Edward Grant - Rebellion

Hopefully she’d still be intact by the time they recovered her. If not… he’d made a backup before they left.

“Sorry, Alice. Confirm. Open the suit.”

He took another deep breath as motors whined and the back of the suit began to open, then his own back turned to ice as river water poured in. He resisted the urge to gasp as his body shook and shivered at the sudden temperature change as the water ran over it.

Instead, he held the last breath he took, and tried to ignore the cold as water filled the front of the suit. Then the back of the suit opened completely, and the last of the air inside it burst past him in a trail of bubbles. He slammed his hand onto the clip in the centre of his chest that held the straps together, and pulled on them until they came free. Then twisted out of the suit’s exoskeleton frame.

His arms pulled him up and legs kicked as he swam toward the surface, and his face broke free of the water in the shadows of the cliff. He glanced back, looking for a landmark to help him find the suit when they returned to recover it.

But the water splashed around him as the river carried him away, twisting and turning, between rocks protruding from the surface. He paddled with his hands and twisted around, to look downstream. White foam sprayed into the air as the river tumbled through rock-strewn rapids just ahead.

He kicked and paddled through the water, toward the rocks near the shore. He needed every ounce of the oxygen he had sucked in before he left the suit, and pushed all the energy he could find into his limbs as they struggled to haul him away from the rapids.

His heart was thumping hard, and he gasped down a fresh breath every time his mouth rose above the surface. He’d swum in the Channel back home, in the sea off the beach at Hastings, but it had never been as hard as this. Even the one time he made the mistake of swimming out to sea with the receding tide, then trying to fight his way back to the beach against it.

Then, like now, he’d struggled as hard as he could against the water, but salvation barely seemed to come any closer no matter how hard he pulled himself toward the shore. Only luck and swimming well beyond the point of exhaustion had saved him that time.

The rocks passed by on his right as the water carried him on, and his own efforts to swim across the river had barely any effect as the current tried to turn him around in the swirling waters. If anything, he was moving further to the left as he tried to swim to the right.

His head bobbed up and down in the river as it became more turbulent with every metre it travelled toward the rapids. He gulped down a mouthful of cold water as he gasped for breath, and spat it out as he bobbed up again. The roar of the rapids filled his ears, and the spray landed in his hair. If he didn’t smash into the rocks, he was going over them, and on down the river. Probably with a few broken bones.

But the world was fading around him as his lungs ran out of air. The roar of the rapids faded, the water no longer seemed real as his consciousness began to fade, and his eyelids drooped. He had no strength left to swim toward the shore.

The first rock towered above him, rising two or three metres above the water. He sucked in a deep breath, and kicked his legs with all his remaining strength, pushing himself away. His left foot slapped against the side of the rock, then he was past it, slowly turning in the water and heading downstream.

Another rock protruded from the water just ahead. A small one that barely rose above the surface, but was perhaps a metre across where it did. He kicked toward it, and swung his arms through the water with all the energy he could find, pulling himself toward the rock until he was almost on top of it.

His shoulder strained as he reached for the rock, and wrapped his left arm around it. Then he grunted with pain as the arm took his whole weight against the force of the current, and pulled him to a stop. His legs floated out behind him as he swung his right arm round, and wrapped it around the rock alongside the left.

He pulled himself onto the rock, until his chest lay on top of it with only his legs dangling over the side, which took some of the strain away from his arms. He lay there for a few minutes, gasping down the air until his heart slowed and his head began to clear. Then he pulled himself up.

The cliff towered above the river, about ten metres to his left. But there was no easy route in that direction. He’d have to cross three metres of churning water to get to the next rock, and would still have a long way to go. On the far side, though, away from the cliff, a chain of rocks led right across the rapids.

He crouched, then jumped to the first of them, another flat rock about a metre away. The next rock rose higher from the water, and he grabbed it, then pulled himself up and clambered on top. He hopped from rock to rock until he reached the last of them, right at the river’s edge.

He crouched on top of it, and looked down the valley.

Only long grass and a few spindly trees grew down there, in the shadows most of the day. He slid down the far side of the rock, and sat on the dirt beside it, leaning his back against the rough surface.

Water oozed from his fatigues beneath the body armour as the pressure between his back and the rock forced it out. The dirt around his legs slowly became dark mud as water soaked into it from his trousers.

“Bairamov? Desoto? Do you copy?” he said. But there was still no response.

Well, that was a complete clusterfuck. Gallo was gone for sure. With Adamski in hospital and Bairamov and Desoto MIA, Logan knew few of the people still left in 1st Company, and knew few of those as well as he knew Volkov and Poulin. And he’d rather not know either of them.

Particularly after Poulin got Gallo killed for her stupid ore truck plan.

Though the insurgents had seemed remarkably determined to destroy it. Not to mention more competent than those the Legion had run into before. Whatever group was based around here, they knew what they were doing.

Logan’s helmet visor showed the local time. Still six hours to sunset. He could start moving before then, but he’d have to stay in the shadows, and try to cross over the river to the cliff if he could. Which didn’t seem likely, if all the rapids were as fast and turbulent as that one.

His eyelids drooped. Between the thin air, the exertion of the day, and the relief and surprise at still being alive, his aching body just wanted to sleep. For a few days. Better yet, for the rest of his five years in the Legion.

But the food and water wouldn’t last forever, and who knew whether he could safely drink from the river. Every minute he sat there resting was another minute that supply would have to last. The sooner he started walking, the sooner he’d be back with the rest of 1st Company, and they could return in force to clear this place out. Assuming they weren’t already on their way, if Bairamov had managed to call for reinforcements.

Logan pulled his boots from his feet, and tipped them upside down until the water drained out. Then wrung as much water as he could from his socks before he stuffed the boots back on. He grabbed the side of the rock, and pulled himself to his feet. His socks squelched in the boots as he took a step forward. Then another. His feet were going to hate him by the time he got back to base.

But, march or die. That’s the Legionnaire’s life.

He stayed in the shadow of the cliff. But where to? If he followed the valley, it would eventually lead him back to Estérel. Or he could try to make his way to the mine, after all. He’d be able to contact the Legion from there, maybe get a transport to pick him up. If he was lucky, he’d run into Bairamov and Desoto heading back from the mine, and could ride shotgun in the truck. Volkov would be less pissed at him that way.