Arrays: Isolation chambers ensured baseline π values within observer frames during modulation experiments.

3. Results
• Anchoring Behavior: In unmodulated state, Aetherium anchors π rigidly, suppressing local curvature variance and forming rift-like structures extending into hyperspace.
• Field Interaction: When exposed to harmonic excitation at resonant frequencies, Aetherium inverts its anchoring effect. Local π shifts smoothly from 3.14159 toward higher or lower effective values, consistent with transitions into hyperbolic or spherical π-domains.
• Controlled Modulation: Sustained excitation produced stable π-bubbles lasting up to 47 seconds, sufficient for small-scale probes to enter and re-emerge. Probe telemetry confirms geodesic contraction consistent with hyperspace drift models.
• Energy Requirements: Modulation threshold observed at <10⁻³ the projected energy density of Alcubierre metrics, suggesting practical engineering feasibility.

4. Discussion

Our findings confirm that Aetherium provides the first material basis for controlled π-modulation. Unlike theoretical curvature manipulation requiring unattainable mass-energy densities, Aetherium naturally bridges dimensional layers.

This dual role—anchoring π in its raw state, modulating it under controlled excitation—explains both natural rift phenomena and the feasibility of engineered hyperspace drives. The mineral effectively functions as a dimensional catalyst, permitting access to adjacent π-domains.

5. Hazards
• Uncontrolled Deposits: Exposed Aetherium seams remain dangerous; anchoring produces spontaneous rifts as a future navigational hazard.
• Containment Failure: Improper shielding allows π leakage, destabilising local geometry and biological matter.
• Drive Collapse: Test probes subjected to abrupt modulation cutoff were destroyed at boundary reintegration, suggesting precise control is essential.

6. Applications
• Hyperspace Navigation: Aetherium cores provide the active medium for π-drives, enabling controlled drift into adjacent π-domains.
• Stabilisation Technology: Properly tuned, Aetherium arrays can suppress natural rifts, neutralising hazardous regions.
• Energy Research: Collapse of modulated π-fields produces high-energy emissions, warranting exploration for exotic power generation.

7. Conclusion

Aetherium is confirmed as a π-anchoring mineral with dual stabilising and modulating properties. Its discovery resolves the long-standing puzzle of natural hyperspace rifts and provides the first experimentally validated material basis for hyperspace travel. Continued research is recommended to optimise modulation efficiency, containment stability, and large-scale engineering applications.

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: March 24 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)


"Oooohmmmmm," I moaned, biting the last piece of the cat meat.

"So good," I added, licking my fingers and eyeing the Ateeve hungrily, where meat was stored now.

It was a stroke of genius to convert the empty warhead chamber into a fridge replacement, but now I just wanted to open it up again, to have a bit more of this marvellous meat to eat.

It had been what, a year? Since the last time I had naturally grown meat in my meal.

No matter what they put into space rations, they never taste like this, always lacking something.

Or, perhaps, the taste was so good because of the fresh air, the heavy work I had done, and the anticipation I had built since I killed the bobcat yesterday.

Patch tests, three times with different tissues, with all the proper timeframes and measures that Lola came up with, took a bit longer than I had expected, but I didn't complain, not during them, and not when Lola made a soup with only a bit of fat tissue instead of the steak I so wanted.

And not even later, when I had to wait for another twelve hours before finally having my hot-cat.

"That's the last one for the next twenty-four hours, Kat, and I want to see your bloodwork and urinalysis first," said Lola, bringing me back from my daydreaming.

"Fair," I agreed, standing up from the rock I used as a chair.

Before me was another one, just a bit bigger of a rock, good enough as a table. I placed them both not too far from Ateeve, by the wall, so the sidelights would give enough light for any meal I would have.

It wouldn't be too wrong to call it a kitchen. I brought all the supplies related to cooking here, including the stove from the survival kit and a pan, which DOC used to make the marvellously fried meat for me today.

I watched the whole process without taking my eyes away, gulping saliva all the time from the smell alone, but that was not the reason I did it. I needed to learn cooking, because I didn't know how far and for how long I would be walking there, in the Anomaly, leaving Ateeve, DOC, Esdies… everything behind.

And cooking was becoming a skill I had to catch up on, and catch up fast, especially in such a primitive way, with no cooking droid around, as well as the need to take care of the kitchen tools before and after cooking.

At least the stove was so primitive that Lola thought it would actually work in the Anomaly without the need for extra shielding. Another thing to test, before leaving.

"I was planning to explore the cave behind C and B passages," I said aloud, putting plates and the pan into a tub cut in the ground and filled with water to wash things up.

"Great, and on time. I just finished assembling a new detector for you," Lola replied.

"What could be new on a stick with a light on the end?" I asked, jokingly, but perking up from my crouching position.

Any advances dealing with the Anomaly were needed and welcome as spring after a long winter.

"It's a box on the stick now, and I reversed the function. As soon as the box is placed into the Anomaly, it will light up. The first time, it will calibrate, taking the current anomaly density as ground zero, to measure against it later," she explained, and I quickly caught on to what she was doing.

With it, it wouldn't be so hard to find the direction towards the end of the Anomaly.

"Thank you, Lola," I said, "I will test it thoroughly."

—​

The entrance to the passage marked as C, when looking from the Ateeve, was on the right side and almost opposite to the one with the passage to the surface.

It was also lower than the one into the cave with a lake, but still high enough for me to stand upright in and wide enough for three people shoulder by shoulder.

Double-checking extra clips for Sixer, backup batteries for the shield, and the map once more, I looked deep into the darkness and made the first step inside.

The recon droid took its place behind me and a bit off to the side, highlighting the passage.

The passage was not straight, and soon, after a dozen steps or so, the lights from the Ateeve disappeared behind turns, leaving me and the recon droid one-on-one with the unknown ahead of us.

AR blinked, notifying that we had reached the end of the previously scouted area, and I slowed down, keeping Sixer at the ready and the detector on the pole extended before me.

It was already thirty or so meters deep into the passage, but nothing changed—same rocky walls, same uneven ground, with no signs of anyone walking here before.

Until we reached the next turn, and I saw the dawn light at the end of the passage. Another exit?

In a few slow steps, the passage got wider, opening up to another cave with reflected lights coming from somewhere above, and the box on the pole lit up, blinking with different intensities.

Freezing mid-step, I let it finish the initial calibration until it settled on the yellow colour, which made sense.

Based on C-level organs of the bobcat, we might be somewhere deep into the Anomaly, at least in the fourth belt, if counting from F-level and choosing yellow was logical on Lola's end.

Right.

The light density would not be as useful as the colour code would be. So, orange to red if the Anomaly density increases, and green to blue if it decreases. Turning off completely, if none are detected, as we had in the main cave.

Nodding to myself, I marked the line where the Anomaly began with a few stones lined up along the boundary and left another radio probe a half metre away from it.

It had to inform Lola, by just stopping its signal on the radio frequency, if our safe zone decreases from this side, without the need to check it all the time.

Simple solution, when not a single scanner on Ateeve's board could detect the Anomaly remotely.

The recon droid was doing its own thing, utilising scanners to map what we could from this spot. Ateeve wasn't able to reach this place through the solid stone with Aetherium ore in it, and now we were fixing that.

The cave before was wider in width than it was long in length, and also taller, much taller, than the main cave, with steep rocky walls that would be hard to scale without special equipment.

It was also a bit deeper, making the passage from the main cave above the ground by at least five meters.

Checking the map that the recon droid just made, I made notes for things out of the direct line of sight and confirmed my suspicions—ones I was not happy with.

It was silent here, no sign of other life, and if not for the light reflections on the stony walls, with a now noticeable smell of excrement, I would call it a day.

Bats, I hate bats.

Slowly retreating back, carefully setting each step, I only hoped that whatever mutation had happened to the local bats, they were not like the ones we had on Ladoga.

Because those? Those were a nightmare.

If humans and most animals had a distinct silver mutation in keratin-based structures—a sort of signature card for all to see—then the bats on Ladoga had a mutated screech instead. A screech, meant to be used for orientation, was turned into a silent weapon.

You wouldn't hear it, you wouldn't even know about them being around, until one moment, you would just drop with a severe migraine, often followed by extensive bleeding from ruptured blood vessels in the sinuses.

"Lola, it's a bat cave," I reported as soon as I was back in the passage, but not far enough away, as I would have liked, preferably in the planet's orbit.

"Got an update from the recon droid," she replied, and the recon droid flew back into the bat cave again.

"Let's hope they are not like the ones on Ladoga," she mirrored my worries, "but to be sure, I am sending the drone to collect high-band data."

"Prepare the anti-missile system as well. I am afraid the railgun would be useless against the hordes of them," I added after a moment of thinking.

"I will see if I can add Aetherium to the load," she replied, and I silently nodded.

A high-velocity particle cloud discharge, if mixed with Aetherium, should shred them just fine.

"How is the detector?" Lola asked, switching the topic.

"Calibrated, seems to be working," I replied, still suspiciously eyeing the cave entry mouth where the recon droid had disappeared.

"I will keep an eye on it," Lola said, and I shook my worries off, turning away from the bat cave and beginning to walk back.

"Well, send me another droid, I am going to check on the last unknown passage," I said, hoping it wasn't as bad as the last one.

—​

The last passage was right across from the lake cave, on the opposite side of the main cave, and was one of the least comfortable to pass through.

Being only a meter wide, it looked like a split in the stone wall, rather than the passage itself, but the scans showed that it was widening after the first ten meters, and possibly had a chamber or something after.

This time, I had to use my shoulder light instead of relying on the recon droid following behind me. The droid was not even able to rise up to the ceiling, because the split was narrowing down above my head, leaving no space for the droid to fly, except behind my back.

Silently thanking my short height, that allowed me to walk without bending or even crawl, I kept moving forward while keeping the detector before me.

As with a bat cave, there was nothing to look at, even when we passed the narrow part, and the passage became wider and taller.

Feeling a bit freer from the hanging stone walls over me, I paused to look around. In blinks of my shoulder light, the passage, which was quickly turning into a long gallery, began to shine, reflecting light as if it were full of small stars scattered all around.

Coming closer to the wall, I ran my hand over the rock. It had embedded quartz in it, that was easy to recognise, and was the one reflecting the light from my shoulder light.

Quartz rock outcrop. A lot of quartz outcrop.

Readjusting my grip on the not-so-short detector's handle, I stuck it out and began moving forward again, looking for a place where the Anomaly started.

With each step, the gallery rose in height, now being almost five meters above me, almost forming a round tunnel, if not for stone columns here and there.

I knew they had some special name, but didn't really remember it. Caves were never my interest, in comparison to flight and space, preferably both at the same time.

This passage, this crystal gallery, was different, I realised, after the Anomaly did not start after ten meters, nor even after thirty.

The dark, almost black, stone columns and walls, with blinking quartz outcrops, were only creating a peaceful, unique atmosphere here.

A place to spend time, lost in thought or meditation.

Too bad, I had no time for that.

Shaking off a contemplative mood, I once more looked around, now searching for hidden danger or other splits in the rock that could potentially lead somewhere less forgiving, but finding none.

Slowly walking back to the exit from the gallery, with the recon droid trailing behind, I found myself… lacking.

While this exploration was important—I couldn't leave anything to luck, and finding bats was just another confirmation that all I did was right—but in a way, it was just a distraction before I left with nothing else to do.

Except finally getting out. Getting out into the unknown, with no intel, no scouting, and, if Lola fails to protect the scaf, no technical advantages.

Looking at the Sixer in my hand, remembering all its functions and abilities, I realised that if I took away most of them—meant to work in pairs with ARC AI—I might just make it easier to shield.

Or Lola had already done all the needed calculations, and was waiting to finish with scaf protection before proposing that.

My thoughts drifted back to the bobcat and what we found when DOC finished taking it apart.

The fur, while being soft, was no less resistant to damage than the scaf itself. Not counting the energy shield, of course.

If we failed to protect the scaf against the Anomaly in a timely manner, the fur might become the alternative I needed.

At least as a passive protection.

But all alternative ways rested on the assumption that I could handle the Anomaly on its own, without mutating, at least right away.

We had better test it soon. I didn't have much time, and I couldn't live here forever.

The only question was—if I could.

 

[GorMartsen]

Spoiler: sneak peek chapter 6

Dead, fucking dead.

Tap. Tap.

To be sure.

"Lola, if you see a squirrel, any squirrel, hit it with an anti-missile payload," I said, while changing the clip.

"Squirrel, anti-missile payload. Roger that," she replied, but not really making me feel any safer.

... just couldn't stop from spoiling. its raw, not edited... but so good.
Forgive me for that.

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: March 27 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

It had been four days since I fought the bobcat.

Or one week, since I fell out of hyperspace and my ARC got fried.

Or seventy hours, since I got my periods back, after not having any for almost seven years.

Irritating.

It had also been two days since Lola told me that shielding the scaf with aetherium, while possible in theory, was not viable at the moment. Not with the tools we had at hand.

The pure ore was not refined enough to form the needed field density, as she said, and carrying half a ton of ore on my back instead was a sure way to die tired. The scaf was not designed for such a load, nor was it intended for use with such extra weight.

No, it wasn't a complete waste of time, she said. As if painting the scaf with a mix of aetherium ground to sand and ST-100, the sealing compound, was any better.

Sure, it was supposed to protect me from The Anomaly's influence, and perhaps even some scaf functions would stay intact (or would not), but that was not enough to risk the only scaf, or the septic system, I had.

Forty-two per cent efficiency, she said.

At least that was enough for my Sixer, but only after we cut down everything we could, leading to decreased power output, reduced firing rate, and a shorter sighting range. I only hoped that having modified ammo, with a small crystal of the aetherium embedded in each needle, was enough to balance that out.

Most expensive needler, fuck my ass.

Ruining my only scaf, or my pilot underlayer for that matter, was out of the question.

Hence, me sitting and painting a suit from the survival kit.

It was similar, in a way, to my underlayer—a one-piece, toes to neck suit, with detachable gloves and a slim helmet. It also had built-in active camouflage, closed-loop breathing, perhaps even thermoregulation, and who knew what else.

I closed the file before reading further than that. It was better not to know what I would be left without.

Hell, even if only the smart-seal on the suit would stay working, that would be enough for me.

Flipping it once more, I smoothed out the back side and, double-checking with AR projections, continued "painting" the suit.

For obvious reasons, the suit had no armour plates, and their role had to be played by the energy shield—good for saving from a high enough fall, standard needles, or unexpected debris, but not from what the bobcat had shown me before.

My scaf had the upgraded energy shield, my last resort to survive, and even that got depleted in a single fight with it.

Why it failed so fast was bugging me for days after, and it took me a while—and extra tests with the bobcat claws—to figure it out.

Whatever shit had happened to them had turned simple claws into almost atomic slicers. In my frenzied state, I even scratched Ateeve's armour, for god's sake, while testing them.

It was only when they stopped working, stopped slicing through the rocks I was carving through, that we found out that the effect was based on The Anomaly itself.

Half an hour in The Anomaly, and claws were ready to slice again. Wild.

That was when we started to test everything once again, learning in the process that the fur itself had similar properties, but focused on protection. And before you could cut through it, you had to deplete its "field" first.

But put it back into The Anomaly, where it could recharge all the time, and fucking good luck to cut it with anything else except a high-power laser. If you could even make it work there.

I didn't know, didn't even want to ask, what it took for Lola to make a set of protection out of it, but she did it in the end. Unfortunately, that was just a poncho with a hood and arm bands—that was all we had enough fur for.

Finishing the back, I let Esdie cover it with another substance that made the paint solidify in an instant, and checked out the end result.

Ties, only ties left.

