Chapter 4.5: PT

As 0700 rolled around I knew that I had to meet Fred and prove that I had my priorities in order. In the back of my mind I knew something unpleasant was coming. I just didn’t know what. I made a cup of coffee in the dorm room and then headed out to meet him. When I showed up at the front gate with my running tights on beneath my Tatski Hara armor, Fred saw me and waved. I didn’t want to interrupt because he was talking to a few guys that were in a vehicle but when I got close enough to hear it appeared they were just wrapping up their conversation. They drove off and I, still buzzing from the dozen or so drinks I had earlier, said ‘Hey.’ He responded candidly: 'Hey. So I’m just following protocol alright. No hard feelings.' I agreed, no hard feelings. 'So we’re going to do a 6 mile run, 200 pushups and 200 situps in an hour. In armor of course, I don't want to make it too easy.’

‘If you can’t do it you’re benched, well actually that’s not my call. I don’t know what Kai will do; if you don’t finish this I have to tell him you were drinking before a mission. Just consider it a physical fitness test.' I wasn’t prepared at all. I wanted to get back into shape before I even showed up here but I didn’t have any time. Kai always said ‘There’s no time like the present to make yourself stronger.’ I agreed with that. The problem was my internal organs felt like they weren’t on the same page. I put my hand on my chest and burped. Fred remarked ‘Jesus man. Did you have Chinese food or something?’

I didn’t say anything. It was embarrassing. Fred was a lot bigger than me and I was surprised that he wanted to do this challenge with me, he weighed probably 230 and was six feet tall. I was around 150 and 5’8.

Understandably, he wasn’t going to wear his armor because he didn’t have to so he put it beside the gate. I started doing some stretches and I looked back towards Rou’dan.

I saw the shadow of a person walking on the main road towards us, when he got close enough I saw it was none other than Liam.

He had his armor and sunglasses on, a very distinctive style. I had thought he was an ordinary rank 12 at the time but I saw a new insignia on his armor that classified him as a Master Sergeant. I respected him that much more because I knew he deserved it.

After seeing Liam, Fred pretended not to notice that Liam outranked us. He said 'Hey, your +1 has arrived, didn’t expect that.'

Liam wasn’t bothered and responded 'Hello there. What’s the task at hand?'

He set his backpack down. Fred got right to the point.

'We’re doing a circuit, let’s go.'

We were off. The ground had an orange tint to it and there were a bunch of small rocks everywhere, not the best terrain but at least it was flat. The Tatski had made a track in the dirt that was bordered by large stones and each lap was a mile.The first mile wasn’t hard, after it Fred checked his watch and said 'Oh, that’s a little slow we have to go faster for the rest.' That son of a bitch.

By mile three we were all miserable but at the same time it was what we all expected. It was my worst running experience up until that point, sobering - yes, but the weight of the armor made running so much harder. The only solace was that we were running at an 8 minute mile pace which was a significantly easier pace compared to something like a 5 minute mile. The last three miles tested my willpower. 6 miles is nothing to sneeze at and just like the other guys, I didn’t say a word the entire time because I was just trying to catch my breath.

I was definitely not looking forward to those push ups and sit ups but I had to do it. By the time we did the loop 6 times we were all covered in sweat and overheated. Especially Fred, he had the most sweat on him because he had the most pounds to carry.

He was just a big guy, no fault of his own but I think he was the only one who was light headed when we finished. He leaned up against the gate with one hand to catch his breath, then he said 'Alright… so… since we have a mission tonight… fuck the push ups and situps, just get me some water.' I did what he asked and as I grabbed the bottle of water, I noticed my legs didn’t feel that sore.

The running tights weren’t running tights anymore, the 6 miler caused the device to change again, when I looked down my legs appeared to be obsidian just like when the device was on my arm for the first two days. I handed Fred the water bottle and wiped the sweat off of my forehead. We all had more respect for each other by that point. Fred drank that water like he was dying of thirst. I presumed he was impressed that we completed the run. He said: 'Enjoy the rest of your day guys, you’re exonerated.' I was filled with a liberating feeling that was worth enduring that terrible run.

