Star Force: Divergent (SF74) (4 page)

She’d gotten in a brief workout before heading to
sleep, going for a run outside of armor and doing some flexibility drills out
in the snow as long as she could stand the cold, then warming up inside and
doing some mediation work to further cleanse her mind enough that she could get
to sleep without running things through her head nonstop. Without the long runs
to drain her of energy she needed the release of the workouts, not to mention
to maintain her fitness levels, which were going to take a significant hit if
this mission dragged on as it was with her riding the speeder and not doing
much more than looking around and small activities like digging and crawling.

Tomorrow…which would actually occur at night…she was
going to start with a workout then head off to the next waypoint, hopefully do
three or four then set up camp again and rest/train for a few more hours and
continue splitting it up in that fashion going forward. If she tried to plan
out a timetable going forward she was going to get frustrated, for these
waypoints were meant to keep things unpredictable.

In order to counter that she had to let go of
expectations and just play it out as events progressed. Not what she wanted to
do initially, thinking of this mission as partially a race, but an Arc Commando
had to adapt more than other soldiers, and to be prudent she stopped assuming
there would be a finish to this mission and prepared herself for an unending
one…which meant she had to sustain herself through training and supplies, to
which end she began rationing her ambrosia usage, having a gut feeling that she
was going to be maneuvered into a situation where she’d potentially be forced
to run out and have to face that headache as well.

A little prudence now could possibly circumvent that,
and she’d rather run low now and work through partial doses rather than have
none at all later.

Then again she could just be getting paranoid, and
that was yet another part of this mission, she was sure. Not knowing what was
coming didn’t allow you to prepare for it, so it was left to guesswork and
improvisation…both of which were unpredictable.

“Live in the moment,” she whispered to herself as her
head hit the inflated pillow, “and be ready for anything.”

For now that meant getting to sleep, so she put all
other concerns out of her mind and slipped off into blissful rest, grateful to
have a warm structure to sleep in rather than roughing it in her armor.

4

July 9, 2896

Epsilon Eridani
System

Corneria

Jyra slid the last component into the plate-sized disc
that she’d been assembling from all of the puzzle pieces and immediately saw
the thing light up with power. Three gold lights appeared along with a
countdown timer of 2:28. Frowning with both uncertainty and displeasure, the
Commando realized this was another test and that she’d probably only get one
shot at it. There were only three buttons on the entire device, each of which
sat below the lights, so she pressed one and received a small hologram of a
rotating triangle. Recognizing it as a prompt to level the device, she put the
disc down on the ground and the triangle disappeared, immediately replaced by a
foot and a half tall image of a metal skeleton.

“Oh no,” she moaned as it remained motionless. After a
few seconds of it doing nothing she pressed another button that removed the
hologram but put nothing in its place. Seeing the countdown continue, she
didn’t have time to think it over so she pressed the third button and a
holographic map appeared marking a series of locations.

On impulse she brought up her helmet’s empty map, save
for the now useless waypoints, and aligned it with what she was seeing before
placing new waypoints of her own at approximately the same spots as the map
indicated, leaving her with 26 seconds remaining. Jyra hit the other buttons
again, bringing back the metal skeleton and removing it with the ‘empty’
button. She tried a few combinations but got nothing new, then tossed the disc
away from her and stepped behind a tree.

A moment later it exploded with energy, a bit of which
hit her arm that hadn’t gotten tucked in behind the trunk. She felt a slight
tingle of stun energy, then her armor pulled it out of her body and returned
her limb to full functioning status, but armor or no, had she been holding that
device when it went off she would have been rendered unconscious.

Jyra walked out of cover and looked at it, still lying
on the ground where she had left it but with the three lights now gone. She
assumed it was dead, and knew from previous examination of the pieces that it
contained nothing of use, but something in the back of her mind said to take it
with her. She had no obvious reason to do so, but if she ended up needing it
later she didn’t want to have to spend hours or days searching the forest for
this position.

It wasn’t going to fit in her pack, and worried that it
might contain a hidden transmitter she decided to simply put a waypoint on this
position on her map and leave the device where it lay. If it turned out she did
need it later she’d know where to come to, assuming no one was out here and
came to mess with it. That metal skeleton was a message, telling her that she
was now going to be hunted and that her mission was to avoid capture. She also
figured the stun blast was a way of giving her hunters a head start and she was
glad she had gotten behind the tree when she did.

But there was still the matter of that second button.
It had done nothing, but it did cancel the other two, as if it was supposed to
be doing something…or was doing something that she didn’t see.

