Pain.
So...much...pain.
My entire body is in a state of constant and omnipresent smoldering agony. Especially in the back region behind me. And the fact that I am lying on my back right now doesn't help alleviate the pain either.
But I currently can not move, my body hardly respond to the commands I give it. And my strength is nowhere to be found.
Despite that, I muster my effort to embrace my little sister, whose arms are currently embracing me, as well.
I brush my hand across her silky blond hair. It's smooth and healthy just like mine. Seems like she took my advice about taking care of her hair seriously.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." She gently sobs while speaking, her shoulders slightly bop up and down.
"I shouldn't have run away...I should have listened to you...I-I..."
I hug her tighter and pull her head onto my chest.
"It's okay...It's...not your...fault..." I whisper lightly to her ear.
She burst up from my hand and look into my eyes, hers are all red from the crying and tears have wet her face.
"But...But...I...I almost...killed you..." She shouts, tears flow even more from her already teary eyes.
I look at her and smile.
"I am so glad...that you are...safe, Elaa..." Those words are truly from the depths of my heart. With my injuries, even whisper cause intense pain, but I don't care. These emotions of mine can only be truly delivered by words. These pains to me are nothing.
"Evaa..." Tears flow from her eyes even more. Then she snuggles her head against my chest again.
I'm still alive. That is good news. But to me, the most important thing is that Elaa is unhurt. It does not look like she suffered any injuries at all.
While the monster was chasing me. In my heart I was praying with all sincerity and devotion. That she will make it out safely.
The moment those sharp claws tear its way into my flesh, I didn't even feel pain. As my mind and heart was only focusing into praying.
For her.
For my sister.
For Elaa.
She is the only sibling I have got. My brother passed away starcycles ago, fighting to defend our home against the Glerian invaders. My mother failed to deliver twice before Elaa was born, and she is the last child that will ever be born into this family. As from that moment on my mother could not conceive a child anymore.
When I realized I was struck. I became afraid.
Not for my life or my death.
But for Elaa.
The beast caught up with me so quickly that I was utterly surprised. I was sure that something of such size would not be so swift. Yet it ran with the speed of raging tempest gales from a thunderstorm.
I was afraid that I did not bought her enough time to run away.
There was nothing I can do at that moment.
My life was fading away.
My consciousness was leaving me.
Everything was slowly fading to black.
The last thing I saw, was the feet of that beast approaching me, along with the crimson ground surface, dyed red from my blood.
I felt its massive paws picking me up.
And with that, everything blacks out.
Even while my soul was floating within the life and death boundary, I was still thinking of her safety.
Whether she is safe or not, such question bothered me non stop.
But now, here I am.
My adorable little troublemaker, safe and sound. I knew my prayers were answered.
Yet one mystery remains.
I am alive, still.
I was supposed to be dead.
I was fated to die.
Still, I'm not.
Though my mind is hazy, I can still remember what happened during my trip in the boundary of the living and the dead.
I remember meeting a figure that looked similar to my long lost older brother.
I remember his words, talking about something related to my journey.
I remember the warm lights taking me away from the realm of the dead.
I remember that the servant of the Deathlord was about to take my soul away.
But memories of whatever happened afterward is blurry, I can't remember clearly.
I do know for a fact however, that the reason I am still within the world of the living, and probably the reason Elaa is safe, has something to do with these strange black humein like figures.
If I am alive, and Elaa is safe, then it means they must have dealt with the b'ar.
These strange beings mostly bear the resemblance of a humein, but there are great differences and distinctions. The most obvious is of course, these beings are massive in size and height. They tower over Elaa. In fact, she is probably small enough to fit snuggly in their arm like a baby. And their skin, or at least what I think is skin, is as black as freshly made charcoal.
They all speak very strange languages, of which I have never heard before. I learn a fair amount of foreign languages thanks to the occasional travelers, adventurers and traders that visit this village every mooncycles. I know a bit of Glerian, Khalan and even some Elven words. But what these beings speak is beyond my mind's ability to comprehend. They also all sound like men.
And their apparel... The clothes they wear is nothing I've ever seen before. It looks so strange. I can't tell whether they are wearing some sort of armor or not. Even if so, I have never seen any armor that looks like them. They aren't knight armor, nor they are garments that most travelers and adventurers wear when they visit my village. Further more, they are clad in darkness all over their body. Only monsters and demons of old wear armors of those colors, back in the day of yore when evil still runs amok on the surface of the world.
Who or what are these mysterious figures?
Are they people? Or are they not?
If so, are they humein? They do look like one.
But they are far too large to be one. Perhaps they are ogre or demonic beings? I have heard of such creatures to be much larger than a normal humein.
Still, I have not the questionably vast knowledge of species, animals and beast like Elaa so I can not tell for sure.
Nevertheless, they are most likely responsible for saving mine and my sister's life.
In the direst of moments, they came.
The deities must have guided them here, in response to my prayers.
