Star Force: Divergent (SF74) (2 page)

Above and beyond that, they wanted individuals that
they could trust to use their instincts and ferret out injustice,
inconsistencies, anything that might be amiss. Simply following orders wasn’t
enough. They had to act on their own volition and not rely on orders. With the
responsibilities, equipment, and knowledge that the Archons were giving to Jyra
and the others, the most impressive and humbling gift being given to them was
that of trust. Trust to act without oversight and to do what the Archons would
do.

Except the Arc Commandos were being trained in a very
narrow slice of Archon responsibilities, namely the solo and small group combat
missions, traveling behind enemy lines and, if the worst came to pass, able to
disappear within Star Force if it was ever compromised. The Arc Commandos, in
their limited focus, were now another spear tip, with no one to follow. They
led the way, not for others to follow, but to aid them by taking out targets
and accomplishing missions that most would never know occurred.

That’s why Arc Commandos were not publically
recognized and that the military itself didn’t know of their existence beyond
rumor…and that level of trust and secrecy was why Jyra had fully committed
herself to this extreme training. It was difficult physically, as was all Star
Force training, but what made this secret program so extreme was that it
required her to become an Arc Commando completely, from her red hair down to
the tips of her toes. This wasn’t a job or profession, it was to become her
identity.

And that was something she wanted, more than anything
in her life. She’d always wanted to be an Archon, but her testing hadn’t
warranted it. She’d retaken the tests multiple times throughout her life, each
of which was different, but she’d never passed. This new role, which held equal
status to the Archons in terms of independence and responsibility was equal to,
no, actually better than becoming an Archon.

Naval, aquatic, aerial, and mech combat were
interesting but never truly appealed to her, nor were administrative duties and
empire construction. Jyra was a fighter who belonged on the battlefield, not a
builder, so Arc Commando was a perfect match for her and she was extremely
grateful for the wisdom of the Archons in seeing that in her. That vision was
one thing that she lacked, but now that she’d found her niche she never wanted
to do anything else again. She still had about another year to go in her training,
she guessed, and she still had to earn that position, but Jyra had no doubts as
to whether it would happen.

There was a way to accomplish it, and if there was a
way she’d find it. She was fully committed to becoming an Arc Commando and
nothing they’d thrown at her yet, training wise, had been more than she could
handle.

This long distance solitary mission was something new,
but she suspected it was more of a confirmation ordeal rather than a grueling
endurance test. There was no time limit involved, at least not on this stage of
it. She simply had to get from point to point across the snow-covered forest
and could take as much time as she needed or wanted. That said, with her
objective location known she didn’t feel like delaying and set a fairly aggressive
pace, tempered by the fact that she knew she’d been running for at least 10
hours before she settled down for the ‘night,’ though with her
nightvision
tech the time of day didn’t matter, rather it
was whenever she became exhausted that she’d stop, and she’d already decided to
play it safe and cut off before that happened.

While this leg of her mission might be simple, she had
no way of knowing what the next one would entail…and she didn’t want to head
into possible difficulty at a disadvantage. So she set a pace that would double
as the workouts she was unable to do out here in the middle of nowhere and got
to work covering ground, not knowing what was ahead of her other than the tiny
triangular dot emblazoned on her HUD marking her target location’s direction.

2

The terrain seemed endless, with forest over rolling
hills that was always different yet remarkably the same. If it wasn’t for her
HUD and the distant waypoint Jyra would have been thoroughly lost in this
wilderness but that one bit of information was all she needed to navigate, with
the significance of that razor edge not being lost on her. More so than ever
before Jyra was coming to grips with the fact that the galaxy was a wild and
dangerous place with no safety nets other than what you created yourself. Star
Force had done so well in that regard that most people didn’t realize what it
was like outside their cities.

For here and now a single navigational point was
making the difference between having a path forward and wandering aimlessly to
her eventual death. Yes, she had a backup beacon in case something went wrong,
but had that not been the case she’d be relying on the gear in her helmet to
survive. If it was lost or damaged then she would be in a world of hurt,
unlikely to be able to stay alive longer than her supplies lasted, for these
trees were not fruit bearing. Roots perhaps could be scrounged, but that would
just be a delaying tactic.

If she couldn’t get to the waypoint she would be lost.

Now that she had plenty of time to consider that, the
danger of life began to sink into her. She’d been through numerous battles and
never thought of those as ‘dangerous’ because she had a fighting chance, but
the idea of being in a no-win scenario was truly terrifying. She was a fighter,
and not having some path to victory, no matter how unlikely, left her
completely vulnerable and dependent on the little device in her helmet.

She didn’t like being dependent, nor did Star Force,
hence the redundancy they built into their infrastructure, but as an Arc
Commando she didn’t have that luxury. She had to go where others wouldn’t, or
couldn’t, and sometimes that would mean walking the razor’s edge. Jyra hadn’t
expected that to be the case on this mission, for it was little more than a
long run across terrain, but now that she was here, unwatched, reality was
dawning on her.