“I bet they had me transmitting my position,” she said
in disgust, knowing that she had to get moving quickly. Investigating the points
on the map was a priority, but getting out of here soon was paramount. She
didn’t want to lose the speeder just yet, but it was almost out of charge and
none of her supply drops had had any additional batteries or a portable
recharger in them. She could cannibalize her personal power supply to run the
speeder for a short while, but she didn’t want to give up her living
accommodations just yet, so she was going to preserve that power supply unless
she ran into a pinch.

“Doing it to myself again,” she said as she ran over
to the speeder that she’d parked a kilometer away before retrieving the last
component from a box hidden in a camouflage blind that she’d only managed to find
by tripping over it. She’d spent some 3 hours looking and had wanted to set up
camp again, but she couldn’t here and maybe not at all going forward if what
was after her was what she thought.

It could be trainers, but odds were they were drones,
fitting in with this being a solitary test…and she bet there were going to be
more of them than she had shots in her pistol for.

Jyra hopped on her speeder and took off, easing back
up through the trees and into the clear air then heading towards one of her new
waypoints, knowing that she wasn’t going to get even close to it, for it was
located some 149 miles off, but fortunately all of them were clustered around
that region within a radius of 20 or so miles. She hadn’t had time to study it
intently, but intended to get as much distance out of her speeder as possible.

She kept searching the horizon looking for trouble
headed her way, both from ahead and behind her, but nothing showed up during
her 34 mile stint that ended with the warning light flaring, indicating that
she was almost out of power. She ignored it and got another 2 miles in before
the safety mechanisms activated and gradually dropped her down into the trees
against her will…which sent her ramming into snow drifts and branches alike for
a few seconds before all power went out and the speeder became a dead weight
that got jammed on a thick branch before it could punch through the canopy and
hit the ground.

“Worth,” she declared, forcing aside branches and
crawling out of the gentle crash. Once free she jumped down to the ground and
immediately began running, wanting to put some distance between herself and the
speeder just in case it was being tracked. She made it some 12 miles before
needing to stop and rest, with her setting up her tent-like building and establishing
her defensive perimeter before taking a quick tingle shower, eating, and
forcing herself to get to sleep…but this time she kept her armor on, save for
her helmet, which she had beside her at arm’s reach along with her pistol.

She expected to wake up into a mess of trouble, but
Jyra knew better than to try to go without sleep, and not setting up camp would
be just as bad as being forced to flee and lose it, so knowing that she could
rough it in her armor alone if needed, she’d decided to go ahead and make use
of the heated interior and luxuries while she had them rather than to go
without out of fear. That sort of self-induced punishment would fit this
mission perfectly, and she didn’t feel like indulging her own discomfort.

The armor was cushioned interiorly, but it was by no
means the equivalent of her blanket sleeve. That said, she wasn’t going to risk
getting caught outside her armor, for it would take too long to put it back on
even if she got a perimeter warning first. However the point was moot, because
when her alarm woke her it wasn’t the danger version, but rather the time
elapse she had programmed. She woke quickly and cleared her head, realizing
that she’d gone the entire 7 hours without incident.

Not trusting her luck, she pulled her helmet on and
grabbed her pistol, slipping outside and having a look around before shrugging
and heading back inside to relieve herself, melt and store some water, and grab
a bite to eat before packing up and heading off again. Through it all she kept
wondering what exactly was chasing her and if they were out there actively
looking or waiting for her to get to the region where the waypoints were.

If they wanted to track her it wouldn’t be hard once
they stumbled across her trail. The speeder had avoided any footprints from the
site of the message/stun bomb, but from the landing site on, the snow was
leaving too good of tracks for anyone to miss. Unfortunately that couldn’t be
helped unless she wanted to try and lose pursuit by climbing up into the trees
and traveling from branch to branch for a bit, but that would take forever and
only get her a short distance…and there was no guarantee they wouldn’t pick up
her new trail again, so she just decided to move on as she normally would and
wait for the first sign of trouble before deciding what to do.

Knowing that if/when the hunters got to her she was
going to be unable to rest, she took short running sessions and longer breaks,
almost taunting the enemy to attack her. If they didn’t then she’d get rested
up. If they did then she’d get to see who or what was after her well before she
got to the waypoints and whatever trouble they represented.

But nothing came for her, and while she counted that
as good fortunate it also worried her. Something was in the works, and Jyra
preferred knowing what it was and combating it rather than waiting for it to
jump her unexpectedly.