It is normal for young maidens to pray for the arrival of a knight in shinning armor to come and rescue them in times of turmoil, not giant mysterious beings cladded in lightfall black armor. But alas, reality and fiction often stray far apart.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
But came they did. And they saved both me and Elaa. For that, I am forever in debt to them, and to the heavens above.
I want to express my emotion, my utmost gratitude towards them.
One of them has been sitting beside me the entire time, doing something with a strange object on his hand and hovering it over my body. The object slightly glows with even stranger patterns on it, must be some sort of magical artifact.
He has been silently witnessing my reunion with my sister.
This is also the being that I stare into when I woke up from my death earlier.
The one that treated my wound, the one that brought me back from the grasp of the Death, the one that gave me a second chance to be in the world of the living once again.
I can still remember the eyes behind the smooth surface on his face.
I raise my hand up, trying to reach him.
It seems to have caught his attention.
He turns his head toward me.
And I in return also gaze my eyes upon him.
Thank you for saving Elaa.
Thank you for saving me.
I convey my gratitude from the deepest bottom of my heart and soul toward him.
"Thank...you..."
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Local hour 0611. Location unknown
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Well I'll be damn.
He did it.
Thank goodness.
She is alive with us.
Johan is a god damn prodigy of a doctor.
The guy went through an incredible amount of training, plus his extensive education on anything biology and chemistry. Curing even an alien who he has no prior medical knowledge about.
That massive gaping and bleeding wound, along with the broken organs and bone structure. He actually mended it somehow.
To be honest, I don't know if I can even survive something like that without all of my modifications and augmentations.
Despite being aliens, due to these two individuals' striking similarities to humans, we were actually concerned about their survival. And so we tried to help Dok as much as we can.
Mon and Kai set up a defensive perimeter around our immediate vicinity and kept watch on all of our flanks. Deman retrieved the donut drone to attach some extra gadget on it and performed a deep scan of the wider area, keeping the eyes on the sky. Me and Miller tried our best to assist Dok with his operation. At one point I was even holding part of her ribcage while Dok tried to reorganize her organs. Her insides closely resemble that of human organs. Except for some minor differences and some strange organs that do not belong to a human, her anatomy basically resembles that of ours. Still, this confirms that both of them, or at least the victim are indeed alien.
The poor girl suffers from injuries that could kill a healthy adult man about ten times over. It seems her back was where the bear struck her. How can I tell? The gaping open wound on her back of course. It didn't make a claw mark like injury, instead it literally removed a whole chunk of flesh from her back. Along with what seems to be some bits of her spine and ribcage. And finally the force from that strike flings her into a tree trunk, further delivering heavy blunt and concussive damage to her soft injured body.
With wounds like that, it is a miracle that she is back. Of course not to mention Dok's outstanding medical skill but her will to survive alone is impressive.
We did a surgical operation right then and there. We fixed up her insides, sealed up all of the punctured parts, reconstructed her lost bones, mended the open wound, carefully turn her around and defibrillated her back to life.
Dok had to use all of his techniques as well as all of the new tech given to him to patch her up. Like using the stem kits to regenerate lost tissues and print artificial bones for her missing spines and ribcage using the small bio printer he has.
But the worst is all behind us. Looking at the upper right corner of my vision, I can see the myriad of statistic Dok had shared with the rest of the team about the victim's health status. Her condition is now stable enough for transfer. She is bandaged, administered pain killers and is lying upright on the stretcher, while the smaller girl hugs her. I don't know their DNA since Dok don't show them but it seems like they might be siblings, given their similarity in both their faces and hair color.
"Hanke...zur..."
I suddenly hear a soft feminine voice from the suit's audio receiver. So I turn my head toward the direction of the voice. It was the injured on that spoke.
She raises her left arm up and reaches toward Johan. Her arm is trembling and the movement is very weak. Perhaps she is trying to convey something.
"Please Fräulein, you must refrain from moving your body too much." Johan catches her hand with his, put it down and pat lightly on it while shaking his head.
She seems to have understood his word as she complies with what he said.
"Hanke zur...sovich...vu sifin...Elaa er vi...Hanke...zur," She speaks in a weak voice. She tried to speak to Dok despite clearly feeling pain as she did so.
"And no speaking either, let your lung rest." He speak to her while putting a finger on to his visor near the position of the mouth and shakes his head. Then he pat lightly on his chest and point it at her chest.
She seems to understand that as well and nod to him in silent. It looks like the actions of head shaking, nodding and other body languages of this planet's local intelligent species is surprisingly similar to that of us human's. This pique my interest a bit, I will need to investigate and study this world's species customs and cultures later down the line.
"Chief, might I suggest that we make a beeline to Site A. That must have likely been where both of them came from." Dok gives his opinion. Suggesting that we should get to the local settlement as soon as possible, "She must not be exposed too much with the outside environment, not in her current condition. We can't leave her out here like this."
"Noted...Deman." I acknowledged his request and call Deman after a moment of consideration.
"Deepscan completed. Zero immediate threats. No geographical obstructions to Site A. Route vectored. Updating HUDs." Deman response with his usual short answer and indifferent tone. Immediately, on the top left corner of my vision, a new window expand itself and review information regarding the current status of the surrounding area plus a map with a clear route to Site A. It seems that giant bear was the only notably dangerous threat in this part of the woods.
