Chapter 25 – Venting

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

Sector - Unknown

Planet - Unknown

10th July 2342 (BSST)

The branches fall away with a soft clatter and thump whilst the leaves rustle, dancing in the wind on their short journey to the floor, fluttering through the air, aimless and free.

The wind whistles as it falls off the cutting edge like a liquid. Disturbed by the sword’s fast motion, the air tears around the blade as it passes by.

With the ease of practised motions, I convert the downward slash into a looping arc with my wrist before stopping its motion in a ready position again.

The sun glints off the metal blade as it twirls, sending spots of light cascading across the trees and shrubs lighting up the greens and browns of the plants with vivid flashes and sparkles as the water from the morning dew catches the light.

Once the branches settle on the floor, I step over, the heel of my suit just clipping them and driving the wood into the floor, crushing it into the muddy surface until it’s nice and flush. Perfect.

A crack resounds out as the branches snap under my weight. I freeze at the unexpected sound for a second, before realising its source.

Phew.

I’ve been trekking through the forest for a while now, when first light dawned on this fresh new morn I set off; the first rays of sunlight breaching the forest trails and lighting my way. With every step I travel further from the safety of the camp. The crunch of the snow marking my progress as it compresses into an icy hazard. As I journey further from the camp and the sun rises, the snowy blankets of white fade into spotty lines and patches under the deepest shadows. The ground slopes up and the freshly melting snow sinks into the earth, loosening it and obscuring the firm ground in patches of waterlogged marsh.

Continuing on takes me farther then I’ve yet been. Farther than the charcoal forest or the coral beyond. Farther than the meadows and the swampy forests yonder. Farther than the beaches and the sea. Farther even than the cliffs and crash site.

Though the lush plant filled dystopian utopia is all encompassing, the familiar soon fades away into the verdant leafy background, its only traces left long behind as I journey through the land.

The sword is an invaluable tool. Completely indispensable as a way of cutting through the thick undergrowth that hinders my path with almost sentient like aplomb. It was frustrating beyond all reason.

I guess, I felt like I shouldn’t have to battle against the scenery itself, the humanoids and creatures were more than enough.

Battling against the forest took a lot of energy, so much so that I found myself repeatedly stopping for a drink of the water stored in the suit. It could hold enough water for a few days in comfort. After that I’d be going thirsty. The suit was meant to hold hydrating gel and nutrient blocks to sustain the user during flight or warfare, so the amount of water it could hold was, unfortunately, quite limited.

Despite this limit I felt comfortable heading out for a few days’ journey. I’d been trained to endure water and food deprivation and I wasn’t afraid of doing it again.

As the miles went by I found another ditch. Not just a natural depression with an aquatic environment like one would expect but another big dry ditch like the one I’d found before. Of course, I’d passed that one a few miles back already, so it was most likely not the same one. Though the curvature was almost identical. When coming from the beach the first ditch curved away from me in both directions only slightly. This one too curved similarly, only slightly more so, a tighter curve. Without Enigma though I doubt I would have spotted it.

About 21 miles apart they were parallel and looked very unnatural to the trained eye. This type of terrain just wouldn’t form naturally. It was like a small valley but obviously no glacier had carved out a path. No river with its gushing flows and battling blasts would have been able to cut such a perfect channel. It looked rather smooth and though obviously some effort had been made to disguise its peculiar nature it hadn’t fooled me. Perhaps Nick and Emily had been fooled, but not me.

On the sides, trees held the banks in tight with their roots, tying the loose dirt down as a farmer bales his hay. Tight and uneven despite his best efforts.

Stopping to examine the ditches yielded nothing strange or unusual, only the sense that this wasn’t natural alerted me to its foreignness. If I wasn’t deluded, this meant sentient beings had lived here or still do. Perhaps stupid ones as I really couldn’t see a point in the ditches. Transporting water just doesn’t make sense. The curved paths would have been much more effort than a straight line, besides, where would you find this much water, from a spring? It was far to large for the task at hand.

I put the mystery from my mind as I had no answers as of yet. Hopefully I would discover them in the future.

A few more hours led me to a clearing. Not large but it did give me a view of the sky, enough to determine that I was still heading towards the mountain. Though it didn’t seem to have gotten any closer from when I started. I must have travelled about 50 miles by now and the mountain still stood in the centre. Unchanging and unending. Its peak climbing up steeply until it disappeared from view.

I had decided to set off for the mountain that morning because it was such a central point in what I’d observed so far. The cynosure of the land. Nick was right though that the very forest seemed to resist exploration towards its base. The paths and trails all gently curved away, like a current in the sea misdirecting you, it persuaded and convinced you that that wasn’t where you truly wanted to go. A few steps wrong and you’d be heading away from where you aimed.

I kept forging on through the forests until night set in again, climbing a tree I settled down for the night, excitement still rife within me.

It was about 5 hours into my journey the next day that I stumbled upon something new. The endless forests and shrubs with the receding snow weighing down their branches until they almost brushed the floor as if to grace the bugs and worms with their presence suddenly stopped. The dense brush ending in feet rather than over the course of a hundred metres or so as would normally occur.

