Jungle colony book 2, p.100
Jungle (Colony Book 2), page 100
“Well, depending on the way things go today, you might be able to bag a couple of new ones,” Jake said as the door to the garage opened, Anna almost spilling out behind the pressure of the other two in the airlock. “Granted, if it comes to that, we’ll all probably have a lot more on our minds than a few extra samples.”
Anna didn’t join in the banter as she strode across the garage, instead focusing on making a last-second check of the skimmer to make sure her modifications from the night before had held. One of the spare batteries had been taken out of storage and mounted across the front, its power wired into the rest of the skimmer’s supply. Though not a perfect fix—the wires were held down with multiple layers of bonding tape—it would be enough to hopefully buy the skimmer a few extra hours’ worth of flight time, even with the extra weight they’d be putting on it.
We’re taking risks, Anna thought as she powered up the aircraft, watching as it performed a quick check-sequence and then cleared itself for flight. And the worst of it is, they’re the best options we have. While an ATV—or better yet two—would have allowed them to bring much more equipment, they were also ground bound. And the ground isn’t trustworthy at the moment.
Granted, it was entirely possible there was something out there that flew, but none of them had seen it yet. We have to work with what we know, she thought as the check came back green. The skimmer was ready.
“Pop it,” she said, motioning towards the roof door as she looked at Jake. “I’ll call.”
“You got it,” he said. A moment later the topside door began to slide open, exposing a clear, bright sky.
“Commander?” Anna asked, putting a hand to the side of her helmet as she opened a channel. The signal bounced for a moment as her suit decided whether or not it was going to recognize her hand, then stabilized. “We’re ready to head out.”
There was a short wait before Ikeda’s voice came back across the channel. “Good to hear, Neres. Best of luck to all of you on your walkabout, and stay safe. Get some answers.”
“Don’t worry,” Anna said, glancing over to where Jake and Botha were strapping themselves in aboard the skimmer. “I plan on it. Neres out.” She lowered her hand, cutting the channel, then stepped over to the skimmer and snapped her fingers. Both passengers looked up.
“Comms,” she said. “Go active now.” Both Botha and Jake nodded, and a few seconds later all three of them had called in, making sure that their connection was active.
“That’s everything,” she said, swinging her leg over the skimmer’s saddle. The machine let out a hum as she coaxed the throttle, vibrating and then rising into the air. “All clear?”
“Clear,” Jake said, his voice firm.
“Clear,” Botha added, her voice less sure but still bearing a core of steel.
“Then let’s go find some answers,” Anna said. The skimmer rose upwards—slower than was normal, but still it rose, and turned to face northward. The open sky, clear of clouds, beckoned ahead of them.
And a small creeping chill, like the touch of something with too many legs, crept down Anna’s back as they began to move. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it.
Something was watching.
***
Now that she knew where to look, the remains of Livingstone were easy to pick out against the valley. It was visible in the hard angled edges of each building, plain to see in the way the forest greenery suddenly changed direction or shifted. She even caught glimmers of glass, sparkling in the sunlight as the canopy shifted once or twice. Shimmering glints that let them know that the strange rises in the jungle they were nearing were more than simply stones or ancient hills.
They had been homes. Businesses. Possibly even the beginnings of industry. It was hard to tell with everything so overwhelmed, but now that they knew, the sight of the city was impossible to miss, even with some distance still before them.
“This place was huge,” Botha said, her voice downcast as they drew closer to the colony. “How many people must have lived here?”
“It’s hard to say,” Anna said. “The city itself could have held several thousand. Maybe even more. But below us, right now—” She pointed downward. “Land divided into flat squares with ditches.”
“Farmland,” Botha said, and Anna nodded.
“With roads at one point,” she said. “The moss grew over all of it. Farmland and tall buildings. People spread out around the valley. Ten thousand easily. We won’t know unless we find some census somewhere.”
“We can put that on the list,” Jake said. “What’s our plan for finding it, anyway?”
“The central tower might be a good place to start,” Anna said, pointing at the highest point of the oncoming ruin. “Probably an administrative building or city center. If we can find a computer, or a data-hub—though that might require power—we should be able to find everything we need. Provided the jungle hasn’t wrecked any computers left.”
“Power’s a concern,” Jake said. “We run into a big hub, and we’ll need more than the ripper can provide.”
“Backup generators,” Anna said as the city neared. “There’s bound to be some somewhere. UNSEC may be run by heartless bastards, but they build things to last. There’s got to be a backup power source somewhere.”
“Provided they’re still in one piece.”
“Right,” she said, glancing back at Jake and Botha. “Given that. If not, we can always rip any drives we find out of their housings and grab what we can.”
“Have you two done this before?” Botha asked as the colony loomed ahead of them, the jungle rising like a leafy cliff.
“In … other scenarios, yes,” Jake said. Anna nodded. “For work.”
“Oh.”
“Never done it in ruins before, though,” Jake continued. “That’ll be a first.”
“Unless you count the remains of the Traveler,” Anna said, looking for a gap in the foliage to fit through even as her mind recalled the remains of the submarine she’d crawled through in pursuit of Rodriguez.
“That was a wreck, not a ruin,” Jake said.
