WORLD 4: AWAKENING
Chapter Fourteen: Ascending to Nowhere

Day two of the expedition proved uneventful at first. The second I woke up, I jumped out of the personal shelter before anyone could notice that Baylen and I had been in there together. We’d switched positions all night, stuck in there so tightly underneath the blanket, but it was still more comforting to be with him than alone.

After another revolting fabricated meal and a new layer of numbing cream and bandages for my belly, we packed up camp and went over planning for the day.

“So what will we do at the next stop?” I asked Aymin. I’d been watching him try to make his way into Brynn and Soren’s conversations, but he’d been left out over and over again. Something was definitely going on between those two.

“We’ll be staying there for two whole days, which is really cool,” he said and ran a hand through his black hair. “We’ll be able to spend so much more time on stuff and use some of the bigger equipment we brought.”

“Great! Let me know if I can help you guys with anything,” I said, a tinge of pleading behind the statement. I felt stupid that I’d just been tagging along for the most part and wanted to actually be of some use.

He turned to his fellow officers. “Hey Soren, where did you put that sensor data?” They ignored him yet again. “Soren. Soren!”

While Aymin ran over to make yet another attempt at breaking into Soren and Brynn’s conversation, I made my way into our transport to get going.

Baylen was already waiting up front. He turned to me with a little bit of an uneasiness. “Hey, so you left pretty quick this morning.”

“Yeah, I know I did. I just wanted to get started with everything,” I said, staring at the front of the transport instead of Baylen. “And I had to stretch my legs and back out, it was pretty cramped.”

“Yeah, I agree with that one, my back is definitely feeling it right now,” he said. I finally made eye contact with him and we shared a smile.

“Ready to go, guys?” Wes asked as he climbed in next to his son.

“Definitely!” I cheered. “Get us out of here, Baylen!”

“You got it.”

We sped away again, following our map. Soon, we discovered that traveling fast wasn’t going to be possible. Our route was full of boulders and steep hillsides that were tricky to navigate, plus a forested area so thick it seemed to take forever to wind the transport through it.

But the beauty was even more intense than the first trip. Gorgeous, jagged mountains topped with white loomed in the distance that I couldn’t take my eyes off of. Fascinating birds flew by from the trees in all different sizes, soaring and flitting their way through the blue sky. Once in a while, I thought I could even see a light in the distance behind us — very faint, and only a tiny glimmer at a time. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of alien rock or animal could reflect sunlight in such a way. Maybe a small lake I’d missed. There was no doubt that eventually the Science Lev Officers who were obsessed with that kind of thing would have the answer.

We finally reached our destination hours later. Our area was lightly forested again, this time with huge boulders sticking out everywhere, just like our Colony camp.

“Our sensor data shows that this area has really dense rock underneath the top soil,” reported Aymin, staring at his personal screen.

“Let’s go get a sample!” exclaimed Brynn. She grabbed Soren’s hand and pulled him off into the forest with her.

“Guys, don’t go off alone yet!” Gabring shouted after them. Their giggling became more and more faint as they disappeared through the trees. He groaned and took off after them.

I decided to go through my inventory of medical supplies. Not out of necessity, but just because I wanted something to keep me busy; I was the only one who didn’t have anything useful to do. As I unpacked different boxes, I couldn’t help but watch Baylen and Wes set up our camp. They were both in their element outside, especially Wes. All equipment and supply crates were set up with precision and care, our beds laid out in an exact, perfect circle. When they were done with camp, Wes continued teaching Baylen about outdoor survival: how to make an emergency shelter out of trees, fire-building, and various other things I never would have thought of.

Baylen had an expression of endearment on him the entire time. I knew he loved it, being out there in the dirt and rocks. I also knew that a big part of his satisfaction was how wonderful it was to see his father light up so much after eight long years. Wes the survivalist was finally making an appearance again. My work took forever because it was just too adorable to turn away from. I didn’t even notice Gabring coming up to me.

“Hey!” he said. I jumped and dropped a pack of absorption pads.

“Whoa — hey Gabring! Sorry, you just startled me,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“I need your help with this,” he said with his usual smooth professionalism. He held up his forearm. There was a series of long, bloody scrapes all up the length of it.

My mood brightened. “What happened?” I asked and tried to control my excitement. Finally, I would be able to do my job.

“Lost my footing over there and scratched myself up pretty good. Do you have anything we could put on it?”

“Of course!” I said and dug around the crates of supplies. I pulled out a rolled bandage. “How badly does it hurt?’

He shrugged. “Not too bad. Nothin’ I can’t handle,” he said with a sly grin. “But before you offer, I can’t take any of that nice stuff you guys give out for pain. Wish I could, but it’ll knock me out and I can’t have that happen. Got to make sure you all are safe out here.”

“No problem, mister responsible,” I teased. “I’ve got something else we can use. It’s a cream that will keep the area numb for hours.” I dug around in my vest pocket and produced the tube of numbing cream.

He gave a look of approval. “Sounds good, girl. Go for it.”

I held up the tube for him to see, then squeezed out a line of the cream onto a bandage. He winced in pain as I spread it all over his wounds.

“Just wait,” I told him.