The suit had been grey in colour, made of mimic-fabric, and had been designed to match the surrounding environment. Not anymore, though. That was the first sacrifice to The Anomaly.

Instead, it now had brown-ish plates painted on it, mimicking the armour from my scaf. For some unknown reason—and as Lola said, no one was rich enough to mix aetherium with ST-100 to find out the effect, let alone why—the solidified mix was not glowing green, as it did in the shower.

Only for the better.

"Lola, I am done. DOC can start on the ties now," I said, standing up from the rock-chair and stretching.

"Sending now," she replied, and DOC jumped out of the technical hatch in the Ateeve.

"What were you up to?" I asked, watching DOC hurry to the suit lying on the rock-table to add ties, in case the smart-seal failed.

"Anti-missile payloads," she replied, and I nodded.

Having only one payload was not enough if bats attacked our position. Based on recon droid observations, the colony had close to a hundred members, and it seemed like they had younglings, soon to be flyers as well.

Suppressing the shiver running down my spine, I looked at DOC again.

It was using some kind of goo to stick the prepared ties to the suit for binding it together.

Almost ready.

—​

It was the same place, the same tunnel, the same steep and steady climb where I had fought the bobcat.

Only with the dawn that was barely casting any light, if any at all, instead of the harsh and bright daylight of the other day.

Shakily breathing out, I made the final step forward, over the line marked with stones on the ground, leaving the safety of the caves behind.

The suit felt somewhat wrong, uncomfortable. Was it because it had never been worn before, or all the added weight on top, including the poncho with a hood over the helmet, or simply because none of the features meant to increase comfort were working—I didn't know.

Perhaps, it was all of it together.

An hour ago, we had already tested the suit, putting it into The Anomaly, albeit inside the Bat Cave.

As we expected, most systems began to malfunction and were removed, including the energy field and mimic-fabric processor, leaving only comms, which Lola had managed to replace with a crude analogue, and a smart-seal—though I tied the ties anyway, not knowing if it would fail later.

The detector in my left armband softly glowed yellow, signalling that I was in The Anomaly proper, and I flipped the cover over it, hiding the glow.

"I am in," I said into the comm to Lola.

"Roger, RW-7," she replied, using my old callsign, and it helped me to centre myself, to focus on what I was about to do.

Holding Sixer at the ready, I carefully began to move up the tunnel, watching for any shadows, for any sign of an upcoming attack, not relying on my sense of danger, but hoping it would warn me, as it always did.

With slow, careful steps, I was getting closer and closer to the source of the morning light at the top, at the end of the tunnel. It was becoming brighter and brighter with each step, making the shadows sharper around me in the crisp, fresh air, filled with tranquillity and a barely noticeable hum.

And, against my expectations, nothing happened.

Not in the tunnel, and not at the end of it, where it was turning nearly ninety degrees to form the exit arch into an even brighter place beyond.

Leaning against the wall next to the arch, I readied Sixer and carefully looked out.

Before me, down the small bank, was a recessed cavern with a wide opening on the left, leading into the stony mountain valley covered in greenery, and with a waterfall, falling from a high cliff at the far end, twenty meters away or so.

With not a single soul around to see.

On one side, something inside me uncoiled after seeing this greenery, as if an unknown worry were leaving my shoulders, but on the other, I didn't trust my eyes, even for a bit—I didn't see the bobcat the other day either.

And while I was fighting diametrically opposed forces inside me, my eyes never stopped looking around, looking for any sign, for any clues, and soon bore fruit—I began to see the old, deep scratches on the walls, the whitening bones, all scattered around the cavern, and the lingering bobcat scent I hadn't felt until now.

This had been its territory.

Carefully stepping out of the tunnel, just to better see the valley, I leaned against the rocky wall, continuing to surveil the area with Sixer at the ready before me.

I had been lucky with the bobcat, really lucky. For most of the fight, it didn't show all its abilities, all its power, letting me control the fight.

Only a few glancing scratches on my energy shield with its claws, and it was enough to deplete it almost completely, and if… if I hadn't got through his own shield first, it would have torn me apart, and now my own bones would have been scattered around this cavern.

Still nothing.

The rocky sides of the valley were quite steep, rising almost vertically, but here and there, small trees and bushes were tightly clinging to them, making it possible to climb all the way up.

The waterfall at the end, humming quite noticeably now, was luring me to come closer, to undress and dive into the turquoise pool of water at its bottom.

Not a soul.

Checking the detector and noting that The Anomaly's density stayed the same, I began my careful walk toward the waterfall, navigating between the stones scattered across the valley floor.

The water looked even more alluring with each step closer, and the pool beneath, with an inviting half-sunken boulder in it, was just asking me to take a sunbath there.

Stopping and slowly turning around, still holding Sixer at the ready with both hands, I looked for the way up. The bobcat had to get out of the valley somehow, and I really hoped it wasn't just jumping out—it was ten fucking metres, for god's sake.

In a way, it was good, of course. The more secluded this place was, the better, but I needed a way up, and I needed it to be usable for coming down as well.

I was ready to go back, see if I missed something by the cavern exit, or inside, when I caught a movement by the pool.

On the half-sunken boulder was sitting… a squirrel, as innocently as it could be, even though it hadn't been there the moment before.

It was an inch bigger, with black fur instead of the rusty red with white stripes I used to see on Ladoga, but otherwise, just a squirrel sitting nonchalantly on the boulder and drinking water from the pool.

Not moving, I stared at it in a stupor, not able to look away.

The squirrel, the waterfall, the greenery, all of it was as if I wasn't in some unknown Anomaly, as if I didn't fight the bobcat the other day, as if it was all just a result of a sick imagination…

In the blink of an eye, the blurry shape fell from the sky, right onto the squirrel I was looking at.

The squawk, the feathers forcefully flying away, the hard-to-catch blurry movements—and in less than a second, all was done.

The same, peaceful squirrel, now all covered in blood, was gutting the giant hawk with a wingspan of a few metres, tearing it apart and pulling out a tangled mess of organs from inside.

The core?

Nonchalantly, as before, the squirrel just put it in her mouth and, jumping on the air as if it were the surface itself, vanished somewhere above the valley edge, with bloody parts of the hawk dangling behind.

Looking down at my Sixer, noticing how it was shaking in my hands, I had only one question in my head.

The fuck is this…

My stupor didn't last long, not with a strong scent of blood in the air. It forced me to move, to get away from the bloody boulder, from the scene that looked like a live bait trap, pulled by a squirrel.

Moving away, back towards the cavern, I kept an eye on the sky, now knowing what it could bring down on my head.

Perhaps that was why this time I spotted a narrow ledge along the valley wall leading up.

Glancing back at the waterfall and up the valley side, I doubted what to do only for a second.

"Lola, prepare the Ateeve. I might be coming in hot," I said, and with no more delay began to scale the valley side, walking up the ledge.

"Roger. Coming in hot, readying Ateeve," she replied through the comm, heavily crackling with static noise.

"Weeeekgh!"

A choked squeal reached me when I was halfway to the top, and I glanced back, looking for the source of it.

On the boulder was another gutted animal with dark brown fur, only half the size of the bobcat, but it was hard to tell what it was.

Seeing the same little squirrel scaling through the air with another mass of bloody organs behind her, I turned around and kept moving, perhaps a bit faster. This little monster had just baited someone else with the hawk corpse.

Fucking hell.

Reaching the top, I paused to look over.

The greenery continued there as well, with bright green grass and a line of mixed trees standing just five metres away, equally bright in colour—a colour only seen in spring.

Patch or the beginning of the mixed forest? Unclear, but nothing unusual, almost normal. The view I had seen many times before.

The fortieth parallel, it seems.

Glancing up once more, I looked to the left and the right. The space between the valley and the trees was littered with old stones, covered in moss, and bordered with knobs on both sides, creating another enclosed space above the valley.

Checking the detector—the same density—I mentally marked the place where the ledge was getting closer to the top, deciding where to go next.

Heading into the woods was out of the question, not with what could be living there. To the right? To the waterfall? Not after I saw what that squirrel had done. Left then, towards the knob over the cavern I had come out of.

With a decision made, I crawled out on the grass and, slightly lowering my profile, began to creep along the drop into the valley, each step pulsing with danger in my guts.

Reaching the stone knob, I started to ascend it, almost physically feeling how my time was running out, but I needed to see above the trees, to glimpse around. To find something that would give me a chance to survive, to get the hell out of this hellish place.

And it paid off.

Reaching the top of the knob, I saw before me the side of the mountain sloping down. It was split in two by a fast mountain river cutting from left to right, vanishing into the forest stretching to the horizon.

My ticket out, if I was lucky.

More instinctively than consciously, reacting to a sharp pulse in my guts, I whipped Sixer up and was tapping at the approaching shape—another giant bird—already mid-jump to the side.

It splashed on the stone where I had been a moment ago, with a torn-apart chest and almost cut-off wing, unnaturally angled.

Not sparing even a second, I was on my way down, jumping from stone to stone, or sliding down others, barely staying on the edge of my abilities to handle the descent, the landing, the terrain.

Landing harshly on the grass between old stones, rolling over my shoulder, I broke into a sprint, back to the familiar spot I had just memorised, to the ledge down the valley.

A brown animal, similar in size to the bobcat, blurred from under the tree canopy on my left, catching up to me, clearly on a path to intercept.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Sixer reacted more slowly, with the stretching delay between taps it didn't have before, but it was still enough.

The animal stumbled upon itself and flipped over its head a few times, slowing down enough for me to reach the ledge first.

I was running down the narrow pass, discarding all caution I had before, with the pulsing in my guts telling me that it was not over.

Faster. Faster.

Something landed behind me on the ledge, sending small stones down the valley wall and, without thinking, I jumped down from half the height, landing with a roll between rocks on the valley floor.

Changing direction to the cavern, jumping back in a full sprint, I was running as fast as I could, leaving nothing behind.

Now

Pushing against the cavern wall with one leg, I jumped in another direction, spinning in the air, to see, to tap behind me.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I saw my hits land, piercing through, with no shimmering air around the target, but somehow it was only slightly stumbled, able to tank my taps.

Why is it not working?

Finishing the spin, face to where I was running to, I continued my sprint, finally reaching the arch into the tunnel.

Another sharp turn, with the rushing air behind me, and I was pushing against the wall to change direction again, to run down the tunnel.

Hearing a loud smack against the stony wall behind me, I pointed Sixer back, tapping without looking.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Faster!

"Coming through!" I screamed, shoulder-checking the boulder's face at the end of the tunnel and, slipping to the side, entered the main cave, immediately jumping down the cornice where the boulder was.

"Whoosh-BDash"—exploded stone above, and something smashed down beside me.

In the silence of the ringing ears, I saw a still living, still moving animal with a quickly closing, bloody gap in its torso.

Putting my Sixer to the head—

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap

—I was tapping until it split apart, spraying blood and brain around in the bright lights of the hovering Ateeve nearby.

Dead, fucking dead.

Tap. Tap.

To be sure.

"Lola, if you see a squirrel, any squirrel, hit it with an anti-missile payload," I said, changing the clip.

"Squirrel, anti-missile payload. Roger that," she replied, but not really making me feel any safer.

If I ever would be, in this hellish place.

 

[GorMartsen]

Special credit to u/Corsar_Fectum for the help with this chapter.
It was greatly appreciated and valued by me.

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: March 27 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

Back in the scaf, with arms crossed under my chest, I was standing in the Ateeve lights, parked in its place again.

My eyes were glued to the spot at the top of the main cave, to the boulder that was sitting on the cornice there, hiding the tunnel to the surface.

I had just finished reviewing the holo of my return, dissecting it no less than the fight with the bobcat before.

The badger, and that was a badger, or at least its ancestors were, almost caught up to me, and I escaped the sure death only by the skin of my teeth… and thanks to the Ateeve's railgun tap, done by Lola.

The railgun tap, that… just made a hole in it instead of splattering its body and spraying blood around. The hole that was later closing up right before my eyes, until I put a few more needles into its brain.

I saw an energy field from a bobcat, I saw mobility and precision from a squirrel, but the badger showed me something new, and utterly unhinged—if you could heal fast enough, the damage would be just a minor inconvenience, something you need not worry about.

All little things, like pieces of a puzzle, were shifting, bumping, but were inevitably rearranging in the new picture of reality in my mind.

A reality where I was nothing but a glass cannon in a shop with bulls bumping into each other, and it was a matter of time before I was inevitably crushed, perhaps even by accident.

"Kat, I have good news, a bunch of them," Lola said, breaking me out of my thoughts, just a step away from something I felt was coming together.

"Shoot," I replied, fruitlessly trying to take hold of what had just slipped between my fingers.

"I analysed the radio feedback when you were outside. You had noticed that the connection was not ideal, right?" She asked, and she was right.

"I did notice that," I replied.

"It confirmed that Anomaly affects not only our tech, but radio waves themselves. Which made me reevaluate the civilisation presence probability, raising it to thirty per cent for the twenty-first century level and up to forty per cent for the twentieth century level, and up to sixty per cent for any civilisation below that but above the eighteenth century," she said, perhaps expecting some positive reaction, or just distracting me from the heavy thoughts.

But I was too spent to be happy, to be elevated, or even to feel any hope.

"That's good, I guess," I said, shrugging, "What's the other news?"

"Well, DOC finished dissecting the badger's body, and I identified the regeneration knot. It was easy to spot as being the most developed one, and enveloping the hypothalamus. I think that if you didn't hit it with one of your shots, the badger would eventually fully regenerate. Lucky shots, Kat," said Lola, not really making me feel any luckier, but there was something…

"Is there more?" I asked, while thinking about what was wrong with her last statement.

"Well, with new data from the badger, I was able to identify—with eighty per cent probability—the knot responsible for invisibility that the bobcat had," she said, and it clicked.

"It would not."

"I am sorry?" asked Lola, making me realise I had been thinking aloud.

"The badger. It was inside the cave, out of The Anomaly. It would not regenerate completely. Remember the test with claws? Its knot would try to regenerate the body, but as soon as the energy reserve depleted, it would stop regenerating," I said, as everything came together.

"The Anomaly is like a field, an energy, magic if you will, that supplies all these unusual abilities with power, making it all possible beyond biological limits, and the core is like an energy converter and reserve, while knots like control units…" I rambled out a stream of my thoughts, pausing when another idea hit me.

"Which means that if I target the core, or the knots… Lola, I need a visual map of the cores and knots' locations. And did you find out why needles with aetherium didn't affect the badger?"

"It did, but none of the needles stuck inside vital organs, and it healed any critical damage left behind," she replied, and I nodded.

The small crystal inside the needle was not enough to affect more than a few inches around, and certainly not enough to suppress such a strong ability.

"What was its rank?" I asked, curious now.

"It's supposed to be C-rank, if I measure it solely by size and look, but with a new detector, I could safely say it was B-rank, just recently evolved," she replied.

What a monster.

It made total sense, though. Even in the cave, I would have been able to kill it only by sheer luck, if not for the Ateeve's railgun. And even that was not enough on its own.

And perhaps, she was right. If the badger's energy reserves were big enough, it would have regenerated, because, obviously, the aetherium pressure was not enough at the boulder, not for B-rank. What a monster. And what if it were A-rank, would aetherium…

"Kat," interrupted Lola, "if you are right, and The Anomaly constantly supplies mutated animals with energy, they would be reluctant to leave The Anomaly, increasing the civilisation's survival odds even more, especially in areas where The Anomaly is either absent or at a low level of density."

And while the increased odds were thrilling, it made me think about something else.

"Lola, why did you estimate almost zero probability of my survival when Directive got triggered?" I asked, feeling like I had found something important.