It was both scary yet liberating. She was in control,
so long as her equipment functioned, and unlike being under water she wasn’t
going to die immediately if her air cut off or her armor breached…which was one
reason why she wasn’t fond of aquatics. No, out here she’d last for a long
time, it was that inevitable defeat looming at the edge of her mind that
worried her. As a last ditch effort she could always try and make it to one of
the distant cities, so there was a slim chance she could survive and that would
give her something to fight for, but the isolation here made it feel like the
entire planet was empty…and that made her think through the ramifications of
being on another world that had no cities, and what she would do then.

The disturbing answer was nothing, for there was
nothing to be done but wait and hope for rescue. Dependent on someone else
again, unable to win, let alone even fight, if she was lost on a world with no
way off it. She knew better than to give up, for there might be some unseen
angle she was missing…a way to win that was hidden, and if you gave up you were
precluding that possibility, but since this was a theoretical situation she
allowed herself to consider the what-ifs of being in a position where there was
no way out.

Jyra didn’t have an answer for that. She was a fighter
and could never stop trying, it just wasn’t in her nature, and perhaps that is
why the thought of a no-win scenario was so damn frightening. It was like a
line that you could not cross, yet drawn plainly in front of you, with no one
forcing you over it. Knowingly you’d never cross it, but the fact that it was
there and danger lay on the other side meant that if you accidently crossed it
you’d be doomed.

But then she’d still be in control, wary but wise
enough not to cross that line. But what if that line shifted, or she lost her
focus and wandered across? That was the truly scary part, that she could end up
where she didn’t want to be on accident…and her HUD failing would be just such
an accident in this situation.

Normally
Jyra’s
mind didn’t
wander this much, but she literally had nothing to do other than keep running.
The terrain was mildly challenging, but not enough to consume her conscious
mind so her thoughts wondered up until she finally decided to stop and rest
after having traveled some 82 miles, straight line. How far she’d actually ran
with all the twists and turns she didn’t know, for her HUD wasn’t set up to
track it with this limited capability.

With the terrain all seeming the same Jyra just came
to a stop when she felt like it and looked around, finding a suitable gap
between tree trunks and walking over to it, then taking a moment to pull her
helmet off and breathe deeply, bending at the waist and resting her right hand
on her knee. She hadn’t been running fast, but only now that she’d stopped did
her fatigue begin to fully register. She could have gone on further with ease,
but apparently she’d dipped into a bit of combat mode numbness that had blocked
her mind from fully realizing the extent of her physical depletion.

In those few seconds her face and hair frosted over in
the cold, but it felt good at the moment so she kept her helmet off as she got
her breathing under control and stood up, disconnecting and pulling off her
heavy pack. She set it down in the snow and laid her helmet on top before
reaching inside and pulling out a small knife that she used to cut away a few
bits of scrub brush to form a bigger clearing. Those tumbleweeds she tossed
aside into the snow where small rays of sunlight were breaking through the
canopy and painting the dim white with numerous bright spots.

Night would be on her soon though, for the planet had
a 22-hour day and she’d began just after dawn. Had she not been equipped by
Star Force that would have been an issue, for the nights would get considerably
colder, but her armor and survival equipment would make that a moot point.

Jyra took a moment to go through a few stretching
exercises, making use of the flexibility her armor allowed and working out her
stiff body, for the running motion, while dynamic enough, didn’t allow for
certain movements and she’d gotten a bit rigid in those areas. Above that the
stretching just felt good, especially in contrast with her warm body and
chilling head.

Once finished she began kicking away the snow and
getting down to the frozen dirt below. When she had her campsite cleared she
put her helmet back on to keep from getting too cold and pulled out a cylinder
from her pack about the length of her forearm. She set it down in the center of
the clearing and pressed a button before taking a step back. Four seconds later
the hard canister broke apart and began to unfurl a thin prefab building.

It spread out into a flat octagon, then rose up as it
stretched its cloth-like walls rigid around telescoping supports that
interlocked automatically. Once the building reached its height of 2.8 meters
the material of the walls and ceiling solidified as the tiny segments firmly
locked together. Altogether it took 18 seconds to form, with Jyra tapping an
armored finger on it to check on its rigidity before grabbing her pack and
going inside.

The door was solid but unpowered, operating on a hinge
that swung outward. Jyra closed it behind her then walked to the far side of
the 6.4 meter wide room and set her pack down, from which she pulled out a
small power source the size of her thumb and inserted it into a matching slot
in the center of the floor. Once connected nothing happened, but the equally
small heating element and light that she unpacked next slid into slots on the
ceiling that then drew power from the generator, bathing the interior in blue
and starting to warm the chilly air.

