Chapter 14 – Too Late

Mk23 -IRJ Droplet – Class 7 – Carpe Victoria (Wrecked)

Sector - Unknown

Planet - Unknown

15rth May 2341 (BSST)

My HUD goes. Around the edges like a border. It fades quickly to the normal screen as my eyes travel inwards. Active systems go on alert, providing a simulated map centred on my position. Glancing up to my top right allows me to check the terrain. Just below the map a battery symbol tells me the charge level. Sitting at 12% charge it is worrying. Enough for a couple days on energy saving. Alert mode consumes energy much faster, so I’ll need to look around fast.

The metallic gleam shines through a dense copse of trees. Stemming from one place - a half meter circle - the smooth tree trunks split apart not far from the floor before bending back towards each other. They continue their journey to the sky, climbing parallel to each other. Once the branches start splitting off they interweave connecting the trees in a woody lattice. A mesh making an ascent up the trees almost impossible. The grasses grow more sparsely around the base. Just the same height. Compared to the grasses out in the meadow, and even the ones further out they have a yellowish tinge. Perhaps being under the domain of the trees makes living harder. Less light and less nutrients makes the grass sicklier.

Rotating around the area I look for more oblique angles to view the scene. If there is anything there it will provide more protection, cover and security. Observing as I move provides a little more clarity. What I had originally thought was a metallic yellow thing was in fact two separate materials. Some form of yellow fabric. It looks thin and fine. More like nylon than wool. The metallic sheen no longer gleams from my angle as the sun doesn’t catch it. I can’t tell what the metal object actually is from here. It doesn’t look very big though.

The terrain goes up a small sharp rise in a series of steps that I have to navigate. Big needles off of pine, fur or spruce type trees litter the floor providing a soft carpet on which to walk. Layer after layer piling up and decomposing forms an actual carpet that could be peeled back to reveal the bare rocks beneath.

Moving from tree to tree I finish my loop around the clearing in a few minutes. Checking and rechecking my HUD to make sure no movement has been detected. I cut all sound and listen. Nothing.

Sliding my knives out I crouch down. The loops slide over my forefingers and I flick the knife around in an arc to settle it in place. I open my left hand and grasp a small stone. Wincing as the metal loop grinds on the stone. It fills my hand well. Standing up slowly I chuck the rock into the clearing crouching down afterwards and readying myself for an ambush.

Time passes slowly, but eventually I’m convinced I’m alone. I sheath my left knife and advance quickly but quietly.

My armoured feet snapping the small twigs absent minded fervour. They dig into the soft ground. However, the dense matted vegetation provides a springier surface and it behaves almost like memory foam. Springing back and leaving no trace of my passage.

Anticipation sweeps through me like a radar. Coming and going in waves. I shiver with nerves as I close in.

As I get closer the yellow fabric yields to a soft mellow blue. Shinier and smoother than the yellow fabric. Draped across the blue the yellow is stretched taut in places and loose in others. The metal shines again, catching my gaze. Perhaps it is fine-tuned senses looking for the glare from a rifle scope, or some other anomaly. Or perhaps I am a magpie looking for the next shiny thing for my nest. Who knows?

More detail leeches into view as I draw near. The suit does a good job of enhancing the imagery, so I can see clearly. Despite being a hundred metres away. The suit wasn’t designed to enhance more than that. The problem being the distortion and field of view shrinking down. Using cameras and not lenses just means the resolution gets poorer. In some circumstances it is beneficial. Normally if I wanted to view longer distances I would have a scoped weapon or specialist equipment. Drones deployed by the military can feed images into my HUD.

Down here though I was left with few options better than the suit. And that was superior to natural senses. How those primitive humans survived seems only down to attrition.

As I close to within twenty metres I can identify the scene as a campsite. There is a burnt-out fire. Built within a small circle of stones there is a carbonized log. Severely cracked and degraded the log has a semiregular cubic pattern. White ash colours the matte black of the charring in places making the log almost shine. A dull shine but a shine nonetheless. The grain of the log is more apparent as the log burns as the largest splits occur down the weak points. The grain being these weaknesses as the consecutive layers grow and connect to those beneath less strongly than with the rest of their layer.