“You guys have done a lot of work together, haven’t you?” Botha asked, and Anna let out a short laugh even as she turned the skimmer toward a promising gap.
“It sounds like it, but we’ve really only been working together for … what? Three months? Four?” She shook her head as she saw the concrete and metal behind the gap, turning away. “We’ve just … had a lot happen to us in that time.”
“A lot,” Jake added, throwing an emphasis on the word. “Seriously, the moment we took SoulComp’s job offer, things kind of went crazy.”
“You worked for SoulComp?” Another question.
“Still do, technically,” Jake said. “Our contract fell into UNSEC’s lap when they took over the company.”
“Right, because of that whole security screw-up,” Botha said. Anna spotted another opening in the canopy and maneuvered the skimmer toward it.
“Actually, that was us,” Jake said. “Not the cause of the security thing, but … We were kind of hired to keep UNSEC from finding out about it by tracking down the one who was responsible and figuring out what kind of hole it was. In their defense,” he added quickly, “they didn’t know it was a hole, just that it might be one.”
“And it was,” Botha said as the skimmer began to drift lower. The opening looked good.
Nice and wide, Anna thought. Hoppers would have trouble jumping at us. A glint of metal in the distance caught her eye: The side of the central tower. But she’d already dismissed it. There was no place to land. They’d need to proceed on foot, at least from the base of the tower.
“Yeah, a big one. And then we outed that too,” Jake said. “It was … kind of complicated.”
“And that got you sent here?” Botha asked.
“That and a lot of other things,” Anna said, interrupting as she brought the skimmer closer to the gap. Yeah, that’s definitely wide enough. “Get ready,” she said as she began to lower the vehicle down. “We’re going in.”
The shadows rose over them like a dark tide as they dropped beneath the canopy, the air almost seeming to bring with it a clinging sense of dust and bone. Not that I saw any bones last time I was here, Anna thought as they got their first look at the ruins of the city. But this place still feels like a tomb.
The crawling chill that said they were being watched was back too, creeping between her shoulders as the skimmer drifted beneath the trees. Anna glanced back at Jake and Botha, noting a shiver running through the latter’s body.
“Something wrong?” she asked, keeping her voice quiet enough that it wouldn’t trigger the suit’s external speakers, instead confining itself solely to their communications channel.
“No!” Botha said quickly. “Just … nerves.”
“You can say it,” Jake said, pulling his Rezzer from his back. “You got the feeling, didn’t you? Like something’s watching us?” Botha must have nodded, because he continued. “Same here. Anna?”
“Just like last time,” she said. “Or when we go into the jungle.” She brought their descent to a halt, eyeing the terrain beneath them. They were hovering over the remains of a large building—possibly a community center or indoor gymnasium of some kind from the size. Except that the roof had long since collapsed, leaving a jagged crater of broken concrete and supportive beams overgrown with dozens of snaking vines and the occasional patches of grass and moss. Off to one side, what might have at one point been a parking lot was now broken and disrupted by the canopy tree growing right up through it, while to the other side lay a mostly open, broken and overgrown road followed by more buildings. Ahead of them, the picture was much the same, though the buildings were larger and more grandiose.
That’s where we want to go, Anna thought as she squinted, triggering her visor’s zoom. The ruins ahead of her jumped into sharp relief, and she picked out the glassy, broken side of a tall tower—one of a few, but this was the one that had been closest to what they’d seen poking above the ruin. The skimmer hummed beneath her hands, moving forward once again.
“You didn’t spot any hoppers when you were here last, did you?” Jake asked as they floated above the city. She kept their speed low. Better to be cautious than fly into an ambush.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But I still felt like I was being watched. Keep a sharp eye out, just in case.” She glanced back to see that Botha was holding her Rezzer at the ready as well, peering out through the shadowy gloom at their surroundings.
Maybe I should land, Anna thought as she noted the dust their passage was swirling up. It wasn’t much—winds and storms had probably made sure of that—but it was enough that it made the ground shift and sway, obscuring fine details and making it difficult to—
Wait a moment, Anna thought, her eyes narrowing. What was that? She brought the skimmer to a stop, staring down at the broken road beneath them. There was the faint click of a shotgun butt colliding with armored security panels behind her.
“Anna?” Jake asked after a moment. “Why’d we stop?”
“Down there,” she said, pointing at the splintered road. The cause of the damage was clear—several cocoon trees had forced their way through it, roots spreading out around them. “By those trees … Hang on.”
She adjusted the controls, and the skimmer began to drop, the lone patches of moss and grass beneath them whipping as they drew closer to the ground. “There,” she said pointing and bringing the skimmer to a stop a good forty feet from the ground. “Look at the concrete. The edges.”
It only took Jake a second to hone in on what she had noticed. The edges of the breaks were lighter-colored than the pavement around them. “The breaks are fresh,” he said with a no small amount of surprise in his voice. “They haven’t been weathered.” She glanced back to see his gaze drifting to the cocoon trees that had shoved the pavement out of the way. “That means those are new.”
