While Men Fought Men, Something Worse Woke | Military Sci-Fi Infantry Story for Sleep

WEBVTT
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The Amphoras of the Melt, written by Sascha Schmidt,
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narrated by the synthetic voice of Ridley Jacobs.
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The light in the decon lock does not strobe.
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It is a single, continuous red, the color of
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a warning that has gone on so long it has stopped
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feeling like an alarm and become part of the
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air. It stains the bench. The glass, the foam
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residue on the floor, and the backs of my hands
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where the suit techs cut the glove seals loose.
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I sit on the aluminum bench with my boots still
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locked into the lower suit frame because my fingers
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will not steady enough to work the ankle clasps.
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The upper half of the Mark IV hangs from the
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wall hook in the outer chamber, split open like
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a carcass and dripping caustic foam into the
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grated drain. Every few seconds another drop
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falls. The foam hisses when it touches the metal.
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A thin white vapor climbs from it and disappears
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into the cold airflow. I am recording this because
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the Quartermaster will want an explanation for
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why her Mark IV is now tagged as a Category 4
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biohazard, sealed behind two panes of glass and
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a red quarantine light. She will want serial
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numbers, seal failure times, chemical readings,
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and whether the left gauntlet breach came before
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or after exposure. Quartermasters like order.
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They like numbers because numbers do not smell.
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I am also recording because if I stop speaking,
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I hear the flies. They are not real flies. Not
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in here. The lock is clean by the standards of
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the ship, or clean enough for men in white suits
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to stand on the other side of the glass and pretend
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the door is only closed for procedure. The sound
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is memory. Heavy impacts against polycarbonate.
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Thumb -sized bodies, striking visors, shoulder
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plates, oxygen housings, comms fins. A wet, frantic
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buzzing that came through the helmet show and
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into the teeth. A sound too large for insects
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and too many for counting. I need the sound of
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my own voice to keep it out. Three hours earlier,
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or six, time goes soft in the melt. It does not
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break cleanly into minutes down there. It sinks,
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stretches, and clings to the legs the way thawed
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peat clings to armor. My name is Sergeant Elias
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Vane, 3rd Pioneer Sappers, Colonial Defense Auxiliary.
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My trade is opening doors that should stay closed,
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and closing doors that have already failed. On
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paper, that sounds like engineering. In practice,
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it means you are sent ahead of armor when the
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maps are wrong, behind infantry when the breach
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is dirty, and into places command has already
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decided are cheaper to lose than to understand.
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We were tasked to recover the Black Corps from
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a recon walker designated K -9 down in grid 419,
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six hours overdue. The walker had gone silent
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during the morning push, and command wanted the
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theater encryption seeds before the Covenant
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picked through the wreck and started listening
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to our artillery chatter. Losing those seeds
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meant a week of compromised fire missions, false
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corrections, and dead batteries. That was the
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reason printed on the assignment sheet. The reason
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they sent sappers instead of armor was simpler.
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Armor was needed elsewhere. Armor was expensive.
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Sappers were already near the eastern ridge,
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and there were only three of us left on that
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rotation. The melt was supposed to be quiet.
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That word appeared twice in the briefing. Low
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activity. Low contact. Low probability of hostile
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interference. The thermal batteries on the ridge
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had spent the morning softening the permafrost
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for the main armored advance, driving heat into
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old ground that had been locked hard since before
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there were people on that moon. The fire plan
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was clean on the map. It drew straight areas
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of softened approach, safe corridors, and exclusion
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zones. The ground did not care about the map.
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The thaw ran under it, through it, around it,
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following old peat, old water, old seeds, and
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whatever had slept beneath the frost waiting
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for heat. No one redrew the hazard lines for
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the pioneer teams. Command does not redraw lines
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once the push has begun. They expect you to notice
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the ground has changed and adjust your stride
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accordingly. That is what field experience means
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to them. You live long enough to discover where
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the paper ends. We moved in three. Myself on
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point. Corvin on the cutter rig. Maresca on the
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drag line and field medical pack. The Mart 4
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suits were reconditioned infantry exo -shells
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with pioneer attachments bolted on by people
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who had never crawled through thawed peat with
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acid organisms under their knees. They were green
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-rated for chemical seal. which means they had
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passed a vacuum test in a clean room and would
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leak slowly in reality. The joints whined when
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the servos took weight. The recycler smelled
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like the sweat of the last six users, heated
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and cooled so many times that it had become part
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of the plastic. My right gauntlet seal had been
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sticky since yesterday's hydraulic leak on the
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trench line. I had reported it. Supply marked
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it as within tolerance. Everything is within
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tolerance until the thing holding your skin away
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from acid stops doing its job. We advanced in
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a loose wedge, though wedge is too clean a word
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for three tired people moving across thawing
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ground. Bounding overwatch is a fiction in thigh
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-deep peat. You do not bound in the melt. You
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test. You shift weight. You wait for the boot
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to settle. You pull the rear foot free without
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tearing the ankle actuator. You listen to the
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suit complain. Then you do it again. The carbines
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stayed slung across our chests with safeties
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on. Against the organism, a firearm was mostly
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a gesture of frustration, useful against carrion
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flyers if they came close, useless against soil
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that wanted to digest you. The bog was waking.
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The peat underfoot was black and fibrous, cut
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with veins of gray ice and old root material.
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Each step released gas bubbles that broke the
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surface with slow, greasy pops. The suit sensors
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could not identify all of it. Methane, ammonia
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traces, volatile organics, and something older
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that the software called unknown because software
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has never had to smell rot through a failing
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scrubber. The sky sat low above us, thick with
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ash from the thermal bombardment. It was the
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color of a bruise under skin. The cloud cover
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trapped heat in some places and cold in others,
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so the suit heater kept cycling hard, baking
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the torso and letting the cold creep in through
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the hip and shoulder joints. Visibility shifted
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from 50 meters to 15 whenever the mist thickened.
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Static crawled across the low -light overlay.
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Ground -penetrating radar returned smeared shadows
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under every step. At 200 meters from the drop
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point, we saw the first clusters. They grew in
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dinner plate formations across the acidic peat,
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pale green and striped with red, each tube no
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larger than a shot glass, waxy and translucent
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at the lip. Amphoras, the xenobiology brief called
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them, because xenobiologists like old words for
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new ways to die. Each one was capped by an iris
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-like lid that twitched in the cold air. Some
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were closed tight. Some had split open into five
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or seven scarlet arms, fleshy and damp, radiating
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from a central disk of black slime. The slime
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did not shine like oil. It drank light. It looked
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soft, almost harmless, until you saw what it
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did to composite weave. On thermal, the clusters
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were negative spaces. Cold spots drinking warmth
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from the soil. They made the ground look punched
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full of dark holes. The manual mandated a five
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-meter berth. I gave them ten. Maresca marked
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each cluster with hazard pings for our return
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path. Corvin tagged them with orange outlines
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on the shared HUD. It looked careful. It looked
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almost professional. Then the mist moved and
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hid half the markers behind interference. The
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ground between the clusters was slick with a
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film visible even through visor polarization.