More items followed, being plugged into additional
slots on the floor and ceiling. Star Force built smaller survival ‘tents’ but
on a mission like this there was no need to skimp, though she did have one of
their smallest units as a backup in case the one she was in now became lost or
damaged. Redundancy was the name of the game, and Star Force had gone to great
lengths to devise and fabricate personal gear that could be condensed down to
as convenient travel size as possible.

While the chamber warmed Jyra pulled out a roll of
what looked like candy discs, popping one into her mouth before stowing the
rest. Her body had been fully depleted of ambrosia, she realized after the fact
as she sluggishly moved around and her heartrate diminished, with the ‘candy’
being a very condensed supply. Each disc was equal to her typical daily
requirement of 13.2 doses, which another roll had small bits in lesser amount
so she wouldn’t have to try and break the tiny discs apart to manage her
levels. Each roll had been custom designed for the dosage levels she required,
and while it wasn’t mission critical it was, to her, one of the most important
items in her pack.

One item that was more of a luxury was a chair that
she unpacked, setting it into a slot in the floor that locked into place and
then expanded in size as the components realigned. It required power, for it
was more than just for sitting on. It had a small backrest, on which was a
button that altered modes. She punched it with her little finger and saw the
seat uncover into a toilet seat as she pulled off her helmet and began taking
off her armor. It was a segmented version rather than the all-in-one units that
most preferred nowadays, and gave her a slightly greater defense rating due to
the rigid pieces. It was also unpowered, which had been a requirement of this
mission, but from the inside it felt virtually identical to all the other
versions she’d worn, for only under extreme situations did she utilize their
powered-augmented movement capability.

The air wasn’t fully warmed by the time she stepped out
of her boots and tossed them into a corner with the rest of her sweaty armor
but she didn’t feel like waiting a few more minutes, for her bladder that had
been quiet the last few hours of her run was now reasserting itself. She pulled
off her uniform pants and sat down, glad to have the chair in her inventory,
for otherwise she would have had to go out in the snow and relieve herself the
old fashioned way and use a portable scraper.

She had one in her pack as well, but the chair had a
unit built in so when she finished she hit a button and a cleansing force field
scraped across her butt cleaning and sanitizing far better than the old
fashioned toilet paper ever did. When she felt the wipe finish she stood up and
pulled her pants back on, flicking the ‘compress’ button that would take her
waste material and dehydrate it into pellets that she could toss into the
forest later. For now they were stored in the base of the chair along with the
pure water recovered. That could be critical in other environments, but with
all the snow here she wasn’t going to have to worry about water conservation on
this mission.

On that note she also pulled out a water bottle from
her pack and downed it in one long drink before pulling out some prepackaged
foodstuffs that were also volume compressed. She ate quickly then pulled off
her clothes once the chamber had fully heated up, stepping into a ring on the
floor that she had already installed, along with its opposite on the ceiling.
Using her toe she flicked a button on the floor and the two rings encapsulated
her in a weak shield tube that she could break out of if necessary. With it a
second plate-like energy shield began bouncing from one ring to the other in
slow motion, operating similar to the scraper and pulling some of the grime and
sweat off her body.

It was nicknamed the ‘tickler’ and functioned as a
lesser replacement for a water shower. Originally developed for races that
didn’t take well to the water, it was used by some Human civilians that
preferred it but mostly used as a backup when water was scarce. It never worked
well on
Jyra’s
hair, but got most of the workout
stench off of her. In the field that was a luxury, and on a lot of occasions
she slept in her armor, sweat and all, until she could get to a secure
facility.

But since there were going to be no secure facilities
on this mission the extra amenities were appropriate, and Jyra had chosen to
carry the extra weight to accommodate them. This was a longevity mission, and
any small augmentations to her survival inventory would factor in down the
line. She could rough it out in her armor and no shelter, but that wasn’t a
good way to operate long term and Jyra hadn’t been told how long this mission
would actually last.

A lot of that depended on how fast she traveled, and
with the solitude beginning to wear on her she didn’t intend to linger any
longer than necessary. After a few minutes in the tickler she got out and put
her clothing inside it, allowing the sweat and grime in them to be mostly
removed, then pulled them back on save for the socks. Knowing it wasn’t super
cold outside and wanting to give her feet a chance to breathe, she grabbed four
small cubes out of her pack and opened the door, stepping out barefoot onto the
frozen ground and shutting the door quickly to minimize the heat loss.

Jyra sucked in a deep breath, feeling her body begin
to chill instantly and taking a moment to absorb the sensation along with the
first few trickles of ambrosia hitting her bloodstream. She looked around in
the dimming light and listened, not expecting to hearing anything but taking
the moment just the same. There wasn’t anything mechanical or living to be
heard in the eerily silent forest, but to be on the safe side she walked out
into the snow, feeling and resisting the cold on her tiny feet as she moved out
about 20 meters and attached one of the cubes to a tree trunk.