Michael Siemsen - Exigency

JOHN: If she didn’t establish superiority via violence like we did, the Hynka would kill her in an instant.

MINNIE: And you know she wouldn’t dream of hurting of her babies. My question is, would she expect an attack from them? Or do you suppose she might have built up some grand illusions about communicating with them? Establish peaceful relations? Join the tribe?

JOHN: What are you going to do? Won’t it be dark soon?

MINNIE: I have 3.25 hours of daylight. I’m going to find EV5 and, if she’s not dead, I’m going to find Ish.

Minnie’s stomach ached for food, a dull pain joining the piercing stabs of her colon. Running through the forest along the red line, she hoped the adrenalin would ease her discomfort. Tomorrow , she pleaded with her gut. Halfway to EV5’s beacon signal, she certainly wasn’t going to stop and go back to the cave to eat.

ALERTS: Terrain 0.5K – 3 rdorder stream

She ducked beneath a pair of supershrooms and wondered how those babies would taste on a giant grill, drizzled with butter.

Everything’s food now, eh?

An image of John lying in the heater’s glow, his body slowly morphing into a roasted chicken, like an old-timey cartoon.

“Depth and flow?” she asked her fone, unable to navigate the menu and run simultaneously.

“One to two meters at crossing point!” Superhero emphatically replied in her ear.

She hadn’t used audible prompts in ages and couldn’t remember why she’d changed it away from the hilariously sexy, breathy Domino voice she always used. The only times she used Superhero was when John sent out long, rambling messages she wanted read to her. It always dampened her irritation to hear his words read in Superhero’s deep, melodramatic yell. That must’ve been why audible was set to him. A fresh dose of guilt.

Superhero went on, “Twenty-three C-F-S flow! Bank soil rigidity unknown!”

“ You are advising against jumping an obstacle?”

“Rephrase!” Superhero demanded. The mapping system wasn’t programmed for idle banter like some of the others. And Superhero probably didn’t know he was a superhero, or all that that entailed. Well, Superhero didn’t actually know anything. He was one of thousands of voices that could speak for her fone.

Minnie dismissed the warning as the river came into view. It was definitely too wide to jump without getting wet, but she was able to walk through without much effort. Beyond the stream, forestland gave way to a relatively flat plain and a wide, distant view. In the distance, a purple mountain overlooked the land, apparently coated in the same mossy lichen that blanketed the plain of river-smoothed rocks around her.

She focused on the center of the mountain and expanded the tiny details icon that appeared. The station’s sensors had scanned and mapped the mountain several times a year since their arrival in Epsy orbit. Dormant volcanic, 14 major caves, 29 minor caves, nickel, copper, platinum, and rhodium, and though it wasn’t in the files thanks to Ish apparently erasing everything, Minnie remembered a little something about this mountain.

Ish had done a report on it for the team a couple years back. The Hynka called it Duchroch and it was apparently their equivalent of Mount Olympus, or any of Earth’s other geographically based origin-of-life legends. Minnie had irritated Ish by calling it “duck rock,” but now she was glad she’d actually paid attention in the briefing. Though there were signs that early Hynka occupied its caves, it had been considered sacred and untouchable for as long as modern-day Hynka knew.

Minnie resumed running along her guide line, cutting left at the mountain’s shrub-littered foothills. 2K to go, and the last leg would have a 300m elevation rise. Peering “through” the mountain in her map overlay, she could see EV5’s flashing beacon signal coming from a saddle between a low-lying foothill and the mountain.

Halfway up the rocky slope, 15 minutes later, Minnie paused to catch her breath on a small landing. The next rise wore an apron of rocky debris she wasn’t looking forward to climbing. Her abdominal pain had subsided for the time being, but her chest burned. She closed her visor and sucked in a lungful of pure oxygen. John had been silent a while. Asleep, she guessed, as she curled her tongue around her helmet’s water tube, pulled it to her lips, and watched her fone’s gauge count off as she gulped down 500mils.

Peering back, she saw that she’d reached treetop elevation, a beautiful view of the curving valley behind her. In the distance, the rocky spire that marked their hideout appeared as a rough-edged toothpick before the darkening western sky. She thought about sending John an M to check in, but didn’t want to wake him. Besides, she might’ve been mere minutes from finding Ish camped out in a nearby cave. John didn’t need to be involved with wherever that led.

She switched to therm and unholstered her MW, setting it to nonlethal.

Here we go…

She opened her visor and attacked the loose scree slope—two steps forward, one back; one step forward, two back. It felt like paddling up a waterfall. Discovering she needed both hands, she reholstered her MW.

One foot after the next! Get those knees high!

More time on the station’s legger would have been advantageous. Hell, fitness minimums should have been double the prescribed total, but she admitted it would’ve been yet another complaint she’d have sent John’s way.

Finally reaching the top of the scree, she huffed more oxygen and waited for the thumping all over her body to wane. She peered left to the floating red guide line gently arcing round a bend.

Beyond the blind curve, the guide continued briefly as a short dashed line before ending abruptly at a white circle. Therm revealed nothing through the dense rock, but upon switching to mag, Minnie held her breath for a beat, swallowed, and proceeded forward.

Dry purple lichen crunched beneath her boots as she moved along the mostly flat terrain. The sky grew darker by the minute. She wasn’t worried about her ability to see, but while Hynka weren’t strictly nocturnal, most of their prey were, so she figured it’s when they’d be most active. It would explain the massive horde that had greeted them upon landing. However, if the glowing green sphere in her optic was as perfectly intact as she thought, she may not need to worry about Hynka tonight.

As she rounded the final bend, Minnie paused and leaned out just enough for a direct view. Indeed, EV5 was not only sitting in a convenient little saucer of a depression, it appeared to be in pristine condition. Its hatch hovered above the opening as if someone had just landed and stepped out. Multicolored lights illuminated the interior and visible porthole. Its parachute had retracted upon its pilot’s command during landing, as evidenced by the closed doors at the top of the sphere—an evac step she and John forewent.

Minnie switched back to therm and surveyed the scene for lifeforms. Nothing bigger than a worm for 100m around the hillside. She held her breath and had her sensors listen for disrupts—sounds that defied the local din pattern. Nothing.

Venturing forward, Minnie stepped out and walked cautiously toward the EV, noticing halfway there that the hatch faced the wide mouth of a cave. Her optics wouldn’t have picked up anything inside it. She halted, sidestepped to the cave entrance (possibly wide enough to roll the EV into), and ran the same scans. Still no lifeforms, but mag picked up a collection of disparate metals on the ground about 20m in. Minnie activated IR and crept inside, MW held steadily before her.