Day Twelve

Posted on 17 Nov 2014 @ 11:07pm by Lieutenant Commander Anien Cre

2,607 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: M12: For Duty or Honor
Location: Hruz; The Tundra
Timeline: 2379

Snow drifted from slate grey skies. It had been falling for two days now. It was a soft, powdery kind of snow. The kind that came when it was just warm enough to snow. It was the warmest weather in a week. It had been too cold to snow for nine days, and the warmth was welcome. Anien emerged from her hideaway beneath the snow. Her shoulder-length hair streamed free of the scarf that now dragged in the snow behind her.

She stood and twitched the end of the scarf upward, swinging it over her other shoulder. She stared up into the hazy glare of the sun. It was still morning, but late enough that she would have to hurry. The city was several hours away, and dark would come soon after. She dragged her hide-pouch out from the low hole she had dug from beneath the snow. From inside the pouch she grabbed one of the last bits of dried frell meat. The meat was tough, stringy, and had very little to recommend it. The only upside to frell meat was that it was easy enough to catch and cook, and it lasted.

She would finish her last piece on the walk to the city. Hopefully it would stay warm enough for some frell to emerge from their burrows. If not she would have to go digging for them. Not only was that unpleasant, but also dangerous. She'd rather not have to try it. She re-wrapped the scarf around her face and head and began trudging through the falling snow toward the city.

Snow gathered on her shoulders, in the folds of the scarf, and stuck to the front of her coat as she continued onward through the falling flakes. Her boots left long gashes in the pristine white field, punctuated by deep imprints where one foot or the other supported all of her weight. Centuries of snowfall had compressed under her feet, leaving a thick skiff of loose snow for her to trudge through. It was enough to make the trip exhausting, no matter how little it actually was.

Anien's trip to the city took about four hours, and she finished her last bit of stringy meat an hour into the walk. She had melted snow in her mouth for water. It was the one concern that her people never had to worry about. Water was always plentiful. Food, not so much. That was why she had headed for this city. It was the most likely place to find food. And because of that, also one of the more dangerous places in the world.

Buildings rose between ten and two hundred feet above Anien as she walked through the wide corridors between them. Smaller buildings had already been buried in the ice hundreds of years earlier. Nobody had lived in any of the cities for over a thousand years, but the buildings still stood. Most were pristine, shimmering even in the dull glare of the obscured sunlight. The dark, reflective surfaces weren't marred or broken, at least not the ones Anien could see. Nevertheless she held her ann in one hand, and readied the sheaths for the ann'ein strapped to her wrists.

There was a reason that cities were rarely visited. Yes, Anien had played on the outskirts of cities like this growing up. But she had rarely gone deeper into them. She hadn't often gone to where the reflected light heated the snow and ice almost to the point that it would reveal cracked and broken pavement below. She hadn't often gone to where the most abundant wildlife on her world now lived, and where the greatest predators her world had known lurked. Cities like this had once housed hundreds of millions of her people in ancient days. Now they stood, abandoned, home to predators and prey.

She walked into the outskirts, watching the snow around her. Frell left very few indications of their passing. They were small, furry creatures. Their size made them chill more easily than other creatures, so they only came out when it was warmer. Or closer to the center of the cities. Anien hoped it was warm enough now that they would emerge. If she caught another two or three, their meat would last her through the rest of the Egahmah. Maybe even have enough to spare. But it seemed that no matter how long she looked, she wouldn't find any tracks. It was still too cold this far on the outskirts of the city. She would have to move further in.

Moving further in would mean camping further in. There wasn't enough day left for her to hunt further inside the city and still make it all the way out by nightfall. Anien weighed the dangers. Going without food would make her weak, and she had been eating the bare minimum for days now. Going into the city, she risked encountering a goed or a cawde, or worse. And she would be forced to find shelter among the buildings. It wasn't so bad, since most animals only came out during the day, but the risk was still there.

The decision was made by the pang of hunger within her. Two bits of tough, dry meat was not enough to sustain the strength she would need. She trudged carefully further into the city. As buildings grew taller and closer together, the temperature rose. Slowly, snow stopped falling, and rain replaced it. Rivulets of water coursed down the sides of buildings and ice made the footing treacherous. And it sloped ever downward. It took two hours for Anien to find her first set of tracks. They were barely there, nearly invisible in the runoff-cut ice. She slowed and sheathed her ann, replacing it with the dual ann'ein. Their white blades shimmered in the light.

Anien crouched and waited, watching. Five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty. Finally, a flicker of movement showed in the corner of her eye. The brown and black fur of a frell emerged after a wet-looking pink nose and beady black eyes. She waited longer. Frell were prolific. They could breed at a rate that was dangerous to the fragile ecosystem maintained on Hruz. It was why the Ihruzai rarely hunted for their predators. It was also why some adults planted traps near known dens. Not enough to kill all of the frell, but enough to curb their growth.

Two more appeared, then another three. Anien waited until she knew that she would not miss. Her hands moved in a blur. Her right hand sliced upward, holding a knife that sliced the head from one of the furry creatures, and then launched the knife to skewer one of the frell through the side. The other hand swept downward, releasing the knife at the perfect moment, allowing it to spin once then pin another frell to the snow. The others scattered as a wave of panic spread through them.

Anien scooped up the dead frell and cleaned her knives in the snow. The limp, furry bodies looked even more pathetic stained with dark red blood. Their small, rounded ears and black, beady eyes no longer moved, and rodent-like teeth hung out of gaping dead mouths. She had never enjoyed hunting. The cleaning, skinning, and preparation of food was far too tedious and messy for her. But she did it. And she did it well. She drained the blood from the three creatures, allowing it to run in tiny rivers down the icy slope. It would freeze during the night, if it didn't attract predators first.

