Chapter 34 – Scavenging

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

Sector - Unknown

Planet - Unknown

11th July 2342 (BSST)

As I roamed the camp looking for the things mentioned in the diary I had a lot to consider. The fate of the camp was quite saddening although the short tears had dried up long ago and no more were threatening to fall, the sadness had not dissipated. It wasn’t a gut wrenching sadness or horror, quite frankly they didn’t mean anything to me, Karen slightly but in general I had no reason to care for them.

It was more the sense that countless human lives had been lost here, countless not because of the sheer numbers like the Black Death, Spanish flu or holocaust, nor because of the destruction like the bombing of Terranare. Instead it was countless because of the mysteries. No-one was missing her, not because they didn’t like her, but because she was presumed dead, dead like the rest of the crew. Hiding not far from her camp were the graves of another fifty. Who else would be hiding in the boughs, hillocks and streams? Which other people were lying not even feet from the very feet which callously marched over them in ignorance.

Sadder still was the fate that befell them, cut down in the most atrocious way. Slaughtered by the monsters that once wined and dined beside them.

And then there were the monsters themselves, formerly companions, friends and loved ones. Now, what? What on earth were they? They weren’t human that was for damned sure?

Focusing on the task I put the thoughts ricocheting around my head, out of mind. With them gone, down by the wayside for the moment I pursued the scavenging with new energy focused entirely on the task at hand. It wasn’t long until I had found the axe and shovel. Good quality steel ones. Nice!

I bundled them up in the blankets of the beds and took a last look around the camp, the treehouse and walls were interesting building projects, though obviously they couldn’t be depended on by themselves, additional measures would be needed. The suit for starters and good camp practice perhaps would be enough.

Though from the sounds of it there were a lot more humanoids attacking them than I’ve seen, more predators also.

After the final round I rescued as much rope as possible from the bridge and then set off back to camp, I missed the familiar surroundings and proper meals of the camp i had built. Now, looking around their ruined camp I felt a huge sense of pride in what I had built with my own two hands. It was quite remarkable really, though I couldn’t have done much without Enigma to run ideas past and check my work. It made all the processes easier.

I passed by the lake, marvelling at the velveteen surface and gentle ripples stirred up by the fresh breeze that blew through the trees stirring them from their eternal slum bear for but a few seconds.

I passed by the ditch with its steep dirt sides and thin wobbly trees anchoring it in place, the suspicious bottom and the leaves and mulch that had built up in the base.

I passed by the biomes and forests with ease, gliding through the land I knew so well, dodging the hanging branches and stabbing shrubs that sought to hinder my progress and perhaps to end my life.

I passed the animals so sparse startling them with my presence, I sent the birds reeling off in the sky with a squawk and flap flap. I sent the beetles and bugs skittering with short sharp movements as they hid from my giant, earth shattering footsteps. I sent the snakes into the shadows from the sun in which they basked.

The metal glossed suit an ever present warning of the danger I posed I was left well alone as I made the long trek back.

This time the journey took far less time as I went far more direct. On the way out, I had taken a weaving wandering path as I sought a way through the branches, the path of least resistance and all that.

Now though, with a waypoint set I could traverse back much easier, though the path was thick and tough to get through at points it was much shorter and thus faster.

I could only do this though as the suit was so advanced. Location services still relied on GPS or Global Positioning Service – though that was technically inaccurate, it was still used as a colloquialism as the official name was so long and horrible it had been adopted at all levels by those but the most staunch supporters of rigorous authenticity. Those avid defenders of language that argued to change it made it different – worse in their opinion, such that it is.

The suit though took a basic location reference point and based all of its services off of the suit’s movement with its gyroscopes. Say I took a movement of one metre east, it would then remember that and in the environmental scan of the topography, remember it. Then, knowing my every movement, it could render a position of somewhere I had once been from my position, by backtracking all my movements to connect the places in the virtual 3D world it had been building. It was then able to tell me where to go. Very useful!

As I marched ever onwards I came across another familiar sight, a staircase. I wondered who it had belonged to, which unfortunate soul did this signal? Enigma confirmed it was one I had been to and that I was in fact fairly close to camp.

It took me another half hour to reach camp and then fifteen minutes to load up the bedding and drift off into a deep sleep.