Stopping the advance of the greenery though was a fairly impassable obstacle. One that the plants had no real way of encroaching and overwhelming in the way they tend to do. The marching grass; the footmen of the armada that impinges the natural barricade stop short, no way of advancing. The great war machines, those goliath trees that overshadow their supporting units are stuck just the same. No path, no route, no options except for halting the relentless war machine from advancing.

Like a fort surrounded; this last bastion of defence stands strong, resisting to the last. Still standing despite the forces arrayed against it. No thought of surrender. In a pulsing wave its heart beats like thunder, breath like a hurricane. Sleeping in the shadows it rises up shouting with a million voices that sing a song of life. “This is our resistance, it’s our world, you can never have it” it seems to whisper to me.

The gentle lapping of the water on the grey gravel beaches, the raucous ripples that wing their way across the surface like a bird in the skies, serene. The sun shines down from up upon high, perched in the clouds it shines down illuminating a strip of the water with bright flashing sparkles. Sparkles that catch the eye with such startling clarity that it makes it hard to look out over the water. In a few seconds though, the suit compensates for the light and tones it down to keep my vision intact.

With my back to the forest I take a few moments to observe the shore: it feels like it would be a nice place to have lunch. As I scan the shoreline by eye I first come across a pebble beach. Pebbles ranging the full greyscale from the blackest of blacks to an ice white colour and everything in between. The harsh matte greys and cool creams that speckle the pebbles and rocks gives the beach an almost wave-like appearance as the colour constantly shifts. The light refracting through the ripples of the beach illuminates the pebbles differently casting shadows over one another. An interesting pattern of light and dark emerges like a Rorschach test every time I take a new look.

Interspersed between the rocky patches, sprout a few sentries of that plant army. Little weeds that burst from the pebbles shouting out their presence. The faint green traces they leave making the boundaries between the competing sides less stark and obvious blending together the sides in one huge battlefield.

Further on, along the shoreline, small bluffs and clayey cliffs of jagged rocks jut up to the lapping water. They extend only a few metres up before fading back into the forest.

On the last section of the scan I see another unexpected sight. One of the goliath war machines has been felled, by a giant or god I’m sure, the axe is his weapon and the shattered remnants that still clings to the floor anchors itself in place, still remaining though the rest has been destroyed long ago. From the remnants of the abused and broken, sprouts a new life, the green appendages growing from its father’s ruined body, tough and hardy, it has a strong future in growing to replace its father. The heritage of the strong machine ready to be taken up.

I watch the scene for a few minutes before I’m happy nothing’s going on.

Once I’m sure that the place is safe enough I settle down for some lunch. I pull out some bread and scarf it down fairly quickly.

As I feast on the delicious bread, I gaze out over the water. As the sun swaps sides of the sky and midday passes by, the changing light direction lights up another swathe of the lake in the blinding light.

The piercing rays catch on something in the water, it draws my eye and a few minutes trying to determine what it is with my eyes and the suit’s tech only helps me determine it is a squarish object buried in the soft silt at the bottom of the lake. Not too deep maybe a few metres, the clear water allows me to just about make out what it is.

Leaving my supplies on the side of the lake out of the way of the gentle waves, I march into the water.

The boots of the suit sink deep into the mud. It sucks my feet in deep, clinging to the metal as if I was walking on glue. Releasing with a suddenness that almost unbalances me. It’s in the centre of the lake and it takes but a few moments for me to power-walk over there.

Even when I’m standing over the top of it I can’t tell what it is. Taking a breath, I duck under the water before realising my foolishness. The suit provides me air I don’t need to take a breath. Letting it out I rotate until my face is close enough to see what it actually is.

Now that I’m close, I can see it is in fact a metal box, the silt and sand had been piled up around it and obscured the thing in the centre of the lake.

More specifically though, the box is a grating with thin slats on the front preventing me from seeing inside easily. I peer into the grating using the light to see what is inside, nothing. Well nothing obvious at least, all I can see is an identical shade of grey for the opposite side wall.

After a few minutes of examination, I have decided it is in fact a vent. The scans from the suit swept over the box and determined there was no floor and that it disappeared down a few metres before the scan couldn’t detect anything further. Water seemed to be flowing into the vent from the lake. Since the lake wasn’t diminishing I expected that further upstream from the source that fed the lake there was a water exit vent. Wherever the vent led would be the key to my freedom. Certainly, there were other sentient beings here, perhaps they had some space capable craft. Then again, they could have all died out and just the remnants of the civilisation exists still. A loyal machine still performing its duty despite the overseers having perished long ago.

Excitedly thinking of the possibility of something down there I try to break into the vent. But alas it is to no avail. Even full powered, the suit can’t even dent the gratings. The metal is completely resistant. And forget burning through with fire or chemicals as well, being underwater severely hindered my options.

Giving the grate a longing look, I turn around and push off against the soft silt sending me gracefully gliding up to breach the surface. I blink as the sun shines straight at me when my eyes adjust I am greeted by yet another strange sight. This one stranger than the last. More unexpected and more terrifying than anything I’ve yet encountered. Well except the humanoids but nothing can beat them at all. No chance. Thank god it’s not one of them.