"Introducing an unknown mutagen in the form of the alien organ into your body, without clear checkpoints and instructions or means to direct, support, and, if needed, reverse it, conflicted with any previously received instructions or available data, and, together with the lack of medical supplies, tech, and environment required to support such a mutation, resulted in a zero point zero one probability of success," she said, confirming what I had guessed.

"Lola, estimate the mutation success rate, accounting for the core—and probably knots—providing the successful template and The Anomaly supplying the needed amount of energy," I said.

It was making sense to me. It was also explaining why the squirrel was hunting for cores. It was springtime here, and it had to have a litter of baby squirrels, ready to go through the initial mutation.

Or it was all wishful thinking, and they inherited the mutation template by birthright. But how did the first animals do it then?

"Lola?" I prompted when she didn't reply for an unusually long time.

"Sorry, I am still processing it," she replied, and I looked up at the boulder again, impatiently tapping fingers on the left-arm armour plate.

It all looked plausible now. Just get exposed to The Anomaly, perhaps, even eat a lot of mutated animal meat, before starting on the cocktail from the core and knots. The real question was not safety, though, but the will to do the thing in itself.

Was I ready to sacrifice the way my body was, just to survive?

Would I look in the mirror in the future, seeing the disfigured or perhaps grotesque features of my old self, without regret, or would I blame my current self for choosing the easy way out?

Would I be the same?

"Probably, it could minimise risks of fatal mutations or outcomes, but there is not enough data to be sure. Without it, I am failing to calculate probabilities accurately. Sorry, Kat," Lola finally replied.

"Do you have enough data to calculate my chances of reaching the end of The Anomaly with our current capabilities?" I asked the question that I was refusing to voice before.

"Yes… It's below ten per cent," she said, and I nodded. I thought along those lines, but she added more, "that you survive longer than one day."

And that was the gist of it, wasn't it?

—​

Sitting on the ground, my back against the Ateeve's landing gear, I was carving into the stone with one of the bobcat's claws. They weren't long—no longer than my index finger—and were embedded into rock-solid ST-100 substance, making a set of four claw knives with green-glowing handles.

Good for carving, not so good for anything else, except skinning animals.

For all intents and purposes, they were my first artefacts on this strange planet, in this strange place, if I were so inclined to use terminology from fantasy holos.

I theorised that the bobcat was using some "spell" or "technique" during that jump, and then it got embedded into its claws after its death.

Which was promising, because it meant that this field, this anomaly, was a two-way connection. A two-way connection that I might be able to affect during initiation, if I were to do it.

After all, the bobcat somehow grew larger than its natural size, developed invisibility, sharp claws and an energy field to protect itself, while the badger went for… what I could only call… a berserk ability to ignore and heal any damage it could get.

The squirrel, perhaps, was the one standing out in these examples. She retained her natural size and physical features, but she was able to increase her reaction time dramatically and learned to walk (or jump) on air.

As Lola had mentioned before, the initial mutation required eating the core and knots from animals, and that she had instructions on how to replicate their observed abilities later… or a method of doing so.

So, perhaps, it was also important which core to use first, for initiation.

With the bobcat's core, I might risk bulking up and growing in size, which might sound good at first—and I wanted to be taller in my teenage years—but that would cause too many changes, which could increase the risk of unwanted mutations.

The badger's mutations, on the other hand, were the second-best ones after the ability to run on air, which the squirrel had and, perhaps, I wanted the most.

An eerie image of myself—being torn apart and mending back in an instant, all while slowly walking towards my target with a hidden smile on my lips—popped up in my mind. There was something attractive about it, to the edge of being almost insane…

No, perhaps a bad idea.

Finishing up the last few cuts on the stone, now shaped into a crude image of the squirrel—the way I remembered her drinking water under the waterfall—I looked at it, squeezing my eyes.

If I could only get the squirrel's core…

Squirrel gutting the hawk in mere seconds, ten times its own size, and then jumping away…

But, perhaps, not only the badger was crazy here—they all were… bloodthirsty.

Something to think about.

—​

After a sleepless night, full of illogical dreams and bloodthirsty squirrels dancing salsa in the air, I was not in my best shape, nor was I in a good mood.

Fortunately, I didn't see the squirrel by the waterfall when I ventured outside.

Ventured. What an understatement.

Crawled, sneaked, tiptoed with a fear deep in my gut.

After my previous encounters, and with my luck, it was not out of the realm of possibilities to meet a tiger at this point.

Not that I wanted to.

Standing at the top of the ledge, I looked over the meadow scattered with old stones before the tree line. Everything was as before—nothing unusual and no one around—but it didn't make me feel any safer here.

Paying more attention to the grass itself—after all, no matter how invisible you were, to leave no trace behind you had to walk on air—I slowly pulled out a few stems of it.

They were springy and didn't want to separate from the roots, but when they finally did, the strong smell of fresh-cut lawn spread around me.

Interesting.

Putting it away—into the pouch Lola had made exactly for this reason—I climbed up and began walking toward the tree line in careful steps.

Yesterday, with Lola's help, I had been memorising the core and knot locations until I fell asleep, and today I was planning to put that information to the test.

I planned to see if damaging the core was survivable or not. It seemed important to know, and might affect my plans for hunting, or… life choices.

No one attacked me on my way to the trees, and I dove under the spruce—or was it a fir?—carefully looking around.

It was early morning, and daytime predators were just waking up, while nighttime ones were already asleep, creating a perfect time for a foray into this patch of forest. Of course, if the local animal population had inherited the instincts of its ancestors on Earth.

To my annoyance, walking in the forest was not something I was skilled in or even knew how to do, and I was berating myself for every loud crack I made stepping on old twigs on the forest floor.

Deciding not to test my luck, I hid between two trees that looked to be elms, and once more thought about the way The Anomaly affected everything.

Everything was vividly coloured. And sure, it was quite possibly springtime, but even then, it felt a bit too much. At least the flora was not predatory, as I had been a bit worried it might be. Instead, it had some interesting properties that were not limited to the colour itself.

Double-checking the surroundings once more, I took one of the claw knives and cut a piece of the elm's bark.

By the texture, it was like I just cut out a piece of plastic—smooth, even a bit elastic—but the smell was unmistakably unchanged and rich.

Putting a piece of bark into the pouch as well, I reached for the nearby bush leaves. They were looking absolutely normal, if not for the slightly teal hue, and were small in size, but when I tried to pull them from the twig, they produced sparks, and an ozone scent spread around.

Nasty bastards.

Collecting different plants, leaves or roots, I was slowly moving along the trees, not going too deep into the woods.

I even found an old oak, but when I tried to cut a piece of bark from it, the claw knife that hadn't failed me before refused to cut in as easily as it had with other trees.

Almost as strong as Ateeve's armour.

To my surprise, I didn't see any animals, and no one was trying to attack me. Perhaps my initial confrontation with the bobcat, and later with the squirrel and badger, set my expectations too high, and the population was less dense than I had thought.

Though it didn't change my mind about avoiding the waterfall area, if that was the squirrel habitat, I wanted nothing to do with it—if ever.

If not for the unnatural properties of the flora, the forest might have looked peaceful, though clearly not the kind I was used to.

Time stretched, and every once in a while, I had to remind myself of the squirrel, to keep myself on my toes, to shake off the false sense of safety.

And finally, it was justified.

Barely twenty meters away, there was a creature with brown fur, no larger than the badger we killed yesterday. It hadn't noticed me yet—perhaps because the breeze was coming my way—and I used it to my advantage.

Slowly aiming, I tried to target the most probable place for the core, somewhere under the lungs.

Not suspecting anything, the creature was digging under the bushes, perhaps looking for some roots to eat.

Bear? No, too small.

Tap. Tap.

To my surprise, I got it on the first try.

There was no shimmering air around, no jumping into action, no unnatural regeneration, and, as it seemed, I got it solid.

When I got closer, it was still breathing. Heavily, with gurgling and bloody foam, but still alive, albeit unconscious, though its claws and teeth were looking dangerous.

Four more taps—to break all the limbs—and I had it wrapped up in the rope, and the live subject for Lola was ready. Now it was a matter of getting it back to the cave, preferably without getting into trouble.

Easy Peasy.

—​

The teal-coloured leaves were not only good for making sparks, but—as Lola found out—were quite nice as a replacement for tea.

The taste was a bit sour, but it filled me with energy like a few cups of black tea with a minty aftertaste.

Not a bad replacement, indeed.

"How is our guest?" I asked, trying not to squint from the sour taste—I clearly put too many leaves this time.

"Stable. But feeding it badger meat didn't work. There are no signs of increased regeneration," Lola replied, and I frowned. It was my idea, after all.

I hoped that after we killed the badger, its meat would preserve the regeneration properties, as the bobcat's claws did.

"Also, there are no signs of the core's recovery. Perhaps the absence of The Anomaly's energy prevents it," she added, and I nodded in agreement.

Unfortunately, we didn't have any isolated place that would allow us to test it, and I was not stupid enough to try to put, as Lola figured out, a wolverine descendant into the bat's cave.

"If you're done with it, kill it. There's no need to keep it alive longer than we need it," I said, and finished my drink in one go.

"Agreed. Are you going out again today?" she asked, though it was just a jest—I was already dressed in what I had begun to call a hunting suit.

"Yepp. I want more of the tea leaves," I replied, putting the helmet on, "Need anything, dear?"

"Well, if you're asking, I wouldn't mind a branch of the oak tree," she said, matching my joking tone.

Though the oak was not a joke tree on its own, Lola's scanning showed that this tree was unique and contained aetherium—not much, but enough. Enough to resist the claw knives.

"I will see what I can do," I replied before walking out into the main cave and further, towards the passage to the surface.

Maybe today I would get lucky with something else, something new.

—​

Practising the hunter's steps—outside edge first, then rolling inward, and never on the heels—that Lola found in the survival database, I was slowly moving under the forest canopy.

At first, it was uncomfortable—I was so used to walking heel to toe—but step by step, I was getting the hang of these hunting steps.

At least, I wasn't snapping twigs for all the forest to hear anymore.

With Lola's help, I had also learned common signs of useful plants, and had already dug out a few for her to analyse.

Too bad, I did not see any original tea bushes. I would not have minded having a proper tea, even if magical.

A slowly rising sense of danger broke my semi-meditative state, forcing me to crouch and look around for the source, but everything looked just as it had before.

Starting to back away, I prepared Sixer, holding it at the ready.

Where is it?

To my surprise, I didn't see or hear anything until I reached the meadow near the steep edge of the valley, and noticed it only because I had been watching for any movement.

An animal—a doe—flew from under the trees, with no noise or sound, except for rushing air, as if it were the wind itself.

It stopped abruptly at the steep edge of the valley wall—

Tap. Tap.

—and I didn't miss the opportunity.

Something pushed me in the chest, forcing me to take a step back, and I heard loud cracks and the noise of trees crashing down behind me.

The doe was done and on the ground in agony, so I risked glancing behind me.

There was a new, wide, perhaps five metres wide, clearing in the forest.

In surprise, I looked down, feeling something unusually warm there. A thick and wide strip cut right through the front part of the poncho and was glowing pink across my stomach on the suit.

Whatever was supposed to cut me in half—legs one way, head the other—was clearly neutralised by the poncho and then by the aetherium painted on my suit.

Shit.

Tapping the doe a few more times, just fucking in case, I looked around to see if any more of those crazy animals were nearby.

None.

Not wasting any more time, I ran towards the doe, seeing that it had stopped moving. It was dangerous, yes, but it was also a wind-based core!

A lucky day, indeed.

The place it had died was also not that far from the cavern, just above the valley, and if I push it from here…

Something heavier hit me in the back, sending me flying to the ground, not far from the doe, and on instinct alone, I went into the roll, shifting out of the way.

Long, white icicles flew past me, ripping open the ground, where I had just been. Stopping only for a moment, I glanced at the forest before jumping aside again, barely avoiding another barrage of icicles.

Wolves. Pack of wolves.

Something wrapped around my feet, and I fell to the ground again and, tearing it apart, rolled away. A quick glance told me that somehow the grass had wrapped around my heels, trying to trap me.

Tap. Tap.

There were five of them.

Tap. Tap.

I felt like someone splashed boiling water on my legs, only later noticing the white powder—no, ice—was melting there, in the bright glow of the aetherium.

Tap. Tap.

One down. Rolling aside again, tearing the grass away once more, I didn't stop to fight, but looked for a way out. I had to get down to the valley floor and back into the tunnel before it was too late.

Tap. Tap.

Shit.

Two out of four remaining wolves had a shimmering air around them—an energy shield—and it was strong enough to stop my aetherium-embedded needles.

Tap. Tap.

There was no way down. I was too far from the ledge, and the wolves were surrounding me, cutting off every other way out.

Tap. Tap.

Acting on instinct, following the sharp sense of danger in my guts, I jumped the only way I had—backward, off the cliff—leaving the meadow behind.

Not a moment later, in the place where I had just been, the wolf appeared in a blur, as if he had been teleported across the five metres—the largest and perhaps the strongest, with heavily shimmering air—the pack leader.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: March 29 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I was falling. Falling down the valley.

Tap. Tap.

I miscalculated.

Tap.

I thought I had an advantage with aetherium-embedded needles.

Tap.

I thought that I had to be just fast enough.

Tap.

But fast enough against a pack of wolves, half of them with energy shields—

Tap.

—was not enough.

And the only hope I had lay in the poncho—a hope to take the blunt force of the fall with it—

Tap.

—and kill enough of the pack to survive after a harsh landing.

"Khaaaahhhh"—forcefully escaped from my lips as the valley floor kicked me in the back. Something gave in, not in a good way, and the darkness at the edge of my vision tried to claim my consciousness, my chance to survive.

Fucking no. Not like this.

The pack leader, the one I still failed to kill, landed in a heap, bleeding from the needler wounds, but still alive, still baring his teeth at me.

As with the badger before, its wounds were closing before my mottle-filled eyes.

Tap. Tap.

He tried to shift away from the needles, he really did—as before. But this time, he was a moment too late, and I won, I got him.

Roots sprouted from the ground, trying to wrap me, to hold me in one place again. As before, they lost their strength just by touching the painted armour plates, the aetherium. But in my state, that was enough to pin me down.

The last two wolves were still alive, standing above me, on top of the valley wall, but close enough to attack me with their trap abilities.

Not all members of the pack had energy shields, not all were able to mend their flesh, and the two left had no such abilities, bleeding from the wounds left by me.

Coughing blood, tasting metal on my tongue, I smiled, looking back.

Come here bitches.

As if hearing my thoughts, they jumped down and to the right, on the ledge that they had blocked me from.

Tap. Tap.

I caught one mid-jump, and its landing wasn't graceful. Whining pitifully, it slipped down from the ledge—good as dead.

Last one left.

More roots sprouted around me, failing to pierce through the aetherium, but still binding, still pushing me to the ground with unnatural strength.

I must have blacked out for a second, because the next moment, the last wolf's bared teeth were inches away from my face—

Tap.

—only to explode in a gore of blood and brain, and the heavy weight of the wolf's body pressed me down to the ground.

"AGGGHHHHHHHH!"—the sharp, almost blinding pain shot from my back through me, and for eternity I was fighting to stay conscious, to stay alive.

"…Kat, report," filtered through the ringing pain in my head.

"RW-7, report," jolted me, bringing back enough clarity and sharpening my focus again.

"RW-7, reporting R-E-D," I whispered back through the pain.

"Roger RW-7, assess your situation," a voice broke through the static-heavy noise.

But it was enough. Enough to start acting, to think, and do the right things, even through the pain.

"Pinned down. Don't feel my legs. Possible hostilities inbound," I reported back.

"Roger RW-7. How far from the cavern?" it asked, and I turned my head left—it was so close and so far away.