Liam did the Tatski Hara salute to us, looked at me and said 'Get used to running for your life.' then turned and walked back to Rou’dan. He gave good advice, I just hoped I wouldn’t have to run for my life on this mission the next day. I went to take off my armor but at the same time I felt like I was cooling off. After Fred spent a minute recovering he looked at my legs or rather the device covering my legs. 'Man, you really lucked out with that device. Maybe I should check on the puppers and see if anything is going on with him. Good job' We knuckle touched. I knew just a little bit of comradery would go a long way here.

'Why was Liam reassigned to our mission? He told me he had just completed one that resulted in multiple casualties. Doesn’t he deserve time to recover?'

'Well, Liam was chosen by Kai because… Kai believes he’s a valuable asset to any mission that he’s on. He might’ve told you about what happened, I don’t know about everything that went down. I just know what I was told and he was promoted to Master Sergeant for going back into that beast of an ocean and saving two other Tatski. He’s tough, and can handle himself.'

Wow. He didn’t tell me he went back to save two guys.

I thought of myself and thought… What the fuck have I done? I checked the time. It was 04:05. There were no other matters that I needed to tend to. I headed back to the main street of Rou’dan.

I was tired and didn’t feel like doing anything. Though, who does after running six miles? As I thought that - boom, Jess appeared out of nowhere and I jumped. It was a little embarrassing. She had her own pair of black tinted sunglasses now. Orion required much better optics than earth. The bright sun would wear down your eyes after just one hour outside.

'Hey, how are you Jess?'

'I had a dream about something that happened. I’ve just chosen to ignore it today, because of the mission.'

That made me wonder.

'Alright, do you want to see Liam still?'

'How about we go somewhere, just the two of us?'

'Sure!'

'Nice legs by the way!'

‘Thanks,’ I said ‘I can’t let you get too close.’

She smiled at me. It was nice having her around. There are two types of people: Those who drain your energy and those who give you energy. When I was with her I always gained energy.

We started off towards the plaza. There were a few very large spiraling staircases that tied the floors together and I could see plenty of people walking up and down. In total the complex stood at around 7 stories tall. It was more of a super mall because of how many stores there were. There were more than my eyes could take in. We entered on the ground floor which held extravagant chairs placed around several smooth-cut marble round tables. It was the fanciest lobby I’d ever seen.

As soon as we stepped inside the cool air-conditioned lobby, the doors in front of us burst open with tons of people. It surprised me because it was so quiet and then just like that- boom! They were all talking about the performance that they just witnessed, some of them still appeared very excited and moved by it. Some members of the audience said it was a violinist who just performed.

A lot of people were headed upstairs, Jess pointed to them and said 'Let’s go where they’re going.' Sure, why not? As we made our way up and out of the building I caught a glimpse of the soloist who performed. Everyone was saying ‘Paganini, Paganini.’ I guess that’s who it was. He had pale skin and was dressed in all black. He looked rather tired. I guess it was a long performance. I wasn’t going to badger him because I didn’t know who he was but there was something different about him. I couldn’t put my finger on it but it felt like I knew him. Somehow.

Jess and I stepped out from the final staircase onto the roof, into the bright lights once again. I definitely should’ve invested in sunglasses like Liam and Jess did. I had to shut my eyes because the sun was so bright. I held my hands up over my eyes and could see a statue of a Tatski Hara soldier about 15 feet long and 7 feet tall. As we got closer to it we started to see that there was writing all along its surface. The names of the deceased first gen Tatski Hara were imprinted along the body of the statue in memory of their service. I was not expecting to see anything like that.

'There are so many names on here.’

We took a moment of silence to honor them. I didn’t know any of them but we were all one and the same. If you were a member of the Tatski Hara you were part of a unique family. We all bled the same blood and fought for the same cause.

