Chapter 2:
OPFOR Unknown
Morning glow shined through the thick branches of the forest blinding me as I slowly opened my eyes. The smell of burning wood, oil and steel permeated the air. The trees were not as alien as one may expect, they were a calm green color and had many soft pines lining their small branches. As I regained my senses, I looked up, and saw my parachute caught in the tree tops, I looked down, and saw the ground nearly fifteen meters below me. It occurred to me that I was in a rather undesirable situation. But no matter, my training in the Federal Air Force prepared me for this. I carefully climbed up the chute until I could grab the branch it was caught on. Then, I shimmied across to the stump, cut the chute and carefully lowered myself using a line of backup paracord. The ground was covered in grass and other foliage. Many of them had flowers blooming from them, some had a full spectrum of colors covering the heads. The dirt was an off red color, as if it contained alot of clay.
I thought to myself, "Enough sightseeing! I've got to find the Atlantic and reestablish comms with the Colombia!"
I followed the smell of burning fuel until I came upon the Atlantic crashed into a small river. The wings had completely sheared off, however the cockpit and fuselage were still somewhat intact save for a large hole where the missile had exploded. I managed to open the cargo bay with a prybar only to find that all of the contents had spilled out into the river and surrounding embankment. I opened the door to the cockpit and was hit with the smell of burn't rubber, all of the computer systems in the cockpit were completely burned in the fire. The blackbox however, was still intact, though, a blackbox alone will not have the capability of sending a message into high orbit, I still needed a longer antenna. I pulled the blackbox to dry land and set off to find a piece of metal to use as an antenna.
As I walked, I was shocked to find a waterfall at least two-hundred meters tall. At the bottom of the waterfall was a piece of metal that must have come off the Atlantic. I carefully descending to the bottom to retrieve this piece of metal. A closer look revealed that this was not part of the Atlantic, it was not the same material, it was far too heavy and had rust on the ends of it. Nevertheless, I set out back to the crash sight to try and set the blackbox working.
A few hours later it began to rain, so I moved back into the cargo hold of the Atlantic. It was dark, and holding a flashlight while jerryrigging a blackbox is no easy task. The rain hitting the roof of the plane was calming. Water rushed through a small hole on the bottom, indeed, the Atlantic was certainly living up to its namesake! As night began to fall, I finished my work and tried to power up the blackbox.
"Colombia, Colombia, do you read? This is Sergeant Owlson. Can anybody hear me?"
No reply, I fiddled with the knobs and received similar results. As midnight began to fall I started to lose hope. Just as I was dosing off, a voice could be heard coming from the blackbox.
"Hello, hello, can anybody read me?"
I fiddled with the knobs some more and the signal became clearer.
"Hello?"
"Who is this?" said a strange voice. "This is a secure channel, how did you gain access to this?"
"My name is Sergeant Frank Owlson, my plane crashed in the middle of the forest, I'm still alive and low on supplies and..." Suddenly, the signal became silent.
"Is anybody still here?"
There was no static, clearly the signal was working. The person on the other end must've either hung up or shut up. Who was this man? What is this "secure signal"? Where is this signal located? I pondered these thoughts until I made a shocking revelation. What if I had just contacted the people who tried to kill me? If so, they now know my position, and that I'm still alive. I began to become increasingly anxious. I knew nothing about the enemy, I knew nothing of my surroundings, I was alone and short on supplies, I had no where to run to.
Suddenly, I realized that the voice had been speaking fluent English, what alien would know how to speak the language of a civilization 40 light years away!? After realizing this, I assumed that this signal I had contacted was simply a reserved signal for the Colombia. I was getting closer, but I needed some sleep.
The next morning I had incredible pain in my left leg. I removed my trousers to find that most of my thigh had turned a sickly yellowish green color. I touched it and was overcome by a sore pain. Walking was difficult at the very least. I continued to test various signals on the blackbox. Hunger and thirst began to set in.
"Hello, is anyone here?"
A long moment of silence followed suit. I was ready to give up. I was ready to keel over and die. Suddenly,
"Hello, Frank is that you, this is the Colombia!"