"Five metres," I whispered, feeling the darkness coming back again, filling the tongue and ears with cotton.

"Roger RW-7—"

Helpless, wounded, dying, just metres away from safety.

Not like that.

Digging into the soil with my left-hand fingers, I pulled myself with all the hate I felt.

Not like that.

Inch by inch, pull by pull, I dragged myself, never taking my eyes away from the cavern, from my goal.

Not like that.

"—Hold on, Kat, I am coming"

Somewhere there, I heard Lola's voice. I hallucinated the help she was mounting—to get me out of here, back to the safety of the cave.

Wishful thinking.

You can do it, Ladoga. Fucking do it, Katherin.

The vision tunnelled, and I saw only a single spot, the stone by the cavern, my goal. I needed to be there.

That was why the tall, the dark, shadow emerging from within the cavern was not seen until it was on me.

"I got you, Katee," I heard, and a hold of sharp pain was the last thing I knew.

—

Floating.

I was floating in warm, cosy, and gentle-bright lights.

Sometimes I heard laughter. It was a man's voice, deep but carrying, warming me from inside. I missed it so much.

Father.

At other times, I felt an all-consuming darkness creeping up on me from the other side of my safety bubble, taking something from it, piece by piece.

But the most persistent was the beat. Rhythmic beat that was reminding me of something—

Tuh-Dum, Tuh-Dum

—something important.

Wake up.

Something important, I knew before.

But each time I tried to remember, tried to figure it out—

Tuh-Dum, Tuh-Dum

—the darkness was coming closer, taking something from the safety bubble, again.

Wake up.

And only laughter, or gentle whispers of the man's voice, was bringing back the equilibrium between the two of them.

Wake up.

Opening my eyes, I saw the rocky surface before me. Or was it above?

"Kat," a familiar voice—I had heard it before—called me. Me?

Who am I?

The memories rushed back and, as if slotting the last puzzle piece, I remembered.

Katherin Ladoga, the heir of…

NO.

Katee. Katee Ladova now.

Lieutenant Commander Katee Ladova of the Naval Forces of Independent Systems Alliance.

"Report," dropped from my lips, scratching my throat.

The tube, the oh-so-familiar tube, touched my lips, and I began to drink, as if I hadn't tasted water for days. Perhaps I didn't.

"Report," I repeated, leaning back and taking stock of my surroundings.

I was in the tunnel, leading to the cavern above. It was hard not to recognise it now, especially in bright daylight.

My scaf, the pilot one, was next to me, crouching, moving on its own, putting away the water bag. It was painted in familiar paint, the ST-100 mix with aetherium.

That was not good.

"Seventy-six hours, twenty-eight minutes ago, you lost consciousness after receiving life-threatening injuries. Internal bleeding from a punctured left lung caused by a broken rib, fractured pelvic bone, tailbone contusion and… fractured lower lumbar spine," Lola said, and the scaf turned to the right, picking up another bag with the feeding tube—one I knew well too.

"Drink this," she said, pressing the tube to my mouth, and I obeyed, all numb inside.

"Assuming direct control of your scaf, filled with aetherium sand, I was able to retrieve you, and over the next two hours and ten minutes, you were operated on for the most severe damage, with a focus on increasing your survival chances," she continued as I was slowly consuming whatever was in the tube.

The taste was good, reminding me of the mutated animals' meat I so used to eat over the last week, but it barely registered in my mind, overshadowed by the realisation that I might have become permanently incapacitated.

"Your vitals were dropping, breaching the critically low levels, and with the limited medical supplies we had, your chances of survival were decreasing at a fast pace." Lola's words, while registered, faded into the background of my rising dread.

"Five hours, ten minutes later, as a last resort, you were fed the badger core with regeneration knot, as the most likely to increase your regeneration abilities, provoking expected mutations," she continued, and it took me too long to realise what exactly she said.

"To support rapidly cascading mutations, you were moved back inside The Anomaly field and were constantly fed a high-protein substance made from mutated animals. Twenty minutes ago, your fever broke, and your vitals and mutations stabilised," she finished, and the scaf's arm extended to pick up the empty, to my surprise, bag with the feeding tube.

The scaf stood up and walked away from me, down the slope, where only now I noticed some unknown items, bags, and containers.

It had put the empty bag into one container and, before turning back to me, picked up something from another bag—the scaf battery.

With a soft click, the scaf's battery slot opened up, and the old one, with visible signs of melting, was taken out.

"Unfortunately, the measures used to keep the scaf operational inside The Anomaly were inefficient, and I estimate complete failure in one hour and forty-one minutes of continued exposure," Lola said, while replacing the battery in the scaf.

"Now, I need a rundown on your status and ability to move. Please maintain your position inside The Anomaly," she added, carefully lowering the damaged battery into another container that hissed with steam when opened.

Processing what had been said, I was trying to grasp the level of my own failure, of the situation I had got myself into, stupidly. Irresponsibly. Being overconfident with The Anomaly.

I might have completely lost the ability to walk. Or I might have mutated into… If… if…

"Lieutenant Commander Ladova, get your shit together"—pierced through my foggy mind. The phrase I had last heard on Hellblade, though it was just Lieutenant back then.

It had helped me back then, and it helped me now.

Forcefully breathing through my nose, I squeezed my hands into fists until my nails painfully dug into my palms, and I focused on myself, on my body.

"Arms fully functional," I began to say, to report.

Taking a deep breath in until I felt the first signs of discomfort, I mentally compared it to the time before.

"Breathing limited to seventy per cent," I reported, and finally focused on sensations below… on my lower body.

"Absence of any sensation below the ribcage, no apparent feedback," I said, and with an exhalation, I leaned back.

There were no miracles, not after what she described.

"As expected," her voice surprised me, snapping me out of the mounting helplessness I felt.

"Based on recommendations from the anomaly-related dataset, we are going to proceed with hypnosis to take control of the regeneration ability. I will give you a rundown on the key points, but it has to be done by you. External influence is expected to have little to no effect, according to the dataset," she continued.

"Now, the first key point. You have to remember, as vividly as you can, your state during the last time you ran. Use as many physical sensations as you can," Lola said, in a rhythmic, low voice, and I just gave in.

It was not our first rodeo into hypnosis or autogenic training—it was how I survived on the Hellblade back then, and…

"Remember sequias, the breeze on your skin…"

—

"It's not fucking working," I gritted out through my teeth, giving the scaf a hateful look.

It was evening.

The lights above were getting dimmer, and soon the night would fall.

And. I. Still. Did. Not. Feel. A. Thing.

"It is working," Lola contradicted me, as if I wouldn't notice it first.

"Your breathing. Check your lung capacities," she added, halting my thoughts completely.

With trepidation, though already knowing the answer, I breathed in, and in, and in, without feeling any discomfort at all.

"Point," I said, exhaling and feeling… feeling not hope, but anxiety? Agitation? Perhaps even excitement?

"Let's continue then," I added a moment later.

"Food first," Lola interrupted, passing me a container of food, though still soft like goo.

Mechanically working through it with a spoon, I was focusing on my breathing, looking for any discomfort I had felt before. And finding none.

It was working.

—

Looking up at the tunnel ceiling, I was ignoring my burning face, trying not to think about what my scaf, what Lola was doing with my lower body.

Instead, I was paying attention to the inflatable mat under my back, used as my bed, or the thermal blanket that had been covering my naked body.

It obviously made the cleanup easier for Lola. I had probably wet myself a hundred times by now.

Not thinking!

Forcefully, I shifted my attention away from those intrusive thoughts.

Breathing. Lungs. It was working.

Yes, I needed to keep focusing on that. If… If my lungs recovered, and alarmingly fast at that, then it was just a matter of keeping at it, keeping at imagining what I needed, and I would get my legs back soon.

And control over the bladder and sphincter.

Groaning, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the location of my blader, the way I felt it before. I needed control. I needed it now.

—

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The familiar sound of my Sixer, of the needler, jolted me awake from my half-sleep, half-meditation, where I was reliving my recent days, moment by moment, feeling them…

Tap. Tap.

It was dark. Lola had turned off the recon droid's lights at some point, probably to avoid attracting any attention, and it had worked—until now.

Looking up the tunnel, or where it had to be, I tried to see what she was targeting, or anything at all, but saw only darkness.

I felt a rush of air above me, and the heavy landing of the scaf, and the scuffle—

Tap. Tap.

—and more needles were sent into something, something dangerous to me.

I want to see.

The darkness faded away, and then I saw it, all in shades of grey.

My scaf was interlocked with some animal, a massive one, looming over the scaf by a metre or more.

And it was all happening in silence, broken by—

Tap. Tap.

—the sound of my needler and the shuffling steps on the tunnel floor.

With a metal-tearing sound, the animal collapsed, pulling the scaf down by its left arm—

Tap.

—and Lola severed it with a single shot.

"I got a present," Lola's voice cut through the silence unexpectedly, "It's a bear."

"Bear, alive?" I asked, mirroring Lola from days, weeks ago.

"I hope not," she said, and, grabbing it by the fur, pulled it down the slope, "really hope not."

I silently laughed, still tracking her movements as she passed me.

She dropped the bear as soon as she crossed the line into the Anomaly and turned back to me.

"You see me," she said.

"Yepp," I replied with a smile, "apparently, I woke up the night vision. And I think I know what to do now."

"About time," Lola replied, adding "this scaf is exceeding its limits."

As if waiting for her words, something sparked at the scaf's back, making me worry.

"Go ahead, Kat, I will keep a watch," she said, sitting down and pointing Sixer up the tunnel, holding it in the last arm it had.

—

It was all about the will. I had to remember not only how it was, but also to will it into the way it should be.

And so I willed as hard as I could, remembering but also expressing my will to control my bladder, to take back what always was mine—my body.

I remembered the pressure down by my bowel, I remembered the need to pee, and I willed it under my control.

To squeeze my muscles tightly.

Forcing them to obey.

Sweat was running down my temple, and my brows were so tense that it was almost painful, but I didn't let it distract me. I pushed through, pushed to the point that my imagination manifested a wall in my mind. The wall that kept me from assuming control, from getting what was mine.

Not today.

I did it before, not even knowing how—just doing it since I was a kid—and I will do it again.

I am doing it again.

Nothing was left in my focus, except for this imaginary wall that stood between me, mine, and the will.

I didn't know how long it took, and I didn't know what happened outside my focus.

I just knew that the focus, the wall, and my will were pressing hard against each other.

And then.

A white blinding crack, sending shocks up and down, and… I felt it all again.

But more, so much more.

The humming rush of my blood, the loud Tuh-Dum of my heart, ready to stop or speed up its rhythm at my will.

The hungry—oh so hungry—bowel, demanding food, demanding energy.

And shaky, trembling, but once again mine—my legs.

At the break of dawn—yet seeing clearly as if it were already day—I grabbed the container with the food left next to me and, ignoring the spoon, drank it all, gulping it down, as if there were no tomorrow.

In my inner sense, in my newfound feelings, I saw, I knew, I perceived how the food was aggressively melted, changed, separated and, entering my bowel, turned into energy, into building blocks that were enriching my blood, delivering so much-needed everything.

And I saw, I sensed, I controlled, the recovery of my spine, of my tailbone and the mending together of fractured bones.

In my inner sense, my body was lighting up like a holiday tree, with knots and pathways warping around it, and a new core pulsing in rhythm with my heart.

Tuh-Dum. Tuh-Dum.

It was beautiful. It was taking my breath away.

Tuh-Dum. Tuh-Dum.

—

It was the need to use the toilet, the need to release processed matter from my body, that made me move and put aside my newfound sense—the wonder—and focus back on the cold, morning reality.

And never before had I felt so happy to feel it all again.

Sitting up, wrapping the thermal blanket around myself, I realised that I had only one problem left.

I had not built a toilet yet, and the scaf, with the only septic system I had, was no longer available to me.

"You succeeded," said Lola through its systems, slightly shifting the only arm with Sixer in its hand.

"I did. But toilet first, talk later. And a shower, I need a shower," I said, trying to stand up on my legs again.

It was a bit overwhelming for my senses, but the control over my body I had now…

"I anticipated as much," Lola replied, "but I insist on a checkup first."

And if I wanted to object—and the pressure down in my bladder was getting a bit much to hold—she was right.

"I need your fluids anyway," she added, passing me a small cup that I had already used when we ran the tests with meat.

"Oh, joy," I replied, looking around for the spot to do the thing.

And even if the shower time was pushed back, I felt amazing, and a smile was splitting my face in half.

I was on my feet again.

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: April 2 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

Wrapped in a thermal blanket over my naked body, I sat on the safe side of the tunnel's floor, with a bag thrown under my butt.

The morning chill was trying to get under my blanket, digging its fingers under my skin to steal any warmth I had, only forcing me to wrap it tighter.

Why so cold?

Lola hadn't been satisfied with just a fluid test, no. I had to get a physical and be scanned by DOC from head to toe, before she got off my back, if only for a moment.

She was right to be cautious, of course. If not for my newfound sense of my body, I would be too.

But I was fine, if not for the morning chill.

"As miraculous as it sounds, you are almost fine. A bit underweight, but that was expected," said Lola through the scaf that was sitting before me.

One of the Esdies was doing something behind its back, producing occasional sparks. I hadn't noticed it before, but the back and the left side of the scaf were quite damaged, and with the left arm missing, it was becoming clear that it was not long until it would be unusable at all.

"Great, I am in the shower then," I replied, eagerly standing up and wrapping the blanket tighter around myself.

So cold.

The warm—no, hot—shower was all I wanted.

"You also developed a core under your solar plexus," she continued, stopping me mid-turn, "a formation around the hypothalamus and another one next to the thalamus—"

"Could it wait until after the shower?" I asked, interrupting her, even though I was itching to discuss my findings as well.

And perhaps run some ideas by Lola, but that would take forever, and I wanted my shower now.

"Fine. Here," replied Lola, extending the only arm towards me with Sixer held by the barrel.

Without giving it any thought, I grabbed it by the handle, but she didn't let it go.

"Lola?" I asked, shifting uncomfortably.

"Sixer contains aetherium. You left The Anomaly fifteen minutes and ten seconds ago. By now, you should have experienced either the negative effects of the absence of The Anomaly or the aetherium effect on your new organs. You sure, you feel nothing?" she asked, finally letting it go.

"Just cold, but I am sure it is because my butt is naked," I replied, shrugging and eyeing Sixer suspiciously.

I felt nothing special from holding it, but her question made me think about it myself.

She was right, I had to feel something, anything, and I had a way to test it.

Closing my eyes, I mentally focused on my new organ—the core—located under my ribs, immediately noticing what was different. It was barely pulsing and no longer matched my heartbeat, as it had before.

The energy, I realised, was barely moving, as if it had been turned into syrup. If before I had felt it as one with me, now it was like looking at it through a muddy window, barely able to reach it again.

Aetherium.

I hadn't even noticed when it started, when aetherium began to affect me.

Except for the cold.

The cold, right. I felt it almost as soon as I crossed the line, but I rationalised it, blaming it on my naked form and chilly morning. Stupid.

"What is it?" Lola asked.

Opening my eyes, I looked at the scaf, chewing on my lip.

She was right to worry.

"Aetherium is suppressing my core," I said, "it might not be safe for me to stay in the cave anymore."

"Step back into The Anomaly then," she replied, gesturing towards it with the only arm the scaf had.

Feeling uneasy, I checked on Sixer and, pulling the blanket tighter around myself, walked back towards The Anomaly.

Perhaps out of habit, or still worrying about what it all meant to me, I paused before crossing over.

If the cave became dangerous to me…

One step at a time.

Shaking the rising dread off, I stepped over the line, and as soon as I did, I felt warmth in my core, with the invisible weight leaving my shoulders.