Three days later, when she was approaching within a
few miles of the first of the destination waypoints, knowing that she was going
to have to look around a lot since she didn’t have a precise, to the meter,
position on them, a buzzing sound began to approach from in front of her…then a
moment later she realized it was coming from every direction. Slipping out her
pistol into her left hand she stopped running and fell silent, listening and
looking for the source.

She didn’t have to wait long before movement to her
left caught her eye and a miniaturized spark drone appeared through the tree
trunks…followed by another, and another, and who knew how many more, for Jyra
didn’t stay put and sprinted off in a random direction. When she came up on
another of the floating devices she fired a plasma lance directly into it and
it agreeably dropped to the ground with the single hit. A full
Spark
-class drone would take a whole lot
more damage, but this baby version clearly wasn’t designed the same. She’d
never seen this version before but guessed they held weaponry even if they
lacked shields and she didn’t want to linger around long enough to find out.

Unfortunately the four others nearby didn’t let her go
so easily, firing off pink stun blasts and catching her in the upper right arm
and lower left leg as she ran, though many more shots missed due to her agility
and the tree trunks that got in the way. Her form got sloppy, but between the
glancing hits, her armor absorbing and then soaking the energy that got through
it back out of her body, Jyra managed to stay on her feet and running until her
left foot suddenly gave out.

She tumbled to the ground, with her pack luckily
having been latched on otherwise it would have been sheared off. Next thing she
knew a metallic little quadruped resembling a gopher ran into her helmet and
she heard/felt another stun blast. Thankfully most of her face wasn’t touching
the inside of the helmet and the energy was dissipated around her head save for
a patch on top. Her forehead went numb, but her arm swung accurately and
punched the little thing off her before it could deliver another jolt.

Jyra climbed to a knee and shot another one of the
things before jamming her numb leg into the ground and feeling some sensation
return. She knew she hadn’t taken a full hit thanks to her armor, but the
slowing effect was bad enough as she limped a single, broken step that turned
into a repetitive, ugly stride that gradually smoothed out as she spent most of
her pistol’s ammunition on keeping a few of the little machines off her and
downing two more of the floating spheres before most of her running gait
returned and she was able to get moving at decent speed.

That kept most of the machines off her, but as she
stole glances behind at the sound of the persistent buzz she saw that the mini
sparks were keeping pace with her, but apparently not firing until they got a
decent shot. Weaving between trees as she was they wouldn’t be able to
accomplish that until they were right on top of her, and at the moment there
were none of the little critters nipping at her feet, but she didn’t have time
to take a thorough look at the ground and assumed they were following as well.

Forcing herself to try and outrun them, she sprinted
as much as her foot would allow and eventually outpaced them as her feeling
returned, though the pins and needles only added to her stumbling until she
eventually beat them into submission and had her full range of motion back.
Knowing that stopping was a really bad idea she ran on, outdistancing her
pursuit and hearing the buzz diminish while another source grew louder to her
right. Veering away from it she ran and ran, finding more sources that kept following
her.

It couldn’t be heat tracking, for her armor blocked
her body’s infrared glow. It could be auditory or motion, but the denseness of
the forest should let her get away from that eventually, for with the snow
under her feet she wasn’t making much noise and even she couldn’t see the
pursuit behind her when she glanced back. It could just be her imagination, but
she had the feeling they had an advantage on her and she was quickly running
through the available options of how that could have been engineered.

A spotter up top couldn’t see through the trees most
of the time, but it was possible. There could also be tracking devices imbedded
in the forest in this region, but that would have meant a whole lot of them out
here because they didn’t know exactly where she was going to travel through.
Beyond that she didn’t think…

Jyra had a flash of insight and a sinking feeling in
her gut, then used a mix of audible, blink, and mental commands to search
through her limited HUD options. There was nothing on the map save from the
waypoints and she had no connectivity to the planetary battlemap, but that
didn’t mean this armor’s operating system was any different from the others.

Digging into the options on the run was slow going,
but she managed it without running into any trees or tripping over rocks as she
checked out her hunch.

“Son of a bitch! I hate you guys…” she said,
deactivating her helmet’s transponder that had been sending out a tracking
signal. As soon as she did that Jyra took a hard left and ran perpendicular to
her previous course, hoping to shake the pursuit behind her. She didn’t stop to
try and hide, not sure if the signal had been the only way they’d kept on her
scent, but with the other groups around she had to zig and
zag
quite a bit before she got away from that incessant buzzing.