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Chapter 1
Larkin Wade leaned back in his chair, putting his sock-clad feet up on the console of his ship. The touch sensors around his heels automatically detected the unusual point of contact and temporarily deactivated themselves, so there would be no risk of the ship spiralling wildly off course from an idle shift of weight. Larkin took a long sip from a chilled, fruity beverage that the spacecraft's synthesiser had whipped up for him as his triangular ears flicked at the air in thought.
“Suki…bring up Mud and Wire. Where did I leave off?"
There was a short, electric whistle as the shipboard assistant chimed to life.
“Season 3, Episode 6. The Jaws of Etterasque.” the synthetic voice offered. “Would you like to continue?”
“Play it.” Larkin sighed. The wartime drama spooled to life on his primary monitor as Larkin finished his drink. It was a decent, refreshing concoction. He had a feeling that it was one of the more interesting beverages the ship could churn out with its policy safeguards in place. For the dozenth time, he entertained the thought of cracking open the circuit panels and disabling the corporate blocks that prevented the synthesiser from producing anything boozey. Once again, he reminded himself that proof of such tinkering would probably cost him any shares for this whole venture.
“Another week in the black and I might set up a still...” the surveyor grunted. “That’d really make em’ mad.”
A planetary survey tech like Larkin usually had more to do on the job than be crammed in an automated shuttle, be babysat by the shipboard virtual assistant and binge schlocky vidreels. He was used to picking his way across rocky terrain, mapping terraformations, repairing isolated atmosphere gauges and occasionally dodging hostile wildlife. His lean, muscular body reflected the duties of an explorer, a field man.
Sometimes those duties that kept him so active also sent him to the furthest armpit of deep space to investigate some anomaly or intriguing signal. Orders from corporate felt as blandly automatic as the contained living space he found himself ferried in. Some flagged message that detected a blip on the star charts had filtered down through the bureaucracy of the Wayfinder company into Larkin’s lap and he was being asked to go look, even if it meant going over a hundred lightyears out of his way. No eyes were on it, no one to tell him what the hell was considered important enough to shoot some mook off into uncharted space, just coordinates and protocol to follow.
At least he was flying first class. The Wayfinder company’s long-distance shuttles didn’t lack for comfort, fully stocked with accommodations, thousands of hours of entertainment programs and a small exercise area in the back that he had admittedly left almost untouched. If he was going to spend damn near a month in isolation flying out into the middle of nowhere, he might as well spend it in the lap of luxury.
Larkin picked at the ice in his glass with his straw, finally summoning the energy to get up and drop the remains of his drink into the matter reclamation chute. His show continued to blare in the background as he scrolled through menu options on the synthesiser, eventually deciding on a crispy fish platter on a bed of spiced grains. The Vestimyr’s long, fluffy tail twitched behind him as he watched the meal assemble, molecule by molecule, with the glimmer of fabricated matter fading away as the synthesiser let out a light ding of completion. Returning to his chair with his freshly composed dinner, the surveyor paused his entertainment program as he placed the steaming dish in front of him on a slide-out tray. He might as well do some actual work while he was eating.
Larkin called up the specs of his mission. They were depressingly minimal, primarily focused around the distance from any registered checkpoints, the potential habitability of the world and the most basic geological information possible at such long range scans. He seemed relegated to the unenviable position of a sneak and peek, zipping in and out of this distant rock's biosphere just to ascertain the nature of the anomaly before hightailing back to civilization. If Wade had anything to say about it, he'd at least log a few hours of boots on the ground before getting bundled up in his flying hotel suite. A little fresh air and open vista would be a welcome change of pace. With any luck , it would take the onboard sensors a day or so to find the source of this phantom signal.
After finishing his meal and the rest of his program, the scruffy surveyor touched a button that would recline his cushy passenger chair into a bed, dimming the lights and replacing the bright glare of the infoscreen with a dark starscape visible through the wide, front viewport. His shuttle's perspective of the star-speckled void was blurred and warbled by the sustained FTL trajectory it had maintained for weeks. Larkin's gaze drifted to the roof of his pod, and he activated the ceiling view with a gesture. Another screen hanging above him extended the starscape as the myriad of heavenly bodies passed by overhead. He let out a yawn.
"Suki, Estimated time of arrival to the projected coordinates."
Another whistle. "6 standard Pollosian hours, 23 minutes. Please stand by for further accuracy."
"That's fine." Larkin dismissed any further readouts. "Just ah…wake me when we get there." He let out a short yawn and adjusted himself, idly watching the stars pass overhead until sleep found him.