Our original objectives was to contact and rescue survivors. If we do encounter aliens then we would stay hidden and only observe from a distance, avoid all interactions with the locals. If necessary, document as much as possible and move on to contact other survivors of the crash. Due to the unstable angle of the orbital station, a multitude of emergency pods that dropped were scattered around in a wide area. And then there's also the station itself along with the 3 transport ships that were docked to it. According to my memory of the briefing before this mission, there are 36 people on the station, 15 scientists and 21 crew members keeping the station functioning. The transport and escort fleet add a further 60 people. All three transport ships each has 7 crew members, one of them carried my team along with the VIP makes 7 more. And the other two transport ships each carried 16 USAF marines. All got dragged down by the station. That makes 96 people including us down here on the planet's surface.
We couldn't find our VIP back then, plus the platform was starting to increase it's reentry velocity so we decided to escape without our VIP, thinking he must have already evacuated. We were the last who bailed out of Athena.
But there's still one slight issue.
Just a simple official's visit get escort from not just one, but two corvettes, along with eight squads of marines and a Delta-6 element bugged me. Having that much personnel and bringing two corvettes here, and looking at the situation we are in right now, I have made some connections. But that matter is not important at the moment so I keep it in a corner of my mind, I'll bring it up later when I have the chance.
Pretty much the whole transport fleet and their content got dropped along with the station. The only ships that didn't drop were the two USSF Corvettes which escorted us to this system. Obviously, following emergency protocols, one ship will beam back to the nearest system HQ and report the situation while one stays on orbit to keep an eye on this planet. Which means we should be expecting rescue to come in less than half a month to a month max.
We were planning to ultimately get into contact with other survivors. Gather up and wait for evac. In fact we thought we got into contact with some survivors, but it turns out to be two aliens, not survivors. But since we have gotten ourselves into this, we might as well follow it to the end. So I decided to take Dok's suggestion. We might as well learn a thing or two from the alien locals from close up before moving on. This might even help in the long run. Who knows?
"Alright, team. Mission adjustment. destination site A, posthaste. Scrap original objectives and make contact with locals. Might stay with them for a while. Befriend and learn what ever you can about their everything. Miller, I'm going to need their language, so get that for me. We will consider our next move according to whatever will happen. Remember, Hearts and Minds, be nice to them and let's hope they'll be nice to us back. Clear?" I adjusting our missions and objectives.
"Aye boss." Kai responds. The rest of the team just simply nod.
"Right, me and Dok will carry the wounded. Kai take the little one. Mon take point. Deman keep that donut up there, you're our eyes in the sky. Medium pace. One point five klick to Site A. Arrival ETA 7 mikes. Move."
Everyone nodded again, acknowledging my command. They quickly pack their stuff.
Observing us, the two girls seems to noticed something too. The wounded one says something to the small one and the small one nods. She then steps away from the wounded one. Kai comes to pick her up without any trouble while Dok and I each handle one end of the stretcher then lift it up carefully.
After that, we get into formation and started moving to Site A, following our route and map in our HUD. Me, Dok and Kai stays in the middle while Miller and Deman watch our flanks and back, Mont take point in front. We move in perfect unison through the woods with an astonishingly quick pace. We pass through the trees and the foliage with ease. Almost as if there were no trees obstructing us at all. Of course, our eyes, camera visions and weapon sights scan all corners from high to low as we move along.
Minutes pass by as we silently dash through the forest. We have to go this slow to make sure to not affect the wounded victim too much.
Both of the girls were quiet during the whole trip. The same goes for my team.
I glance at the drone's view on my visor, it seems that we are nearly there. Only less than a hundred meters to go, the foliage density is becoming lesser by the seconds. My suit's distance audio receiver system is picking up all kind of sounds coming from the direction ahead.
50 meters to Site A.
"Get ready."
No one says a thing, but I know that they are all fully prepared for anything.
20 meters to Site A
The last few trees are blocking our vision, behind them will be our first ever encounter with an intelligent alien civilization. This is it, either the brightest or darkest chapters of our life lies ahead from this point.
Seconds later, we run past those trees.
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THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTS ARE TO BE DISPOSED OF IMMEDIATELY AFTER READING.
Delta -6 special operative taskforce
Taskforce's designation: Taskforce Talon.
Member:
Talon 1 - Chief - Chief of operation sergeant - Master sergeant Terian Ial Joner
Talon 2 - Kai - Offensive assault/weapon specialist sergeant - Sergeant first class Anton Baker
Talon 3 - Mon - Vanguard/weapon specialist sergeant - Staff sergeant Marcel Traver
Talon 4 - Deman - Engineer/physicist specialist sergeant/demolitionist - Staff Sergeant Shirogane Keiki
Talon 5 - Dok - Medical/biologist specialist sergeant - Sergeant first class Johan Rokteur Tiedemann
Talon 6 - Koman - Intelligent/communication specialist sergeant - Staff Sergeant Miller Anderson