The first thing Stevan became conscious of was that he was warm. Uncomfortable, as though he was laying on a mattress that had had its springs replaced with jagged stones. But warm.
The next things he was conscious of was that unlike the last time he had woken up, he was not afraid.
He was terrified now. There was no denying it. The delusions of invincibility that came from riding in fifty tons of composite metals, a mechanical beast, an instrument of destruction that was also alive, were gone, blown away as surely as the pieces of the mountain that were even now disintegrating under the Backdraft Zoids' barrage. He flinched with every booming weapon shot that flew his way, and his hands shook as they held the controls with a white-knuckled grip.
Images coalesced into focus from the vague blurs of color that filled his world. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter. They were just memories. Weren't they? For a moment he was still cornered on the hillside.
Where was he, really?
He slowly opened his eyes, but at first gained no further insight into his location. He could see nothing but a slowly shifting, swirling gray haze. He frowned, annoyed, and for the first time the idea of moving occurred to him. He slowly rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow, and peered downwards.
The haze was less thick here, and after a moment he could make something out. He was laying on bare ground, hard and lightly covered with thin, wet grass. The surface was rolling and uneven, like the mountainside where they had trapped him, but on a smaller scale. His back and neck ached badly from laying there for…how long?
The haze made it impossible to deterime the time of day. He checked his digital wristwatch, and frowned again as he saw that it was dark. He slowly eased himself into a sitting position and looked around.
Everywhere the grayness permeated his surroundings. He decided it was a type of fog or mist. The air was full of moisture, dampening the exposed skin on his face, arms and hands like a steam bath. But his mouth and throat were dry, parched.
Trying and failing to dispel the fog that seemed to have filled his mind as well as his vision, he managed to get on his feet. He stopped to listen, hearing almost total silence. The only noise was the almost undetectable whisper of the swirling mist…and, somewhat distant, the sound of moving water. There was water nearby.
His consciousness latched on to that thought, grasping it tenaciously. Stiffly, he began to walk towards the sound. He became aware that he was moving steadily downhill. The terrain was fairly level, relatively free of major hazards that could trip him, but the ground had disappeared down into the vapor when he had stood up.
He had gone only about a dozen steps when his leading foot failed to find a place to come down. He flailed for a couple of seconds, then tipped forward and fell, only just managing to catch himself with his hands and keep himself from landing on his face. The miasma suddenly took on a more threatening aspect. Now it seemed to be a conscious, malicious force, determined to leave him groping blindly until he wandered off a precipice.
In the distance, he could still hear the river, or stream, or brook, or whatever it was. Shaking his head, he began to crawl forward on his hands and knees toward the water's call.
It was slow going, but probably faster than he would have managed walking. He made his way down the gently sloping hillside for about fifteen or twenty yards and suddenly found himself at the water's edge. Heedless of the mud that caked on his jeans, he bent down and drank, dipping his cupped hands into the flow and lifting them quickly to his mouth before all of the water could flow out between his fingers. It was cool and tolerably clear. He drank at least a dozen double-handfulls before stopping.
Satisfied, he drew back and looked around again. The water was quite shallow. He guessed that it was probably a stream that branched off from one of the numerous moderately-sized rivers that ran through the mountains – if he was actually still in the mountains. Of that he was reasonably certain, although the warmth in a place where the climate rarely rose above a chilling cold, puzzled him. Regardless, the all-consuming gray cloud was too thick for him to even make out the opposite bank of the stream, which couldn't be more than a couple of yards away.
Refreshed by the drink, he began an attempt to reasonably assess his situation. He was sure that this was not the same hillside where the Backdraft Zoids had run him down.
Waiting for the final attack, hovering painfully on the edge of total resignation, hunkered down in his cockpit.
That was his last memory. He could recall nothing more. So where was he? What had happened after those harrowing moments in the Command Wolf?
The Command Wolf. Where was it? He made another, more urgent attempt to pierce the haze. He couldn't see the Zoid anywhere, although it was theoretically possible it was laying ten feet away and he simply couldn't see it. He returned to staring off into the distance straight ahead, across the almost-unseen brook, and thought.
He had no idea where he was. He had no idea how much time had passed between his last memories and when he had woken up a few minutes before. Then, time seemed to be running out. Now, he seemed to be cut off from time. He seemed to be alone, but he couldn't be sure. He came to the disturbing realization that someone or something blessed with superior sight or other senses could be watching him at that very moment. He shivered involuntarily.