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Nectar secretion from the rim. It covered peat,
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stone, dead grass, and ice in a waxy glaze. One
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slip was enough. A hand, knee, or boot edge slid
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into the mouth of the tube. The stiff downward
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hairs inside allowed motion, one way only. Once
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the limb descended, the organism tightened around
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it and fed it toward the acid pool at the base.
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The harder a man pulled, the deeper the hairs
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cut into armor and suit fabric. I had read the
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after -action reports. I had seen the photographs.
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Photographs do not carry smell. Nothing carries
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that smell except air that has already been there.
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We found the scout at the edge of a meltwater
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pool. He was from the 12th, not our unit. His
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shoulder tabs were gray under the ash. He was
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on his knees as if praying, dead upright, body
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held in place by the cluster that had taken his
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right arm. The ground around him looked solid
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until we saw the waxy rims just under the peat
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skin. They had erupted through a crust thin enough
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to fool radar and strong enough to hold its shape
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until weight broke it. His right gauntlet was
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buried to the forearm. The iris lid had split
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into seven red arms and wrapped the wrist joint
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tight. The arms were limp now, or seemed limp,
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but the downward hairs still held him. The black
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slime had crawled up the gauntlet and dried into
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a crust on the suit fabric. I washed one small
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thread of it twitch where it met the elbow seal.
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Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was not. The
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stench came through my intake filters at three
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meters. Not a simple rot. It had weight and persistence,
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a clinging carrion sweetness that the scrubbers
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could not break down. It coated the inside of
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the throat even through the seal, and made every
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breath feel borrowed from something dead. The
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blowflies had already found him. They were larger
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than any fly, had a right to be, blue -green
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and black, fat with the kind of shine you see
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on fuel slicks and meat left too long in heat.
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They came off the body when we approached, not
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in a cloud at first, but in strikes. Heavy impacts
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against our visors. One hit the left side of
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my helmet hard enough to snap my head a degree
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offline. Another burst against Corvin's chest
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plate and left a smear that the suit wiper only
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spread thinner. Corvin stepped closer to the
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scout, cutter rig lifting on reflex. I raised
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my hand. He stopped. We all knew the rule. Do
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not cut the rigid tubes unless you are prepared
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to lose stealth. sanitation, and possibly the
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limb anyway. Cutting spills corrosive fluid.
00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:40.259
Cutting releases the stench inside the tube.
00:11:40.720 --> 00:11:43.620
Cutting tells every carrion feeder in range that
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something warm and damaged is nearby. The scout
00:11:47.620 --> 00:11:50.659
was already dead. His medical beacon had timed
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out hours before. The Earth had him. We left
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him to his prayer. That is not a phrase from
00:11:58.179 --> 00:12:02.480
the report. The report will say we bypassed unrecoverable
00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:05.919
remains due to active biohazard and mission priority.
00:12:06.259 --> 00:12:09.840
It will be correct. It will also be a lie, but
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most correct things are. The flies followed us
00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:17.460
for 200 meters. They coated our external cameras
00:12:17.460 --> 00:12:20.860
until the feed degraded to gray static. They
00:12:20.860 --> 00:12:23.340
crawled around the seams of the helmets, searching
00:12:23.340 --> 00:12:27.179
for salt, warmth, weak points, anything. Their
00:12:27.179 --> 00:12:29.639
bodies struck the polycarbonate with dull little
00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:32.500
knocks. Their legs scraped the visor surface.
00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:36.120
Their wings made a layered buzz that rose and
00:12:36.120 --> 00:12:39.320
fell with our motion, sometimes like radio interference,
00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:43.600
sometimes like rain on a thin roof. We walked
00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:46.600
blind for part of that stretch, relying on inertial
00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:49.460
compass, previous hazard pings, and the feel
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of the ground through the suit frame. The peat
00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:55.210
pulled at our boots. Once, Maresca's left foot
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sank to the ankle in a patch that had been solid
00:12:57.629 --> 00:13:01.129
on insertion radar. She froze, let the servos
00:13:01.129 --> 00:13:04.570
settle, and eased out sideways. No one spoke.
00:13:04.789 --> 00:13:07.789
We used hand signals because the audio pickups
00:13:07.789 --> 00:13:10.950
were full of flies. K -9 appeared out of the
00:13:10.950 --> 00:13:14.389
mist at a range of 30 meters. A 30 -ton recon
00:13:14.389 --> 00:13:17.129
walker reduced by the peak to something small
00:13:17.129 --> 00:13:20.580
and discarded. It had settled nose down into
00:13:20.580 --> 00:13:24.039
the thaw, legs sunk to the knees, hull canted
00:13:24.039 --> 00:13:27.919
left. Ash clung to the armor. Meltwater moved
00:13:27.919 --> 00:13:30.919
around the lower plating in black ribbons. The
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canopy was cracked outward. That detail mattered.
00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:39.080
Not breached inward by fire. Not opened by cutting
00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:41.980
tool. Cracked outward from the pilot's emergency
00:13:41.980 --> 00:13:45.519
release. Someone inside had tried to get out.
00:13:45.929 --> 00:13:49.470
or tried to push something else out. The mechanism
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had fired halfway and jammed against the acid
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-pitted frame. We climbed the hull using mag
00:13:55.710 --> 00:13:59.250
clamps and handholds slick with condensate. The
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armor surface was scarred by small burns, not
00:14:02.049 --> 00:14:05.409
from weapons, but from acid droplets. Thousands
00:14:05.409 --> 00:14:08.870
of them. Pits in the ceramic like wormholes and
00:14:08.870 --> 00:14:13.200
old bone. Through the canopy, the cockpit looked
00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:15.639
like a greenhouse built by something that hated
00:14:15.639 --> 00:14:19.159
mammals. Amphoras had grown through the deck
00:14:19.159 --> 00:14:22.379
plating. They crowded the footwells, the side
00:14:22.379 --> 00:14:26.000
consoles, the spaces between harnesses. Pale
00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:29.299
green tubes striped red -black slime at the centers,
00:14:29.500 --> 00:14:32.659
scarlet arms folded and unfolding in the cold,
00:14:32.720 --> 00:14:37.179
trapped air. Some were small, fresh from translucent
00:14:37.179 --> 00:14:39.639
egg sacs that had split under the instrument
00:14:39.639 --> 00:14:43.240
panels. Others had hardened into rigid clusters
00:14:43.240 --> 00:14:47.000
around soup boots and chair supports. Rhizomes
00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:49.840
ran under the cockpit floor in thick white ropes,
00:14:49.980 --> 00:14:53.600
pushing through seams and cable channels. The
00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:56.419
walker had brought heat, vibration, and shelter.
00:14:56.620 --> 00:15:01.539
The organism had taken all three. The thermal
00:15:01.539 --> 00:15:04.139
bombardment had awakened beds that had slept
00:15:04.139 --> 00:15:06.759
under permafrost for longer than our colonies
00:15:06.759 --> 00:15:10.779
had existed. Wind -borne seeds, underground rhizomes,
00:15:10.879 --> 00:15:14.139
spores carried on fly feet, egg sacs surviving
00:15:14.139 --> 00:15:18.120
desiccation and cold for millennia. That was
00:15:18.120 --> 00:15:22.240
the intelligence of the thing. Not thought. Patience.
