---Cairns---

---Victor's perspective---

“Twila?” I speak into my holo.

“Yes, CSS?” she answers, instantly.

“You can drop the Albanian and Turkish… Also… we’ve got a name. ‘Artemas Leandros’ is the only one who might still be out there… We’re still digging up the bones of everyone else. I’ll let you know when we’re done. Over and out.”

“Understood, CSS. Over and out.” she answers before cutting the call.

I look at everyone undergoing the work of deconstructing the cairns, removing the bones and placing them into the boxes.

It feels just a touch disrespectful to be unearthing the remains of Wardead… but… well, if they have families…

I’m sure any next of kin will long since have come to terms with their deaths and being presented with a box of bones might just upset them but, I know… if it were me…

I remember going to New Australia, one Summer, while I was at uni.

I went to Red Sands Graveyard, with three million soldiers buried in it, took direction from the AI manning the entrance and just ambled down the path with rows, after rows, after rows, after rows, after rows of headstones, planted along it… until I got to my parent’s graves.

I remember being so happy to see that they were next to eachother.

I remember being so overwhelmed to be separated from them by only 2m, closer than I’d been in a lifetime. Even knowing there wasn’t really a ‘them’ to be separated from, anymore… that ‘they’ didn’t exist and all I was actually separated from was some bones that had once been inside them, it was still meaningful to me!

I remember tracing my thumb over the letters of their names, my tears watering the red dust that the place was named for.

I remember how much closure that helped me find… which is, obviously, why my therapist at the time suggested it.

If we can give that feeling to someone else, I want to do it!

I cease shifting stones and call “Tymancha…”

He looks up and turns his inexpressive face toward me.

I gesture him to come to me.

He walks over.

“Could you take a look at the bones we’ve pulled out so far and tell me how long ago you think the last one died?”

“No need.” he states, simply “I can tell that none of them died recently without looking closer than I already have.”

“How recently?”

He shakes his head “I can’t say more specifically than ‘years’… My experience with bones is with animal bones, exposed to the elements, not Human bones buried in stones.”

“Fair enough… what about the meat?” I say, gesturing to the shuttle, which they seem to have been using as a larder.

“I’ve not seen it.” he answers.

“Take a look, tell me how old you think the newest piece is, oh, and… check on Mouse while you’re in there… ask if she needs help with anything.”

He makes for the shuttle.

I keep shifting rocks and delicately extracting bones while I wait for him to get back.

When he returns he says “When I asked Ms MacLeod if she needed help she said ‘Not unless anyone else can…’ and then said lots of words I didn’t understand the translations of.”

“Alright, no help needed then(!)” I chuckle “…The meat?”

“There’s a haunch in there that I would guess to only be weeks old.”

“You’re sure?!” I say, agog.

A tiny frown touches his face “No, I’m not sure… that’s why I said ‘guess’… it seems like it’s weeks old but it’s also meat from an animal I’ve never encountered, on a planet I’ve never been to. So, based only on my experience of other kinds of meat, how it’s been cured as well as the temperature and humidity in the larder, I would guess its condition to be the result of only weeks of storage.”

“Right, sorry, my bad!… But, if you’re right, the chances of us findin’ a survivor just shot up!”

He nods.

---later---

Bones recovered and jars labelled, everyone except Mouse (still working on the AI) gathers in front of the craft.

“Alright… everyone who reckons they have wilderness survival and traversal experience, raise your hand.” I instruct.

All hands except Thran’s go up.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Everyone who would call that experience ‘in depth’ or ‘extensive’, keep your hand in the air.”

Leon and Ziva’s hands go down, Xon’s wavers but stays up… that tells me everything I need to know.

“Alright… Thran!”

“Yes, Vic… Yes, CSS.” she responds, awkwardly snapping to attention in her bulky durasteel.

“I want you to stay here… guard Jennie from any local fauna or other threats. Stay outside and stay visible. If someone you don’t recognise approaches, contact Twila and then me in that order. Is that understood?” I ask.

“Y-yes, CSS.”

I turn to Ziva and say “Ziva, I’m pairin’ you with Steve.” I turn to Leon “Leon, I want you with Xon and Tymancha.” I turn to Samus “Samus, you’re with me… Tymancha?”

“Yes?” he responds.

“Which direction looks like it has the most promise in terms of forage and game, to you? If you were dropped on this spot and needed to keep yourself alive, where would you go?” I ask.

“South.” he answers, instantly.

“And South would be…?”

“Behind you, mate…” interjects Steve with a smirk.

“Alright. Thanks.” I say, before turning back to Tymancha and asking “Which way looks like it has the least promise?”

Unlike the first time, he has to think about that, glancing around to scan the horizon.

“Northwest…” he says, hesitantly, looking around the side of the ship “No… Not Northwest…. West” he decides, sounding more certain.

“Alright, I’ll just com Twila to ask how much time we have until dark…”

“’Bout eighteen hours, mate.” communicates Steve.

I frown “How do y…”

He cuts me off “When we got here, the sun was there…” he points to an empty patch of sky “…it’s there, now, and we’ve been here an hour and a half so…” he traces an arc through the sky with his finger “…eighteen hours!” he declares.

