Chapter 5: Solo Marine

It only took twenty minutes for the initial excitement to wear off. Twenty more minutes was spent in boredom. Ten minutes later I was snoozing. I was wearing my goggles with the noise-canceling headbands activated as the full speed mini-sub was loud. Every half an hour I’d wake up when the sub received a ping and a data update from one of the submerged sonobuoys Naomi had scattered along our route.

The buoys had been deployed over the past few weeks by the long-range aquatic drone and were set to monitor the area for any threats. As long as they kept reporting, “All clear” as we passed them, we kept the ‘pedal to the metal’ so to speak, and continued running the thrusters on full. The undersea traffic to the north and west of the archipelago was also our savior as all the enemy aquatic units and active mining machinery filled the ocean with plenty of cover noise.

After four hours of intermittent dozing, I sat up and tried to stay awake. I ate a food bar and mixed myself a cup of cold tea. Following that, I used the goggles’ display to access the tablet and reviewed the details of our ... no, my mission. Even with the review it boiled down to... :

A. Be bored as a passenger in a torpedo.

B. Slog through heavy undergrowth for a few days.

C. Don’t be detected or get CAUGHT!

D. Arrive at the mountain peak and let the machines do the technical important work.

E. Reverse steps C thru A and survive to gloat.

Simple, right? Sure, it sounded that way. It was now after noon and I was back to dozing. I had stretched out for ten minutes until the pack had grown too heavy and now I was back in my semi-reclined position. I had used the can once and trying to piss while laying sideways into a bottle was an experience I did not want to repeat. Naomi had included a bedpan, but I vowed to not have to resort to that.

Around 16:00 I had to slow the mini-sub to a crawl. The last sonobuoy had reported recent nearby enemy underwater drone activity and I thought I better not wake the dragon. This would add another hour to my ingress trip, and I was beginning to feel the confinement. An hour later, the mini-sub crawled along the bottom and into a protected harbor on the southern edge of the former city of Puerto Ayora.

The inlet to the harbor had only been twenty meters wide but it remained deep enough to allow a few meters of water over the top of the small boat. The bottom was littered with ancient debris and had more than a few magnetic anomalies to hide the mini-sub. I carefully poked the small sensor stalk up above the surface and did a visual sweep while it listened for electromagnetic signals.

The scan came up clear, and I nudged the mini-sub closer to an old overgrown wharf that had enough erosion to provide a decent path onto land. I then spent half an hour shuffling my gear to shore and getting the bio-drones activated and released. Rikki, the mongoose, went out on an immediate patrol of the nearby, millennia-old, ruins of the city. Scoot and Wilbur stuck close to me as it was almost dark.

There were intermittent clouds passing over in the deepening twilight and the smartwatch gave me the go-ahead to move about onshore. I quickly ditched the wet suit, took a leak, and put on the stealth suit. I attached the bio-drone carrier to the bottom of my backpack and struggled to get the pack’s straps over my shoulders.

“Watch, make a note to provide an automatic coupler between the back of the stealth suit and the backpack in the future,” I whispered.

—Noted.—

Once I had the pack slung, I backed up a nearby ledge which allowed Scoot and Wilbur to hop into their niches in the bio-drone carrier. I waited under a large tree canopy until Rikki returned. A few minutes later, the mongoose came trotting back from its patrol. When it stood at my feet, I held my hand over its neck to receive its report directly into my smartwatch. The tablet in my pack was active and helped decipher the data.

—No local enemy unit or activity detected. No local passive sensors detected. One periodic electromagnetic emission detected - origin, the target mountaintop. No biological hazards detected. Radiation levels slightly elevated - no respirator required. Substantial plant growth encountered. Recommendation: proceed with caution.—

The intermittent detection from Cerro Crocker was expected. It was most likely the radar station taking advantage of the height of the mountain. The radiation notice reminded me that I was getting closer to a launch base that used fusion-powered rockets. I’d have to keep on top of that. The rest of the news was good and there was no reason to turn back or alter our plans.