00:15:22.419 --> 00:15:25.220
It did not need to chase you if it could wait
00:15:25.220 --> 00:15:28.960
under every step. The pilot was still strapped
00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:32.320
in his harness, helmet on. Visor smeared from
00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:35.120
the inside with black slime. He had not made
00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:37.879
it to the release. The co -pilot was half out
00:15:37.879 --> 00:15:40.480
of his seat. One leg threw a breach in the floor.
00:15:40.659 --> 00:15:42.960
The tubes wrapped around his thigh up to the
00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:46.399
hip. The phi actuator had fused to the deck plate.
00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:49.600
The medical ping returned flatline through a
00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:53.360
suit full of acid. Maresca braced one boot against
00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:56.600
the canopy frame and scanned the cockpit. Her
00:15:56.600 --> 00:15:59.480
field medical package unfolded a probe arm, dipped
00:15:59.480 --> 00:16:02.379
through a crack, sampled the air, and retracted
00:16:02.379 --> 00:16:05.200
fast enough that the tip steamed. She looked
00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:07.860
at the readout. Then she shook her head inside
00:16:07.860 --> 00:16:12.720
the helmet. No life. No clean access. No core
00:16:12.720 --> 00:16:15.179
worth retrieving without full burn containment.
00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:18.480
The black core should have been in the armored
00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:21.480
cradle behind the pilot seat. The cradle was
00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:25.519
open, not stolen. eaten around. The housing had
00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:28.000
been breached from below where rhizomes pushed
00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:29.919
through the deck and cracked the insulation.
00:16:30.500 --> 00:16:33.620
The encryption core itself was still there, but
00:16:33.620 --> 00:16:36.200
its casing was fogged with acid condensation
00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:39.840
and striped with slime prets. Corvin zoomed his
00:16:39.840 --> 00:16:43.620
camera. The data port was gone. The lockpins
00:16:43.620 --> 00:16:46.759
had dissolved. Retrieval would have meant entering
00:16:46.759 --> 00:16:49.980
the cockpit, cutting around the cradle, and carrying
00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:52.759
a contaminated intelligence package back across
00:16:52.759 --> 00:16:56.320
two kilometers of waking peat. The mission had
00:16:56.320 --> 00:17:00.340
already failed. We knew it then, but not how
00:17:00.340 --> 00:17:03.539
completely. The radio cracked through on the
00:17:03.539 --> 00:17:07.019
general pushnet. Not our squat frequency. Command
00:17:07.019 --> 00:17:10.920
traffic, half buried in static. The thermal batteries
00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:14.720
were shifting fire west. West was our extraction
00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:18.670
corridor. The fire plan drew a clean vector across
00:17:18.670 --> 00:17:21.549
the map, a beautiful straight diagonal meant
00:17:21.549 --> 00:17:24.369
to soften the old ground for armored units pushing
00:17:24.369 --> 00:17:27.789
into Covenant range. The fire plan did not show
00:17:27.789 --> 00:17:30.250
the meltwater channels under the peat. It did
00:17:30.250 --> 00:17:33.750
not show the dormant egg beds. It did not show
00:17:33.750 --> 00:17:36.029
the way heat opened old things that should have
00:17:36.029 --> 00:17:39.400
stayed frozen. I pulled the topographic feed
00:17:39.400 --> 00:17:42.799
to my wrist display. Yesterday's hazard map marked
00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:45.559
the egg sack beds along our insertion route as
00:17:45.559 --> 00:17:48.339
dormant. The live ground temperature overlay
00:17:48.339 --> 00:17:52.519
showed those beds waking. Translucent sacks churned
00:17:52.519 --> 00:17:54.779
and thawed peat where thermal shells had pushed
00:17:54.779 --> 00:17:58.079
heat down through the crust. Low light magnification
00:17:58.079 --> 00:18:02.039
showed lids splitting, pale rims flexing, red
00:18:02.039 --> 00:18:06.059
arms unfolding like small wet hands. The rhizome
00:18:06.059 --> 00:18:08.759
front was advancing at 4 meters per hour in some
00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:11.619
places, faster where meltwater carried warmth.
00:18:11.940 --> 00:18:15.119
It would bisect our marked return path in 90
00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:18.000
minutes. Maybe less if the batteries kept firing.
00:18:18.140 --> 00:18:21.519
Maybe much less if the ground collapsed. Corvin
00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:24.000
looked at me through the visor. His face was
00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:27.200
pale, pressed tight around the mouth. Mureska
00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:29.480
did not look at either of us. She was already
00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:33.619
marking alternate routes. I signaled abort. We
00:18:33.619 --> 00:18:37.390
left the bodies. We left the core. We left K
00:18:37.390 --> 00:18:40.910
-9 sinking deeper into Black Pete while the cockpit
00:18:40.910 --> 00:18:43.730
clusters opened and closed in the cold light
00:18:43.730 --> 00:18:47.849
like they were breathing. Descending the hull
00:18:47.849 --> 00:18:51.210
was harder than climbing it. The armor was slick
00:18:51.210 --> 00:18:54.599
now. Mist lifted from the ground in thin sheets
00:18:54.599 --> 00:18:57.759
as the thermal shells worked westward. It carried
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:01.480
spores, acid vapor, and fine ash, and it conducted
00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:04.039
just enough electricity to make the suit sensors
00:19:04.039 --> 00:19:07.880
twitch. The air inside my helmet tasted metallic.
00:19:08.220 --> 00:19:11.519
The filters clicked as they shifted modes. A
00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:14.319
yellow warning appeared, then cleared, then appeared
00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:17.880
again. We moved south toward the old trench line.
00:19:18.730 --> 00:19:21.230
It was not the shortest route to extraction,
00:19:21.509 --> 00:19:24.690
but it was supposed to be higher ground. Supposed
00:19:24.690 --> 00:19:27.609
to be. The kind of word that kills men because
00:19:27.609 --> 00:19:31.089
it sounds almost like knowledge. The peat had
00:19:31.089 --> 00:19:35.069
become soup. Each step sank to mid -shin. The
00:19:35.069 --> 00:19:38.869
exosuit gyros whined, then screamed, compensating
00:19:38.869 --> 00:19:41.089
for a surface that changed shape under weight.
00:19:41.369 --> 00:19:45.420
The knees pistoned in short, jerking arcs. The
00:19:45.420 --> 00:19:48.940
hip actuators overheated twice, forcing 30 -second
00:19:48.940 --> 00:19:51.420
pauses while we stood in the mist and listened
00:19:51.420 --> 00:19:54.660
to the flies moving somewhere behind us. The
00:19:54.660 --> 00:19:57.900
clusters were denser south of K -9. The organism
00:19:57.900 --> 00:20:00.680
had acidified the soil until nothing else grew.
00:20:00.819 --> 00:20:04.519
No scrub grass, no tundra moss, no black sedge.
