EPISODE 2 - PART 2

- FIRST DAY -

[BLACK]

The sky is light blue with some white clouds, the climate is beautiful, the wind moving the foliage brings a harmonic and calming sound to the picture. The green covers the ground until the horizon ends, as we enter on the thousands of millions of thin tree leaves, the woodlands appear, big and fat barks of the living static entities darkens the color of the dense forest, with them, multiple different species of trees lives together, some are thinner and has less foliage, others are vines that creeps on the bigger ones, some have flowers, other fruits, and on the ground the grass goes just a few inches up, only enough to cover the dirt floor completely in a second layer of green.

Even though it’s dense, the sunlight still passes through the multiple layers of trees’ canopy and bounces the light everywhere, making a soft brightness, always changing its rays, on an everlasting agitation of the flow.

Whatever, on one part of the great forest, multiple trees and lesser plants are all smashed to the ground and dragged to a single direction, making a disparity of luminosity that invades the nature from the sides, as we follow the path of destruction, it’s possible to see a big detached object with a dark-blue camouflaged metal texture, static above one of the biggest trees, the fallen tiltrotor aircraft of the 208º platoon, with its wings torn.

“We are dead!” Oskar shouts quietly in fright, as a loose thread of his slicked-back hair pops out by the stress. “Zack, Giles is dead! The pilot and copilot are dead!”

“Calm down man,” Zack puts his hand above Oskar’s, which are grabbing his black uniform with strength near the collar. “We need to think rationally about it.”

“We… are… on the SAE territory, Zack.” He says quietly, so the outside forest doesn’t hear him. “What can we do?”

Oskar releases Zack, and go a couple of steps back.

The entire platoon is there in the passenger’s area, with terror on their eyes, while the cockpit’s door is closed.

Oskar snaps his fingers with an idea.

“We are close to Liberty, right? How much time did we flight?”

“For roughly three hours and forty-five minutes” Fenik answers seriously, seated near Zack, with his legs on the walking corridor of the plane.

“The trip was going to be four and a half hours, so we are forty-five minutes away, let’s just walk off the rest-”

“Forty-five minutes in a plane, jackass.” Vincent punches the side of Oskar’s arm. “Walking would be way slower.”

“Yeah,” Fenik makes the math on his head. “On foot, it would take about a week, even more, depending on what we find on the way.”

“So, what are we going to do? We only have two days of supplies on this ship for a platoon, we can’t stay here.” Oskar gets more nervous.

“In about six hours, the radio routine communication to Liberty starts, then our missing is going to be confirmed,” Fenik says methodically. “So, Liberty probably is going to send an airplane to check our location, after that they might send an Arachne or a mobile platoon to rescue us…”

“But how much time?” Oskar says impatiently.

“On the best scenario… Five days or so.” Fenik concludes.

“Shit.” Oskar hit his pants in disbelief.

“If we fix the radio, we could give our position and confirm beforehand, that would save us one day at least.” Fenik complements.

“Isn’t there a whistle defense system on the ship?” Fritz recalls, in a rough voice. “The one with high frequency that repels SAE?”

Fenik shakes his head in disapproval. “That only works on birds, on the ground some creatures are immune to it, there some that are even drawn by it, so not a good idea.”

Everyone stays quiet, the perfect idea that they are trying to reach isn’t going to show up, and that thought makes a dread vibe inside the ship.

Suddenly, someone claps his hands.

“OK! You guys listened, right?” Zack shouts, grinning. “We need to fix the radio, pick food, and protect this ship for four to five days.”

Zack looks to Fenik, waiting for him to check if he forgot something, and a nod reasserts the plan.

“Let’s do the following…” Zack starts to think. “The left-flank squad remains here to fix the radios, right-flank is going to be searching for food, while the backguard’s going to keep guard for SAE, and the main-vanguard will build the base defenses, now we are in an emergency state, so I’m taking full command. Does everyone agree?”

