Into the Void

Chapter 22

Sniffing cautiously, the animal waddled slowly closer to Nate and Damon. Damon raised his laser rifle but Nate holstered his pistol, looking down he saw he was standing behind a wide, neon yellow mushroom cap. He drew his knife and sliced a large chunk out of the mushroom, the soft flesh parting easily before the blade. With the mushroom chunk in his left hand dripping a viscous, sticky, blue fluid, he stepped gently out of the underbrush, holding the sticky mushroom cap out in front of him. The big shaggy animal recoiled, stretching up to its full height and pawing at the dirt. Slowly, he tossed the mushroom cap towards the creature. It scuttled backwards with a frightened growl before sniffing at the mushroom. Without taking its small beady eyes off of Nate it greedily gobbled up the mushroom, and took one slow step forwards sniffing the air. The scruffy long necked animal drew closer sniffing at Nate’s exo-suit. After several minutes of standing still while the beast inspected him he took a slow step back and the beast continued rummaging through the clearing, searching for more mushrooms. Unable to find any, it turned and loped off into woods while Nate walked back to the crash site, smiling.

As Nate and Damon stepped back onto the riverbank, Nate tapped a series of keys on his suits forearm control panel, sending the video he had recorded into the dropship's memory. “That was awesome.” he said, smiling.

“What was awesome?” asked Rown. Nate looked up to see him standing on the top of the ship pulling an access panel open.

“Video’s just finished uploading into the ship’s memory. I introduced myself to a local. If you see any great big shaggy long-necked things running around remember they’re pretty friendly and they like mushrooms.”

Rowan made a surprised sound. “Noted. Could you get into the cockpit and see if the belly thrusters can pick us up a little? We’re resting right on the hull here and I’d like to get the landing struts down.”

Nate walked back in the cockpit and sat down in the pilot’s seat. The control panel was still dark and he noticed that he had bent the control stick during the crash. He carefully started the reactor and routed a small amount of power into the thrusters. The ship rattled and shook as it struggled to lift its armoured bulk off of the river bed. The ship bobbed in the air as it hovered. He tapped the sequence to deploy the landing gear and heard a harsh, metal on metal grinding sound, as the struts pushed themselves out of the belly of the ship. With the struts extended he set the ship down as gently as possible, bouncing in his seat as the ship dropped back onto the river bed.

“Hey, everyone?” came Rowan’s voice over the radio. “I found something. I need security here ASAP!”

Nate ran out of the cockpit, pulling his repeater off the wall as he jogged out of the ship. Rowan was standing in the river looking down at a large, square metal hatch in the riverbed. Nate swallowed nervously, remembering the tide of drones that had assaulted them the last time they’d open a hatch like this one. The rest of the team ran back to the ship and stood in a wide circle around the hatch. Damon walked up to and prodded it with a toe, and Onyx jogged into the ship and emerged carrying a round, bulky, shoulder fired weapon.

“What do we do?” asked Nate. The question hung in the air for a long moment.

“I vote we bury it, forget it was ever here and go back to feeding mushroom caps to the local animals and skipping through the flowers,” said Rowan.

“We can’t do that,” said Izzy.

Rowan glared at her. “Why the hell not?”

“Because they’re going to found a colony here. If there’s more of those drones they could wipe out the entire first wave of colonists. I'm not going to be the one responsible for that much death.”