00:20:04.539 --> 00:20:07.380
Only the amphoras, thousands of them, dinner
00:20:07.380 --> 00:20:10.059
plate clusters and long connected fields broken
00:20:10.059 --> 00:20:13.450
by meltwater. The terrain had become a monoculture
00:20:13.450 --> 00:20:17.109
of open mouths waiting for pressure. I watched
00:20:17.109 --> 00:20:20.190
the thermal overlay and ground radar. The radar
00:20:20.190 --> 00:20:23.450
showed root masses, voids, hard crust, liquid
00:20:23.450 --> 00:20:26.289
pockets. The overlay showed cold spots where
00:20:26.289 --> 00:20:28.670
the clusters drank heat. Neither showed intent.
00:20:29.190 --> 00:20:32.509
That was the part no instrument gives you. The
00:20:32.509 --> 00:20:34.730
sense that the whole ground has stopped being
00:20:34.730 --> 00:20:37.750
terrain and become an animal with many mouths
00:20:37.750 --> 00:20:41.720
and no head. At 100 meters south of the walker,
00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:45.160
I stepped on a surface, the radar marked as root
00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:48.859
mass. It held for the first half second. Then
00:20:48.859 --> 00:20:52.240
the crust flexed. My boot heel breached the waxy
00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:55.400
film over a hidden cluster. Nectar slicked the
00:20:55.400 --> 00:20:59.319
sole instantly. The foot slid forward. I threw
00:20:59.319 --> 00:21:01.839
my weight onto the other leg, hard enough that
00:21:01.839 --> 00:21:05.299
the right hip servo flashed red. The gyro screamed.
00:21:05.859 --> 00:21:09.359
My torso pitched. The carbine banged against
00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:12.779
my chest plate. For one second, my left knee
00:21:12.779 --> 00:21:15.579
hovered above a field of pale green tubes with
00:21:15.579 --> 00:21:18.339
their lids beginning to split. Miureska caught
00:21:18.339 --> 00:21:20.839
the harness strap between my shoulders and hauled
00:21:20.839 --> 00:21:24.559
back. The dragline locked. My boot came free
00:21:24.559 --> 00:21:27.500
with a wet, sucking noise, soul -coated in waxy
00:21:27.500 --> 00:21:31.539
secretion. We stabilized. I stood still until
00:21:31.539 --> 00:21:33.680
my breathing slowed enough that the suit stopped
00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:37.789
flagging carbon dioxide. Corvin was not so fortunate.
00:21:38.369 --> 00:21:41.430
The crust under his left knee gave way when he
00:21:41.430 --> 00:21:44.210
shifted around me. It looked like a simple kneel
00:21:44.210 --> 00:21:46.710
at first, the way a man drops to steady himself.
00:21:47.109 --> 00:21:49.369
Then the knee disappeared through the surface.
00:21:49.589 --> 00:21:53.369
The cluster beneath opened. The iris lid snapped
00:21:53.369 --> 00:21:56.029
shut around his thigh with a wet click, loud
00:21:56.029 --> 00:21:59.609
enough for the external mics to catch. Five scarlet
00:21:59.609 --> 00:22:02.470
arms locked around the suit joint. The stiff
00:22:02.470 --> 00:22:06.339
hairs inside the tube took hold. His leg descended
00:22:06.339 --> 00:22:11.539
one way toward the acid pool. He screamed. The
00:22:11.539 --> 00:22:14.279
suit frequency carried it directly into my helmet,
00:22:14.420 --> 00:22:17.980
high and raw, a sound with all training stripped
00:22:17.980 --> 00:22:21.059
from it. The noise suppressors tried to flatten
00:22:21.059 --> 00:22:25.079
it and failed. His cutter rig swung loose. His
00:22:25.079 --> 00:22:28.279
hands clawed at the peat. The more he pulled,
00:22:28.500 --> 00:22:31.339
the deeper the hairs bit into the leg armor.
00:22:31.900 --> 00:22:34.579
The central slime sprayed up across his suit,
00:22:34.700 --> 00:22:38.380
black and wet, coating the knee, thigh, and lower
00:22:38.380 --> 00:22:41.720
torso. My filters pegged red before the smell
00:22:41.720 --> 00:22:45.039
arrived, and then the smell arrived anyway. It
00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:47.759
came through every layer, not as odor alone,
00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:52.640
but as taste and pressure. Rot, acid, sweet decay,
00:22:52.859 --> 00:22:55.859
something like open stomach and old fruit. It
00:22:55.859 --> 00:22:57.940
struck the back of the throat and stayed there.
00:22:58.440 --> 00:23:03.859
The blowflies came. Not dozens. Hundreds. They
00:23:03.859 --> 00:23:07.039
hit us from downwind in a dark sheet. One moment
00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:10.539
the mist was gray. The next, it was alive. They
00:23:10.539 --> 00:23:13.400
coated Corvin first, swarming the slime on his
00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:15.839
leg, pushing into the grooves around the trapped
00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:19.619
knee. Then they rolled over Maresca and me. My
00:23:19.619 --> 00:23:23.339
visor vanished under bodies. Legs scraped the
00:23:23.339 --> 00:23:26.079
surface. Wings beat against the polycarbonate.
00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:29.920
The external cameras failed under the mass. The
00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:33.039
HUD became my only world. Corvin's transponder,
00:23:33.180 --> 00:23:36.019
Maresca's suit outline, chemical warnings, heat
00:23:36.019 --> 00:23:38.859
warnings, oxygen timer, left gauntlet status
00:23:38.859 --> 00:23:41.140
still green, though it would not stay that way.
00:23:41.700 --> 00:23:45.240
Corvin fired his carbine into the peat. The rounds
00:23:45.240 --> 00:23:47.819
punched through waxy tubes and shattered the
00:23:47.819 --> 00:23:50.880
cluster around his knee. For one second, I thought
00:23:50.880 --> 00:23:54.339
it might help. Then the acid came up in a pressurized
00:23:54.339 --> 00:23:57.750
spray. It splashed across his other leg, across
00:23:57.750 --> 00:24:00.809
Maresca's shin guard, across my left gauntlet
00:24:00.809 --> 00:24:03.990
and knee plate. The left gauntlet alarm went
00:24:03.990 --> 00:24:07.269
amber, then red. The same seam I had reported
00:24:07.269 --> 00:24:10.829
yesterday opened under chemical load, with intolerance.
00:24:10.930 --> 00:24:13.650
A thin line of acid worked through the sticky
00:24:13.650 --> 00:24:17.170
seal and touched the inner glove. The pain was
00:24:17.170 --> 00:24:20.450
cold first, like plunging the hand into meltwater.
00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:23.960
Then white. Then it stopped being pain and became
00:24:23.960 --> 00:24:26.440
information too large for the body to process.
00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:29.880
My fingers opened without permission. The wrist
00:24:29.880 --> 00:24:32.339
-mounted cutter flickered as the suit rerouted
00:24:32.339 --> 00:24:35.400
power around the damaged gauntlet. The manual
00:24:35.400 --> 00:24:38.180
says, hold position and wait for extraction.