Zack’s confidence plus the visible objective placed on their hands bring hope to their eyes.

“Yes, sir!”

The side door opens to the outside, the sunlight’s way stronger than the emergency lights from the ship.

The view outside is frightening, a chaotic scenario compared to the fortress’ architected buildings, a rope ladder is thrown, allowing for them to get out.

A platoon is made of four squads with four people in each squad, that’s basic knowledge, but that isn’t all of it.

A platoon was indeed made to be separated, but that doesn’t mean they have to be completely unorganized when together.

The basic formation is on a diamond shape, each squad on a corner of it.

‘The front is the main-vanguard, made by Fenik, Zack, Ray, and Kyle. Their main objectives are to hold the line or lead a trust invasion assault.’

This group is the first one to get out, their boots knead the grass, their swords at hand, aiming to the bushes as they check for safety.

‘The left-flank squad, made by Fritz, Nora, Oskar and Scott; and the Right-flank squad, made by Kat, Larry, Stella and Tamara. Both of them have the objectives to protect the flanks or to initiate an advance on the sides to encircle the target.’

The three squads are on land, they spread out, securing the perimeters surrounding the aircraft’s wreckage.

‘While the backguard, made of Penelope, Randy, Tyler and Vincent, have the objective to protect the back or to grant ranged support.’

Three of them get out and looks at the ship sunk on the oak of a tree longer than the giant metal body, the tree that finally caught the aircraft to a stop.

‘Even so, we are new graduates, we need to know this from instinct, or we wouldn’t be on an official squad.’

“Doesn’t look like SAE are around!” Tyler, the last one, is on the top of the aircraft with an open trapdoor by his side.

Tyler puts a monocular near his square glasses to look at the forest.

Only trees everywhere.

“That’s it! The best time is now, let’s make this our base and survive!” Zack shouts. “Just don’t lower your guards, or something just might eat your legs in a single bite!” He says grinning.

All squads separate to follow the plan, and time passes.

“Zack, it looks like Nora isn’t certain that she can fix the radio…” Fenik says as they just placed big military boxes on the grass on the side of the ship. “I don’t understand much about radios, but that didn’t look pretty. The crash made the entire cockpit a mess.”

“I’m sure she can do that, she’s just acting like always do, but she can do it. Besides, that’s not completely necessary, is it?”

“No, it isn’t.”

“So, no worries,” Zack says opening the military box.

There’s a lot of small weapons and tools inside, with some cloth medical supplies.

“Not much, right?” Zack asks in disappointment.

“It’s better than nothing,” Vincent replies as he approaches in a positive tone. “Wow! A tactical machete, these are good stuff.”

Fenik takes another black blade, one that looks like a short and fat sword. “A military gladius.” He grabs it calmly and analyzes it. “Doesn’t look like a good BC alloy, it's lighter than it should.”

“But these might be useful, I would keep it if I were you, that knife of yours won’t do everything.” Vincent pats Fenik's shoulder as he quickly walks to go up the rope ladder.

Fenik looks at it for a moment, but he puts it back. It’s not like a low-grade BC sword could do much, it probably would get more on the way than help.

The metal steps echoes, a hand gets out to the sunlight trying to get up the ship’s ceiling trapdoor. Vincent goes up grunting with the difficulty.

“Damn, this uniform is heavier than it looks.” He sighs, catching his breath.

“Aren’t you supposed to be patrolling the ground?” Tyler says coldly as he’s kneeling in front of a military case.

“You know, there isn’t much to patrol, the loving couple can take care of it, for now at least.”

Tyler opens the military case, making Vincent’s eyes to shine.

“Oah! What’s that?” He says, exhilarated. “An FR8 rifle? I thought we couldn’t bring fire guns to Liberty’s borders.”

Tyler sighs, “I talked to Giles before, and he said there was an exception for anti-SAE,” He looks around, seeing Fenik on the ground pointing to somewhere for Zack on the side. “but I only have five bullets.”

