2954-09-09 – Tales from the Service: The Lurker in the Shadows 

The plight of Incarnation castaways in the deep inland forests of Håkøya is far worse than our protagonists here could have known at the time. Likely there are hundreds of them still out there, weeks after the battle is over, and most of them will probably never be seen by another human again. 

Obviously there are some plants and even animals on that world that a human can eat to assuage his hunger without coming to harm, but the biology of the species there differs from that of Terra enough that most of the nutrients in the fruit and meat are unavailable to the human gut without the use of enzyme supplements (or the use of gene-tweaked cultivars of the choicer varieties, but these do not compete well with natural specimens) they will waste away with full bellies over a period of weeks or months. 

Without some way to navigate these wild places and find civilization to surrender to, those still lost on Håkøya after the battle for the world have little hope. 

The next morning, a gray, almost muddy sort of light crept through the thin skin of the shelter and woke Vann Rudenko where he lay on the hard ground.  A muttering, fitful wind disturbed the treetops above the shelter, and his first thought was wondering if it would rain. Immediately after that, he remembered what he had seen – or dreamed, for so it now seemed – during the night. 

Vann wondered as soon as he opened his eyes if either of his compatriots had heard anything during the night, as he had, but when he sat up, he saw Langer standing over the still, silent form of Guardian Kaube, his face pale and grim. Fisher caught Vann’s eye from the other side of the shelter and communicated all that needed to be said with a barely-perceptible shake of the head. Kaube would never wake again. Whether the claim of his implants that his health stats were steady had been an error, or he had taken a turn for the worse in the night, hardly mattered. 

Vann and Langer helped the legless Fisher out of the shelter, and they ate their morning rations in silence, as the gusty wind tossed the canopy above their heads. Vann, who hadn’t known Kaube well, wondered how the battle for Håkøya was going. Even before their stranding, their unit hadn’t heard much; they were guard troops, shuttled from fortification to fortification, having actually fought the hated enemy only briefly, in a probing skirmish on the outer perimeter of Redoubt Kamata. Kaube and hadn’t been with the detachment for that fight. He’d been brought in to replace one of the guardians who’d been wounded. 

Langer set aside his only half-eaten ration and stood up. “Rudenko, do you think you can hike back up that hill?” 

Vann eased himself to his feet. His side still hurt, and the side of his face tingled, but the miracle of nanobandages and a night’s sleep had him feeling worlds better than he had the day prior. “It will be done.” Though Langer was technically only a guardian, just as Vann was, he thumped his hand into his shoulder in the traditional Incarnation salute, though he did it more slowly than normal, so as not to stress the new skin over his nanotechnologically-healed burns. 

Langer took the salute in stride, understanding it for what it was – an acknowledgement of the de-facto leadership of their little group, while no more senior personnel were present. He tossed his laser carbine to Vann, then produced a pistol from his pack. “Fisher, do you think you can start breaking down the shelter?” He winced as he spoke; asking a man with one leg to do any sort of manual labor bordered on cruel. 

Fisher saluted too, though the impact of his fist on his shoulder set off a wave of coughs. “It will be done... as far as I can manage.” He said, as soon as the fit subsided. 

“Don’t overtax yourself.” Langer waved to Vann and set off up the slope. 

As they climbed, Vann once again recalled the sounds and sights of the night prior. “I thought I heard something skulking around the shelter last night.” He shifted the carbine to his shoulder, then winced and resumed carrying it in his arms. “Did you hear anything?” 

“No.” Langer didn’t even look over his shoulder. “Maybe there was. But none of the wildlife on this world is any threat.” 

“Of course.” Vann sighed. “Still... there might be partisans. The infocasts said bandits attacked the perimeter at Render Point two days before we were sent out here.” 

Langer stopped for a moment. “I hadn’t thought about that. We should deploy a sensor net when we bed down tonight.” 

Vann, somewhat mollified and beginning to feel the exertion of the climb, fell silent. Fortunately, the hill was not very tall; just before he thought he would need to ask for a rest, the trees parted, and the scorched hilltop clearing came into view. 

At the sight, Vann’s stomach turned. A few wisps of greasy smoke still trickled from the burnt-out remains of the hover-transport, surrounded by a black halo of scorched rocks and soot that had once been knee-high grasses. Blackened metal shards protruded from the boles of several of the trees, and broken branches littered the forest’s verge. Langer had been busy the previous day; a lumpy pile covered by a tarp held down by a circle of rocks was probably where the remains of the rest of the unit had been gathered. There was a stack of packs and gear next to this rudimentary cairn.  

“Should we cover them with rocks?” Vann asked, pointing to the tarp. 

“If there were more of us.” Langer shook his head. “But that will take all day in the condition we’re in.” He approached the pile of gear and took a laser carbine from the pile there. “I don’t think we should linger.”  

Vann stared at the transport wreck for a long moment, a convulsive shudder working its way up his spine. He decided that Langer was quite right about that. 

“See if you can get into any of the cargo stowage on the other side of the transport.” Langer flapped his bandaged arm as he picked up one of the packs and started pulling rations out of it. “I only had one hand yesterday and some of those compartments looked like they might have survived.” 

“It will be done.” Vann started picking his way around the clearing. 

Though parts of the wreck were still smoldering, the bulging cargo stowage sponson along its flank, below the personnel cabin, was quite cool, and did not look to have burned too badly. The locking mechanism on each compartment would need implant access to unlock even if it was working, of course, so Vann hunted about for a rock and started bashing at the first one, hoping to bend the hatch until the latch worked its way free. 

Though the hatch deformed nicely on the first blow, it took several more before he got it open. Winded, Vann sat down on the scorched ground to rest before he dug into the compartment’s contents. 

As he sat there, his back to the wreck, looking down the opposite slope of the hill, Vann spied movement among the trees. Whatever it was, was pale and quick, flitting between the tree-trunks and shrubbery. 

Remembering the briefing material that was quite clear on the harmlessness of all of the macrofauna native to Håkøya, Vann watched the spot the motion had vanished. The seconds stretched to minutes, and still nothing happened except the occasional grunt or clatter of activity indicating that Langer was still going through packs and plundering gear on the other side of the crash site. 

Finally, just as Vann was going to give up and go back to his task, he saw the creature again. One slim, luminous-white limb curled around a dark tree-trunk. It had an almost hand-like appendage at the end, but that limb bent in ways no human arm ever could. 

After the arm, a head peeped out, just as pale, and then Vann held his breath. The face peering out at him might have been mistaken for human, if he hadn’t seen the arm first – it was flat and white, with wide, dark eyes and a dangling mane of webby hair like a lace veil. 

Just as soon as it had appeared, the creature vanished once more. Vann blinked twice, instantly doubting what he had seen. He tried to silently comm Langer to report what he’d seen, but of course his implant, comm and all, was still broken. 

Grabbing his laser carbine and switching off its safety, Vann started going down toward the trees where he’d seen the face. If it was just an animal, he might get a better look at it – if it was some person, he’d bring them back to Langer and they’d decide what to do next.