TURTLE.
Even with mics the calls were rough, over the blades’ interminable whirling.
DOLPHIN.
LOBSTER. STANDBY.
Maybe a screamed word in three cut the noise with any clarity. But the briefs were many, and all was said before.
RECON. DAYBREAK. RENDEZVOUS AT WRIST. NO EXCEPTIONS. CHECK LEVELS. SUITS ON AUTO. SIGNS NOT SAMPLES. GREEN NOT GREETING. HOSTILE. EXTREMELY.
The slot recoiled, releases were yanked and off they went into white nothing. A hand an eye could barely see scraped knots from the heavenly wool, pressed ever thicker until thrown away to catch another.
‘Watch Alts!’
Sure enough the jets’ rumbling reports nearly drowned the nervous call. Turtle I studied below his drifting hand.
150m.
130m.
110m. 100m. 90m.
Limbs tucked he spun, until the jets at his back faced the spreading ground and shook to life. Quickly it approached, or so was his yet nearly obscured wrist’s report, even as the jets’ last burst sent swirls of dirt airborne. Then the ground’s delegate arrived tactless to greet this foreign party.
Turtle I slid the smooth length of the wide slab of stone, concluding his descent against a nearby knoll. A groan and shake later he rose to make a survey, which proved no trouble from atop a local apex.
Down what of an easy slope escaped lumbering wisps of migrant fog reached all manner of trunk and branch and leaf. Trees, yes, or meandering aimless things which somehow left a similar impression.
One nearby had grown especially absurd, its rising trunk back to a crashing wave of draping leaves which rolled far onto a shore of dirt.
‘Six check. At ping.’
And beside, a rigid spire of snarled wood, whose single tuft of proud green shone bright over the verdant sea.
‘Yep.’ Turtle I tapped his helmet, unfurling a comprehensive HUD complete with smooth beak pecking its distant boulder’s pale silhouette lost in the fog. ‘Couple hundred out.’ Another tap.
‘Same. Comms free.’
Every step was more peculiar. Barbed spikes poked from a wooden mass bulging from the dirt, the club of some ancient brute. Then a rock in the vices of a veritable serpent’s roots, whose leafy scales drooped from the whole of its formidable length. Then a third marvel in as many glances, massive leaves folded like a rose whose stem was many winding, weaving tendrils of trunk until a coalescence toward the base.
‘Turtle II on site. Sitrep.’
Turtle I found himself rendered inert beside some other incomprehensible excuse for a bush. ‘Yep.’ He tapped and tapped again. ’40 meters.’
At some twenty Turtle II embarked, leaving I to bridge the gap. ‘We drifted in that Ram Cloud.’
‘Surprised we didn’t drop with shears.’
‘You hear Dolphin? Half B Team pulped on impact. Hornet made rendezvous they said. Never reached debrief. Always something fucked for Autos.’
The suit’s intake did furiously spin. It was a wonder they didn’t catch lift.
‘Eyes on levels.’
Turtle I’s boot sank. He paused, and after a futile mop of misted glass dropped to inspect the mud, with Turtle II close in attendance.
‘This flora is vicious.’
Turtle I rose to follow what might be taken for a path, after tracing through bloated gloves a curious depression. ‘It’s extravagant.’ He followed the mud around a bend, and out of sight. It was excessive, frivolous. ‘Lazy.’
Turtle I stopped, and with his unwitting aid brought Turtle II to a similar halt.
Around the bend were steps of stone, half a dozen in the better part of a wide circle, with leaning walls of weaving layers reaching high above. And at the center a figure on bended knee, whose shin met a startled Turtle’s eye. It’s other leg bore a globe carved with swirls, a hand at east and west. But there above broad shoulders in a shroud, within its great stone hood, adrift in strands of fog, was not a figure but a man.
Turtle I’s hand shot to the release above his neck, and after a clumsy pull returned defeated.
‘Turtle I Stand Down!’
He rotated, and stiffly stepped, as II barreled past and down into the mud. The Autos.
‘It’s Hostile.’
A crack in the stair presented nicely, it’s sharp edge hung with moss.
‘There won’t be exfil.’
Sharp enough, upon closer inspection. good angle too.
‘Agony. drowning in fire. Worse.’
Turtle I knelt, head raised to search the stony giant’s.
‘Touch anything you’re compromised. It’s a slow death any way you cut it.’ Heavy huffing rushed between the words. ‘Best case you’d be stranded. Spoiled. That’s death.’
The helmet fell hard between braced arms, glass ramming against stone. Turtle I watched a crack traverse his shell, with breath unbated.