00:24:38.839 --> 00:24:42.480
The manual says, immobilize the casualty, suppress
00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:45.940
external contamination, and cut the limb if necessary
00:24:45.940 --> 00:24:49.269
under controlled conditions. The manual assumes
00:24:49.269 --> 00:24:52.390
the ground is not hatching under you. The manual
00:24:52.390 --> 00:24:56.769
assumes extraction exists. Extraction was not
00:24:56.769 --> 00:25:00.150
coming. The western corridor was turning to soup.
00:25:00.309 --> 00:25:03.750
The thermal batteries were still firing. Corvin's
00:25:03.750 --> 00:25:06.269
suit liner had four minutes before acid reached
00:25:06.269 --> 00:25:09.750
skin through the knee seal, maybe less. The cluster
00:25:09.750 --> 00:25:12.750
had him above the joint. If it took the hip,
00:25:12.789 --> 00:25:17.410
we would not move him at all. I knelt. The flies
00:25:17.410 --> 00:25:21.730
were a solid buzzing wall. My visor wipers jammed
00:25:21.730 --> 00:25:24.549
halfway across the polycarbonate, leaving a smear
00:25:24.549 --> 00:25:28.490
of wings, fluid, and ash. I could not see Corfin's
00:25:28.490 --> 00:25:31.369
face. I could only see him as a suit outline
00:25:31.369 --> 00:25:34.890
and transponder icon, jerking in the HUD while
00:25:34.890 --> 00:25:37.750
the organism pulled his leg downward, centimeter
00:25:37.750 --> 00:25:42.470
by centimeter. I engaged the plasma cutter. The
00:25:42.470 --> 00:25:45.210
first pass hit the amphora base and boiled the
00:25:45.210 --> 00:25:48.430
waxy surface. Steam and stench burst up together.
00:25:48.710 --> 00:25:52.390
The second pass severed the rigid tube. Acid
00:25:52.390 --> 00:25:55.630
spilled in a thick gush. It hit my ruined gauntlet.
00:25:55.730 --> 00:25:58.390
It ran down the knee plate. It hissed in the
00:25:58.390 --> 00:26:01.750
peat. The pain in my hand returned for half a
00:26:01.750 --> 00:26:05.269
second and then vanished again. The cutter beam
00:26:05.269 --> 00:26:08.109
stuttered as the damaged wrist mount lost calibration.
00:26:09.450 --> 00:26:12.049
Corvin's leg came free from the tube but not
00:26:12.049 --> 00:26:14.730
cleanly. The suit knee assembly was mangled.
00:26:15.130 --> 00:26:18.410
The lower limb hung wrong. Not gone, but no longer
00:26:18.410 --> 00:26:21.349
useful. Maresca threw the dragline around his
00:26:21.349 --> 00:26:24.529
chest harness and pulled. I cut another arm away.
00:26:24.730 --> 00:26:28.309
More acid spilled. More smell broke from the
00:26:28.309 --> 00:26:31.329
organism. That was when the carrion flyers came
00:26:31.329 --> 00:26:34.369
in above the flies. They were not in the brief.
00:26:34.569 --> 00:26:37.470
The brief mentioned secondary scavengers drawn
00:26:37.470 --> 00:26:40.680
by slime odor. It did not say they would come
00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:43.500
in heavy through the mist, wingbeats low and
00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:46.799
slow, bodies the size of helmets, beaks hooked
00:26:46.799 --> 00:26:49.819
for tearing soft seals. Maybe they were native.
00:26:50.559 --> 00:26:53.720
Maybe the organism had made the bog into a feeding
00:26:53.720 --> 00:26:56.380
ground, and every predator in the melt knew the
00:26:56.380 --> 00:26:59.640
signal. I only saw shapes through the swarm and
00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:03.420
HUD blur. One dropped onto Mireska's shoulder
00:27:03.420 --> 00:27:06.960
yoke. Its claws struck the armor and skidded.
00:27:07.420 --> 00:27:10.259
The beak found the collar seam. It hooked there
00:27:10.259 --> 00:27:12.480
and tore backward with the strength that twisted
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:16.119
her upper body. She fired upward. The carbine
00:27:16.119 --> 00:27:18.779
round sparked off my shoulder plate and disappeared
00:27:18.779 --> 00:27:22.500
into the mist. She fired again. The flyer kicked
00:27:22.500 --> 00:27:25.259
off, leaving a ragged tear in the outer collar
00:27:25.259 --> 00:27:29.859
seal. Her suit alarm flashed red. She did not
00:27:29.859 --> 00:27:33.960
scream. That is what I remember. Corvin screamed.
00:27:34.759 --> 00:27:38.339
Mureska did not. She staggered once, right hand
00:27:38.339 --> 00:27:40.940
clamped over the neck ring, field medical pack
00:27:40.940 --> 00:27:43.480
deploying and retracting uselessly because the
00:27:43.480 --> 00:27:46.440
breach was at the worst possible place. Then
00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:49.519
her left boot slid. The ground under her heel
00:27:49.519 --> 00:27:52.640
opened into clustered tubes that had been hidden
00:27:52.640 --> 00:27:56.940
beneath ash. She went down hard. The amphoras
00:27:56.940 --> 00:27:59.259
near her twitched as if the fall had rung a bell.
00:27:59.740 --> 00:28:02.819
Scarlet arms unfolded. One caught her forearm,
00:28:03.019 --> 00:28:06.279
another found the torn neck seal. Black slime
00:28:06.279 --> 00:28:08.440
touched skin at the collar where the suit had
00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:12.680
opened. Her transponder stayed green. That is
00:28:12.680 --> 00:28:15.319
the kind of thing that breaks a man later, not
00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:18.240
in the moment. In the moment, the icon stayed
00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:20.799
green because the suit still had pressure in
00:28:20.799 --> 00:28:23.259
enough compartments and her heart was still doing
00:28:23.259 --> 00:28:26.619
something the sensors recognized. The icon sat
00:28:26.619 --> 00:28:29.859
alive. The body on the ground told a different
00:28:29.859 --> 00:28:33.400
truth. I tried to step toward her. My left hand
00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:36.839
would not close. The cutter was dead. Corvin
00:28:36.839 --> 00:28:39.700
was half free, half dragged, both hands clawing
00:28:39.700 --> 00:28:42.000
at the peat while more tubes opened around his
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:45.380
damaged leg. Flies covered all of us so thickly
00:28:45.380 --> 00:28:48.460
the world had become weight and sound. Maresca
00:28:48.460 --> 00:28:51.200
turned her helmet toward me. I could see the
00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:54.339
visor only in pieces through the insects. No
00:28:54.339 --> 00:28:58.029
words, no radio. Just the small motion of her
00:28:58.029 --> 00:29:00.970
right hand, two fingers opening and closing against
00:29:00.970 --> 00:29:04.869
the ground. Go. Maybe that is what she meant.
00:29:05.190 --> 00:29:07.589
Maybe she was reaching for the medpack release.
