Chapter 5
Relatively secure in a niche in the cliff wall, Elsa finally undid the clamps on her smart armor and removed the glove first, then the forearm and upper arm sections. She stared at the armor, looking at the damage done to it. The big fish had been the one to punch some small holes through the elbow joint, but the entire arm showed signs of damage. She took a moment to study the rest of her armor, or at least as much as she could see without taking it off, and saw that her entire suit looked like it had been through a sand blaster. Nicks and gouges throughout from the smaller fish, plus a few deeper scrapes from where the big fish had tried to bite her.
“ Nasty little bastards,” she muttered. She popped up the visor on her helmet and stared at her gear in the pre-dawn light. She was assaulted with the humid freshness again, making her nostrils tingle and filling her with a strange sense of euphoria.
Elsa shook her head and looked at her arm. There was nothing wrong with it, aside from the skin around her fingers looking a little wrinkled from the prolonged submersion. She shrugged and turned it over, flexing her hand as she did so. Elsa’s lips parted with a gasp. She pulled her arm closer and stared at it. She had a scar across the back of hand that ran halfway up her forearm from a broken plastic barstool many years back. The scar was still there, but it was smaller. Something in the exposure to the water had made it fade.
She smirked at the thought. Scars don’t just shrink, it must have faded or healed or something. Regenerated, maybe? She stared at it a moment longer before closing her visor and using the suits sensors. Everything checked out fine with it, although the ambient temperature of her arm was nearly two tenths higher than her core. As she watched, it fell a tenth of a point to ninety nine point two.
Ever since her latest genetic manipulation therapy her body had established a new baseline temperature of ninety nine point one. She knew a few FIST members who were closer to one hundred, but they’d gotten nearly everything done they could think of. She wondered sometimes if they even qualified as human anymore. They looked human enough, from a distance, but they’d once given a trained robo-lifter operator a serious run for his money in a contest to see who could load supplies into a drop ship the fastest.
Elsa’s mods were far less unusual. She was stronger and had more stamina than a typical person, plus her eyes had been enhanced considerably. Improved ability to function under fatigue and endure stressful conditions, and even some enhancements to her nervous system to make her a little quicker to react. Reaction time and knowing how to react were different matters, but that was what training and experience were for.
She looked at her arm again and couldn’t help but smile. The blemish to her skin from the scar had long bothered her, but she figured she was a Marine. Scars were better than medals and service ribbons. Still, it sent a thrill deep inside her chest at the possibility that she might erase one of the many marks of service her body wore.
“ Okay, enough narcissism, my boys are waiting for me.” Elsa slipped her armor back on, resealing it as best she could. Without a field repair kit for the armor she could do nothing about the breach. Another denied inventory request due to the non-hostile nature of Vitalis’ environment. She snorted in derision at the thought of exactly just how friendly the indigenous life had proven to be thus far.
A fresh drink through the tube built into her helmet and she was ready to set out again. She climbed out of the niche in the rocks and looked around, hoping to avoid Big Bird or any other feathery predators. Nothing was ready to pounce on her so she turned to study the cliff above her. Even with the smart armor and her genetic enhancements she wasn’t sure it would be possible to climb it.
Her display alerted her to the rising light level, something she‘d never have noticed until it was too late. It was impossible to tell which direction the sun was rising, thanks to the tall trees behind her and the rock wall in front of her. Well, dawn was coming and coming soon. Hopefully any nocturnal hunters would leave her alone. That left only the diurnal ones.
Elsa walked along the bottom of the cliff looking for some means of scaling it. Every crack or gentle slope proved to be a false hope. Every vine wouldn’t support her weight before tearing free. She’d dreamt up and cast aside several scenarios, had she requisitioned the proper equipment. But alas, their drop zone was on a coastal plane, no need for any mountaineering equipment. Elsa swore again before moving on.
As the morning approached she learned that the sun was rising away from the cliffs. She seldom saw a direct beam of sunlight breaking through, but it bathed the cliffs above her in a brilliant golden haze. She stopped and stared, opening her visor to wipe the sweat off of her forehead. She inhaled deeply, squinting against the brightness until her eyes adjusted. Her toes itched, making her long to kick off her boots and walk through some of the soft grass she had seen.
Else shook her head and grinned. All this nature nonsense was getting to her head. “Gunny, you got a job to do!” She snapped. She took in a last deep breath then cast a longing glance up at the side of the cliff to a new, disturbing, predicament. “Aw fuck!”
Elsa’s visor snapped down, allowing her to zoom in at the movement she had witnessed. She scanned about, searching the upper reaches of the cliffs and making sure. They were riddled with caves and depressions and, almost without fail, those very holes were filled with giant birds like the ones she’d seen flying the night before.
Climbing the cliff suddenly didn’t seem like a good idea. The thought of lying exposed while a few hundred birds the size of a military grade aeroskimmer flew by didn’t appeal to her. She stalked another hundred feet before an idea came to her. Rivers flowed from high to low. She’d passed one last night. Dipping her toes in for the fish to nibble on had no attraction, but if it had carved out an easier route to climb up the cliff, perhaps she could still make it and have some cover.
Chapter 6
“ Yet one more thing the recruiters never told me about.” Elsa had a collection of items that fit the list. Most Marines did, but she’d gone from being a finishing school track star to an elite Special Ops soldier. Hers was longer.
The gunnery sergeant snapped her helmet back on after giving herself a quick moment to dunk her head in the large pool at the base of the cliff. The water refreshed her, washing away the heat and exhaustion that surviving a screamer pod followed by fifteen hours of hard marching had caused. Her sensors verified it was safe for consumption so she’d sampled it, then marveled at how much better it tasted than the water in her kit. Then again, the water in her kit was recycled, either by her suit of armor or back on the Navy ship that brought her to Vitalis.
She glanced at the waterfall that fed the pool and the stream that led away from it. The noise was deafening, but that also meant nothing would hear her. Under different circumstances — and without angry chickens bigger than her last apartment running around — she’d want nothing more than to strip off her sweaty armor and dive into the pool. Then again if the fish downstream could chew metal she didn’t want to know just what they’d do to her more sensitive parts.
“ This place isn’t a paradise, it’s a death trap,” She muttered. “Tempting me to do things I’d never do normally and then-“
Elsa clamped her mouth shut abruptly. Across the pond from her, at least eighty feet away, three animals had emerged from the forest to drink from the pond. They were four legged but they reminded her of giant frogs. The largest was sitting down and looking into the jungle, keeping watch. Even sitting it was taller than Elsa. The two smaller ones, babies or children she guessed, were drinking from the pond.