The warmth began to spread from it in waves, bringing a tickling feeling all over my body.

"It feels hot here," I said to Lola, slightly losing grip on the blanket.

It was like walking back into a warm building after staying in the cold for too long. I felt tingling in my limbs, warmth all over my body, and a desire to undress.

But I was already naked.

Closing my eyes, I looked within myself, trying to see what was going on inside me.

Tuh-Dum. Tuh-Dum.

Focusing on the heartbeat, breathing in sync...

Feeling, sensing the flow of energy through me, touching every bit, every corner of my—and only mine—body.

"The core is pulsing faster than the heartbeat, and energy flow has increased," I added to my report.

Looking through each corner of my body, I was searching for anything else, but there was nothing more to note. No new damage, no issues with the healed bones or spine, but with each moment, I felt like I was waking up from the slumber I didn't notice falling into.

"Not sure if it was more or the same as before, when I left The Anomaly for the first time," I said and, opening my eyes, turned back to my scaf, to Lola.

"Let's wait until it settles. We need to do it a few more times before deciding how long you could stay in the cave safely," replied Lola.

Nodding, I silently agreed with her, looking up the tunnel to the exit into the valley.

Perhaps, it wasn't that bad.

Perhaps I had some wiggle room to adjust, to feel safe, before going there again.

"And while we are waiting, describe everything you went through since you left for the hunt three days ago," Lola added, and it became clear that I might not see the shower until lunch, if even then.

—​

Standing under the shower—back in the lake cave—I enjoyed the warmth of the hot water on my skin.

I had already scrubbed myself raw until my skin burned, trying to get rid of the smell I surely must have had after days spent unconscious on that mat.

Or, perhaps, I was just imagining it.

The tests Lola had subjected me to—after I told her everything—showed that I was slowly adapting to the aetherium field, if only slightly.

That I figured out how to speed up the pulsing of my core only helped me gain some semblance of control—and surely made my presence in the cave somewhat bearable.

I wasn't freezing anymore. Just hungry.

Apparently, the clocked-up core, in the absence of The Anomaly's energy, was draining the body's resources, and fast. It was bad—so bad that my knees were shaking, failing to hold me—until I ate leftovers prepared by Lola.

I also tried NB rations—at Lola's prompting—but even eating double the rations did almost nothing to sate me.

It was also challenging to keep part of my mind on the core, but the creeping chill I felt each time I lost it was enough of a reminder.

Enough delaying.

Turning off the water and shaking myself to dry off, I took the thermal blanket off the rope.

I didn't have a spare suit to wear—or any other clothing for that matter—and my underlayer was not good for whatever we planned next.

The hunting suit, or whatever was left of it, was a thing of the past as well, and I had to replace it with something suitable soon, but not yet.

Putting my head through the hole in the middle of the blanket, I secured it around my waist with a cut of the rope—a belt, I needed a belt.

Picking up two pieces of leather, cut in a strange shape by Lola, I put the first one on the ground and set my left foot in the middle.

How did she explain it? Right.

Putting the long tongue that was dangling before my toes over the top of my foot, I tied together the left and right sides above it with a cord—no, lace, as Lola said.

The survival database was weird. I refused to believe that our ancestors were wearing anything like that before.

It wasn't practical, like at all.

Picking up the part that was left behind my heel—and why it was so long—I wrapped it around the calf, and secured it with another lace on the front.

Shit.

Feeling a creeping chill, I closed my eyes and restored my lost focus on the core.

Hurry up.

Lola had been able to measure it with the new anomaly detector, rating it at F-rank. It sounded like nothing special—and it wasn't—if I compared it to whatever the badger had.

I had small reserves that were fast depleting, and my regeneration was not that strong, which explained why it took me so long to heal, while the badger was recovering before my eyes from the bucket-sized hole in its torso.

At least I knew what to strive for.

Opening my eyes again, I focused on the second foot.

Perhaps when my core developed, I would be able to stay in the cave for longer. But until then, it seemed like I would be spending more time in The Anomaly than in the cave itself.

Especially with what we planned next.

The Anomaly was not a park to casually stroll through, and the recent events just once more proved the point—one mistake, one unfortunate event, and you were as good as dead.

I needed any advantage I could seize, and I was already deep into this shit. So what if I push a bit further?

It felt somewhat rushed, of course, and I wasn't so sure about it myself, but I had no other choice left, and only a small window of safety to proceed forward.

Scaf was failing, even with aetherium inside it. Not much longer, and Lola wouldn't be able to protect me during mutation, and I had to reach a point of self-sufficiency fast.

At least, she was sure that it would be less dangerous now, with the core already present, and my ability to regenerate. Perhaps it would even help to cope with the negative effects.

Done with the second foot, I stood up, and after testing my new shoes, moved aside the shower cover and stepped out.

No time like the present.

—​

Pulling myself over the edge of the cornice next to the boulder, I breathed out heavily and dropped a weighty bag next to me.

It was much easier to climb here before, in a proper suit and with proper shoes.

Critically examining my feet, I adjusted the laces here and there, tightening them up. At least, it was easier than going barefoot.

Picking up the bag, I squeezed into the tunnel, finding my scaf waiting for me there, watching up the tunnel's slope.

"I am back," I said, coming closer and dropping the bag next to the containers brought by Lola previously.

She silently gestured with Sixer toward The Anomaly, not saying anything, and I was only glad for that.

We had already discussed all the details before, and if we went over it again, I might just start doubting the decision.

Opening the bag, I took out another one with a feeding tube attached, and silently crossed over.

The usual rush hit me, somewhat soothing my nerves and, ignoring the mat, I sat on the side of the tunnel, back to the wall.

My heart was beating somewhere up in my throat, and I gulped nervously.

That was it.

That would be a moment I would recall in the future, thinking that it was a mistake, a failure… or not.

No time like the present.

Putting the tube in my mouth, I began to drink a chunky mix of raw meat—the core and knots from the bobcat.

Invisibility and the energy shield.

Lola wasn't sure about the last one, and I had to include a few other possible candidates, relying solely on the knots' locations.

Hopefully, I would not get a tail or fangs.

The taste was not pleasant, as expected, but I gulped it all, to the last chunk.

Putting aside the empty bag, I wiped my mouth and closed my eyes, focusing inward, on the processes inside my body.

Nothing unusual was happening there, except for the increased flow, but that was due to The Anomaly itself.

The energy was flowing, the core pulsing—all the same as before.

Right. Same as with night vision, then.

Imagining shimmering air around myself, the same as I saw around the bobcat and wolves, I began willing it to appear.

Time ticked moment by moment, but nothing was changing.

Was the core spoiled, being so long in the Aetherium field, or was I missing something?

Grimacing, I pushed any doubts aside and started to breathe in sync with my heartbeat.

Tuh-Dum. Tuh-Dum.

Soon, the core matched the heart rhythm, slightly slowing down, and I lost myself in the inner glow, in the energy flow, and the pulsing core.

The thought—the image of the shimmering air around me—was spinning somewhere in the background, reminding me what it was all for.

Until suddenly, the core froze mid-pulse, only to continue a second later with a heavier beat.

And then.

And then, with an indescribable zip through me, a new star was born at the base of my skull. It pulsed heavily a few times and, with another zip through the pathways, multiplied, forming a constellation scattered throughout it.

Circulatory system.

It was like an insight that I had on the tip of my tongue, but had failed to form before.

The pathways—they were like a blood circulatory system, with knots—stars—spread throughout it, and the core was at its centre, like the heart.

Finding the biggest star in my head, and focusing on it, I saw another constellation lighting up across my body, connecting it all together—a regeneration constellation.

And now, somehow, I knew. With each moment I was focusing on it, it was revitalising my body, removing any accumulated impurities, making it stronger, better.

Shifting focus again, I found another star, smaller, not so far away from the first. Another constellation lit up, located only in my head, with one star for each eye and one for each ear, forming what I could only call an adaptive perception constellation.

It wasn't limited to the eyes, and if I wished, I could hear way better. As if proving me right, I began to recognise a silent whisper of the waterfall in the valley; an electric hum of the battery in the scaf; careful slithering in the cavern above us.

Slithering—someone was there.

In a rush, I focused on the new star at the bottom of my skull, bringing to life a new constellation, and then opened my eyes.

Not surprisingly, Lola was already alert, with Sixer pointing up the tunnel, clearly using superior scaf sensors to detect approaching danger.

Extending my arm, I wanted to signal her to pass me Sixer, but the absence of my arm stopped me mid-action.

I didn't awaken the energy shield—I awoke the invisibility.

Later.

"It's me," I said, before moving down the slope, keeping to the wall.

"Roger," she replied, still keeping Sixer pointed up the slope, to the tunnel exit.

As expected, the invisibility dropped as soon as I crossed over the line, and I hurried to the bag that I had left on the container.

Opening it quickly, I dumped everything on top of it and picked up the curving knives that had fallen out.

"I will take a position on the right, across from the mat," I said in a hushed voice, picking up two knives, one in each hand, "target the core. If it goes my way first, aim to kill."

"Roger, target core, kill if it comes your way," she confirmed, and I crossed back into The Anomaly.

The familiar rush hit me, but I pushed it aside, hurrying to focus on what was within me.

Breathe in and out. Feel the core, the pulsing, the star in the base of the skull, the invisible constellation.

Feeling it activate, I pushed against the wall, forcing my breathing to slow down and my body to freeze.

Time slowed down to a crawl, and I wished to activate my advanced hearing, but I was not ready to risk closing my eyes to look for the key star.

And yet, somehow it still worked out, and in the silence of the tunnel, I heard the light shuffling, circling somewhere above, in the cavern.

Come on.

If anything, the animal was careful. It was slithering, shuffling above us, and didn't charge into the tunnel.

And so we waited.

By the pattern alone, I began to suspect that it was not an animal, but some sort of snake. The only question was how big it was.

And soon I found out when the head of the snake peeked inside.

The fuck this shit.

It could barely fit in the tunnel.

I stood there, frozen in place, afraid to breathe, looking into blinking yellow eyes as large as the Ateeve's engine nozzles.

It tasted the air with its long tongue a few times, and I knew—this fight was not in our favour, not with my pitiful knives and not with Sixer.

As soon as its head disappeared from the tunnel, I breathed out "Retreat" and rushed back to the boulder as fast as I could, with the scaf half a step behind me, covering my back.

"BDah-BDash"

Something exploded behind us, hitting the boulder just as we passed it, and I jumped down from the cornice.

The scaf landed next to me, smoking.

Shit.

Grabbing it by the arm, I pulled it with me to the next edge and, pushing it over, promptly followed.

The Ateeve engines whined loudly, and it jumped out of its resting place—good, Lola was still with me—taking a position in the middle of the cave, in front of the violently shaking boulder.

"Shit, Shit, Shit," I swore, dragging the scaf by the arm to the side, away from the path the boulder would come down.

"BDah-BDash, Boo-booh"

The boulder rolled down behind us, barely a few metres away.

"Whoosh-BDash, Whoosh-BDash"

Rhythmically worked out the Ateeve's railgun.

"BDah-BDash," sounded in reply, with bright lightning striking back the Ateeve's energy field.

Fuck, Fuck.

"Whoosh-BDash, Whoosh-BDash, Whoosh-BDash, Whoosh-BDash, Whoosh-BDash, Whoosh-BDash" assaulted my hearing, and I pressed my hands hard against my ringing ears.

Fucking shit. Die already.

The resulting silence, with rising dust in Ateeve's lights, was deafening no less than the fight before.

Did we win?

And if answering to my thoughts, the monstrous corpse slowly slipped down, leaving a bloody trail on the rocky walls, reaching the cave floor before I even saw the tail.

Fucking shit.

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: April 2 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

A recon droid, with high-pitched whining, sharply zoomed up to me and caught my still-curled form in its lights, but only for a second.

A moment later, it was gone, flying up into a tunnel.

The pain flared in my right hand, and taking it away from my still-ringing ear, I looked at the pulsing palm. It was burned. And a blister was growing across it.

Shit.

"Lola, report?" I asked, looking back at the scaf.

It was still smoking, and the charred ST-100 mix covering the scaf crumbled under my tentative touch.

Hot.

Jerking my hand away, I turned my gaze to the Sixer still held in the scaf's arm. It was smoking too, and clearly welded to the hand.

The hell.

If whatever hit it had hit me instead, I would have been dead. It was a miracle that Lola was still operational inside the scaf, with all this damage.

The whining of the Ateeve's engines increased, and turning my head, I saw its hull slowly approaching the ledge, with Esdie already waiting on it.

So that was how she was doing it…

Catching up on the idea, I untied the rope around my waist, flipped a knot around the scaf's arm and pulled it to the edge.

"Come on!" I forced through gritted teeth, pushing hard against the rocky ground.

The scaf jolted, and I pulled it towards the edge, step by step, leaving a scratched trail behind.

A bit more.

The sharp tip of the Ateeve's nose passed me on the left, and Esdie hooked the scaf from above and pulled it over, onto the Ateeve's armoured hull.

I jumped on the hull next, grabbing Esdie to steady myself.

With the engine's increased whining, Ateeve pulled back, slowly going down to the main cave floor, and for the first time, I was able to see the snake in all its glory.

It was massive.

Now coiled by the base of the wall, it was perhaps bigger than the Ateeve itself, and I realised that it wasn't the end.

No, it was just a beginning.

Beginning of the end.

—

Standing over the scaf, with arms crossed over my chest, I watched as Esdie and DOC were cutting and gutting it, while trying to reach Lola's core—the necklace—hidden inside.

Impatiently tapping my fingers, I was deep in thought, unable to shake off the realisation I had had on the way down.

If before I had thought that the Ateeve's railgun was enough—enough to paste any animal that dared to come inside the cave, then, after this snake, this beast, I wasn't sure anymore.

A loud screeching brought me back to the scaf, where Esdie finally tore apart the front.

The pink aetherium sand began to spill over the ground from within the scaf, slowly steaming and exposing the inner parts—and a frame with the necklace at its centre.

It was surrounded by charred leftovers of what I recognised as the oak bark—the one I had brought to her the other day. It was hard not to, not with the pink colour it had from the aetherium.

Stepping closer, I reached down and picked up the necklace, ignoring the pain in my hand.

Carefully looking it over, wiping away the ash, I squeezed it gently. Not even a scratch.

Straightening up, already mid-step away, I got yanked back and was almost choked by the thermal blanket.

It had caught on the sharp edge of the gutted scaf, ripping slightly.

Tugging it in annoyance, ripping it even more, I freed the blanket's edge and, taking it off completely, dropped it onto the ladder leading up into Ateeve, before sitting down on top of it.

"How are you doing?" I asked, looking down at the necklace in my right palm.

"Operational," she said in return, her voice coming from above. "Your hand?"

Taking the necklace in my left hand, I looked at the blister on my right palm. It was already decreasing in size, slowly healing. Slowly for the anomaly-powered ability.

Briefly closing my eyes, I focused on the key star for regeneration and pushed a syrup-like energy into it before looking at it again.

The swelling was already decreasing rapidly, and new, baby-pink skin was taking its place instead.

"Operational," I replied with a humourless chuckle, flexing fingers. The pain was almost gone.

"Good. You had better get back there and harvest that snake. The core must be—" she began to say, reminding me of my earlier thoughts.

"Lightning bolt. How powerful was it?" I interrupted, leaning slightly forward.

"The one that hit the Ateeve? Depleted the shield for thirty-two per cent," she replied, and I nodded.

I didn't expect that much, but it only proved my worries. Combined with—what was it? Six, eight railgun taps?—the snake was a dangerously high level.

"As I was saying, the core must be—" she tried again, but I interrupted again.