“Alright… if you’re certain…” I say, considering whether to com Twila just to be sure but deciding against it. I don’t need to demonstrate mistrust! “So, we’ve got plenty of time… We’re about to sortie out to see if we can find evidence of the last survivor. I want everyone to set eight hour alarms on their holos… that should give you two hours of contingency time to get back here before dark. Tymancha, Xon and Leon, I want you to head South… Steve and Ziva, you guys head East. Me and Samus will head North… Steve and Tymancha, you two have more experience in how to track so you’ll lead your teams but, since you don’t have guns or plasmaweapons it’s the job of Xon, Leon and Ziva to protect you. Do not approach local fauna… if you are approached by local fauna, try to scare them off but don’t hesitate to shoot if they won’t be deterred. I assume no one here needs to be told not to run from predators, you’ll only mark yourself as prey to them and you’re very unlikely to outrun them! If a party member is injured, com to let everyone else know your location, turn around if possible, stay put if not. If your alarm goes off, turn around. If you are separated from a party member, com to let us know and try to rendezvous back at the lifeboat. No one is to be a hero, no one is to take unnecessary risks. Does everyone understand their instructions?”

Everyone nods.

“Alright, move out!”

---later---

Me and Samus have made our way down the north side of the bluff and left it a long way behind us.

We’re walking along the bare rock at the top of a 9-10m tall cutbank cliff. Below us is a deep looking, fastmoving river with thick forest on its far shore.

We’ve been walking for a few hours and have barely spoken a word.

Samus really feels like she has something she wants to say. It’s subtle but I see a bit more of a glare in her face than normal for when we’re working.

I’m about to ask her to spit it out when she says “You were a prick to Tuun, earlier.”

“I know.” I answer.

“No, you DON’T!” she snarls.

Stopping dead in my tracks, I turn towards her, my mouth agape, and say “Excuse me!?”

Her face is twisted into a scowl and her teeth are bared in anger as she says “I know that ‘I know’! That’s the ‘I know’ that my piece of shit father gave me every time I’d point out some crime we were committing! That’s the ‘I know’ of a smug, sanctimonious little man who thinks he made a hard choice but chose the least evil of all the available options! A man who’d choose the same again! That’s the ‘I know’ that made me ignore the fact that I’d been born into a gang of criminals for EIGHT…EEN… YEARS!… The last time he gave me that ‘I know’ was when we’d undertaken a job smuggling stolen, military grade firearms to Neu Rheinland! I knew those guns weren’t for self defence or hunting! I knew we were going to be putting weapons into the hands of violent thugs! He gave me that ‘I know’ and, in that moment, he died to me! That evening, I contacted the UTC and spent the rest of the voyage playing nice with the crew, with my family, never letting on that I was selling them out! So don’t give me that ‘I know’!”

Feeling extremely attacked at what seems like a very unfair comparison, I answer “What was I supposed to do!? You think I should’ve let her come down here and risk gettin’ attacked by traumatised castaways!?”

“Obviously not!” she scoffs, rolling her eyes in contempt.

“Then what? What should I have done? Tell me!”

She gives an angry sigh before answering “What you did isn’t the problem! It’s how you did it! You could’ve asked to have a private word with her, you chose to do it publicly! You could have provided your reasons upfront, you chose to make her ask and then cut her off with the answer! You could have framed it as a discussion, you chose to issue it as an order! An order you gave with a tone that said ‘this is my decision and it’s final!’, which might have been justified if lives were hanging in the balance but any survivors will have been down here longer than you or I have been alive! It's not like they couldn't wait 5 more minutes for you to have that conversation without being a prick about it!!!”

While she was speaking, she advanced on me in a way that would have been unnerving even if she didn’t have an assault rifle slung across her chest. She punctuates the word ‘prick’ by taking her dominant left hand off of the grip and jabbing her finger into my chest.

Adrenaline buzzes through my veins and defences flood into my mind, the main one being "You're very much not takin' your own advice, here! You're bein' quite a prick to me, in explainin' how I was one to Tuun!"

She nods "I am! This is one of those 'do as I say, not as I do' situations! The fact that I'm not taking my own advice doesn't mean you shouldn't!"

I take a moment to actually dissect the content of what she’s saying and I realise “You’re right, Samus. I’m sorry.”

The anger falls from her face as she quips “Now, there’s five words my father never said to me(!)… It’s not me you need to apologise to, though, is it!”

I nod, taking out my holo and turning to continue our trek “Yeah… I’ll message Tuun… tell her I need to t-HUWAAAH!”

While my eyes were on my holo and not on where I was going, my right foot contacted a wet rock that had much less purchase than I was relying on it to have.

My leg flies out from under me toward the river, pulling me along after it.

My chest impacts the hard stone and I'm able to feel the elastic deformation of my ribcage as the wind is knocked out of me.

I hear my shotgun clatter to the ground.

A few instants of sliding inescapably down the rock before suddenly there’s nothing beneath me.

I fall for (what adrenal-dump makes feel like) an eternity!

Then, I plunge into the ice cold, rapid flowing water.