After that Jess and I kept going along that floor of the mall until we saw a blue hologram. It was one of many placed along the floor and they were all dedicated to the recently deceased Tatski Hara. Illuminated in blue text with his photo was a man named Jeff Buzo. He was a rank 12 like me who was killed by a giant mosquito, or rather the virus that the giant mosquitoes carry.

Stolen story; please report.

I looked at Jess and said ‘I hope our portraits don’t show up here. Especially not yours.’

She looked up at me and joked, ‘Oh it definitely won't be me dying first. You think you’re so tough?’

‘Hey. Tougher than you, lady.’ I retorted.

The architecture was something to behold, the floors were all extremely spacious and ornamented. I started to think of it as odd how many restaurants there were in Rou’dan. As Jess and I explored I realized that I wasn’t really in the moment as much as I should have been.

When there’s something like a mission it would always loom over my mind. I’m sure it’s like that for other Tatski Hara. Or, they have it worse.

After a long period of silence Jess said 'Hey, do you swim?'

I answered her question with a question, 'Only if I have to, do you run?'

She said ‘Sometimes.- My legs feel heavy when I run, but when I swim I’m free! Like a fish.'

I thought that was funny. She charmed the hell out of me…

'Interesting, very interesting. Liam told me about a mission to the west of here, have you heard anything about that?' I asked, hesitant to tell her the truth.

'Oh, I did hear about an Island to the east of here called Gawai. But I didn’t hear anything about another mission. All I know about the ocean is if you swim in it without a suit on, you get burned by the acidic water.'

Remind me to never swim on Orion.

Then I asked, 'So, do you know of a place where we can swim around here?'

She replied, 'Oh yeah there’s an indoor pool on the twelfth floor, it’s just kind of hidden around the corner. I’ll have to show you.'

I guess that could’ve been a future date. Something to look forward to if we weren’t so busy. I asked her if we could take a picture together. She said yes. We walked over to the balcony and got a nice view over the ocean then she ended up taking the picture.

The view was breathtaking: you could see giant waves crashing up against the cliffs and the beautiful continent to the north. Her bracelet shot a little ray of light out and captured us in a flash. It was the first photo I took on Orion and it was with her. Her presence was really warm but more than anything it felt nice to not be alone.

She smiled then looked me in the eyes and said 'Do these words mean anything to you?' She pulled out a piece of paper and began to read from it.

‘Lost in disguise, the mirror paints their lies. When you’re broken, where's the light of the day? Lost in my mind. Can I escape their lies?’

I looked at the paper but it didn’t really make sense in the context of my life.

'Uh no it doesn’t make sense to me, Can I get a hint?'

She said to me, 'I think we’re going to be split up on the mission tonight.' She started to tear up in her eyes. Why would she think that?

‘Can I ask you a question?'

'Yeah, go ahead.'

‘Do you really think we can live on Orion?’

I was certain we were together for a reason, a bigger purpose. There was no time to say anything before she embraced me. That was our first kiss. My time on Orion had gone from zero to a hundred in a blast.

I didn’t say anything because I was taken by surprise. We spent the rest of the day traveling around Rou’dan until 10PM. The time I spent with her let me realize a lot in terms of what I wanted from my life. I realized I didn’t want to be alone anymore. Not that I couldn’t handle loneliness, quite the opposite; I was molded in isolation. It was her smile, her laughter, her personality that I didn’t want to fade away.

Jess and I decided to go back to my quarters at 11 to get ready for the mission. In the bathroom I sat down on the floor and heard the tiles crack. I immediately stood up and saw that I had broken several tiles on the floor. Fuck. I lightly touched my palms to my kneecaps and instantly pulled them back as the obsidian cut my hands. The cuts weren’t very deep but stung like razor blades. I washed my hands in the sink and looked at my reflection. I knew I would have to fight tomorrow, if it wasn’t the blitzers then it would be some other insects intent on sucking our blood.