"Lola, we have to leave," I said, turning my head towards the snake's direction. "It will get only uglier."

"Now? Are you planning to go naked?" she replied, but I refused to take the bait.

"If I must. Gut the underlayer, put those ties on it, for all I care, but we have to leave as soon as possible," I pressed on, feeling right about this decision.

"It's pointless to use the underlayer without the aetherium coating. Too high-tech to handle The Anomaly otherwise.

Do we have two days? I might make something from the snake hide instead," Lola replied.

At some level, I felt relieved that the underlayer—the only uniform I had—was no good to be used there.

I didn't want to lose the single piece of clothing that was reminding me of my past, of civilisation that I might never see again.

And if… if one day, I were to find a way to get back, I wanted to be dressed in my uniform again, to be Lt Commander Ladova once more, and not just a survivor Katee.

"Katee?" Lola asked, bringing me back from those dark thoughts, unknowingly mirroring me.

"No, we don't," I said in a low voice, feeling the looming danger, stronger than the one I had felt before—back on Mastodon.

—

"It's at least an A-rank," said Lola, when the detector, pressed to the snake's core, lit up in deep red, almost violet colour, "but most likely higher".

Grimacing from the wet and heavy scent in the air, with a taste of iron on my tongue, I put the detector on the tarp with harvested organs and stood up, looking at the gutted snake's corpse on the side.

It was imposing. And terrifying. All this power, the abilities. Lightning bolts, an energy shield, and who knew what else it had and didn't show us.

Glancing up the wall, along the bloody trail left on it, I looked at the wide open entrance into the tunnel.

What else was awaiting us out there?

The boulder that had been there before, covering the entrance, was on the cave's floor, a few metres away from me as well.

It had been casually knocked out, thrown away as if just a meagre obstacle.

And with it gone, the illusion of the sanctuary had been broken, and the bloody scent in the air was just a dinner bell, inviting beasts to come.

We had to leave. But we weren't ready. Hell, I was all but naked.

Lola had asked for half an hour, at most, suggesting that I harvest the snake's core and knots while she was packing.

We were out of time, I felt it in my guts, but just leaving everything behind and running away was not wise either. So I agreed, albeit reluctantly.

And now I was standing here naked, covered from head to toe in snake's blood and gore after finishing the task.

With two claw knives in my hands, I was perhaps presenting a stark picture to an unknown observer, if I had any.

But I was alone here, and Lola was yet to comment on my breach of social norms this time.

"Katee," said Lola.

"Is it time? Are you ready?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the snake.

"I think I have to stay," replied Lola, and I whipped my head, turning towards the recon droid from which her voice came.

"The aetherium in the necklace. It would conflict with your abilities. You wouldn't be able to go invisible.

You alone have a better chance of getting out, of surviving," she hurried to add, and I hated that she was right.

Of course, she was.

Turning away from the recon droid, I looked up at the tunnel entrance, with bright daylight illuminating it from within.

Up there in the tunnel, she used the scaf to cover my back—risking her own life, not even knowing if she would survive.

And now she was telling me to leave her behind.

Fucking snake. What did it forget here?

With each passing day, even hour, this place, this Anomaly, was taking more and more from me.

And though I was yet to die, it was a matter of time… if nothing changed.

If I kept holding back.

"No, not an option. You are coming with me. Find a way. That's an order," I said, leaving no room for arguing, while suppressing emotions, but wanting to rage instead.

Sharply turning, I stepped back to the tarp with organs yet to be packed, mustering my resolve.

This place, this anomaly, was not for the weak or the doubters. Or quitters, and quitter I was not.

Bending, I dug the knife deep into the core and held it before me.

It was the size of an apple, a big apple—one I had not seen in ages. It wasn't red or yellow, like an apple, but deep purple like a plum, and the pulsing warmth of The Anomaly was still coming in waves from it.

No time like the present.

Biting hard on the side, I tore the piece away and fiercely chewed on it.

Ignoring the taste, the rush of energy, and the blood running down my chin and chest, I dug into it, abandoning any worries about mutations, rejecting any limits I had had.

No more holding back.

—

"Yeeeeeee," I screeched, dropping into the lake, and water came together above me.

Leaving the cave, all covered in blood, was obviously a stupid idea. I knew that.

I also didn't want to leave without even once diving into this lake, no matter how cold it was.

Breaking the water surface, I swam back to the bank in a few short strokes and, finding a purchase with my feet, began to scrape off the blood and gore.

The half hour Lola had asked for was used to put together at least some clothes for me, even though I was completely ready to walk out with a thermal blanket around my waist and in the weird shoes she had made me earlier.

Splashing myself a few more times, I crawled out of the lake and, shuddering from the cold, hurried to wipe myself dry.

Whoever was in charge of the survival kit list was clearly inclined towards multifunctional and broad-function items, which was fair. The space on Ateeve wasn't unlimited.

But the single towel it had could have been bigger than a hand-sized one.

Good enough.

Flapping the towel, I put it on the ground and, landing my butt on it, began to put my fancy shoes back on.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a second suit, nor did I have any other sturdy outfits that didn't require aetherium coating to function—smart clothes and all of that.

Finishing with laces, I picked up the towel and, checking around just in case, hurried to Ateeve, parked nearby.

In a way, I was curious to see what Lola had put together, given all the limitations we had.

"It is all I can do," said Lola through a recon droid, as I came closer.

On the ground, on top of the tarp, were remains of the hunting suit. I easily recognised them, as well as the fact that not all the parts were there.

"I took the ST-100 mix coating off," she added.

Silently shrugging—we had no time for anything else—I picked up the part I recognised as the bottom and began to pull it on.

It barely covered my thighs and had weird contraptions on the hips.

"It's called a buckle. Put the leather tongue inside the metal frame and secure it with the pin into the hole," Lola commented, and I tried to follow the instructions.

I had never seen anything like that before. The survival database was truly weird.

With a few tries, I succeeded in securing the bottom part on myself and picked up the top part.

It was short, way shorter than my frame, and clearly was going to leave half my torso exposed.

"The aetherium coating we made converted the absorbed energy into thermal radiation when you were attacked. It ruined the parts of the suit over the stomach and back irrevocably," Lola commented, noticing my stare.

Nodding, I put it on and, already familiar with buckles, secured it together. It barely covered my ribs and was missing sleeves below the elbows and gloves.

Picking up one of the last pieces, I flipped it around, trying to see what it was for. It was clearly made out of the old poncho, from the bobcat, but it had buckles and belts, and the hood was in the wrong place.

It took me a few moments, but I figured it out without Lola's help. The bobcat's hide, whatever was left of it, was used to make a cover for my torso, with buckles on the sides and belts over the shoulders.

Vest. It was a vest with the old hood attached to the belts.

Buckling it on the sides and tightening it up, I took the holster rig next, with the needler already holstered. It wasn't Sixer—I saw it even before I touched the rig.

"I wasn't able to fix Sixer, unfortunately," said Lola.

Silently nodding, I put it around my waist and buckled up before taking the needler out.

It was SI-7w. I was quite familiar with it from my Academy years. It was an old army model, often called 'Seesaw', and a standard issue for a survival kit, apparently.

Checking the balance and the clip, I put it back into the holster.

"I modified it the same way, using the minimum of aetherium. The clip is half aetherium-embedded needles and half not. The same goes for the two spare clips in the rig," she said, and I checked the slots, familiarising myself.

"Five more clips, all with a minimal aetherium coating in the backpack, in the left side pocket," she added, and I nodded. That was acceptable.

There was only one last piece left on the tarp, something that looked like a neck guard.

"Lola, choker, for real?" I asked in disbelief.

"It is a laryngophone and a speaker," she objected, her voice obviously coming from the… choker this time.

"Dunno, I see choker," I replied, picking it up and buckling it around my neck.

Moving my head left and right to see how much it restricted my neck, I nodded with approval.

It was soft to the touch, and I was sure I would forget it was there soon.

Picking up the tarp, I carefully folded it before putting it into the backpack that was leaning against the Ateeve ladder.

Briefly looking inside—noting what was left on top for easy reach—I checked the side pockets and the heavy package attached at the bottom.

"Is it it?" I asked.

"Yes, I did as you asked," she replied, and I nodded with satisfaction.

It was great that this part was ready. I would have hated to walk all this time.

"And the necklace?" I asked next.

"In the inside pocket. This way, you could easily drop me—and the spare clips with aetherium—with the backpack. It's the best idea I've got," she replied.

Reaching inside, I pulled it out and was surprised to see it back on the neck chain, without aetherium coating or even the box filled with aetherium sand.

"Lola, explain?" I asked, holding it in my hand.

"Apparently, the alloy it's made from is superior to the other methods we have," she simply said, and the hair on my head stood up.

It meant only one thing. The attack that fried the scaf reached Lola's core, and it had only been stopped thanks to the necklace alloy itself.

Leave me behind, fuck my ass.

Putting the neck chain over my head, I hid the necklace under the vest and sealed the backpack with buckles I was sure it didn't have before.

I wasn't going to leave her behind.

"Submerge Ateeve into the lake," I ordered, picking up the backpack and stepping back.

"Proceeding," replied Lola, and Ateeve, whining with engines, lifted and, sealing in the process, moved over the lake.

With a splash, it entered the water and disappeared under its surface, blinking with sidelights for a few moments, before they went out too.

"Ateeve parked and switched into standby," said Lola.

Silently nodding once, not taking my eyes from the lake, I promised myself to come back, to get my Ateeve back.

I was not going to leave it behind forever either.

"Let's go then," I said at last and putting my backpack on, buckled the harness on my waist.

Leaving the cave behind, vanishing into the passage, I didn't look back.

Not even once.

Spoiler: AN: Chapter 11

EPUB file and Chapter 11 are available on Patreon

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, Cave system
Date: April 2 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)


The tunnel looked different.

The giant snake thrashing, the Ateeve's railgun taps—it all left marks on it.

Stepping over the pile of rocks, wondering how it hadn't all crashed down yet, I held the needler at the ready while scanning for any danger.

I doubted that the snake was the apex predator in this place, in The Anomaly, but I was failing to imagine what kind of beast could top it.

No, my decision to leave the cave was the right one.

I had to find a way out of this Anomaly before it finally killed me. Not that it would be a tall order—it had already nearly succeeded once.

Reaching the old line, the place where I had spent days recovering and mutating, I paused for a second, looking at the old site. Crushed containers, a torn apart mat, and tarnished bags—all the valuable things we had, but lost during the snake attack.

Another costly payment that had been forcefully taken from me by this place.

Spotting one of the claw knives, I cautiously sat down to pick it up. I had used this one to carve the stone while thinking about all these mutations, and what to pick, if ever.

It felt like ages ago, but it was just the other day, less than a week ago.

Shaking off the memories, I stood up and, in a few quick steps, crossed the line. I had delayed enough.

An involuntary sigh of relief escaped my lips when the energy rushed into my tired core, and straightening my shoulders, I took a full breath in.

"You good?" I asked barely above a whisper.

"All green," Lola replied through the static.

"Good. Inform if anything changes. Over," I said, squeezing the needler hard in my right hand.

Now to the hard part.

Even if my decision to leave was spontaneous, I wasn't stupid. I needed to take any advantage I could seize.

That's why I ate that snake core and all the knots we found. I was risking getting unwanted mutations, yes, but in a nutshell, I had a plan. Or an idea.

The invisibility was a strong ability, and yes, it was failing in the aetherium field, but I was out of it, and any aetherium I had on me might not be enough to cancel it.

But if it was… If I were right, if all I needed was a bit of mutation, then it was supposed to help. It had to work.

Closing my eyes, I focused on my hearing first, activating the ability—my early warning system.

Immediately, I became aware of all the sounds coming from above. The rush of air in the valley, the hum of the waterfall—it was all familiar to me.

And it was working, even with the necklace on my chest and the needler in my hand.

Shifting focus to the next key star at the base of my skull, I activated the invisibility next.

It pulsed as before, and the constellation came to life. But instead of pulsing in rhythm, I felt something stretching over my body, while tearing apart in places where I had aetherium.

Failure, I had expected, but I had to try it first, before trying to increase the density of my energy, of the ability output.

It had to work.

And so, I closed my eyes again, beginning to breathe in sync with my heart.

Tuh-Dum, Tuh-Dum.

The key star of this ability was still lit in my inner eye, but somewhat less bright, as if on the verge of going out.

Stronger. I want it stronger.

Imagining the same field as before, but just more potent, I pulsed my core, as if directing my wish, my desire.

Tuh-Dum, Tuh-Dum.

It lit up, pulsed, and responded to it, with a heavy pulse of its own, sending an already familiar wave of energy through the circulatory system. The small stars pulsed in response, growing in size—if only for a bit.

Success?

And a new bright star was born at the base of the spine, shining even brighter than the one at the base of the skull.

Breaking out of my focus, I opened my eyes to see what had happened.

Shimmering. I was surrounded by shimmering air—the energy field. But instead of a single field, it was a surface made of hexagons, tightly fitted together.

Instead of increasing invisibility, I unlocked the energy field I had planned to begin with.

Why?

"I unlocked the energy shield," I said to Lola in a low voice, "but it's different."

"Different how?" asked Lola.

"Instead of a single field, it's a surface made of translucent hexagons," I explained, as best as I could.

"It's from the snake. It was able to swap them around, replacing the failed ones. See if you can do the same," Lola replied, surprising me.

Frowning, I slowly moved my arm holding the needler and noticed how hexagons around it were blinking in and out of existence.

Aetherium.

But there were more.

Bringing the needler closer to my face, I confirmed what I had noticed before—a low-level pink glow in the ST-100 mix covering it.

Thermal radiation.

Deciding to check on the necklace, I reached for it with my left hand, only to remember that I still held a knife there.

To my surprise, the energy field acted differently with the knife. Sticking to the claw surface, the hexes formed a blade around it, twice the length.

Not now.

Reacting to my thought, the effect around the claw knife disappeared, and I promised myself to check on it later.

Putting the knife away in one of the slots on the rig, I pulled away the vest on my chest and looked down at the necklace hanging there.

It wasn't glowing, of course it wasn't—it was covered in a different aetherium alloy. But the hexes on my chest were blinking in the same way they had with the needler, creating a weak point.

And then, the whole shield blinked out of its own accord, and I felt a familiar sucking emptiness inside my core.

"I am out of juice," I said to Lola.

I knew I had a small reserve with my F-rank core, but just a few minutes for the shield? That was nothing, barely enough for anything.

"Try to meditate, drawing on energy," Lola interrupted my thoughts."In the Directive dataset, it was the only method mentioned for energy recovery."

"Only for a few minutes," I warned, sitting down, back against the wall. "Call me if I take longer than that."

Closing my eyes, I focused on my heartbeat, on my breathing, looking at the new key star at the bottom of my spine.

It was the first time two constellations crossed over, using the same small stars, but why had I awakened invisibility on the first try, and the shield on another…

Unless the intensity was a key?

Later.

Focusing on the core, I paused for a moment, thinking of ways to draw the energy in. Previously, I had only been pushing it to pulse…

Breathing.

Unconsciously nodding, I imagined how the Anomaly energy surrounding me was drawn into me, into the core, with each breath in.

With each breath in, with each new cycle, the hollow feeling in the core lessened, making the core pulse faster.

"Time," Lola's voice rang in the emptiness I fell into, losing myself in the process, in the breathing and energy flow.

"Katee, it's time," I heard her voice again, finally breaking out of it.

"Here, I am here," I said, opening my eyes and feeling refreshed as never before.

The best power nap I ever had.

Rising back to my feet, I flexed my shoulders to adjust the backpack's weight, and with barely a thought, activated the advanced hearing.

There were no changes to the sounds, but something was hanging in the air. Something I had a hard time pinning down.