Seconds later, his forearm muscles relaxed again and he sighed. “Oh man, that’s really awesome. You guys in Med Lev think of some great stuff.”

“Yeah, well I’m pretty sure it’s either Senior Officer Kai or Science Lev who invented this. Definitely not someone like me.”

He winked. “Nah, I can tell you’re a smart one.”

My cheeks flushed.

I continued wrapping the roll of white bandages tightly around his forearm and tied it off. “All done, Officer. Now be careful out there!”

He winked at me one more time. “You got it. Thanks, May.”

I loved that he used my nickname. Normally it was only something I liked close friends or family members to use, but Gabring was different — his personality was magnetic and I adored that he felt like he knew me well enough to use it.

After re-packing my supplies again, I noticed that people were trickling back in to eat. Of course, it was fabricated, and didn’t last very long as the Science Officers were very antsy to begin our next task: a hike up the adjacent mountain.

“You ready to get a workout in?” Baylen asked me as I finished cleaning up my lunch.

“Ha! Yeah, we’ll all get to see how out of shape I am.”

“How out of shape all of us are, more like it,” he replied. We turned our heads as Soren let out a loud noise of celebration while he talked to Brynn.

“He probably found a new kind of bug or something,” I said.

Baylen laughed and leaned in to me. “It’s more likely he’s just excited because he’s in love with Brynn.”

I gasped. “You see it, too!”

He furrowed his brow. “Everyone can see it, May. You’ve got to be blind not to notice.”

“Yeah, I guess. I think it’s really cute, actually.”

Baylen’s eyes stayed on me. “Yeah.”

“Gabring!” said Wes. He was walking into camp from the transports. “I’ll be going out with you this time.” It was clear he’d had enough of staying behind. “And you should all bring your warming shirts, just in case we’re out late. The temperature can drop quickly, especially in higher elevation.” He clapped loudly. “Let’s get to the transports!”

Grabbing my long shirt, I jumped into the back seat again and we made the short trip to the base of the mountain. The scenery was just as grand as it had been before, and as I stared off into the distance to admire the gorgeous view, I saw it again: the glint of light in the distance I’d noticed a couple of times earlier. It was closer, almost moving a little bit. I was definitely going to have to ask Soren if they knew what exactly out there could do that kind of thing.

We started our hike only a twenty-minute ride away from camp. It was the highest we could get up to before the terrain became too harsh for the transports. From that point, we would be walking straight up through the rugged mountainside.

The area had fewer trees than at camp, and more boulders. Huge rocks had to have been a theme on the planet; I’d seen them almost everywhere to some degree. We each grabbed a water container and our warming shirt, then took off.

It didn’t take me very long to realize just how hard it was to hike at elevation. Even though the weather was amazing, my body had been working so hard in the thin air that sweat was dripping down my face and back by the time we stopped for a break thirty minutes later. It was especially hard wearing a vest that held the heavy map screen Wes had given me to take care of. It was less than pleasant; not only were my legs burning from the hard work they were being forced to perform, the bandages around my middle were also bunching up in a disgusting way with all of the sweat. I discreetly stripped them off and tried using my warming shirt tied around my waist to wipe the moisture off my back while nobody was looking.

“I’m just going to sit down for a minute,” I panted to Aymin as we stopped, “then I’ll come with you to explore and stuff if you want.”

He was sitting and breathless as well. “No really, take all the time you need.”

I closed my eyes and took in the crisp mountain air while I caught my breath. I felt it fill my lungs and cool off my sweating, tired body.

“You alright?” asked Wes. He came down next to me with a huge sigh of relief, trying to calm his breathing as well.

“Yeah, just resting for a sec. This hike is pretty crazy.”

He raised his eyebrows and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Well, you know these insane Science Officers, they’ll hike into the most stupid places imaginable just to get a sample of something.”

I burst out a single laugh, covering my mouth to hide how loud it had been; I’d never heard a comment like that come out of Wes before. I liked it — loved it, even. It made me feel closer to him in a way.

“Need water?” I asked and held out my container. He took it gratefully and chugged down a few gulps. I noticed that Wes had left his ABW behind. “Did you forget your Air Burst Weapon?” There was no hiding the nervous manner in which I asked it — in my opinion, the more weapons that were out there to protect us from animals, the better.

He looked down to his belt. “I figured we’d be alright for just one hike. Gabring has his and I’ve still got my dagger. You forget that I’m not young anymore,” he said and his deep voice chuckled. “Those ABWs are fairly heavy.”

“Don’t worry, I get it.”

Ten minutes later, everyone had rested enough to be able to resume the hike. I took a deep breath, apologizing silently to my body for what I was about to make it go through again.

“Everyone ready to go?” asked Gabring. He stood tall in front of our group and tried to sound enthusiastic. “Remember to stay together and don’t…” His voice trailed and his expression suddenly became focused.

There were sounds. Footsteps, more than one pair, from some kind of living creature. They were stomping through the ground not far from us.

Everyone whipped their heads around in the direction the sound was coming from at the same time. Wes stood and had his dagger out immediately.

Finally, the footsteps came to us from around the nearest bend.

It was people.

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