00:29:08.029 --> 00:29:11.029
Maybe she was not conscious at all, and I have
00:29:11.029 --> 00:29:13.349
built meaning from a hand movement because the
00:29:13.349 --> 00:29:17.849
alternative is worse. Corvin's voice cut in and
00:29:17.849 --> 00:29:22.380
out. The suit clock read 1432. The western thermal
00:29:22.380 --> 00:29:25.400
battery fired again, distant and deep, and the
00:29:25.400 --> 00:29:29.099
ground trembled under us. Across the HUD, dormant
00:29:29.099 --> 00:29:31.539
clusters ahead of us began waking in a chain.
00:29:32.359 --> 00:29:36.380
I did not fire. I did not cut. I could not carry
00:29:36.380 --> 00:29:39.599
him. I could not reach her. My left gauntlet
00:29:39.599 --> 00:29:43.359
was open to acid. My cutter was dead. My visor
00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:46.240
was blind. The old trench line was still more
00:29:46.240 --> 00:29:50.079
than a kilometer south. I stood. That sounds
00:29:50.079 --> 00:29:54.180
simple. It was not. The gyros in my legs screamed
00:29:54.180 --> 00:29:57.059
against the suction of the peat. My left hand
00:29:57.059 --> 00:30:00.180
hung useless. My right boot slid twice before
00:30:00.180 --> 00:30:03.279
it found purchase. Corvin's transponder flickered
00:30:03.279 --> 00:30:06.420
from green to amber. Maresca stayed green for
00:30:06.420 --> 00:30:09.960
another 40 seconds after I turned away. I watched
00:30:09.960 --> 00:30:12.700
it until the mist and distance cut the signal.
00:30:13.599 --> 00:30:18.029
Then there was only mine. I walked. The flies
00:30:18.029 --> 00:30:21.529
followed because the slime was on me now. It
00:30:21.529 --> 00:30:23.710
was in the fabric of the suit, in the broken
00:30:23.710 --> 00:30:26.549
gauntlet seal, in the hip joint, in the scorched
00:30:26.549 --> 00:30:29.730
surface of the knee plate. Every step carried
00:30:29.730 --> 00:30:32.349
the smell farther, and every meter brought more
00:30:32.349 --> 00:30:35.369
insects out of the mist. They clung to the shoulders
00:30:35.369 --> 00:30:37.609
and helmet, crawled under equipment brackets,
00:30:38.049 --> 00:30:40.910
jammed the camera hinges, and died in the intake
00:30:40.910 --> 00:30:43.750
screens. The recyclers fought them until the
00:30:43.750 --> 00:30:47.099
filters began to clog. The suit told me my left
00:30:47.099 --> 00:30:49.180
hand was no longer reporting nerve response.
00:30:49.480 --> 00:30:52.519
Then it told me it had isolated the limb to preserve
00:30:52.519 --> 00:30:56.200
battery and contamination control. Isolated is
00:30:56.200 --> 00:30:59.380
a clean word. It meant the glove interior had
00:30:59.380 --> 00:31:01.599
become a small chemical room attached to the
00:31:01.599 --> 00:31:05.039
end of my arm. The hand inside was cold meat.
00:31:05.400 --> 00:31:09.160
The suit stopped asking it questions. The peat
00:31:09.160 --> 00:31:12.299
pulled at my boots. Sometimes the clusters opened
00:31:12.299 --> 00:31:15.160
underfoot and did not take me. I did not know
00:31:15.160 --> 00:31:18.319
why. Maybe the armor soles distributed weight
00:31:18.319 --> 00:31:21.440
wide enough. Maybe the slime on the suit confused
00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:24.940
them. Maybe they had already fed. Men like reasons.
00:31:25.180 --> 00:31:29.720
The ground does not owe them. I moved by compass
00:31:29.720 --> 00:31:32.920
and slope. The old trench line appeared as a
00:31:32.920 --> 00:31:35.599
depression under the mist, half collapsed and
00:31:35.599 --> 00:31:39.339
half filled with meltwater. Farrow Creek revetments
00:31:39.339 --> 00:31:42.380
jutted from the peated angles, blackened by thermal
00:31:42.380 --> 00:31:45.220
ash. I dropped into it because the banks were
00:31:45.220 --> 00:31:48.359
firmer than the open bog. That was true for the
00:31:48.359 --> 00:31:51.740
first 200 meters. Then the trench floor began
00:31:51.740 --> 00:31:56.420
to move. Not all at once. Small shifts. Peat
00:31:56.420 --> 00:31:59.940
bulging between broken slabs. Pale green nubs
00:31:59.940 --> 00:32:02.759
pushing through cracks in the ferrocrete. Red
00:32:02.759 --> 00:32:05.539
stripes visible under the water. Egg material
00:32:05.539 --> 00:32:08.519
lodged in the seams, warmed by runoff from the
00:32:08.519 --> 00:32:11.880
ridge. The trench had become a channel for meltwater.
00:32:12.380 --> 00:32:15.779
and the meltwater carried the organism. I kept
00:32:15.779 --> 00:32:18.119
to the wall where the old reinforcement mesh
00:32:18.119 --> 00:32:21.420
still held. The mesh cut into my boot plates.
00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:25.039
Twice I had to use the carbine as a staff because
00:32:25.039 --> 00:32:27.700
the left hand would not grip and the right arm
00:32:27.700 --> 00:32:30.819
was busy keeping balance. My ammunition counter
00:32:30.819 --> 00:32:34.319
still read full. I had not fired a useful shot.
00:32:34.660 --> 00:32:38.180
That felt obscene. The pushnet kept breaking
00:32:38.180 --> 00:32:41.470
through in fragments. Armor units reporting delayed
00:32:41.470 --> 00:32:44.809
advance. Covenant artillery ranging the ridge.
00:32:45.109 --> 00:32:48.410
Thermal batteries shifting fire again. Command
00:32:48.410 --> 00:32:52.890
asking for K -9 status. Then asking again. Then
00:32:52.890 --> 00:32:55.589
logging the recon core as unrecovered and moving
00:32:55.589 --> 00:33:00.190
on. No one asked for Corvin. No one asked for
00:33:00.190 --> 00:33:03.250
Mureska. Their suit signals were gone by then,
00:33:03.369 --> 00:33:06.829
absorbed into the noise. At some point, I fell.
00:33:07.049 --> 00:33:10.400
I do not remember the fall beginning. I remember
00:33:10.400 --> 00:33:13.640
being on my side in black water, helmet half
00:33:13.640 --> 00:33:17.339
submerged, flies crawling over the exposed visor
00:33:17.339 --> 00:33:20.480
and drowning there. The suit alarm sounded in
00:33:20.480 --> 00:33:24.519
three tones. Oxygen flow irregular. Left arm
00:33:24.519 --> 00:33:28.779
contamination. Hip servo overheat. I watched
00:33:28.779 --> 00:33:31.759
bubbles slide past the visor from somewhere under
00:33:31.759 --> 00:33:34.500
the water and thought of the egg sacs churning
00:33:34.500 --> 00:33:37.900
and melt. Getting up took one minute and forty
00:33:37.900 --> 00:33:41.240
seconds, according to the suit log. It felt longer.