The thought of predators made her wish that the blood would drain more quickly. She wanted to start getting away from this place. Camping on the outskirts would be far safer than trying to camp here. Finally the task was complete, and Anien worked her way back up the slope. She held the three frell in one hand and used the other to help her scramble up the slippery incline. It took her four hours to cover the distance she had gone in two earlier in the day. And the temperature was dropping quickly as light faded. If it kept dropping at this rate there would be a deep freeze tonight. That would be bad.

She knew that she could live at very cool temperatures. She even knew how to survive on the cold nights. But without real shelter, you couldn't survive a night alone during a deep freeze. Even the centers of the city would be cold enough to kill one of the Ihruzai, though not instantaneously. Maybe it was a good thing she had been trapped in the city. Her stomach was angry with her, angrier than it had been for years. She finally retraced her steps to the outskirts or the city, only an hour or so inside. The sun had faded to a hazy ball on the horizon and would be down in minutes. The temperature hadn't stopped dropping. Her hands already ached inside her gloves, as did her feet.

She knew what to do. Even though she had never done it before. She dropped the frell. Their small bodies were already frozen solid, and they puffed into the dry snow at her feet. She drew the ann and carved a series of thin lines into the side of a tall building. Nearly a hundred feet of it stuck up from the snow. The blade did very little, barely scratching the surface of the reflective material. Hopefully it would be enough. She sheathed her blade and began to dig. Fast, and hard. She had less than an hour.

Anien dug into the powdery snow until she reached the packed ice beneath. She continued digging until she had formed a small burrow. Her clothing insulated her, and the tiny space grew warmer with her body heat. Warm enough to be comfortable on a normal night. But she already knew that tonight wouldn't be any kind of normal night.

"Wait until you feel as if your bones might crack, then climb out and hit the side as sharply as possible. If you did your work well, it will crack and you can get inside. If not, you will die."

Her father's words echoed inside her head. He had taught her how to survive in a deep freeze. There hadn't been a deep freeze in four years, and it was terrifying to think that one could come while she was here. She waited for an hour. Even beneath layers and layers of compressed snow and insulated with clothing and body heat, her face and fingers and toes hurt. They ached and burned. Then they grew numb and the rest of her ached and burned. She waited until she couldn't take the pain any more and scrambled out of her hole and up through the snow. With numb, clumsy fingers she gripped the ann and pulled it free from its sheath. She sprinted toward the building, swinging the blade with all the force she could muster.

The blade hit. It struck the center of her etched pattern. The blade rang, but nothing else seemed to happen. Then a sharp crack, and another. The section she had carved shattered and fell inward, in perfect lines where she had etched. She dashed inside, barely taking time to grab the frell she had left in the snow outside. She ran on numb feet, stumbling and crawling back to her feet as she found a door and pushed through it. Then another, and another. The deeper she ran into the building, and the further from the hole she had made, the safer she would be.

It was surprisingly warm inside this building. Her hands and feet felt like they would sear her, but she knew that was just the feeling of numbness retreating. She slowed, knowing that too great a change in temperature could kill her just as easily as the cold outside. When panic subsided, wonder set in. Anien, for all her exploration of the cities, had never been inside a building. They could be home to predators, or could have active security systems from the Ancient War. She had been lucky this building hadn't had either. At least not yet.

The rooms she passed through held desks and tables. Some held computers with long-dead screens. Every door was nearly transparent, with black lettering on it or on a placard next to the door. She had no idea what this building had once been for, and the text didn't help her. They still had a lot from ancient times, but language and writing had changed. They had changed when Jerxon Cre had saved the Ihruzai. When the cities had been abandoned and the sun was dimmed, they had changed to ensure that the Ihruzai would survive.

There were plants here. And there was light. It awed her that after thousands of years, the ancient engineering still survived. Each time she entered one room, the lights would come on, and the lights in the previous room would go out. Plants grew in some of the room. Not the kind she recognized. Not the hardy fruit-bearing plants she knew from going to the agriculture houses, but leafy things with slender stalks. Anien shed her scarf as she continued onward. She opened her coat and removed her gloves. It was warmer than the warmest day she had ever experienced inside here. And if it got any warmer it would be uncomfortable.

Then she noticed something. A picture. The subjects of the picture were shocking to her. A family, all wearing Ihruzai style clothing. But their skin was pink and warm-looking. Their hair ranged in shade from yellow to deep brown. And behind them a bright yellow sun lit lush greenery. She knew the stories, but she had never realized how completely different life must have been so long ago. She knew they had changed to survive the dimming of the sun. They had saved the plants that would survive, and abandoned exploring the great expanse. But she hadn't realized that such lush greenery existed anywhere. She had thought that the Ihruzai had always been the color of snow.

She picked up the image and carried it with her to a place she recognized. A kitchenette. Although it looked different from what she knew from home, the essentials were the same. Clean, warm water flowed from the faucet, and the oven still worked. She tossed the frozen carcasses of the frell into the oven momentarily, allowing them to thaw somewhat. When she pulled them out she skinned them and prepared the meat for cooking. Having water at hand, and a comfortable place to work was far more than she had expected. In less than an hour the meat was cooking and Anien sat in a chair. It was taller than any chair she had ever used, but was surprisingly comfortable.

She stared at the photo for a long time before tucking it away and pulling the now-cooked meat from the oven. It wasn't as tough as it would have been had she cooked it over a fire. It didn't taste any better, but being able to chew helped a lot. Anien knew she would have to leave in the morning, but for now, she was glad to be away from the deep freeze. She found an office with some kind of padded chair and locked the door behind her. The thin sheet of glass wouldn't stop a determined predator, but it would give her time to prepare. She leaned back on the padded surface and fell asleep almost immediately.

 

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