Most of the wood in the campfire has been turned to ash. It must have rained at one point for a muddy mulch fills in the bottom of the burnt pile. It has caused clumping. The rocks have also suffered weathering on their exposed surfaces. Though I suppose that could have happened before they were placed in this ring it feels to me that it has been here a while.

Further confirming my hypothesis is the fact that the fabrics are buried at the corners by a similar mulch. Leaves must have fallen down upon the collapsed tents before being washed down to the corners and decomposing, forming an organic layer tying down the loose fabric flapping in the wind and anchoring it in place.

Walking over to the camp proper, I squat down and take a closer look. Within the tent there is another ream of fabric, blue and shiny. Grasping it, I slowly drag it out from under the yellow tent. It is harder than I would have expected. It doesn’t help that the tent seems to cling onto it. Like a small child with a toy, refusing to let it go. The metal poles that have collapsed seem to dig into fabric stopping me from pulling it out.

Eventually it comes free with a jerk and slides out onto the mud. It is a sleeping bag, that much is obvious. From the soft downy feel to the cheap shiny exterior. From being exposed to the elements it has developed a slimy slick sort of feel.

It is only moments later that I discover the cause of the sliminess. I use my hands to flip out the latter half. Red in colour it is heavier and stiffer than the upper blue half. It is a dark red almost maroon in colour. Not like a stylish choice for the sleeping bag though. The lines between blue and red are blotchy and uneven. Not a single symmetrical pattern or design. As my hand slides down the bag it almost clings to the suit. It is damp, sodden through. Bringing my hand to my nose I sniff. Iron, rich and sickly. The stench of blood. It fills my sinuses with an all to familiar stink. Penetrating to the back of the skull. I shiver.

Raising up the bag as I stand it becomes taut as the hood part leaves the floor. Blood begins to run out of the bag pooling on the floor before sinking and melting into the earth leaving a brown stain upon the ground. Looking down I can see why it feels heavy. Inside the hood part of the sleeping bag is a head.

It is perhaps more disturbing that it is not connected to a body. Or maybe it is more disturbing that on this alien planet nowhere near human controlled space there is a human head. No, I decide. It is most disturbing that it seems small to me. A child. Perhaps no more than twelve years.

It has wide eyes, blank and colourless. Cloudy even with a slight blueish tinge. They seem to stare right through me. Piercing and searching. It whispers to me through a mouth that won’t open from lungs that don’t breathe. “You were too late! Why didn’t you save me?” Of course, I cannot answer. But the eyes just won’t leave me alone. Scientifically I know the eyes are just a result of the cornea clouding up and becoming opaquer. With no blood supply or tears to provide oxygen and moisture the eye decolourises. With no muscles to support the pupil it opens up to create the wide-eyed look of horror I was staring into with mortifying intensity. The eyes have shrunk into the skull slightly as they have begun to decompose creating an even worse stare.

Eventually I force myself to blink. Like a spell snapping I can look away. Though not for long. Now observing the head and not just the eyes I can see it belongs to a little girl. Long blonde hair that I am sure was once shiny and well cared for is now straggly and falling out as the pitted flesh begins to decay and undergo putrefaction. Lips stained red from lipstick have cracked and split almost melting onto teeth below. Small white enamel shards stick out of the rotting mess.

I pick up her head gripping with both hands behind the skull to support it. After picking it up the neck becomes exposed and I take a closer look. Blood pooling indicates she was alive when her head was removed from the body. The actual edge of the cut is jagged, and it looks as if the head was either ripped or slashed off. A thin silvery membrane and the remnants of the windpipe dangle down off the c1 disk that connects into the skull. As I rotate her in my hands I see movement in the forehead. Like a large pustule the skin breaks open as if one were popping a zit and it peels back as maggots force themselves to the surface. Disturbed by my movement they seek to gain freedom, and, in the process, they rip the poor girls last dignity away. In one last horrifying motion the face slides off the skull as skin on a custard does when poured. I one semisolid globule leaving me left holding a skull. Teaming with maggots and insects and a thin reddish film that coats the bones bringing a gruesome lustre to their surface

In horror I drop the skull gagging at the scene and the smell that boils up from the festering, rotting remnants of pure innocence. What once was someone’s darling little girl being now just a stain upon the ground. The blood will seep through and join the ecosystem and fade away leaving all that she was; gone. Remembered not.