"Colombia come in! The Atlantic has been completely destroyed and I am injured pretty badly.
I've got almost no supplies."
"Holy shit, how did you survive that? We looked at the crash sight through the scope and only saw a huge fire. We thought you were dead after we couldn't contact you." Replied the communications officer.
"Colombia, how the hell am I going to get off of this rock?"
A period of silence followed until it was broken by Captain Frakes.
"Frank, come in, this is your captain speaking." said Captain Frakes.
"Frank here, sir, how am I going to get back up to you?"
"You see that's the problem, we've already sent a message through a wormhole back to Earth, they said that they can get another ship with a couple of shuttles and weapons capabilities here in four weeks. However, as you discovered, there is a hostile force occupying this planet. Getting you off that rock will be no easy task."
"Sir, are you telling me I'm fucked?"
"No, I'm telling you that your going to have to improvise. You've got access to water and possibly food down there don't you?" replied the Captain."
"Sir, are you telling me to eat plants on an alien planet?"
"Yes" replied the captain bluntly.
"Okay, sure, but that still doesn't answer how you are going to get me off."
"Getting you off is our first priority, however, it is not the Federation's first priority. Look, we are taking enough risks as it is. If the Republic finds out about this mission they will certainly try and compete with us. Now, they may not notice an odd signal or even a missing ship or two, but if they see a large fleet moving through a wormhole, they are going to get curious. We need to do this discretely. Discretion takes time Frank."
"Sir, how long am I going to have to wait?"
"At least three months for our forces to assemble. Our mission was to scout this planet for colonization. We can't gather data while a hostile force is preventing us from operating. Frank, we still need to complete our mission." replied the Captain.
"Sir, what do you mean by colonize? I don't recall ever being briefed on that."
"You have been briefed on everything that could concern you, Frank. Now, we have done some surface scans and have discovered a series of high energy X-Ray lasers protecting the planet from bombardment. A secondary line of missile batteries have also been spotted, however they probably won't do much to us. As a result we had to move to a higher orbit. Frank, all you need to do is hide in a hole and not attract any attention to yourself. Just do what you did in survival training." replied the captain.
"Sir, I failed survival training."
The captain sighed at this remark.
"Frank, we've got to end the comms, our radio emissions present a security risk." said the Captain.
"Alright fine, Frank out."
My heart sank after our conversation ended. I collected myself and began scavenging for food. I picked every plant and shot every small creature I could find. As I walked back to the base camp, I heard a loud sound coming from afar. It sounded almost like a hypersonic jet. I hid myself in the brush as the sound got louder and closer. Suddenly, a large aircraft flew overhead blowing the tops of the trees. They were looking for me, I needed to leave, soon.
I prepared a small fire and began to cook the various edible looking plants. The meat of the smaller critters was terribly salty and smelled foul. The fruits I had collected were mostly bland, though one was incredibly sweet when cooked. I bit into a terrible bitter bean and my lips began to go numb, needless to say, I quickly spat it out. The water tasted silty, even after boiling it, and had a sulfuric smell. Though dinner was disappointing at best, it was fulfilling. The fire slowly began to burn out and I began to dose off into the night.
I was awoken by a sharp pain in my left thigh. It was a horrible, unbearable pain, it felt as if my leg was been put in a vice. I quickly removed my pants to find the muscles in my thigh were cramping up. To make matters worse, this was the leg that was injured. I could not stretch it, as the bruising made it too painful. I simply endured it, silently screaming until the cramp went away. After the cramp in my leg went away, a cramp in my stomach began to form. The pain was not as bad, however it certainly was not pleasant. A horrible wave of nausea hit me. I began heaving until I spewed a colorful blend of alien flora and fauna. The pain went away, and a terrible fever began to set in. I tried to go back to sleep only to wake up again with terrible pain in my bowels. Needless to say, the results were not pretty. Eventually, I was able to return to rest.