I thought about it and then my legs started to feel uncomfortable right before the device snapped off of my body in an instant. It fell to the floor, this time as a black rubber ball about the size of a quarter. I thought I could change its form. After all, it changed itself so many times already, so I held it in my right palm and tried to get it back onto my arm with my thoughts. I closed my eyes and pictured the way it looked when it was on my arm before. Five seconds later I felt a warm feeling crawl up my arm and I knew it worked. The ball had disappeared. I opened my eyes and my arm was encased in obsidian again.

We all believed in Caleb, but my belief was faltering. He was treated as if he was a god compared to us. For all of my life I thought it made sense because he had saved us all, but now, being on the new planet, it didn’t feel right. I knew Caleb was extremely intelligent, his technological feats held nothing back and reached the maximum capabilities of human potential. That was my opinion. Although what Liam told me made me realize that Caleb’s mind was brilliant, yes, but he simply might not be the best leader for military operations here. Nonetheless, I had to hold my grievances and think about the here and now.

When the time came Jess and I walked together to the front gate of Rou’dan to meet the rest of the Tatski Hara. Just as I could make out the silhouettes of the other members on the horizon I stopped. Jess was still walking so I pulled her arm, she smiled and said 'What is it?' It was my last moment alone with her and I didn’t want to leave.

Call me sentimental, whatever you want. We made the rest of the walk to the other troops and greeted them with the Tatski Hara salute which meant ‘save travels’.

About 50 yards away, Novak was back in the flesh standing by the gate with a few other soldiers. I was walking to him and Jess came out of nowhere. Birds were singing songs from the trees while he gave us the run down on the mission.

‘Okay, you two. I’ve already told the rest, we have a couple hours to kill before the mission starts. The time got pushed back. Over to the west of us is a trail that is perfectly safe, secured by the perimeter. It leads over to a valley which is home to some of the most beautiful Triceratops you have ever seen. Go over there and hang out, get used to your surroundings and I will send you the file on the mission.’ He patted both Jess and I on our shoulders, turned us around and sent us off.

She didn’t care for it. She wanted to analyze the river and collect some samples. I, however, loved the thought of seeing some Triceratops. I had never seen one in person before, so I used my charm (or lack of charm) to convince her to go with me.

I said 'So… let’s find this path and check it out!’ She smiled and nodded. We walked past the Northern bases dorms which was a very tall building built of titanium and copper. It was seven floors tall housing maybe 300 Tatski Hara, and it had very nice windows on the main doors as well as every other floor. Jess said to me ‘Hey, I’m gonna stop. Refilling my water, just hang tight.’ Then she ran off towards the dorm building as I looked to the west for a trail out of the base. There was a trail right that started so close to the northern edge of the compound that I wasn’t really worried about anything. Since I had gotten there everyone seemed quite calm, which made me believe the bigger threats were further south.

I looked north where the Sun appeared in the sky and as I was standing there my device shifted around on my arm, coming off entirely and then reattaching itself to my body as frozen obsidian. I let out a cry ‘Ah. What the fuck?’ The cold from it shocked me. The Sun was pleasantly warm. I looked over at Jess and saw her walking back towards me. I took a second and then asked her, ‘To the Triceratops then?’ and we walked towards the path. When we made it to the path I understood I had to be ready in case something pounced on us. I led the way as we entered into the trees, though to my surprise, there was nothing out of the ordinary. It was a meadow with flowers and several other types of species all making the land their home. Jess went over 10 yards ahead of me to my left out into the grass.

The triceratops were busy grazing on the other side of the meadow. Their skin shimmered in the early evening light, that familiar dark obsidian. My arm rippled, like it had a mind of its own.

One of the larger beasts raised its head and looked over at us. It seemed to be the leader of the herd. They were quite a ways away, but I was still tense. If one of them considered us a danger, it could send all of them stampeding.

Jess tried to appear non-threatening. Not exactly our strong suit, being Tatski Hara and all. She set down her weapon and raised her hands in a display of peace. The leader gazed at her for a long moment. Then, it lowered its gargantuan head and continued chomping on grass.

“Nicely done.” I said. I had never been very good with animals.

