***
The short cycles of the planet had given way to day as they trudged forward with no resistance, back to walking on the razor grass sawing slowly in the sunlight. They marched forward with four of them still fully ‘armed’ in the limb sense of the word but at this point met no enemies.
Everyone knew what was coming before they actually rolled onto the bare ground, based on the loud roaring starting to filter through the trees. Though Leio and Ziko were both reduced in combat efficiency, their squad was still in fairly good fighting capacity. They made it through the surprise of the night, and still had four people capable of shooting larger weapons. However, this new challenge they were coming up to was going to prove trying.
“There is no way we are making it across that,” Ziko said. He knelt down to let Leio off of his shoulders as she sat down on the ground so he could better look over the edge of the cliff. They stood next to some rocks and a tree, using the light cover as they looked over the shear corner of the massive cliff to the rumbling water hardly visible through the mist below. On both sides of them the deep gorge was cut through the rock with no easy way down, and the height did not get any less extreme anywhere close that they could hike to make the descent easier.
“The two of them could not hope to swim across that water,” Agrest said, keeping his head turned upwards most of the time for any drones that might come flying over the tree tops.
“I have faith they could, but the risk is too great.” Raist looked up and down the escarpment they were located on. “It’d be better if the two of you stayed here to cover our escape.”
From where they were, the tip of the peak was barely visible against the tall trees of the other side of the river. Their goal was close, but in every way seemed farther with every step they took.
“From here you guys should be able to build a pretty good choke point in the rocks over there. The three of us are going to do a sprint to the target, and come back. There is a good chance we will need as much cover fire and a clear path as possible on our way back.”
Agrest pointed to the rocks. “It’s a good plan, since I’d hate trying to descend and climb back up with things shooting at us. If you two have this locked down, it should help our escape.”
Raist finished, “Ziko, I am going to need you well-rested because as soon as we get here, we are running back to the extraction zone. I do not want to be in the forest again for another night. The three of us should be able to handle AKRA, and I know you are strong, but we cannot be slowed even if you are carrying Leio.”
The problem was they had to make it back out of anti-air range to call their shuttle down. Even if it was capable of firing, with how defended their target was, calling it anywhere close was risking being trapped here.
The group worked for a bit, positioning rocks and checking sight patterns so that the two staying behind would have clear cover fire on the three advancing members, both on the descent, the swim, and the climb before they disappeared into the other side. Natural rock walls covered their backs, and a few shots through the rocks gave them some gun holes to fight anything that did come from the forest. The three advancing soldiers dropped all but one weapon here so they could move faster now that the mission had become one of a sprint.
“Goodbye, Raist,” Leio told him as they embraced, the latter having to hold her up. “I hope I see you again. I really do.” Her foot was realigned, but the large section of meat missing from her calf was something he tried to not look at.
“I’ll be back soon.” He gave her butt a light squeeze as he turned away from her. They spiked their rappel systems into the rock and Agrest and Philira already jumped over the edge. Raist was preparing to do the same when a strange thought came to him.
‘Look at her one more time; it might be your last.’ He turned to face her, and she did a small wave, smiling at him, the normalcy making him think he was over-thinking again. He turned back towards the cliff and crouched and launched off.
Raist spread his arms out while he was falling through the sky, seeing the two of them further down through clearings in the clouds of mist close to the bottom of the river. He enjoyed the quick freedom of the descent when the small cord he was tied on began providing a counter to gravity as he rapidly slowed down, controlling the final length of his descent with a button on his suit.
Spinning around slowly, he lowered himself the final few body lengths to the small rock platform the other two were at.
Agrest took their three cords, pressing them into the wall and triggering their camouflage system, which caused them to fade into the rock color.
“What’s the likelihood of hostile creatures in this water?” Raist asked.
Philira shook her head rapidly. “No way, this water is too fast. Even if there are creatures, the water should hide our thermal signature with the outside of our suit being cold. I’ll wave when I have the system set up on the other side.”
She knelt down, spiked another rod into the ground and dove into the water without waiting for any command from Raist. Her body moved up and down in a rhythm as the wave started by her head swept through her whole body over and over as she flew across the rapids. Scouts…good at everything.
“I am glad she is such a good swimmer,” Raist said.
“Yeah, never got good at that style. Luckily I could pass all my tests doing the side-stroke.”
Raist was spiking his safety system, hooking it up to the line Philira was establishing when Agrest put his hand on his shoulder.
“Something doesn’t feel right.”
Raist didn’t like the pit in his stomach hearing Agrest say that, but evenly responded, “Why, what’s wrong?”
Agrest shook his head. “I don’t know, can’t explain it. But call it a Sniper’s intuition.” Raist was ready to dive into the water having seen Philira’s pink hair emerge from the other side and waved the two of them over when Agrest interrupted him.
“If I don’t make it out alive, can you deliver a letter I have in my room back on the ship?” Agrest asked coldly. His joking demeanor was totally gone, replaced by a dim realism. “It’s to that girl we saved last time on Azure 2. I was always scared to write her back. But at least let her know that I died, but was thinking about her, okay?”
Raist turned around, and pushed him hard. “Don’t you dare say that! What is everyone’s problem?! We have been through way worse shit than this. Border-Action 9, the assault on Klattu, being stranded on Kilo? Come on, Ziko’s arm? I lost both of mine on Kilo.” Raist lifted both of his arms as he went on. “These are bio-synths! We sustained a few injuries early and everyone is thinking this is the end?”
