(Only four snippets left! Now it’s time for these “civvies” to enjoy a lovely walk around Sagetnam…)
Tuning out the argument, Tavi kept his eyes scanning the dense jungle as he’d been taught. Occasionally he would see glimpses of clearings, but every time they seemed to be approaching one, it would disappear. The shadows created shapeless forms, broken up by random beams of sunlight from above.
The going was slow because of the thick underbrush. For once, though, Tavi’s slighter frame and smaller size worked to his advantage as he was able to navigate the trails easier than the others. While the others had to constantly duck beneath low-hanging branches, Tavi was able to breeze beneath them with nothing but a stray leaf occasionally brushing his shoulder.
Back at ACS, his training squad had jokingly called him Smoke due to his ability to waft through the roughest terrain without making a sound or being impeded by the environment. It was a cool nickname, but he knew it wouldn’t carry over. Drop names, like Ordo had said, always seemed to be both a knock on the legionnaire and fitting at the same time.
The trek through the sweltering humidity was backbreaking work. The bag on his shoulder shifted with every step he made. The suit, designed to keep him alive, did nothing for the extra bag over his shoulder. The CCR-95 (Close Combat Rifle Version 95) bumped constantly into his hip, the strap out of place courtesy of the simulated civilian. Again, no permanent damage, but irritating nonetheless.
“Point two-two,” Pigeon announced as they rounded a small cluster of undergrown trees. Tavi looked around but saw nothing interesting. Why the civilians would even be remotely interested in such a place was beyond him. Shifting the bag on his shoulder again, he inspected the flora.
Most of the plants featured broad leaves and hung low to the ground. Here and there a random sapling grew, struggling to find a gap in the trees above to grow large. Ancient imported Spanish moss covered most of the downed logs and trees, a testament to mankind’s long ago colonization and terraforming of the planet. Tavi knew a little of this thanks to Jabber’s obsession with history, but most of the details were just boring enough to make him turn his brain off.
“Tasawa, I think your civvie is gonna puke, ke?” Jabber said, nudging Tavi’s elbow as he walked past and set his heavy bag on the jungle floor. Stretching his back, even the suit couldn’t diminish the loud pop! as Jabber tried to loosen his joints. “Fech. Everything hurts. This bag shouldn’t be so heavy. What they pack in them anyways?”
“Ordo, Team Two,” Pigeon transmitted. “Arrived at marked point two-two. Awaiting orders.”
Tavi slid the bag off his shoulder and gave his back a rest. Maneuvering around, he tried to find a better position to hang his weapon from its sling. Unfortunately, thanks to the ungainly and awkwardly placed strap of the “civvie,” there was no way he could comfortably carry both. He had a suspicion the bags had been done up for this precise reason.
“Copy Team Two. Hold position. Civvies need another potty break,” Ordo’s voice came over the comms a moment later. Pigeon sighed before responding.
“Two copies. Holding position.”
“This is pretty,” Tavi admitted quietly to Jabber as Vixen began complaining about the humidity to Krawdaddy, while Pigeon did his best to ignore them both.
“Yeah. Reminds me of home sometime, tasawa,” Jabber murmured as he turned his helmeted face around to look at their environment. “More plants trying to eat you there, but still . . . pretty. Feral, but pretty. My world has many plants. Trees grow tall there, tall and wide. Smaller plants trap you and eat prey with honey or sweets. Others are like trap doors . . . prey wanders in, gets eaten. Took me long time to believe not all plants eat men.”
“We didn’t have plants in Overdark,” Tavi admitted as he reached out with a gloved hand to touch one of the broad leaves. It was soft, spongy, yet resilient. It flexed between his fingers but didn’t break nor bend. “Other cities had them, I think. Rigged lights to give plants something to grow by. But Overdark didn’t have that. It had nothing.”
Not even hope dwelled there, his inner thoughts whispered. It oftentimes amazed him just how much his perception of life had changed in the months since leaving his homeworld. Would he even recognize the streets he’d grown up on? Would he be able to survive those dark and shadowy labyrinths? He shoved the thoughts away. A legionnaire didn’t waste time on self-pity.
“Is it true about the poison water, tasawa?” Jabber asked.
Tavi thought about it for a moment before nodding.
Jabber whistled softly. “So why they call it Overdark? Is that the district name?”
“It’s what we called it,” Tavi replied, his mind drifting back to the world which had birthed him. There were many painful memories there, ones he hadn’t known would hurt him later. He simply had been too ignorant of how horrifying his life had been before the Legion. Leaving Overdark, Myrkyma as a whole, had changed him more than he ever would have believed before. “Outsiders called my city Syngaard. That’s how we knew they were from somewhere else. Everyone local called it Overdark because . . . well, the cities are built to go down into the planet’s crust. Just beneath the surface, the water is tainted, poison. Water seeps through the rock and drips down onto the cities, like a rain. But the deeper down you lived, the better life gets, the wealthier. It was safer. Water purifiers worked better. Geothermal energy was more abundant deeper down. It was . . . the Tyrants ruled there, but . . . in some ways? It was better. Others, not so much.”
Missed the previous snippets? No worries, I got you covered.
Jason Córdova 