00:33:41.579 --> 00:33:45.019
The right hand found a piece of rebar. The left
00:33:45.019 --> 00:33:49.240
dribed uselessly. The legs cycled. The trench
00:33:49.240 --> 00:33:52.940
wall shed mud. Something pale brushed the outside
00:33:52.940 --> 00:33:56.039
of my shin and flexed open, but the boot came
00:33:56.039 --> 00:33:59.420
free before it could lock. I climbed out of the
00:33:59.420 --> 00:34:02.039
trench where the ferrocrete ramp met higher ground.
00:34:03.039 --> 00:34:05.359
The extraction slab was two kilometers south
00:34:05.359 --> 00:34:08.739
of K -9, a square of old military ferrocrete
00:34:08.739 --> 00:34:11.539
laid during the First Covenant landings and never
00:34:11.539 --> 00:34:14.880
properly mapped after the front moved. By the
00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:17.780
time I saw it through the ash, the sky had darkened
00:34:17.780 --> 00:34:20.280
under thermal cloud and the whole bog behind
00:34:20.280 --> 00:34:24.039
me steamed. The slab sat slightly raised, cracked
00:34:24.039 --> 00:34:26.980
at the corners, gray -white with old decon burns.
00:34:27.519 --> 00:34:30.559
It looked like salvation because... Men will
00:34:30.559 --> 00:34:33.500
make salvation out of any flat surface that does
00:34:33.500 --> 00:34:36.820
not try to eat them. The dropship was already
00:34:36.820 --> 00:34:41.119
overhead. It hovered at 30 meters, engine wash
00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:43.960
flattening the mist and driving ash in circles
00:34:43.960 --> 00:34:47.639
across the slab. I stepped into the center and
00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:51.119
raised my right arm. The left hung at my side,
00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:55.019
dripping fluid that was not all mine. The pilot
00:34:55.019 --> 00:34:58.139
saw me on the external feed. There was no way
00:34:58.139 --> 00:35:01.239
not to see me. The suit was black with slime,
00:35:01.579 --> 00:35:04.559
white with dried caustic residue from my own
00:35:04.559 --> 00:35:07.340
emergency patches, moving under a skin of flies.
00:35:08.119 --> 00:35:10.679
Acid had burned through the left gauntlet and
00:35:10.679 --> 00:35:13.500
scored the knee plate. The shoulder yoke was
00:35:13.500 --> 00:35:16.159
smeared where the carrion flyer had burst against
00:35:16.159 --> 00:35:19.099
Mireska and then transferred to me in the swarm.
00:35:19.480 --> 00:35:23.139
I was walking contamination. They did not land.
00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:26.800
I stood in the center of the slab while the dropship
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:29.480
held altitude and the engines hammered the air.
00:35:29.820 --> 00:35:32.719
The pilot kept asking for biohazard clearance.
00:35:33.099 --> 00:35:36.039
The ship medic kept asking for visual confirmation
00:35:36.039 --> 00:35:39.239
of seal integrity. The operations channel kept
00:35:39.239 --> 00:35:41.659
asking if I could self -decontaminate before
00:35:41.659 --> 00:35:44.559
boarding. I could hear all of it because someone
00:35:44.559 --> 00:35:47.739
forgot to cut my access. They were afraid the
00:35:47.739 --> 00:35:50.659
spores would enter the intakes. They were afraid
00:35:50.659 --> 00:35:53.179
the rhizome dust had lodged in my boot treads.
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:55.980
They were afraid the slime on the suit would
00:35:55.980 --> 00:35:58.360
signal every scavenger in the melt to follow
00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:01.599
the ship home. All of those fears were reasonable.
00:36:02.539 --> 00:36:05.360
Reasonable things can still leave a man standing
00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:09.400
alone under a red sky. The perimeter turrets
00:36:09.400 --> 00:36:12.619
came alive first. They sprayed me with decon
00:36:12.619 --> 00:36:15.900
foam from three directions. Caustic white stream
00:36:15.900 --> 00:36:18.179
struck the suit hard enough to rock me back.
00:36:18.599 --> 00:36:21.400
Foam filled the grooves around the plates, burned
00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:24.019
over the slime, hissed where it touched acid
00:36:24.019 --> 00:36:26.659
residue, and ran down into the cracks of the
00:36:26.659 --> 00:36:30.400
slab. It got into the broken gauntlet. I felt
00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:33.480
it as pressure rather than pain. The suit sealed
00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:37.420
what it could. The rest it ignored. The foam
00:36:37.420 --> 00:36:40.380
killed the flies on contact. They fell for me
00:36:40.380 --> 00:36:43.280
in clumps, twitching and dissolving in the runoff.
00:36:43.769 --> 00:36:46.309
More came from the mist and died the same way.
00:36:46.489 --> 00:36:49.449
The slab became littered with bodies, blue -green
00:36:49.449 --> 00:36:52.969
wings, black legs, white chemical froth, and
00:36:52.969 --> 00:36:56.730
streaks of pale slime. It did not burn away the
00:36:56.730 --> 00:37:00.269
smell. I stood there for forty minutes while
00:37:00.269 --> 00:37:04.070
they decided whether I was worth the risk. Forty
00:37:04.070 --> 00:37:06.230
minutes is long enough for a man to become an
00:37:06.230 --> 00:37:09.409
object. The ship above you becomes weather. The
00:37:09.409 --> 00:37:12.150
voices become another kind of insect. Your own
00:37:12.150 --> 00:37:14.670
body becomes equipment with faults listed in
00:37:14.670 --> 00:37:18.769
the HUD. Oxygen at 32%. Core temperature low.
00:37:19.050 --> 00:37:21.869
Left hand isolated. Blood pressure unstable.
00:37:22.789 --> 00:37:26.369
Contamination status unknown. Unknown is the
00:37:26.369 --> 00:37:29.150
worst word in any report because it lets everyone
00:37:29.150 --> 00:37:32.530
above you protect themselves. Eventually the
00:37:32.530 --> 00:37:35.489
winch line dropped. No one came down with it.
00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:38.480
The hook hit the slab and skidded through foam.
00:37:38.719 --> 00:37:41.159
I bent with the right arm and clipped it to the
00:37:41.159 --> 00:37:43.900
chest harness. My left arm swung forward and
00:37:43.900 --> 00:37:46.900
bumped the cable, useless. The winch took my
00:37:46.900 --> 00:37:50.260
weight. For one second, my boots stuck to the
00:37:50.260 --> 00:37:52.860
slab as if the melt had reached up even there.
00:37:53.260 --> 00:37:56.440
Then they tore free, and the ship hauled me up
00:37:56.440 --> 00:38:00.570
like cargo. No one touched me in the hold. They
00:38:00.570 --> 00:38:02.809
locked the inner compartment, sealed me behind
00:38:02.809 --> 00:38:05.429
a temporary barrier, and flooded the space with
00:38:05.429 --> 00:38:07.869
another decon cycle before transferring me to
00:38:07.869 --> 00:38:10.550
the shiplock. The medic watched through glass.