Anna nodded and sent the skimmer back into a climb. “It’s happening here too. And whatever’s coming out of those things …”
“Is probably not good for us,” Jake said as they once again began flying toward the towers, crossing over the roof of what looked like a hospital. Anna marked it as a possible location to check for records should the need or opportunity arise. Even if it wasn’t a hospital, there was a large landing zone atop its roof—or at least a weathered space that looked a lot like one—that she noted as well. Which implied it was important in some way.
If nothing else, we could land there, she thought as they moved out over another street. More of the cocoon trees had broken up the already damaged ground, growing around what looked like an old barricade. If we can’t find anywhere else.
That would mean traversing an unknown building, however, which was a risk. Especially just to get down to street level.
I wish this expedition had come with more climbing equipment, she thought as the tower neared, shadowed by the massive canopy tree growing right next to it. For that matter, I wish it had been equipped with some heavy weapons. Even just something cheap and effective like an RPG would be nice to have.
“More trees,” Botha said, her voice downcast. “That’s not good.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Even if we showed up at some sort of seasonal time or something—”
“It can’t be that,” Botha said quickly. “Or if it is, it’s long enough of a season that it’s from before the colony was built here. Which is possible, but …”
“Why not?” Anna asked, eyeing the ground next to the tower, looking for a place to land.
“Because if it was a frequent occurrence, we’d see other holes where trees had come up before,” Botha replied. “Instead we’re just seeing the new stuff. This is the first time those trees have grown here.”
There was a moment’s pause, and then Jake let out a short, shocked laugh. “She’s right,” he said. “There would be. So either these things grow only every once in a while, or …”
“They’re here because we’re here,” Anna finished, and silence fell over them once more. The idea almost seemed preposterous, insane, but at the same time … Her body felt like a tightened wire, waiting for things to snap. Whatever the reason, the cocoon trees had to have formed recently, going by the broken pavement, and that meant around a few weeks ago at the earliest for the pavement to be so freshly cracked.
Was it just chance? Or something reacting to the presence of prey?
“There,” Anna said, forcing her thoughts back to the mission at hand. She pointed toward an open section of unbroken street adjoining the base of the tower. “That looks like a good place to land.” The pavement was cracked and battered, and the buildings around it broken mostly into rubble, at least along the front, but it was a level space.
“On the ground?” Botha asked. “Why don’t we just go through one of the windows on the tower and land inside?”
“Three reasons,” Anna said as she brought the skimmer over the road in a slow bank. “First, we don’t know how stable that tower is, or if it would support the skimmer. Second, it likely wouldn’t fit through most of the windows anyway, which means we’d have to jump, and third, I don’t want to park this thing anywhere. I’m leaving it on standby, up where something like a hopper won’t have an easy time getting to it.” The skimmer dropped lower and lower, slipping below the height of the buildings, and she caught sight of Jake adjusting his Rezzer out of the corner of her eyes, watching the surrounding ruin as dust swirled up around them. Then, with a faint shudder, the skimmer touched down.
Jake was off in an instant, releasing his safety straps with one hand and jumping to the ground in a passable approximation of an active dismount, his Rezzer up and at the ready. The skimmer bobbed slightly as his weight left. Botha followed a moment later, though she simply stepped down, her gun swinging against her waist, and then waited.
Anna stepped down last, pausing to make sure the skimmer had interpreted her orders properly before letting her armored boot touch pavement. The ruined buildings around them, their front halves collapsed in piles of rubble, had narrowed the road, making it almost look like a rocky, somewhat-natural canyon. The vines that snaked across the broken surfaces added to the picture.
The faded signs and shattered sparkles of glass broke the illusion, however, and she drew her rifle as she stepped away from the skimmer, eyes searching for any sign of unexpected movement.
Nothing. The city was as still and silent as it likely had been for over a decade. The only motion she saw was their own, or brought about by the downward push of the skimmer’s jets.
“Stand back,” she said, stepping away from the skimmer and lowering her rifle. She sent the skimmer a set of commands, and a moment later the faint push of displaced air around her legs became a torrent as the vehicle shot off, arcing into the sky like a missile.
“Whoa,” Botha said, her eyes following the rising aircraft as it shot toward the canopy, its path leveling out well before impact. “That thing can move fast. Why didn’t it fly like that when we were on it?”
“Because we’d be ripped right off of it,” Anna said, giving the skimmer a final look to make sure it had leveled out before turning her attention back to the concrete canyon around them. “It doesn’t have any gravitics.”
“Oh,” Botha said. “That makes sense.”
Anna nodded but didn’t respond, taking another look at the canyon around them. Off to one side, a faded sign betrayed that the clientele the storefront had once served had been interested in farming equipment. Which, for a colony world, made sense.
A clatter of rock caught her attention, and she turned to see Jake atop one of the larger bits of rubble, peering down into the hollow remains of the building the front had once covered. “Looks like it was an office,” he said, his helmet panning across the darkened insides. “With maybe an apartment on top.”
“Anything strange?” Anna asked, gazing at a few of the other front “rooms” she could see past the rubble. Some she couldn’t make out at all, the insides buried under twisted and blemished metal roofing and piles of concrete, while others were exposed, faded interior walls warped and buckled. And here and there, one of the alien vines snaking across everything.
