2954-09-23 – Tales from the Service: A Trek Across the Galbrandt
The utter isolation of a group of three Incarnation troopers on Håkøya would have been incredible, but I can in particular imagine the peculiar position of our narrator of this account. For the first time in his adult life, he would have been alone inside his own head, while also alone in an external wilderness foreign to him.
Into this void, a Gossamer seems to have crept. They always seem to slip into convenient gaps like this – it's rather uncanny behavior which has made accounts of their existence so doubtful for so long.
Vann Rudenko trudged back up the slope to the crash site. For some reason, it didn't seem as hard going up as it had going down, but he didn't notice that for some time. He was at every step terrified that with the next he would realize that what he had just seen and heard was a hallucination, or a trick of his mostly-dead implant.
He reached the loose rock crown of the hill without having any such revelation, however. The pale woman – not human, certainly, but beyond that he couldn't guess – refused to fade into the haze of a dream.
Guardian Langer poked his head over the crumpled tail assembly as Vann was making his way up the scree. "Where did you go?" His brow was furrowed in obvious concern.
Vann pointed behind him. "Though I saw something watching us. Or someone. Went to check it out." He meant to continue to explain what he'd seen, but the thought died unvoiced. How could he explain, precisely? Wouldn't Langer think he was hallucinating?
"Right." The answer did not entirely satisfy the other man, that much was obvious. "I'm done on my side. Let's see what we can do on yours."
Twenty minutes later, their packs bulging with everything they thought might be useful, the pair worked their way down the hill to the place they'd spent the night. It was still barely mid-morning, and the morning's wind had risen to roaring gusts that tossed the treetops and showered the pair with broken bits of foliage as they walked.
The shelter was mostly disassembled when they reached the little hollow, with rocks and logs set on top of various pieces to keep them from being disturbed by the wind. Fisher was sitting in the middle of the disarray, calmly winding one of the tie-lines around his arm.
Kaube's body was still there, too, covered by a single thin blanket. Vann tried not to look at it as he set his bulging pack down and started to unpack it.
"Don't pull everything out." Langer set his pack down, too, then went over to inspect Kaube. "Did you get everything off him?"
"Everything worth taking, plus his implant's memory chip and everything he had in his pockets that looked personal." Fisher held up a little polymer bag.
"Good." Langer started gathering up the various components of the shelter and packing them into the bag next to Fisher's knee. "Rudenko, configure one of those nano-tools as a crutch for Fisher. We're moving as soon as this is packed up."
Vann started. "Where are we going to go? From the top of the hill you can see it's just this forest in every direction."
"The transport was moving south-southwest when it took that hit." Langer shrugged. "Best guess, friendly lines are that way."
Vann glanced over at Fisher, who avoided his gaze. Apparently, the other two had already decided this over the aether.
Direction hardly mattered, and Vann knew it only too well. With the two of them carrying heavy packs and helping Fisher limp along on one leg and a stick, they would be lucky to cover a klick of broken woodland in every hour of toil. They'd need to stop for regular rest and food. Nanobandages weren't magic, after all; they accelerated natural healing and helped it along, but the energy for this had to come from the subject's own body reserves. There was nowhere else to draw it from.
An hour later, they were in motion, with Langer leading the way and Vann helping Fisher through the uneven footing, which was most of their route. There were no paths through this endless wood; they were following the digital compass in Langer's implants HUD. Presumably, it worked, or at least, it agreed with Fisher's.
They walked in silence, both to try to preserve some semblance of stealth, and because the two Guardians with working implants were able to chat without breath or sound via short-range radio.
Vann didn't mind. He was thinking about the woman-creature from the hollow. She said she'd be coming at night to guide them. What could he say to the others to ensure they wouldn't just start shooting?
Should he trust the pale creature? What would happen if they did follow it?
It wasn't long before they had to stop for a rest. Langer passed around a water-flask, and they all sat against trees for a few minutes, breathing hard.
"We're..." Fisher coughed and waved for the water bottle. "We're probably just as dead as everyone else. We're just dragging it out."
"That's our job, Guardian." Langer nodded. They were having this conversation in the open, so that meant Vann was supposed to hear it. "All the Incarnate's efforts may only be delaying the inevitable."
Vann sighed. "I don't need you to do the job of my implants, comrades." He tapped the defunct device in his forehead. "I'll be fine without it for a couple days."
The other two exchanged a glance, but said nothing more. After a few minutes, they got up to toil onward again.
They moved on fitfully all day, sheltered from the blustery wind by the thick trees. It started to grow dark, and the wind took on a shrill note. Though it never really got cold anywhere on Håkøya Vann had been, he didn't relish the thought of being out in the open all night with only a thin gentle-environ modular shelter between his body and that wind.
Fat, heavy raindrops began to patter into the canopy above their heads. Langer stopped and turned around. "No point going on in the rain. Vann, get the shelter up. I'm going to go look around."
With Fisher's help, Vann had barely stretched the roof sections overhead and tied them to two nearby trees when the downpour began in earnest. Fisher started activating a few lights while Vann wrestled the side-panels into place and bonded the seams to make the entire thing mostly waterproof.
Langer hurried back just as Vann finished the setup and crawled inside. Fisher, already underneath, was already starting the warmers on a handful of ration packs.
After they ate, Vann cleared his throat. "I've got a feeling we're not alone out here." He almost had to shout over the drumming of the rain over their heads.
"You think there are patrols?" Langer shook his head. "Maybe a few left-behind civvies. I rather hope they are. We could wring supplies and directions out of them."
"No." Vann shook his head. "I think if anyone lives way out here, we're wiser to be afraid of them."
Fisher laughed. "Why? They're civilians. What's more, if they're out this far, they're backsliders into some noble-savage nonsense."
"This is their home turf." Vann held up a hand. "We don't know the biosphere, the terrain, the weather patterns... We don't know whether they're there, but they probably know we're here."
"If they're out there." Langer broke in.
Vann nodded. "And they don't want us here. I haven't heard of a single civilian on this whole accursed planet who saw us as the liberators we were claiming to be."
This, he realized in retrospect, was a bit of a prohibited thought, one that would have doomed him to a bombardment of gentle, whispered reminders of Incarnation righteousness and the inevitable doom which awaited humanity if it should fail. No doubt that's what it triggered for his two compatriots; they both fell silent for some seconds.
Eventually, Langer spoke again. "Supposing you're right. What do you propose we do?"
Vann shrugged. "Make a deal with them. They're not who we're here to fight."
Again, seconds of silence, but this time, Vann could just about hear the conversation going on silently past him.
"What did you think you saw up on the hill this morning, Vann?" Langer finally asked.
"A face." Vann looked down at the dirt. "Looking out at me from the trees. That's what I went chasing."
"But you didn't find anything." Langer frowned.
Vann shrugged. How could he explain?
Though the other two no doubt continued their private conversation in silence, the rain soon lulled all three Guardians to sleep. They set no watch; the rain would have made such an effort futile in any case. Even if one of them were standing outside, they could see only a few meters in any direction, and could hear nothing. An entire armored column could pass within twenty meters of their shelter and they'd never know it until the morning.