“Thanks. There used to be Tyrannosaurs all over this forest. Compared to that, I bet we don’t look like much.”

We met up with Novak an hour later and he explained the mission in his own words ‘The objective is to explore the territory and retrieve the priority object that is 100 kilometers south from the northern border of the forest. We are to converge with two other teams that are entering from the north and the east to meet at the stone, assisting others as necessary. Don’t fuck this up.’ He stomped away with a limp. Two of the other Generals were leading the other units while Novak was leading ours. To chart out safe passage for a 100 kilometer hike wasn’t going to be easy. The first generation carved out more than half of it. Our first task was to patrol the existing road and identify any threats, territorial border disputes, and if all went well, to carve out more space for us at the end of the road.

The choice to go into the forest at night striked me as odd. The only silver lining to the mission was that we no longer had to worry about the blitzers ambushing us. The cool breeze in the air and the unsettling silence put me on edge. I was never chosen for night missions. After Jess and I got situated in the tank everyone double checked to make sure they had all of their things. With a final signal from the driver we were off to the Tyran forest. I talked with other soldiers about the fact the mission was taking place at night.

‘I don’t like night missions. Why are we doing this at night?’

A soldier named Kyle said 'It must be because most of the predators here aren’t nocturnal. I heard from Novak that our sleep schedules are synced with Tyrannus’ sleep pattern.’

That was very interesting, definitely a good idea. I said

‘I didn’t know that. Do you know of any species around here that are nocturnal?’

Jess replied ‘Blitzers, Decimators, the yuzu dragons… oh, mosquitoes, fairies, tylok, some of the birds her-’

I interrupted her ‘Back up, what’s a yuzu dragon look like?’

Kyle said ‘Those are twenty footers. Their tails are about half of that length. They can breathe lightning strikes and are orange with yellow patterns on their scales that shine in the darkness. If you see the color yellow, let us know - the brighter it gets, the more it’s charged its attack.’

Talking to the team was very informative. This time I was awake for all of it. Jess continued on, saying ‘They stay crouched on tree branches staying absolutely still. They’re called the yellow death, but they aren’t the only kind of dragon here.’ I was impressed with their knowledge so I kept asking questions ‘What other types of dragons are there?’ The driver started up the engine to the vehicle which made a low electric hum. I saw Fred come up top, he said 'The kinds of dragons? There are defilers, kuzu’s, yuzu’s, and tilimorphs.

Let me tell you one thing because it sounds like you haven’t read anything about this. The tilimorphs can look like a member of the Tatski Hara or anything else, they can shape-shift. They aren’t deadly, you could say we’re friends with them. We’ve had reports that they are playful. They like to seduce members and give them gifts.

Hell, it even happened to Kai. That’s how he got one of his katanas. He said he saw a beautiful blonde woman who was naked in the forest, so he told everyone to hold their position while he went to check her out, and lo and behold - well, he said he was trying to ask her questions but they ended up having sex. It could very well have just been a story he made up - Kai playing games with us.’

Wow, that was crazy to hear.

‘What a lucky guy if that’s true. What about the defilers?’

Jess chimed in ‘They are a different breed of dragon, their lineage came from the same ancestor as the decimators, they’re made of obsidian, flightless, with eight legs.’

Mathew was over to my right three seats away, he was a scientist with dark brown curly hair and a slightly skinnier frame, especially when compared to Fred. He said ‘The Kuzu’s are the kind that breathe fire. Fortunately for us, our route tonight isn’t where they typically are. They hang out closer to the Roca’s mountains. All kinds of dragons love vantage points, it’s what helps them hunt.’

The drive got going, and Fred said 'Best we stay quiet so as to not attract any type of Rex’. With Jess beside me it felt like I wasn’t on the way to a mission but instead driving to my home. An odd feeling, considering what I knew was waiting for me in the forest. Rumor has it that the Tyran forest was more of a jungle than a forest because of all the different species. Spiders and other insects had to be the least of my worries.