This was it! The mini-sub had successfully gotten me here and it was now up to me. I started walking north. My first solo expedition had officially begun. In the former town site, the ground was uneven and covered with a wild assortment of trees and plants. This was likely because of the rubble of the buildings and the invasive species brought here by the former residents.

There was plenty of canopy overhead which blocked my view of the star-filled sky. My goggles had plenty of ambient light to amplify and I had no trouble avoiding both branches and trip hazards. I caught sight of Rikki occasionally as I made my way through the heavy undergrowth,. Sometimes the mongoose was far in front of me, other times he was on my flanks.

After an hour of walking, the ground became less disturbed and the taller trees became less frequent. I stopped for a quick break and to drink some water. I set my flechette gun down carefully reminding myself to not forget to pick it up again when I resumed moving.

My stealth suit was in a low power consumption mode. This meant that it was not augmenting my muscles and I was feeling both the load and the walk already. Rikki approached and I did a quick data download. Nothing new was reported and the critter again left to range ahead.

After my short rest, I resumed walking. My progress was plotted on a map overlay in the corner of my goggles’ display. The enhanced tablet was using inertial guidance combined with visual landmark references to keep a fix of my position. After twenty minutes of further progress, I heard a ping in my goggles’ headband. I stopped to check what was changed.

—I have activated your stealth suits thermal masking functions, John. Your body heat is now very noticeable with the cooling of the surrounding terrain and the lessening of obscuring vegetation overhead.—

The satellites! I stopped and looked up. It was very dark with the waning crescent moon yet to rise. The stars were bright, and I could easily make out many of the familiar constellations. Some looked a bit different from what they had back when I was young as a few of the closer, faster-moving stars had shifted position over the past millennia. After ten seconds of staring, I noted the motion of more than one low orbit satellite. I scanned in a full circle and stopped when I faced west. My jaw dropped as I saw that a new moon had risen above the horizon!

It must have been the master A.I.’s orbital station. It was much brighter than Venus and I was able to detect its motion easily. Naomi had told me that the station had a period of around four hours. This would mean it would be overhead for half that and was moving at a speed of about a full moon’s diameter every eighteen seconds. I watched mesmerized for more than a minute.

I could see flashes and sparkles around the station which must have been smaller craft moving about. I also spotted smaller moving objects in a line ahead of and behind the rising station. These must be launch vehicles making their way to the station from the various launch facilities around the Earth. The enemy preferred near-equatorial launching points which explained the almost perfect alignment of the smaller lights. I took a deep breath and resumed my trek.

Over three hours later, near midnight, I stopped for a longer break. I had noticed the skies filling in with clouds and hoped that it was the start of the predicted morning fog. I took off my pack and set it down carefully. Scoot emerged from his compartment and scampered off into the nearby vegetation. Wilbur being a daylight bird stayed put in his roost. Rikki showed up and lay down next to me. The little mongoose was clearly tired as it was panting. I poured a dish of water and let it drink.

Scoot returned and took his place next to the mongoose and drank also. I found myself a ration bar and also a squeeze tube of bio-drone nutrient paste which I fed to the two critters when they were done drinking. To wash down my own meal I found a package of instant tea and mixed up a cup. I’d have loved a cup of hot coffee, but we could not risk the infrared signature of either a fire or the hot cup.

While I rested, I studied the map. I had covered almost four kilometers thus far which meant I was making a bit over a kilometer an hour. That speed would normally be considered very slow, but I was happy with that progress in these conditions. The tablet was guiding my movements so as to avoid the many sinkholes, old craters, and collapsed lava tunnels that covered this island. I could also see the ledges and boulders of pumice and old lava flows all around.

I still had over eight kilometers to go and that would be harder traveling as I had just begun to ascend the start of the hill that formed Cerro Crocket. Ahead another half a kilometer and off to the west was the remains of a second town which had once existed on the island. The tablet’s route had me skirting this to the east, but the area still had once had a scattering of dwellings and old farms. I would have to remain careful about trip hazards.