Blood doesn’t coagulate above around 330K, not without advanced body ware at least. She must have been poor. Only the seriously unprivileged go without the blood mods. It was a necessity for space travel. At often times the ships ran hot enough to sustain the engines and that could quite often be above 330k, if you got a cut then it would be quite possible to bleed out and die without medical care.

Thinking about the science dehumanises her and allows me to cope with the scene. I’d been in war before, killed even but never had I seen such a sight. Very different.

I buried the skull and sleeping bag - after making sure there was nothing useful left inside – before moving on to the rest of the camp. All of the clothes in the tent were destroyed and so unsalvageable. I did recover the tent pegs from the corners and sides and the little bits of elastic cord though. I thought about saving the tent material until I saw the huge rips in the back of the tent where I hadn’t yet seen. The rips would mean that the fabric would just rip further if I tried to use it. Repairing it would be impossible with my current tech and if I got to the point where I could repair it I would be able to make it or come back to salvage it later.

There wasn’t much to the camp really. Just the fire pit and the tent with some supplies. I look up into the branches though just to make sure. Some people have enough wits to string up their important stuff in the trees to keep it from the predators on the ground. There is nothing there though.

Just a few steps from the fire outside the tent I find a small sheet of paper. Perhaps it is a note of some kind. A golden cream colour the letter has an intricate border of swirling calligraphic patterns. I open up the folds and take a look inside. A passage. I sit down and begin to read.

To whom it may concern.

If you have found this letter upon this godforsaken planet then I have three things to say to you.

Firstly; good luck. You’ll need it to survive.

Secondly; There are other sentients here. I have not seen them, but I have felt their presence. Perhaps they can help, perhaps they are the puppet masters controlling our strings and playing with us. I don’t know if this will help but I pray for you it does.

Thirdly; take the letter below and deliver it to my wife, Julie, if she still lives.

Her name; Julie Harkness, resident of earth city Jurian as of 12th January 2337. Residence; 24 Haylen street, north west quarter.

IDNO: 542.681.590.---.-2-.333.---.--- (I don’t remember it all).

Thank you.

Dear Julie

I hope you never have to see this, to read this. Though I probably won’t ever get to see your face, to gaze upon your beauty, it is all I wish for. At every moment of every day. Our time together was cut too short.

Perhaps you think that I abandoned you, that I ran taking Emily with me. Leaving you alone in the world. Thoughtlessly. I wish it were so. As I sit here in the mud on a foreign planet thinking of you, with Emily tucked in at my side I wonder at how I came to be here. Perhaps it is the Odrath, those merciless abominations. Perhaps we have been betrayed by our new allies, the Coalition. Perhaps it is something else entirely.

This world is a beautiful hell. Untamed and ferocious. The creatures mean death, but they are not my concern. Humanoids stalk the planet. And they are worse in every conceivable way. I pray for Emily, we cannot go on much longer. All our food is gone and soon so will we. Do I end her now? A peaceful slip into oblivion. A kindness surely? It would be so easy. One sharp jerk and she would be gone. Not having to endure any longer. But how could I do it? To end my child’s life. What if we made it out?

I cannot do it. Though surely, I should. I cannot. She loves you and remembers you. Every day I tell her something different though I am sure deep-down she understands. As all eleven-year olds do. They truly are the wisest of us. It is with regret that I am running out of time and paper, so I must conclude.

Julie, you are the love of my life. Every second of my existence has been enriched by having you and Emily in it. I am lucky for it. I think it unlikely I will return so I shall end it with these final words.

Live your life to the fullest and don’t be afraid to move on. Hamstringing your happiness for our memory will bring no one pleasure. You or us in whatever comes after death.

Carpe Diem mi Amor.

Yours forever, with love Nickolas. (and Emily)

I set it down as a tear leaks out of my lashes. A shame. I fold it up carefully and pack it away. I will deliver this for Nick and Emily and Julie. To never know is truly the worst.