"Let's go," I whispered to Lola, making the first careful step up the slope. "We need to leave now."

—

Stepping over the scattered bones, overturned stones, and the fresh marks on the valley's floor, I walked out of the cavern.

Keeping to the valley wall with the needler before me, I carefully looked around.

Lola didn't have time to bring wolves' corpses inside, leaving them to be feasted on by the wildlife, and their bones were all over the valley.

Perhaps that was why the bear came over the other night, and why the snake visited later.

Another unwelcome consequence of my faulty judgment the other day.

Grimacing from the loud crunch under my feet, I reached the ledge and glanced towards the waterfall.

I was half expecting, half afraid to see the squirrel again there, but it wasn't there, and with a sigh of relief, I began to climb the ledge.

The memory of the squirrel reminded me of air beasts I had almost forgotten about, and I checked the sky.

Nothing, not even a faraway gliding dot, was there.

If I hunted one of the hawks, I might get some aerial abilities, like the squirrel…

Shaking off unwanted thoughts again, I continued my way up the valley wall.

For all I knew, I might develop a strong beak instead of the air steps, or whatever they were. I had already risked enough.

Reaching the top, I peeked over the edge, looking at the meadow before me.

Nothing had changed since last week—same greenery, same moss-covered stones.

And only the fresh cut into the forest, left by the doe, and healing marks from my fight with the wolf pack stood out, somewhat.

I remembered carefully looking over the grass last time, searching for signs of the invisible hunters, and in a way, it was poetic that I had become one of them, albeit defective, with all this aetherium on me.

Just in case—if acquiring the shield somehow helped—I wished to become invisible, focusing on the skull key star without closing my eyes this time.

The air shimmered around me, and I felt a pull down the spine again.

No.

Forcefully pulling it towards the skull, I saw how the light bent around me, distorting my shape, but not quite as I had before.

Whatever the ability was trying to do had failed, exposing every place where I had aetherium on me and covering everything else in broken streaks of grey, pink and brown colour, in an eye-breaking pattern.

Huh.

It worked.

It wasn't ideal, but the effect was perhaps to my benefit. The only question was, for how long?

Averting my eyes, feeling nauseous just from looking at myself, I looked across the meadow at the forest.

The forest was silent, and only the wind was swishing and rustling between the trees. But it meant nothing, as I learned before.

Though this time, I wasn't planning to go there. My goal was on the left, the stone knob I visited before.

Once more looking over the meadow, I crawled over the edge and, measuring each of my steps, began to move there, keeping close to the ground.

All the way, I partially paid attention to the way my invisibility worked. It didn't affect things I was passing by, but it did affect my form, partially mimicking their texture and colour.

It was also weird as hell, reminding me of multidimensional warping, often seen when a spaceship enters hyperspace.

There was something more to the interaction between aetherium and The Anomaly, but this was not a time or place to think about it.

Noting it for later, I finally reached the knob.

On the other side, as I saw it the first time, there was a steep slope leading to the river.

My way out.

I only hoped that it didn't lead to the areas of higher anomaly density, but there was only one way to find out.

Hiding the needler in the holster, I triggered another wave of pattern changes over me, and I had to briefly close my eyes to suppress the heavy desire to throw up.

It was worse than centrifuge tests in the Academy.

Slowly breathing, I used this moment to draw on energy again, but without going deeper into meditation, opening my eyes in less than a minute.

Hopefully, it had still replenished my reserves, if only for a bit.

Checking the sky, I began my climb up the knob, following my steps from before. The ever-glitching pattern wasn't making it any easier for me, forcing me to focus on each movement and rely more on my sense of touch than my eyes.

Just to somehow cope with the effects, I kept my rhythmic breathing with a mental image of me drawing on the Anomaly energy with each breath, and releasing nausea with each exhale.

If it helped, I didn't notice.

By the time I finally reached the old spot, I felt like I had drunk half the bar and only wished to lie down and for reality to stay still.

And so I did, resting my eyes on the rare clouds in the sky. Perhaps that was why I had noticed the air beast first, before it even dived to attack me.

I really hoped it would not.

It was in vain. The beast spotted me, or my glitchy form, and for whatever reason, found it worth attacking.

Internally groaning, I reached for the needler, triggering another wave of changes.

To my surprise, the beast almost lost control of her flight in that moment, falling into an uncontrolled spin, though it recovered halfway down and, flipping aggressively, began to gain distance and height, flying away.

Huh.

This nightmarish side effect was not just screwing with me, apparently.

Chuckling silently, I finally rose from the stone and looked down the slope on the other side.

The river, cutting across the mountainside below me and into the forest, was still there, blinking with reflected sunlight.

My goal.

—

Reaching the bottom of the steep slope, I breathed out with relief and began to bundle the rope I had.

It took all my focus and training not to fall from this hundred-metre slope. More often than not, I had to slide the backpack down the rope before following after it, checking each step and each stone.

It was exhausting on its own, but combined with my psychedelic camouflage, it was the trip of a lifetime.

Not something I wanted to repeat, ever.

Although I had to agree, it was effective.

A few more times, I saw aerial beasts approaching me, but halfway through, they decided against it. I only hoped it would have a similar effect on other beasts as well.

Attaching the rope bundle to the backpack, I detached the other heavy package from it.

It was a flat square, about a foot by a foot in size and a few inches thick.

Originally, it was much bigger and heavier, and when unpacked, it was designed to unfold into a boat as large as a one-room apartment—good enough for sailing across an ocean, or two.

Obviously, something I had no intention of carrying down the slope or sailing on the river.

On my request, Lola cut it, making it smaller, lighter, and ready to be deployed in The Anomaly, albeit only once.

Putting it down on the stony river shore, I pulled the yellow-coloured strip, and the square began to unfold, whizzing and hissing, while getting bigger and forming a simple boat shape, one side covered by a low canopy.

It didn't have an engine, like the original one, and was missing all the tech on board, but it was enough—enough to carry me and my backpack down the stream.

Taking the last needed piece—the paddle with a telescopic handle—I put the backpack under the cover and pushed the inflatable boat into the river.

Carefully climbing in, I pushed against the rocky shore with a paddle and began my new journey, hopefully to somewhere I might find answers.

Or a way up in space—and home.

The current caught my boat as soon as I reached the middle, and relaxing slightly, I looked around.

The river wasn't wide, perhaps twenty meters across, and the current was smooth for the mountain region I was leaving behind.

I would have to watch out for the possible rapids or waterfalls ahead of me, of course, but otherwise, it was promising a much more comfortable journey, especially compared to the forest hike.

The strip of the forest ahead of me was slowly coming closer, promising the shade from the sun, and the danger of the sunken trees beneath the water surface.

Reaching into the backpack, I pulled a prepared snack with dehydrated mutated meat. That reminded me of my need to be careful with water again.

I didn't have Ateeve with me anymore, and I had to filter water on my own, using the tools from the survival kit. A limited supply that I would have to carefully ration and use.

Chewing on the strip of meat, I still tried to avoid looking at my form. Somehow, my glitched invisibility, influenced by aetherium, was still on, really testing my stomach strength or my ability to fight nausea.

I didn't know if it was less energy-demanding or if all my breathing was helping to replenish my reserves, but I was glad for the result and continued to practice it.

In a way, it was peaceful, meditative. And with ten metres of water on either side, I felt somewhat protected and hoped that shallow water wasn't enough for any beast to hide.

But just in case, I kept my right hand closer to the needler, ready to fight.

And then, when I had already reached the cover of the forest, rising on either side of the river, I felt a sudden rush of goosebumps down my back.

Instinctively turning my head back, I looked at the towering mountain I was leaving behind.

As if waiting for this moment, a burst of purple lightning covered the top of the knob I had come from, and a few seconds later, the rocking thunder reached my ears.

The anomaly thunderstorm raged for half a minute after that, twisting my guts in fear, before eventually stopping.

And I knew that whatever had just raged there had come after the snake Lola killed, and it wasn't happy.

Not happy at all.

Spoiler: AN: Chapter 12

EPUB file, and two more chapters are available on Patreon

 

[GorMartsen]

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.

Spoiler: AN: Chapter 13

EPUB file, and two more chapters are available on Patreon

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, D-zone (green)
Date: April 3 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)


Pushing against the shore, I sat on top of my backpack and began to paddle out, past the island.

The lake's shore was gentle at first, covered in forest, but it became rocky later, with bouldered slopes rising above the water.

Sometimes I saw a deer slipping between the trees, or wolves chasing prey between the hills—all in the silence of the rustling forest in the gusts of wind.

My last fight with the wolf's pack was still fresh in my mind. They unnerved me.

And even if it seemed that my glitchy invisibility worked well enough, and no one paid me attention, I kept my distance, just in case.

But there was something else that worried me even more than wolves. I felt nauseous all the time. I also developed a fever, or at least it felt that way.

I didn't notice it at first. I blamed it on the glitchy invisibility or on being tired from a night of paddling. But my sluggish state in the morning and the body aches since then were telling a different story.

It was not a good sign.

Stopping, I set the paddle on my knees and, closing my eyes, looked deep inside.

In my inner eye, my body looked, well, normal. Nothing stood out, nothing was abnormal, though I doubted if I could even recognise a virus or bacterial infection.

I flew in blind here.

I had a medkit in my backpack with strong meds that might help, but the supply was limited. I didn't want to touch it until it was strictly necessary.

Regeneration then. Perhaps it might help.

Activating it, I made the core pulse, supplying the regeneration constellation with energy.

One, two heartbeats and it helped.

I felt a sense of relief spreading throughout my body.

More.

A few moments later, and I felt much better. It was strange. I didn't feel healed, but as if some inner tension had been washed away.

It was only temporary.

The pressure began to mount again after I stopped pumping the regeneration. I felt that clearly.

I also saw that the constellation stars and the pathways between them were pulsing, as if agitated. And my core, it was agitated too.

No, the whole system was agitated.

Shit.

Opening my eyes, I looked over the lake, slightly squinting from the sun's reflection.

Did I overstress it? Was it due to aetherium? Or because my anomaly system was just barely a few days old? Could I actually damage it?

The questions were racing through my head, but I had no answers.

The hell should I do?

Looking within myself, I activated regeneration again, this time letting even more energy into it.

It helped, bringing relief, but not for long.

I pushed a bit more, watching the agitation fade away. But then, out of the blue, I ran out of energy with a sucking feeling of emptiness in my core.

Widely opening my eyes, I grabbed the needler. My invisibility failed—of course, it did—exposing me to the wild.

I was in danger.

Forcefully breathing, drawing on energy, or so I imagined, I kept my eyes moving.

Sky. Clear.

Forest. Clear.

Water. Nothing.

Had I been seen?

I counted the seconds. I felt sicker with each one ticking away, and the reality doubled in my eyes.

Fuck.

I activated invisibility as soon as I felt I could, fighting the spinning world.

Still in danger.

Blindly reaching inside the backpack under me, I pulled the strip of meat and began to chew on it.

I needed the energy. Any boost would help. It had to help restore it faster—it had to.

Sweating heavily, I reached for the thermos and gulped down some tea, not really feeling the taste.

Fuck the nausea, fuck the fever.

I truly needed to know when the core was about to deplete.

—

One, two, three…

It was like active meditation.

Four, five, six…

I paddled on the left or right, moving the boat.

Seven, eight, nine…

I drew on the energy.

One, two, three…

I pulsed the core, fueling my regeneration.

Four, five, six…

I moved the boat.

I was at it for hours, ever so slowly moving along the lakeshore.

Seven, eight, nine…

Drawing on energy, inevitably agitating the core, and spending it to bring some relief.

It was an endless loop, where I never felt good, but I also didn't feel worse.

And somehow, with each passing cycle, I began to understand the core.

It was like a hand, or like a biceps. After doing exercises for a long time, you would just know what you could and what you couldn't lift, and for how long.

It was totally alien.

One, two, three…

But it worked, in a way.

Four, five, six…

And so I paddled along the shore, I breathed the energy in, and I counted in my mind.

Seven, eight, nine…

Because the timing? The timing was the key.

—

By the time the sun was about to set, I was able to manage the balance between drawing energy in, the active invisibility, and the system's healing.

Even the fog in my mind lifted for a bit, and I realised that I was still paddling, and that I was bone-tired.

My spine was stiff, my fingers locked around the paddle, but I just kept going.

If not for the self-healing—I was sure—I wouldn't feel my legs, and I would be bleeding from calluses on my palms.

I was also thirsty and hungry.

Looking around, for what felt like the first time in a while, I searched for a place to stop, perhaps even camp, if possible.

Nothing stood out as such.

I didn't recognise the lake, it wasn't the same one I started from, or I was far away from the last landmarks I clearly remembered.

The lakeshores were gentle again, with long strips of sand and shallow water, while the forest had been pushed away.

Slowly paddling in the direction of the setting sun, I was looking for an island, for a small one, preferably far away from the mainland.

I didn't see any.

Putting the paddle away, I flexed my stiff fingers and stretched my back, giving a respite to my tired body.

Reaching under me, I took out the NB ration, a strip of dehydrated meat, and a water filter. I filled the last one from the lake and set it aside.

Somehow, in my fuzzy state, I cut heavily into my stock of meat, and if this continued, I would run out of it in a day or two.

That was not good, not in my current state.

When I pulled the sealing strip from the ration, the rich smell of rice and butter chicken spread around, watering my mouth.

I was famished.

As I was eating, the sun was setting behind the forest, and the sky was turning in shades of deep blue with orange clouds.

I liked the colour. It was nice.

At least something was.

—

The Milky Way was shining brightly in the sky, with stars above and below me, reflected in the dark water of the lake. In a way, I felt as if I was floating in space, sailing between the stars, following into the unknown.

It was surreal.

At some point, my wandering mind returned to the morning, to the moment when the hex-field failed due to aetherium, and in my not-so-clear head, it felt like a good idea to test it again.

I had nothing better to do.

Removing all aetherium from myself and pushing my backpack as far away as the boat allowed, I activated the hex-field.

It didn't collapse, didn't fail in thirty seconds, as before. But for some reason, I felt worse and had to increase the rate at which I pushed energy into regeneration.

I didn't expect that, but, in a way, it was logical.

I had a freshly minted core, pathways, and stars. They were F-rated—no doubt about that—and they were in the D-zone. Or I was.

Which, perhaps, meant that the sickness I felt originated from the Anomaly itself—the two levels of higher density against my own.

Was it like external and internal pressure?

Perhaps flooding my circulatory system with energy and shielding it with aetherium were helping to balance that.

I didn't know for sure.

Perhaps, I never would.

Watching the stars and the Milky Way, I kept going through the night. I had a long way to go.

It was beautiful.

—

The morning fog came together with the first signs of dawn. It rose slowly from the water, forming wisps of mist at first, but soon became so thick that I barely saw anything.

Fortunately, before it fell over the lake, I saw an island not that far away from me.

It was small, mildly rocky, with a grove at the far side and a clearing. Ideal for a stop, especially being hundreds of metres away from any shore.

Paddling in the fog, navigating by memory alone, I was all but back in my childhood, watching Your Friendly Pirate holo.

Together with Captain Sorro, I was in the land of the dead, swimming through the mist of all lost things, fighting feral ghosts.

It was scary, thrilling. I loved it.

I also wanted to be her, one who bravely fights for all the good in the world, to save the day.

It was my favourite until I turned ten—she didn't save my father.

The giddy mood was gone.

Swatting away unwelcome memories, I silently paddled until I reached the island's shore.

I didn't say a word until the pot was on the stove and the water was boiling.

"Morning, Lola," I murmured sadly.

"Morning, Kat," she replied gently.

"There was a development," I added slowly while watching the bubbling water.