Just then the mist seemed to grow very slightly thinner. For the first time he could see beyond three feet, to the other side of the stream and beyond.
Beyond was a hulking dark mass. He recoiled, springing backwards and landing in a crouch, staring at the misshapen, menacing shadow. Part of him wanted the mist to dissipate further or at least stay the way it was so he could figure out what the thing was. Another part of him, maybe the part that had made his breathing become quick and shallow, wanted the mist to close again and let him pretend he was still alone.
The first part's wish was granted. More and more of the shape and became visible, revealing its full, immense size. So, too, the details of the mass became discernible. Realization dawned on Stevan as he realized what the thing was.
It was a Rev Raptor. Or, perhaps more accurately, it had been a Rev Raptor. Burned from within and without, it was a lifeless shell, in appearance and activity little more than carven stone. New memories flooded back.
Something was closing in on all sides, something other than the Backdraft Zoids and totally different. It was a presence, enveloping him and making him a part of itself. In a moment, everything changed.
Fear was gone, replaced by fury, fury like what had now and then risen to the surface during the long pursuit, but far more powerful. Fury like he had never known, instinctive, animal.
He would run no more, he would hide no more, he would cower no more. Running, hiding, cowering, that was not who he was.
He was the predator. The others were prey.
Stevan slumped, then fell, flopping on the ground, hands coming up to his face, pressing hard against his scalp. "No." The word was quiet, a murmur, a groan.
The Command Wolf's mouth opened wide in a roaing howl that echoed off the mountainsides. Its fangs glowed, sparked, emitting energy that formed into a red-white sphere between its jaws, beautiful and terrifying. The Zoid leapt out from behind the rapidly diminishing rock. It charged down the hillside, straight at the surprised Rev Raptors.
The sphere radiated heat, scorching off in seconds every shred of vegetation that had somehow managed to grow on the rocky slope. Gray rock scorched black, wearing away as much in seconds as a it would have in a century of subjection to natural forces. The Rev Raptors slowly backed away, then thrashed madly as the sphere's awesome destructive force took its toll.
"No…"
The Command Wolf ranged over the hillside, moving with unbelievably fast, wielding the deadly sphere with devesting effect. It reveled in the brutal attack, the revenge, the destruction of every enemy Zoid on the mountain. One by one the Backdraft Zoids fell.
And through all of this Stevan felt his hands on the control column, moving in co-operation with the Command Wolf's movements. He felt his mind, his soul, in agreement with the mad lust for and joy in destroying and killing. He and the Command Wolf and the presence were all one, a single entity. They were…he was…the hunter. The survivor. He would hunt, and survive.
The rest would be hunted, and perish.
"No…"
The last Rev Raptor fell. Stevan felt himself being enveloped again, this time physically. Something coiled around him, wrapping up his entire body. Before he could struggle or even make sense of what was happening, he felt himself leave the cockpit seat. There was a feeling of moving at impossible speed, flying, how far or to where he could not tell. He felt transparent, like his body had become a phantom that existed outside the absolutes of time, space and mass that he knew. Then he was being eased to the ground.
He remembered no more. The past, and the present, slowly faded into darkness again.
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Calypso's face was set in a scowl as she stared at the pile of sticks in front of her. A spark caught, creating a pathetically thin trail of smoke that rose uncertainly from the little heap. She crouched down even further than before and blows at the smoke, which, instead of spreading and then creating flame, contrarily disappeared entirely.
Calypso's expression changed to a full-fledged glare as she stared malevolently at the invisible wind, which was barely strong enough to blow wisps of red hair over her forehead but had easily thwarted every attempt she had made to start a fire. These efforts were made in classically humorous fashion, with two sticks, which only enhanced Calypso's irritation.
Momentarily giving up on the stick pile, Calypso stood up, brushing dust away from her rumpled black jumpsuit. Hands on her hips, she looked down at the recalcitrant would-be fire in disgust before becoming aware of Leah in her peripheral vision.
"What?" she asked her. Leah took a step back as Calypso looked at her, apparently startled by the simmering fury in her violet eyes.