I looked at the sky and could no longer see any stars as the clouds had grown too dense. The bright station was also missing as it had set to the east almost two hours ago. It was due to rise again soon but with the heavier cloud cover, my stealth suit was now back on standby and no longer masking my thermal signature. I finished my beverage and glanced at my smartwatch. It displayed 23:55, time to get going. I packed up, struggled a bit to put on my backpack, and got Scoot back in his container. Rikki scurried off ahead and I picked up the flechette gun and began to follow.

An hour after midnight, I noticed tall trees ahead. These must be the groves of Scalesia that Wilbur’s images had shown to be growing on the upper elevations of the island. I had read about them during the mini-sub’s voyage earlier. They were actually a rare tree variety of the flower family that included Daisies. They had been a tourist draw on the larger islands of the archipelago ‘back when.’ Our scouting images showed the groves extended up to around seven hundred meters elevation so I would be walking in them for much of my remaining trek.

Soon I was making my way through the large trees. They formed a thick canopy extending up to around twenty meters high. I could not make out much detail or see their coloration through the goggles’ enhanced vision, but I could clearly see their twisted and strange trunks and limbs. The grove was all mature trees which made my walking somewhat easier as there was little lower plant growth or saplings.

One of the stranger features of this strange tree-like giant flower is that the entire grove matured at the same time. Every forty years or so, they would all die out at once, and the hillside would be a tangled mess of fallen trees. Their seeds would then germinate and less than two decades later, the mature trees would be back, as thick as ever. I was lucky that I had missed the period when they littered the landscape.

Time passed quickly as I wound my way through the Scalesia grove. The mist and fog started to thicken as dawn approached. At 04:30 I stopped for a break and to review my map. I had been walking for almost nine hours now, and I was getting very tired. The map showed that I had covered a bit more than nine kilometers, which left my destination around three kilometers ahead. I scanned the skies and noted that morning twilight was upon me. This meant that dawn was in less than an hour away.

I had also noticed that the tree growth had been becoming sparser. The tablet reported that I was nearing seven hundred meters in elevation which was the upper limit of their range. Rikki had noticed that I had stopped walking and had also returned for a break. He had been patrolling ahead for the past hour after having ridden for the hour before that. He reported via the data link that there were no threats he was aware of.

While I sat resting, I got out the bio-drone nourishment and fed them again. Wilbur took his turn at the trough this morning and after eating and drinking began to flex his wings. With the coming daylight, he would be taking to the air to begin scouting the area. I drank deeply from my canteen. It felt less than a quarter full which meant I should be looking for a pool or puddle to refill it.

I prepared to continue. With the fog getting thicker I could probably keep moving for at least another hour. I decided to play it safe and stop in about half an hour and use the fog’s cover and growing light to look for water and a decent place to lay low for the day. I had just slung my pack when I heard a beep in my goggles’ headband.

—New enemy electromagnetic emissions detected approaching from the northeast.—

I quickly moved under a smaller Scalesia and verified that my suit’s thermal masking was engaged. The tablet had already activated it and I crouched still and waited. I gave the flechette gun a quick once over to verify that I still had the electromagnetic pulse device ready. After half a minute had passed, I heard it. It was the shriek of a large aircraft and it was moving from the northeast to the northwest. It was not overhead but was probably a kilometer beyond the peak of Cerro Crocker.

—Aircraft of some type. Propulsion type most likely electro-thermal turbine jets.----

I would later learn that this type of motivation was similar to the jet engines of my era but instead of burning hydrocarbon fuel, these used a few hundred megawatts of electrical energy to heat the air passing through its power turbine stage. The jet noise grew closer. I still could not see anything in the still-thick fog.

— I am detecting new proximity ranging radar emissions. Lower power levels suggest our current location is not the target. Probability: landing radar.—