“Heh.” Agrest pushed Raist’s hand away as his lip rose in a slight grin. “You feel it too, then?”
Raist turned around, mad Agrest had basically gotten him to admit his unease, and dove into the water. He started swimming with all his might against the harsh current. Memories of the drownings he sustained during swim ‘training’ came back to him, but only focused his mind as he crashed through the waves and rocks. He felt a strong pull that was Philira’s line dragging him to the other shore. He felt his back legs sweep to the right, pulling away from him, and suddenly went spinning into the water as he got trapped in a whirlpool.
Underwater, he tried kicking off a huge rock he was trapped next to, but the whirlpool was too strong. He stopped struggling and went limp, conserving his oxygen. His nanites would keep him conscious for a much longer time than even the best breath-holders on Terra were capable of before nanites, but still knew anything could happen.
He protected his head with his arms as he hit the rock over and over with every spin of the water. Feeling the line on his suit finally tighten, it forcefully ripped him out of the whirlpool and back to the surface. He turned on his back, took a breath, and continued covering his head as Philira dragged him to the other side.
“Brings back bad memories of water survival s
chool!” he shouted over the din, standing up and shaking the water off his face and hair as he backed away from the spraying mist the river was generating.
“Haha, yeah,” she agreed as she smiled. “Lot of memories is for sure.”
He suddenly remembered that as much as he went through, while he was in tactics and strategy classes, she was probably still out there swimming and running. He felt bad for even thinking about his hardship; he had no doubt the ‘expendable’ Scouts were trained far more cruelly than the Leaders. She had swum through those rapids that likely would have killed Raist had he not had assistance.
Agrest was drug to the shore and Philira hid the line across the river. Now that they had this line and the descent line, on the way back they would only need to do is hook up to it, and it could pull them across the river, or up the cliff.
“Ok, I’ll drop the line in a bit.” Philira molded her gloves into spikes and set off against the wall. The two men were glad they had such a skilled Scout with them. They were both trained to do all of this, but to a lesser extent than her. Raist remembered the cliffs he was forced to lead a lot worse than this, but the fact two of his classmates died on the route next to him left him glad she was the one doing this.
From down in the canyon the roar and the blasting mist kept their world fairly small, but every now and then the mist would blow just right and he could make out the rocks Ziko and Leio were bunkered in at.
An orange ball formed out of a thin black cord indicating Philira was ready. Raist grabbed it and handed it over as Agrest was soon being lifted up the cliff. It dropped again and he likewise was pulled up the cliff by the system.
‘Halfway through the day,’ he thought as he looked up at the star in the sky as he approached the edge. He pushed himself around the sharp edge and crawled a few steps onto the solid surface before the system stopped pulling and he disconnected himself.
“Lay down,” Agrest said, and the other two dropped without thought. He likewise was down, and pulled his Silvershot up in front of him. There was a wheeled robot patrolling further down the edge of the cliff. Agrest sighted in the robot and delivered a high-velocity slug right through its upper neural circuits as it spilled over the edge of the cliff. “Clear.”
“Burn.” Raist had used the name of an alien race that was composed of a tightly bonded gas/telepathic mixture that originated on a large super giant planet. Being gaseous, they had a hard time doing much until their advent of robotics, which some said was given to them as a dark social experiment by a different race.
“We aren’t at war with them though. The Solarian fleet would tear them apart,” Agrest pointed out.
“No, not officially. But I think this might go beyond that,” Raist mused, his voice very cold. “That robot was definitely of Burn manufacturing.”
“But?” Philira prompted.
“That rocket drone wasn’t.” Raist stopped for a moment, considering if his observation was right, but from every angle it was. “It was a Daijin Star’s.”
“That’s what I thought too. Holy shit…” Agrest’s facial features dropped.
The Burn and Daijin Star were at war with each other; their complete hatred for one another was no secret.
“And some of those animals I could have sworn we’ve seen on Reiko-3,” Philira added.
“Yeah, they were Solarian genetic experiments on combat animals.” Raist nodded to the truth of her point. Solarian’s were still neutral in the war between the two races, but everyone knew humans didn’t like the Burn or Daijin, and would be happy if both of them were dead. Everyone also knew those two races wanted the Solarian’s dead, stopped only by Aelisha protection. Yet on this planet was obvious evidence of all three working together.
“For some reason it appears at least three races that hate each other have come together for whatever it is AKRA represents. I was told this was a syndicate that represents a serious threat; but if it is true that three generally hostile species are working together…” Raist stopped, trying to express the magnitude of danger this represented. “Whatever AKRA is, is of more importance than we can possibly imagine.”
“Damn,” Agrest muttered as he shook his head. “How do we know just how far their influence is? There might even be agents within our…” He didn’t finish the sentence and the three looked at each other nervously. He finished, “This is bad.”
“That’s an understatement,” Philira said, as they all were looking at the forest that suddenly was a lot more ominous.
“What are the Aelisha going to do?” asked Agrest.
“Depends on if they know,” Raist sighed. The political situation was extremely complex with what they were seeing on this planet.
“Maybe we aren’t supposed to see this,” the young Scout suggested.
“What do you mean?” Agrest looked at her.
“Maybe we are supposed to die.”
Neither of the men denied it. Raist thought back to the beginning of this where the figure ended with the ‘a friend sends their regards’ and with a dark realization that this might be a way to get rid of them. They were utterly loyal to the Solarians and the Aelisha, and watching this mixed force in front of them…that might have been the entire problem.