Just a vaguely romantic, angst/sci-fi deal. I usually don't worry with short-stories because, as you'll see, it's pretty hard for me to keep things "short." This'll probably have four chapters total; I'll try and update every other day so that this doesn't get in the way too much of my current bigger story, "The Operator," which I promise you guys I am working on. This is just a little side project/experiment/guilty pleasure.
This planet was hell.
Tak wasn't pleased to be borrowing a human term for the place (especially not a religious one) but she'd read about it during her brief stint on Earth. Some cultures called it Hades, Gehenna, Erebus; the name was irrelevant, but the purpose was the same. Pain. Punishment. Heat. Shame.
All were things that Tak had gotten extremely good at dealing with since landing here. She shielded her eyes from the glare of the bleach-white sky with one gloved hand, setting out from a shaded clump of rocks. A blistering heat settled on her skin the instant she stepped out from beneath the shadow. It was oppressive and humid, sticking her environment suit tight to her body with sweat, but no different than the past few years had been.
On Tak went across the surface. She stumbled over charcoal-colored stones, scuffing her sole-bare boots against sharp edges, helped along often by her Pak legs. Ideally she'd be able to make it all the way to the edge of the planet's long-dead ocean today before needing to turn back. She knew she'd be less likely to trip if she watched her feet, but she'd never been one for looking down. Tak always looked up, moved forward, her eyes locked on the uneven rocky horizon, even if it meant quite a few tumbles as she walked.
There was no sun to guide her – it was blocked behind the thick white clouds that swirled like sea currents high above – but she'd memorized this portion of the planet. She'd had enough time to learn every stupid rock, every moronic fissure in the ground and asinine hill. The tips of her Pak legs were permanently stubbed and dirty from contact with this place's course and dirty surface.
Yes, it was even worse than Dirt, the garbage planet. At least on Dirt she'd had members of the janitorial squad to talk to. There had been plenty of salvage she could use, ripe for her brilliant mind to tinker with and work into a ship. Dirt had touches of the Irken Empire all over it, even if it was in the form of trash.
But here? Nothing. Only her.
Tak paid dearly for her brooding. She came across a smooth hunk of ground, thankful that there were no more boulders to stalk around. Setting a foot down helter-skelter, Tak felt the ground give way beneath her boot. The heat was worse here, if that was even possible, misting the inside of her helmet with steam. Tak's Pak legs shot out from her back, lifting her gingerly off of the ground few inches just as a small patch of lava bubbled to the surface where her feet had been only moments before.
She stared down at the deep crimson puddle, feeling it scorch her heels as she crept slowly backwards over the rocks. Reaching down, she grabbed a loose stone and tossed it at a few feet away. The black ground crackled and broke like ice, spiderwebbing red as the thin surface of cooled lava broke beneath the stone she'd thrown.
Right. There was a magma river here. Tak gave a little hiss at forgetting, and with a soft mechanical clicking her Pak legs carried her up and around the volatile ground. She worked out a different way to go, across a stand of tall and jagged stones nearby. Always watching the horizon for the shore of the dead ocean that clipped in and out of view as she lumbered on.
What's the point, anyway? Tak wondered, suddenly. The thought jarred her so badly that one of her thin, stalk-like legs slipped against a stone and she flailed insanely in the air before it caught her. She took a deep, heaving breath, half recovering from her almost-fall and half struck by an abrupt and violent sense of desperation.
What was the point? Why did she care about going to this waste-lock of a planet's dried-up ocean? Why was she continually trying to find ways to occupy her seemingly infinite time when there was no hope for rescue? The escape pod she'd landed in all those cycles ago was crushed and useless – she had no way to repair it, even with the few things she'd collected over the years. The idea of someone visiting was laughable. This planet was within Earth's very solar system and the humans hadn't even made it here. No, she was stuck, indefinitely.
Alone. Just as alone as she always been. Nothing had changed, nothing about this day was special, but the realization seemed to have settled over her like a sudden and unbearable weight. Crushing, pressing, heavier than she could bear.
Tak felt the joints in her Pak legs give, very gently folding in on themselves until she was seated on a slab of rock. In the middle of nowhere, it didn't matter, nowhere closer or farther from her destination. The robotic legs folded into her Pak and she pulled her knees to her chest.
Curling herself up in the sticky, humid heat was a terrible idea. It made her feel suffocated, made the air seem thin and sparse. This stupid, horrible planet was going to be her grave. She, Invader Tak, who'd been so destined for greatness, who'd scraped herself from the bottom of Irken society and could have lead Operation Impending Doom 2 to victory if given the chance, was going to die forgotten and alone on an empty hunk of rock in a system no one had ever heard of.
This was her lot. Her breath caught in her throat as she rolled the thought over. She'd never even get to pass on the knowledge in her Pak to the next generation.
And all because of –
Something caught her eye. A little black speck off to the side. At first she cast it off as something moving in the wind, which gusted over the stony surface from time to time. Then she remembered that everything on this planet other than herself was made of rock.
Tak got to her feet. She brought a pair of binoculars out of her Pak, adjusting the magnification fussily as she zoomed in on the aberration in the distance.
At first the thick, humid air rippled around the figure, casting a mirage-like haze over it. Tak stared, patient, waiting for the thing to come into view. It looked like a little lump with legs, stomping boldly across the asphalt ground.
She must be seeing things. Maybe being by herself for so long was making her go crazy. Her brain must be rotting inside of her skull. But still, the figure walked on, steadily, not looking any less real as the seconds ticked by.
Tak gave a rasping, snarling sigh. Fine. She'd investigate it. It wasn't like she had any other particularly pressing goals or a schedule to keep. Clicking her Pak legs out and into place around her, Tak stalked across the uneven ground toward the thing in the distance.