"Are you sure starting a fire is even a good idea?" Leah asked cautiously. Receiving no answer but Calypso's continuing stare, she explained: "It might draw them right to us."
"Let them come," Calypso responded. She spun on her heel and walked off towards the GunSniper and Redler, her movements simultaneously purposeful and aimless.
Her GunSniper looked as though it had been through the proverbial wringer. The left-side gatling gun was gone, blown off in the fight at Rocketown two nights before. The right-side weapon remained, but had long since run out of ammo. The chest-mounted gun and backpack rocket launchers were also empty, leaving the three-barreled lasers on the GunSniper's wrists as the only useable parts of the Zoid's once-formidable arsenal. The armor was scorched and pitted virtually everywhere, with most of the silver trim now tarnished the same black as the rest of the GunSniper's paint scheme.
The Zoid had sustained no serious damage to its internal or movement systems – that was a minor miracle, although Calypso would have preferred a couple major one. But the other damage was far beyond what the Zoid could fix through its self-recovery abilities. It would need several days of repair work before it would be battle-ready again. If they ever got out of these God-forsaken mountains, Calypso thought. The Zoid's condition might well soon be a moot point.
She shook her head violently. Those were thoughts she didn't need to be thinking right now, that she couldn't afford to think right now.
But she couldn't afford not to.
She glanced over at Leah, who was now sitting on the right front foot of her Redler. Calypso noted with irrational annoyance that, for all the fighting they had been through in the preceding days, the elegant dragon-Zoid was unscathed. Since the Redler lacked any ranged weapons, there was little Leah could do in a firefight. She usually worked as an airborne scout for the team in its battles, only occasionally attacking unwary enemy Zoids with the Redler's claws and tail blade. She had actually brought down one Rev Raptor on her own and damaged another in the last battle, the day before, when the Backdraft Zoids had ambushed them while the Spirit Cats were ostensibly leading the way to their base.
That was either excellent planning on the part of the Backdraft or a trap laid by Rebecca. Calypso muttered curses into the wind and felt no doubt that Rebecca deserved every one for setting the Chimeras up. She deserved them even if she hadn't, as far as Calypso was concerned. Stevan had picked an unspeakably bad time to go start trying to find a girlfriend.
Stevan. She squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled heavily, fighting back the fury inside her. He was gone. She had to face that. He was possibly gone in the most sobering sense of the word, or if not, at the very least gone in the sense that he was not personally present at the time. And that was what mattered most right now. He was gone, and she had to make the decisions.
She offered one more profanity to the wind. She was not a leader and had never had any desire to be one. She had been content to let Stevan plan and give the orders on the battlefield, because he was reasonably good at it and because she had no inclination towards that sort of thing. She was an individualist at heart, and so, really, was he. Illogically, that was why they made a good team.
But the team was just her now, her and Leah – and the Zoids, she menatally added, looking at her GunSniper apologetically. And Leah was a kid. Calypso wasn't that much older, but she was older nonetheless and vastly more experienced. For Leah's sake, she had to start making decisions, and making the right ones.
But there was only one decision to be made that mattered, and that was the one giving her trouble: How much longer should they wait for Stevan before they gave up, leaving the mountains in search of civilization and sanctuary?
Rationally, they had already waited about as long as they could afford to. It had been…nineteen hours since the ambush, when they had last seen him and his Command Wolf before they had been separated in the firefight. If he was alive and capable of getting back to them, he should have done so by now. They could go looking for him, but Calypso knew that was courting disaster. The Backdraft hunters' absence disturbed her almost as much as Stevan's, and she couldn't risk blundering into them. There was no way her Zoid could make it through another fight.
That was what her reason told her, anyway. Her emotions told her they should find him, whatever the consequences, or to compromise by staying where they were and continuing to wait for him. (Though she hadn't said so, her hope had been that a fire would draw him to their location instead of the Backdraft.) But waiting any longer could be suicide, her reason argued back. Even if the Backdraft left them alone, the meager supplies they had stored in the Zoids were almost gone. She couldn't afford to rely on her emotions. She was the leader now. It was her decision.
Calypso turned and walked away from the Zoids and Leah. Maybe after a few more losing battles with the sticks she would be able to decide what to do.
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Author's Note: Understand that the italic paragraphs interspersed with normal-type ones are intentional here and unrelated to me previous problems with italic formatting.