The morning was overcast and sultry. I checked my leg to find that it had turned a deep purple. Though unsightly, it meant that it was healing. I was still sore from the cramping last night. I emerged from the Atlantic to find a morning of utter silence save for the waterfall rambling in the distance. I took a small walk to familiarize myself with the area. As I was walking, I stumbled upon some sort of structure. I ran back to the Atlantic to retrieve the pistol I had been using before investigating the structure. I returned, and upon closer inspection, it appeared to be some sort of wooden cabin. The cabin had a small covered porch, inside was only one room with four windows on each side of the room. It looked as though it had been abandoned for quite some time. The room was totally empty, except for a small folded note placed in the corner. The paper looked new, perhaps this place has not been abandoned for as long as I thought. I unfolded the note to find a message written in two different scripts. One was English, the other was illegible. The note read,
"For whomever this may concern,
Tell Ryoko the stranger is still alive.
Regards, an old friend. SH."
The stranger this note referred to is obvious. They are referring to me, and they know I'm still alive. It's time to leave and get far, far away from here.
After I returned to the Atlantic, I began looking around for various staples before setting off. I gathers a good eight kilograms of food I assumed didn't make me sick last night and set off following the river east toward where I assumed the city was. The city seemed safe to me, more places to hide, and more importantly, more places to take cover in a firefight. Perhaps if I'm lucky, there will be supplies as well.
Kilometer after kilometer went by through the seemingly endless forest. Night began to fall, and I took refuge in a small ditch near the river. Building an open fire could reveal my position. So I went to sleep with an empty stomach.
Morning arrived and was bright and noisy with various birds and other creatures. The river was mostly silent as it was calmer here. I took a quick walk around the area to find some more edible plants. Afterwards, I set off, continuing my trek through the forest.
Things were mostly quiet, perhaps a bit too quiet. Every little sound could be heard. Every twig broken underfoot, every bushel blown by the breeze and every small critter would send me into anxiety. I gradually began to tune out these natural sounds and continue without anxiety. Suddenly, I heard a strange buzzing off in the distance, I didn't think much of it until it began to seem as if it was coming closer. I turned around to see nothing in the distance. As I walked the buzzing began to get closer and closer. Suddenly, a high pitched humming sound came from above. I looked up and was shocked to see some kind of drone looking machine hovering above me. It was quite large, roughly the same size as a human torso. It hovered without any sort of visible propeller or turbine. It's face had a single large camera lens surrounded by triangular fins that were hinged to to the main body. The rear of the drone was longer and had exposed wires underneath it. It didn't do anything to me except stare at me. I backed off, and as I did it held it's position. I quickly reached for my pistol and shot it dead in the lens, it quickly retreated soon after.
The humming I heard earlier grew in strength, suddenly, I large group of smaller drones began swarming at me. Each one had a spinning metal blade protruding from it's body. I ran as fast as I could, briefly slowing down to take shots at the horde. The drones were weak, as it only took one bullet from my pistol to bring it down. However, shooting them down proved to be futile at more of them kept coming. I ran for my life through the forest, desperately hoping they would stop chasing me. However, these were machines, and they were in a relentless pursuit to end my life. Suddenly, as I was frantically running, I came upon a four lane road. I ran up the road, hoping to find some sort of structure. I soon realized my error, as the drones began to pick up in speed since they didn't have to navigate around the trees. I began to grow exhausted from this constant running.
Adrenaline can only keep you going for so long. Just as I was about ready to collapse after running for over a hour, I stumbled upon some kind of small town. In the distance, were some apartment looking buildings and a crossroads. To my immediate left was some kind of single story office plaza, to my right were a couple of houses. I ran for the office building and retreated into a back room. I barricaded the doors with heavy metal cabinets. The drone pounded themselves into the door but were not able to make it through. After a few hours, they retreated. I quickly changed my location down the road to another single story office building. Similarly, I barricaded myself in a back room. While I still had the opportunity, I managed to scour a couple weeks worth of supplies from the nearby town. As night began to fall, I prepared a mattress on the floor of the back room. Holding my gun closely as I laid down. I was in it for the long haul.