"About?" she asked.

"I have a fever," I said.

I was stretching it, I knew it, but I missed talking. And I needed something to distract myself.

"Describe symptoms, and we need to run a physical checkup. You have antipyretics in the medkit at the bottom. Take one right now—" she began, and I felt a smile tugging at my lip.

Mother, the hen.

"I think it is due to The Anomaly itself," I interrupted, already feeling better.

"Evolution, so fast?" she asked, and I paused with teal leaves in my hand.

I didn't think about that.

"Perhaps. As far as I could tell, my anomaly system is agitated," I finally clarified, dropping leaves in the water.

"Did you try to see if aetherium was responsible for that?" she asked.

"Yes. Removing it made the fever only worse," I replied.

"Ah," Lola said.

We fell into comfortable silence, the one that might stretch for hours.

The tea was ready, and as I sipped it, I watched the mist twisting around me, reacting to the slightest move.

Tea was nice.

I also felt better, and a quick check inside showed that the agitation had somewhat calmed.

Realising it was because of the tea, I set more water to boil. If it was helping, I was going to make as much tea as I could carry.

Sure, it would make me pee more often, as it was doing now, but fuck the fever.

—

"What's the plan then?" Lola asked when I was done with the unavoidable.

"Eat, rest, and keep going," I said, fixing my pants.

"I managed it so far, but I think the faster I leave the high-density area, the better," I added, adjusting my holster.

"Keep me updated then. Whenever you can," she said.

"Sure, darling," I said and began walking back to the site.

Something was bugging me.

With all the fever and pain in my body, I almost missed it, but I felt it pulsing now.

Danger sense.

Something was coming my way. Something dangerous.

Hastily activating glitchy invisibility, I pulled the needler and the claw knife out, looking around.

Nothing. But danger sense only pulsed harder, as if I made it worse.

And then I saw it—a towering moose, regally walking out of the fog, short of ten metres away.

How did it get here?

I froze in place, hoping it would just go away.

Instead, it stopped and inhaled loudly, flaring its nostrils.

It sensed me.

And then it forcefully hit the ground with its front legs, and a ring of twisted roots spawned from beneath, extending around him rapidly.

Shit.

I jumped over it, switching from the useless invisibility to the hex-field—silently starting the timer in my head.

I had only about thirty seconds left.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The shimmering air flashed around my target—it had a shield, of course it did.

Twenty-five.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Wooden spikes burst from the ground, targeting me from beneath and breaking into splinters against my hex-field.

Twenty.

I broke into a sprint, around the moose, without stopping to fire.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It moved—I saw only a blur—and the antlers froze a few inches away from my face.

It charged me.

Our shields flared. A weight fell on my shoulders, and my knees buckled. My core was struggling to supply the energy—it was getting too much, too fast.

Fifteen.

I struck with a claw knife, stabbing it right into the moose's face, into the eye I saw in front of me.

The claw knife flared with hexes and went right through the shimmering shield, into the brain—I barely felt any resistance.

It was dead.

In a moment, it collapsed in heaps, pulling my left arm down with the knife. I let it go.

Ten.

I also had this weird feeling in the hex-field, as if it were on the verge of tearing itself apart, vibrating.

And it was draining my core, already strained to the limit.

I let it go.

The pain shot through me, through my body, head to toe, and I felt like my eyes were blown out in an indigo flash.

Everything was in pain, everything was in agony.

And an endless pit of hunger was pulsing inside me.

Heal, I needed to heal. To regenerate.

The thought was pounding in whirls of pain, confusing and looping in stretched echo.

Somehow, not even knowing how, it worked.

I felt the rushing energy. I felt it coming from around. I felt the cold relief.

The smell came back first. It was awful, and it clogged my nose.

Fur. It was burned fur and meat.

Meat, I needed meat.

An electric taste on my tongue came next, with a touch that found half my teeth cracked or missing, and a burned-bone aftertaste.

The eyes, I needed my eyes back. MEAT.

The sense of touch came next, and under my fingers I felt something warm and dusty over dry and cracked ground.

Then I saw light, the grey reality around me.

I was in the middle of an almost ideal circle of ash and burned ground. And the whitening skull—of what had been the moose's head before—was looking back at me.

Its body, left almost untouched beyond the burned circle, was the next thing I saw.

Meat.

The thought—it pounded in my head. It was all I could think of. And I crawled to it, stumbling into the ash—

Meat.

—on my twigs-thin arms—

Meat.

—I kept moving. I needed it badly.

I had no capacity to think, to act as a human.

Reaching it, I just sank whatever teeth I had into the meat before me and tore a chunk away, gulping it down my throat.

I didn't feel the taste or texture. But bite by bite, I felt returning, recovering my snapped sanity, my ability to think.

I felt how broken teeth fell out, and how new ones grew in their place.

I felt my charred skin peel away, with a new one beneath, itching.

I felt how my fingers grew nails anew.

I was coming back from the ashes with a new strength in my hands.

But was I still me?

Spoiler: AN: Chapter 14

EPUB file, and chapter 14 is available on Patreon

 

[GorMartsen]

I am working on illustrations for the story, and here is Katee from the back:

 

[GorMartsen]

 

[GorMartsen]

Hopefully you like it...

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Unknown, A-class planet, D-zone (green)
Date: April 4 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)


Sitting by the corpse in ash, knee to my chest, I was peeling off the old, burned-to-ash skin from my left arm. Beneath the scab and dirt lay almost white skin that had never known the sun before.

It was a touch-awkward thing to do with my overgrown nails, but I skillfully ignored that, pinching it with the sides of my fingers.

The arm—it looked fine.

As if it wasn't thin as a twig not long ago. As if a burned arm were just a product of my pain-filled mind.

A hallucination.

It was not.

Nor was the moose—or was it elk?—bloodied corpse by my side.

My arm, elbow deep in the bloody moose's chest, squeezed the core inside and tore it out. The low, grumbling sound came out of my mouth, and wildly, hungrily, I bit into it, feeling how it all but melted on my tongue.

More…

Or what I had left of it.

Biting hard on my lip, I averted my eyes from my arm and looked at the circle burned into the ashed ground.

I had done it, didn't I?

There was no escape from it.

I fucked up again.

The hex field. It had been absorbing momentum—I had established that—but somehow I failed to take the next logical step, to ask myself where all that goes.

I had written it off as magic.

But it was not.

Hence, the bright flash that fucking melted, ashed, and tore apart everything around me—and me—when the absorbed momentum was released.

And I had no idea how to control that.

There was only one silver lining, though. The fever—it was gone, replaced with buzzing energy inside me.

Silver flashed in the ash-covered ground, attracting my gaze. It was something familiar, something important.

Darting my hand to my chest, I hastily wiped gore and blood from it, searching for the necklace.

The suit—or whatever was left of it—with the charred remains of my flesh came off as well, revealing smooth and white skin with scattered silver moles on my bare chest.

The necklace. It was gone.

Lola.

Falling on my knees, I crawled to the blinking silver in the ash, afraid to avert my eyes.

She had to be fine, she had to.

Gently picking it up, wiping soot and ash, I tilted the necklace this way or that.

The neck chain had melted, leaving an ugly knob behind—but she was fine.

Lola was fine.

"Lola," I whispered, ignoring the tears tapping the ash beneath me.

There was silence in response.

With no reply.

Tentatively touching my neck, I already knew what I would not find there.

The choker—it was gone, and only crumbling soot was left on my fingers instead.

Shit.

—

With the necklace in one hand and a needler in the other, I stood over the remains of the moose.

The needler was the only other thing that had survived.

Everything else was gone.

Charred, melted, burned to ash.

Gone.

Even the spare clips for the needler had melted with the holster rig, leaving me with the only ones left in my backpack.

If that had survived.

Not wasting time, I flipped the skull, revealing the claw knife, and bent over to pick it up.

Against my expectations, it had survived too. There was not a soot mark left on its claw blade, and even the green handle, made of ST-100, was intact.

It was the third item I was left with.

Grabbing it with my left hand—half-busy with the necklace—I stood up, giving a last glance around before leaving.

The place where I almost died. Again.

And the half-eaten, half-dusted corpse…

It could have been me.

—

When the site came into view through the still-thick fog, I had little hope of seeing it intact.

But against my expectations, the moose attack with roots—or whatever it was—somehow didn't do too much damage here. It even missed the boat, only turning over the stove and pot with boiling water.

A small miracle at that. I would have taken any.

Packing everything, I put the boat into the lake and, holding onto its side, pushed against the shore, sinking into the water behind it.

The cold water felt nice against my warm, even hot skin. With all the energy inside me, I was almost steaming, and cooling down felt like a great idea.

It was also pleasant.

Slowly drifting away from the blasted island, I was scrubbing myself with one hand while gripping the boat with the other.

Leaving behind a dirty trail in the water, I tried to clean myself of the ash, blood and old burned flesh.

The melted suit was the hardest to get rid of. It stuck to my skin as if glued, often coming off with a chunk of burned flesh and gore.

But the fresh skin beneath it was healthy, with no wounds left behind.

Hell, even my muscles were back, and I was on par with my peak form from before—fit, well defined, and as short as ever.

Dunking underwater for a moment, I ran my hand over my face and head. The chunks of dead flesh peeled off, leaving smooth skin on my face and hair on the head behind.

The hair. It was short. Barely a centimetre long.

Changing hands, I continued cleaning up, hurrying to finish before any water beasts came after me, following this charred trail.

I really hoped they would not, but just in case I kept the needler waiting one stretch away.

—

Sitting back in the boat, slowly drifting in the middle of the foggy lake, I was carefully cutting away my nails.

It was a slow, delicate process that required all my attention. I didn't want to cut my fingertips off with a claw knife, even if I knew they would grow again.

Given enough meat, of course.

Holding out my left hand, palm to the horizon, I checked how the nails were cut, delaying the inevitable.

With Lola not able to communicate with me—temporarily, only temporarily, I refused to believe it was forever—I had to double-check my resources on my own.

I did it briefly when we left the cave, but since then I had had no chance to check it thoroughly.

It was time to fix that.

Sighing sadly, I put the claw knife away and, shifting aside the rope bundle, opened my backpack.

The stove, pot, and a bag of teal leaves were the first things I took out, along with the empty thermos—I had failed to fill it up with tea.

A few small bags of dehydrated beast's meat were next. It was all I left with after the day before. I really cut deep into it.

Water filter and a few spare cartridges. Enough to last for a month, or so.

NB rations, eleven of them. That was not much either.

The Anomaly's detector was taken out next. It was still glowing green, with no shade of blue, not even in the slightest. I was still deep in D-zone.

The tester.

Pausing for a moment, I shrugged and pressed it to the core under my bare chest. It blinked a few times and showed indigo colour, although slightly blueish this time.

There was progress, even if minor at that, but I was not evolved, as I had half expected.

Putting it aside, I took out the thermal blanket next. It was the same one I was using before, judging by the torn hole in the middle.

The tarp was next. I remembered it. I had put it there myself and had moved it around a few times since then.

Medkit. A small box with meds that might one day save a life. Perhaps even my own. Still sealed, and I wished it would stay that way.

There was nothing else left, except for something I didn't expect to find—a service kit for the needler.

Which made sense. Sooner or later, I would need to service it, and I had better have the needed tools for that.

Putting it aside, I checked on the side pockets and found the last spare clips for the needler. I was left with only five.

The other three claw knives and my utensils were found in the last side pocket.

It wasn't much.

Opening the inner pocket at last, with the necklace—with Lola's core—inside, I closed it again, as soon as I saw it there.

I wasn't going to put it back on my chest. Not any time soon, and not before I learned how to control the hex-field backslash.

Noticing that the fog was beginning to disperse, I quickly packed everything back, leaving only the thermal blanket and a towel under my butt.

I did tell Lola I was ready to walk out of the cave in it, didn't I?

The irony.

Folding the blanket a few times, I placed the cut piece of the rope on it and folded it once more around the rope—an improvised skirt was all I needed.

—

It was raining.

The heavy, low-hanging clouds were slowly moving above, showering me with a downpour.

The droplets were drumming on my back, on my head, and on the cover I hid my backpack under.

If not for the inner warmth that I had since the moose, I might have been shivering from the cold, clutching the paddle with twisted fingers.

Instead, I felt good, even great, slowly steaming in the cold air while paddling along the shore.

Rain, or no rain, I had to keep going.

The invisibility, as I had expected before, showed another downside. With enough water dispersed in the air, my form was visible, outlined by the water.

It was still better than nothing.

Breathing in the fresh air, I kept thinking about the backlash from the hex-field I had.

I had been doing it for hours.

I knew I needed to test it again, to figure it out, but even the thought of it made me sweat.

I didn't want to burn myself again or feel the pain.

And so, I kept delaying it, finding this or that reason against it.

At first, it was the boat and the absence of any island. Then, any islands were just not good enough for me, and then the rain.

I surely would electrocute myself if discharged energy had any resemblance to electricity. Or so I thought.

I didn't know that for sure, and I didn't try to figure that out.

Instead, I kept paddling, hating myself for the trembling knees and ragged breath each time I was about to decide.

I also thought about Lola.

A lot.

—

The rain didn't stop by the time evening came.

Neither did I.

I didn't stop for food, or to stretch my back, or to fucking finally test the hex-field again.

I wanted to say it was my decision in the end, but it was not.

The lake.

It just came to an end, at the same time as night fell and the rain stopped, turning to drizzle.

And, as if fate were playing its hand, there was a small island, all stones, no trees, stuck in the middle of the outflowing river that was taking a new beginning here.

There were no more excuses left.

Tying the boat to the stone, I left everything on it and crossed the rocky island on the other side.

It wasn't much, barely ten metres away, but I felt each second walking there, and, at the same time, the seconds flew away as if only a moment had passed.

That was it.

Looking over the water, towards the river's banks that were barely ten metres away, I held my breath and just tried to turn it on.

And nothing happened.

The hex-field—it didn't come to life.

I smiled sadly, realising what had just happened. My fear. It was stronger than my will.

Closing my eyes, I focused on my heartbeat, on the rushing energy inside me, accepting the truth.

Yes, I was afraid. Afraid of the pain that almost broke me.

The heartbeat quickened, my perception sharpened, and my adaptive constellation activated of its own accord, bringing the murmur of the river, the rustling of the forest to my ears.

It was barely strong enough to silence the heavy heartbeat inside my chest.

The danger was real, I knew that. As was the pain I had felt before.

But fear? The fear was a choice.

And I chose to be courageous.

Activate.

The core flashed, pulsed, feeding energy into the key star at the bottom of my back, and it pulsed in response, highlighting the constellation.

I focused on the process. I felt it to the last energy flow. And as with invisibility, I felt the stretching field around me, forming the hex-field.

And I didn't let it go.

And pain? It didn't come.

—

Hours.

It took me hours of jumping, falling or kicking at stones to build up the first charge.

It was dark. It was raining again, but I just kept going. I was afraid that if I didn't break through it, then I never would.

It came as a slow vibration at the fingertips. I perhaps felt it only because I was looking for anything similar to what I had felt back then.

I let myself feel it, to become familiar with it, to make it mine.

Something that belonged to me, something that I was controlling.

I felt how it first responded to my focus, how it moved around my body.

I didn't rush it.

And it let me.

And then, with a flick of my wrist, it left my fingertips with a clap of thunder.

It deafened me, leaving a dancing light in my eyes through my closed eyelids.

But there was no pain.

Not in my hand, not in my body.

And I smiled.

That night, I danced under the rain with the widest and wickedest smile on my lips and thunder on my fingers.

The danger was real. But the fear? The fear was a choice.

 

[GorMartsen]

Experimenting with blurb.
Let me know if new works better (or not).