Elsa stood up slowly and backed away, hoping to slip away unseen. The mega-frog on duty turned its head and fixed its four bulbous eyes on her.
“ I really hate this planet,” Elsa muttered, slowly raising her rifle. It let out a piercing croak that echoed off the cliff walls and briefly overpowered even the sounds of falling water. Else grimaced but held her ground, the dampeners in her helmet blocking the noise before it overwhelmed her.
The two baby frogs scrambled back immediately and hopped into the jungle. Mama sent another warning croak Elsa’s way before it followed after them.
Else stared after them, shaking a little, then realized she needed to be somewhere else before something bigger and toothier came to investigate. The only problem with that was her only retreat was a vertical one. She stared up the cliff wall, having her best view of it yet thanks to the pool of water and the waterfall. Unfortunately her only cover came from the rock that countless years of running water had chewed away. Wet rock and a long fall was her definition of inhospitable.
Elsa glanced back along the water’s edge, reluctant to turn her back for long on the jungle. A flare of red in her display alerted her to something creeping through the trees. Not under the trees, in them. It was large, like everything else, and when her helmet was able to refine the view she saw it possessed four long and overly articulated legs. It moved stealthily, unused to tracking prey with the technology that Elsa had at her disposal. It reminded her of a spider and a monkey, but it wasn’t until she turned off the thermal imaging that she was able to see it clearly. Instead of fur or feathers, or even the slimy looking skin the mega-frog family had sported, this creepy crawler blended in so well she was sure she wouldn’t have seen it if it hadn’t been moving.
She commanded her helmet to take a video of it as it moved, afraid nobody would believe her when she returned to report it. As it moved so did the colors and shading on its skin. It was part spider, part monkey, and part chameleon. She raised her rifle and took careful aim at what she thought was its head. As soon as the beam of charged ions hit it let loose a screech that threatened to make her spine buck out of her skin. The dampers in her helmet judged the decibel level safe so it let her enjoy the wretched death wail.
“ Get your ass moving, Gunny,” Elsa told herself. With that racket added in, it was only a matter of time until something else came along. She broke her rifle down and attached it, then turned and stepped into the water where it lapped against the cliff wall.
She moved along a small ledge against the wall. The wet rock was slippery but a firm kick into the rock helped chip it away and give her a little more footing. She hugged the wall, using her hands whenever a crack was available to help until the cliff opened away near the edge of the waterfall. Spray and mist covered her, blurring her vision. Miraculously, the fish had done little damage to her helmet earlier, but now it became a moot point given the persistence of the spray.
The ledge widened slightly, allowing her lean back and look up, though it did her little good. With a grunt she moved in further then decided enough was enough, it was time to go up. She wiped the mist off her visor, regretting it instantly. Either she could look through a distorted image or one smeared with streaks and splatters. Cursing, she flipped her visor up, rationalizing that her eyelids could blink the mist away as needed. Within seconds her face and hair was soaked and the water began to work its way down her neck and into her suit.
“ This planet is fucking awesome,” Elsa growled. With no display to superimpose over her open viewport she subvocalized the necessary commands to boost power to her suit. The batteries would drain faster, but she had solar rechargers in her gear. One requisition filled, thankfully. Then again without energy a Marine was lost — limited ammo, limited smart armor, worthless gear, and even her vibrating V-Bar combat knife would be little more than a sharp stick.
She drew back her fist and slammed it into the rock, cracking the hard stone and giving her the first of the many handholds and footholds she would need. She held her fist up and flexed it, looking at it carefully. The armored glove was holding up fine, but she had several hundred more left and right jabs into the cliff to go. A kick with one leg and she was off, making her own path up the side of the wet cliff.
The climb was exhausting even with the suit providing extra oomph to her strikes. Micro actuators in her fingers helped her hold on, but there was no power in the suit to keep her shoulders and elbows in place, nor to help her make each grip.
Nearly three hours later, her visor still open and her face now drenched with sweat, Elsa found a crack in the cliff that allowed her to pull herself inside of it. She collapsed, gasping for breath and praying it was too small for one of the predatory birds she’d seen. It was damp in the small crevice, but aside from a couple of tiny hard shelled creatures that slipped into cracks in the rocks, it was uninhabited.
Elsa lay panting for several minutes. The ache in her arms faded and the pinch in her side let loose, making her feel human again. All that remained was the ache to get out of her suit and stretch, but that was a luxury she couldn’t afford. She hoped this trip wasn’t like the one she’d endured on a mission to retake a mining complex in one of the outer systems — her unit had been trapped for nearly three weeks in their suits the entire time.
With a groan she pulled herself up to a sitting position and peered out of the opening. The sun had passed overhead, plunging the cliff into shadows. So close to the water that plunged hundreds of feet below the humidity was almost overpowering. She wiggled her toes in her boots, feeling them squish against the water that had pooled in them. With a reluctant frown she lowered her visor and called up the display of her suits internal sensors. She was carrying extra water, almost all the way up to her knees. That was impressive, considering how the suit had built in water absorption systems that would filter and reclaim it. Her pods were full and the suit couldn’t keep up. That was the same way the suit would process liquid waste, be it sweat or urine. Solid waste was another matter altogether and, ideally, one best avoided. During her three week stint alternative measures had been necessary but they were awkward and considerably unpleasant. She shuddered at the thought, then realized she’d be carrying more weight with every extra ounce of water the suit trapped and failed to process.
Elsa detached her water pods and opened them, dumping the filtered water onto the rocks beneath her. She took a drink from the last one, then secured it back in place. She’d rested longer than she should have. A final check of her clock showed that she was now nearly eighteen hours past due for the landing zone rendezvous. She had thirty hours from a full strike force being launched if no response was given from the First Insertion team.
What did she care? Elsa frowned and flipped up her visor. An orbital strike followed by gunships and a few companies of regular marines would wipe out everything for miles around. Even with that kind of firepower she was far enough away to be safe.
She watched as an insect that reminded her of a butterfly out of a science text fluttered into her hiding spot. It zipped back out just as quickly upon seeing her, reminding her that she was the trespasser, not it. Elsa sighed and looked at her fists again. The material was worn and showed some patchy signs of hairline cracks. She’d made it almost halfway up, another few hours of personal abuse and she should reach the top.
She gazed out over the jungle below, stricken by the beauty of the lush green vegetation and the contrasting flowers from trees and the few birds flying above them. A few creatures even darted in and out below, too swiftly for her to identify them, but she knew they were no more reminiscent of anything from Earth than anything else she’d seen. She remembered a parody of an old military slogan: “Visit new ports and new worlds; explore new cultures and meet diverse people; then shoot them.”