“Still, this is great.” Vincent opens the smile as he comes closer to the gun. “I was thinking that we just had swords…”

Vincent goes to grab it, but when he tries to get it up, he can’t. “This is heavy!” He says surprised as he puts more force into it, being able to get it off the case.

“You need to put Vis on it,” Tyler says seriously.

Vincent puts the gun between his two arms, close to his chest in a diagonal position. “I’m… not… a rookie, dumbass…” His face pops out multiple veins using all his strength, as he tries to keep his cool.

“Let me take it” Tyler raises his arms to catch it, releasing the weight off Vincent, carrying it with no trouble, almost like a normal weapon, heavy as a metal pipe.

Vincent steps back, trying to catch his breath. “How the hell do you carry that? I was using almost half of my-”

Suddenly the ground shakes in a single short fall, the ship’s metal cracks and grunt below them.

Vincent loses his footing as a boot slides on the curved front carcass of the aircraft.

The entire world looks like to tremble in his eyes, he stretches his arms to try recovering the balance, but it’s too late. Vincent turns his head, looking down, even by not being too far away from the fallen big tree, he knows that it isn’t going to be a pretty fall.

He stops in the air, his foot still on the curve of the metal.

“Holy shit.” Vincent looks forward, realizing that he was saved by Tyler’s quick reflexes, which pulls his hand, allowing Vincent to be on his feet again.

“Watch it, the last thing we need is someone getting injured by something stupid as stumbling.”

“Thanks, man,” Vincent looks to the ground. “What do you think that was all about?”

Tyler puts his gun back on the case.

“The ship’s heavy. Maybe it sank into the oak or something.”

“I’ll look around.” He says going down the trap door.

“Hey, what the hell happened?” Fritz asks in the cockpit, with tension in his eyes.

“Maybe nothing to worry about, I’ll go check it.”

Fritz nods, as Vicent goes to the side door and looks outside holding on to the corner. The tree is enormous, almost taking the entire ship’s area, and placing it two meters above the ground. But there’s something strange.

No one there had seen a tree before, not in first hand, at least.

But something was clearly weird.

Vincent tries to recall one information, a foggy one of his childhood.

Trees… aren’t like this.

As the memory comes back to his mind, he remembers a piece of crucial information he learned in a kid’s book.

When an axe hits the tree, it enters on and breaks apart from its hard fibers, …

The memory of the drawing of a lumberjack digging his tool on the oak appears on his mind.

…but because there are so many of them, they firmly stay together, keeping the tree sturdy and alive.

The axe is taken off the tree.

So, what the lumberjack needs to do is to bash, and strike, and slash until the tree is weak.

That tree is left with a sharp cone, showing the whiter insides.

So, then… it falls by itself, …

The tree starts to fall, breaking, the hardness of its oak leaves a remarkable appearance to it.

One that this enormous tree doesn’t have. No, it doesn’t. This tree is mold on. It isn’t showing the whiter parts or any of the hard fibers, its base is like a bent rubber being pressed by the aircraft.

It’s not broken.

As he looks to the destruction trail made by the ship’s fall, there are a lot of broken trees, but this one isn’t. Now that he realized it, he can’t unsee how weird it is.

Vincent goes a few steps down the rope ladder, to the surface of that strange tree. His gloved hand reaches its walls. It looks like long rough scales, but as he pushes it down, it’s soft. He tries to pull out his hand, but it’s sticky, and it won’t let go.

No, it’s not sticky, it’s eating it.

Only that thought, made Vincent abandon his gloves in a scare. Making him look at it confused, the gloves are glued to the oak, static.

Is it really eating it? What if he had fallen to the tree before? Would he be eaten? Is nature that dangerous that a seemly static entity can kill by simply you stumbling on it?

“Vincent, what you doing?” Zack asks from below.

The glove slowly enters into the wall.

“Sir.” Vincent gulps. “I think… the tree is eating our ship.”