00:38:10.969 --> 00:38:14.030
I could see his eyes above the mask. He did not
00:38:14.030 --> 00:38:16.949
look cruel. That mattered less than it should
00:38:16.949 --> 00:38:21.889
have. Now I am here. The red light. The bench,
00:38:22.010 --> 00:38:25.329
the cold aluminum under me, the upper suit hanging
00:38:25.329 --> 00:38:28.530
in the outer chamber, dripping. The lower frame
00:38:28.530 --> 00:38:30.909
still locked around my legs because the ankle
00:38:30.909 --> 00:38:33.929
clasps require two working hands or a technician
00:38:33.929 --> 00:38:37.590
willing to come inside. The medics took my vitals
00:38:37.590 --> 00:38:40.789
through the lock. They said I was in shock. They
00:38:40.789 --> 00:38:43.250
said the hand could be regrown if the contamination
00:38:43.250 --> 00:38:46.429
did not cross the wrist bone. They said the cough
00:38:46.429 --> 00:38:49.050
was probably chemical irritation from filter
00:38:49.050 --> 00:38:51.929
overload. They said a lot of things through speakers
00:38:51.929 --> 00:38:54.610
that made every voice sound distant and clean.
00:38:55.610 --> 00:38:59.070
They did not open the inner door. An hour ago,
00:38:59.230 --> 00:39:03.070
I coughed. It was wet. Not blood at first, not
00:39:03.070 --> 00:39:05.510
much. Enough for the microphone to catch it.
00:39:05.690 --> 00:39:07.670
Enough for the medic on the other side of the
00:39:07.670 --> 00:39:10.690
glass to stop moving. Enough for the second medic
00:39:10.690 --> 00:39:12.730
to look at the first one before they both looked
00:39:12.730 --> 00:39:15.849
away from me and down at the monitor. I know
00:39:15.849 --> 00:39:19.369
that look. It is the look men give a sealed room
00:39:19.369 --> 00:39:21.909
when the room has stopped being a place and started
00:39:21.909 --> 00:39:25.170
being a decision. I examined the suit filters
00:39:25.170 --> 00:39:27.130
because I needed something to do with the right
00:39:27.130 --> 00:39:30.590
hand. They had placed the primary intake tray
00:39:30.590 --> 00:39:33.650
on the bench after removal, sealed in a shallow
00:39:33.650 --> 00:39:36.769
containment dish with a clear lid and glove ports.
00:39:37.190 --> 00:39:39.690
Maybe they thought I would identify the exposure
00:39:39.690 --> 00:39:43.769
path. Maybe they wanted me occupied. Maybe no
00:39:43.769 --> 00:39:46.190
one wanted to tell me not to touch anything because
00:39:46.190 --> 00:39:48.889
saying it aloud would make the situation too
00:39:48.889 --> 00:39:52.110
plain. Under the bench light and the folds of
00:39:52.110 --> 00:39:57.050
the mesh, I found waxy nubs, pale green, striped
00:39:57.050 --> 00:40:01.170
with red. Small as seeds or smaller than seeds,
00:40:01.469 --> 00:40:04.610
lodged deep in filter fiber where foam had not
00:40:04.610 --> 00:40:08.670
reached. Egg material, rhizome dust, spores carried
00:40:08.670 --> 00:40:11.750
on fly feet, whatever name the xenobiologists
00:40:11.750 --> 00:40:14.309
will give it after they cut the suit apart in
00:40:14.309 --> 00:40:18.489
a lab. The organism has many ways to wait. That
00:40:18.489 --> 00:40:22.150
is what we learn too late. It waits in permafrost.
00:40:22.230 --> 00:40:25.730
It waits in dead peat. It waits in the feet of
00:40:25.730 --> 00:40:28.230
carrion insects and under the rims of vents and
00:40:28.230 --> 00:40:30.869
inside filters that smell clean until humidity
00:40:30.869 --> 00:40:35.570
wakes them. The decon cycle runs 72 hours. The
00:40:35.570 --> 00:40:38.550
spores have survived desiccation and permafrost
00:40:38.550 --> 00:40:41.469
for millennia. The caustic foam may kill them.
00:40:41.610 --> 00:40:44.670
The vacuum purge may kill them. The heat bake
00:40:44.670 --> 00:40:47.449
may kill them. The report will say probability
00:40:47.449 --> 00:40:50.570
of internal colonization is low pending culture
00:40:50.570 --> 00:40:55.510
confirmation. I can smell the rot. It is not
00:40:55.510 --> 00:40:58.820
memory now. It is in the room with me. faint
00:40:58.820 --> 00:41:01.760
but present, leaking from the filter tray or
00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:04.579
from the seams of the lower suit or from my own
00:41:04.579 --> 00:41:08.559
throat. It has that same sweet weight, that same
00:41:08.559 --> 00:41:12.119
carrion grip behind the tongue. The lock is cold,
00:41:12.280 --> 00:41:15.559
but moisture gathers on the glass. My breath
00:41:15.559 --> 00:41:19.039
fogs it in short bursts. The red light lays over
00:41:19.039 --> 00:41:21.460
everything and makes the pale nubs in the filter
00:41:21.460 --> 00:41:25.179
look almost brown. The medics have stepped farther
00:41:25.179 --> 00:41:28.750
back from the inner door. One of them left. The
00:41:28.750 --> 00:41:31.530
other remains by the console, watching readings
00:41:31.530 --> 00:41:34.769
and pretending not to watch me. I do not blame
00:41:34.769 --> 00:41:37.869
him. That is one of the small mercies you learn
00:41:37.869 --> 00:41:41.130
in the service. Most men are not cowards because
00:41:41.130 --> 00:41:44.170
they step back from contamination. They are alive
00:41:44.170 --> 00:41:46.550
because they were ordered to stand on the clean
00:41:46.550 --> 00:41:49.929
side of the line. Lines are not drawn with ink.
00:41:50.449 --> 00:41:53.929
They are drawn with bodies, sealed doors, and
00:41:53.929 --> 00:41:57.940
the spaces where no one reaches for you. Corvin's
00:41:57.940 --> 00:42:00.159
transponder went amber before it disappeared.
00:42:01.059 --> 00:42:04.800
Mireska's stayed green. I keep returning to that,
00:42:04.940 --> 00:42:07.760
though it changes nothing. The suit said she
00:42:07.760 --> 00:42:10.980
was alive after I knew she was gone. The suit
00:42:10.980 --> 00:42:13.460
said my left hand was present after the hand
00:42:13.460 --> 00:42:16.440
had stopped being mine. The map said the corridor
00:42:16.440 --> 00:42:19.480
was safe after the ground had opened. Command
00:42:19.480 --> 00:42:22.699
said the melt was quiet while the old world under
00:42:22.699 --> 00:42:26.650
the peat woke and began to feed. Machines lie
00:42:26.650 --> 00:42:30.369
in the same way maps lie, not from malice, from
00:42:30.369 --> 00:42:34.329
late information. The red light does not blink.
00:42:34.530 --> 00:42:37.550
The bench is cold. The drip from the suit in
00:42:37.550 --> 00:42:40.130
the outer chamber has slowed, one drop every
00:42:40.130 --> 00:42:42.849
few breaths. It falls through the grate and answers
00:42:42.849 --> 00:42:46.510
itself in a drain below. It sounds like meltwater.
00:42:47.110 --> 00:42:51.550
It sounds like hatching. The End