-‐—
The blare of an alarm was never the most ideal way to wake up, and the several sirens and alerts that were going off at once brought Larkin to even more abrupt consciousness.
"Ugh, Suki, report!" He yelled over the din, trying to find himself as he snapped his chair back into an upright position.
"Syst- eh-.....disrup-....task…" The voice of the virtual assistant garbled with electronic distortion. Wade slapped at the controls, summoning and dismissing system failure alerts and proximity alarms one after another until he could look through the front viewport. Flames licked at the nose of the craft, the friction of a planet’s atmosphere creating spontaneous combustion against his shuttle’s hull.
The Vestimyr gritted his teeth in anxiety. He was already in atmo? How could that have happened? The ship would have alerted him before he even entered orbit, much less breaking the upper atmosphere. Now he was trying to attain his bearings in a crippled ship full of failing systems during reentry.
Waving away the last blaring alert, the surveyor's hands danced over his control interface. The autopilot systems were completely offline and he was falling out of the sky like a brick. Manual reset of the drive core brought thrusters online and the entire ship lurched sideways as his descent began to level out. Larkin was pressed back into his seat by the sudden Gs. On cue, an automatic harness snapped out of the chair, wrapping across his waist and chest. The ship rattled with another hard bump that would have sent him crashing into the ceiling if not for his restraints.
Larkin swore and summoned the flight diagnostics onto his main viewer. Whatever had scrambled his shuttle's systems had also done a number to the sensors and readouts. Half of it was unintelligible and what he could make out wasn't reassuring. Flame burned all around the craft as it punched through into the lower stratosphere and the entire craft shuddered again. The frame of the ship groaned with the building pressure of a denser atmosphere, and Larkin felt his entire body pulled in two different directions as the ship's artificial gravity struggled to compensate against the planet's natural gravity well. Fighting a wave of nausea from falling in two different directions at once, Larkin disabled the gravity plates manually, and felt his entire body suddenly pulled forward against his harness. He was pointing nose down, towards the surface. Clouds whipped past, the flickering bow lights illuminating a night sky and distant horizon as moisture streaked against the ship's exterior.
The Vestimyr's black-tipped ears folded flat against his skull as he wrestled with the controls. Servos and sub thrusters whined with effort as he attempted to right the craft. He checked the artificial horizon as it slowly began to settle, then tried to slow the rapidly spiralling altimeter. 6200 metres above ground level. 5080 metres…3740…
Wade gripped the steering column and yanked upwards. He looked up. The ship was past cloud cover, and he could see a dim, hilly horizon blotting out half the night sky. He needed to slow down, he needed drag. Bringing up the system's power grid, he gunned energy into the ventral bow thrusters, dragging the nose up into the air and converting the shuttles shrieking nosedive into a graceless belly flop. Restoring equal power, Larkin fought to prevent himself from flipping bow over stern as he bled velocity.
2345 metres. 1900 metres. 1200 metres. 900 metres.
Larkin dipped his nose, evening out. He triggered the emergency coolant systems, liquid nitrogen venting across the hull to bring down temperature and hopefully prevent a brushfire wherever he landed.
500 metres.
300 metres.
Wade cranked the landing drive to maximum, wrapping the ship in a bubble of antigravity that would hopefully soften his landing.
100 meters.
He could see the ground through the forward viewport. Rolling, smooth, grassy and coming up on him way too fast. He glanced down, and realised for the first time in days that he wasn't wearing pants.
Contact.
Wade felt the entire craft skip and bounce, each moment of impact knocking something else loose inside of the ship. The restraint harness cut into his chest, keeping him from rattling around the compartment like everything else. There was another lurch, and Larkin felt the wind knocked out of him. Then, silence.
‐—
Larkin must have been unconscious only for a few seconds. He shook his head as his vision cleared, the first thing he noticed being the way he leaned into his harness at an awkward angle. The entire ship was resting at a hard diagonal. He looked through the fizzing viewscreen to see the askew horizon. His craft must have been half-buried on impact, or more damaged than he thought.
Larkin swore again, hitting the emergency release for his chair and climbing out of it. The ship wasn't stable, and that meant he had to immediately evacuate.
Grabbing his survival pack and the rest of his field uniform, Larkin manoeuvred through the shuttle interior to the nearest entry hatch. With every step, we could feel the ship sway and shift, as if it were immersed in soft mud. Pulling the emergency lever for the escape door set off a series of small charges that blew it off of its hinges. The first fresh air that Wade had tasted in almost a month hit his lungs as he climbed out, pausing only to rest on the nearly sideways hull for a moment before jumping free and onto the smooth, grassy surface of this new planet.
He stumbled as his feet sank in slightly. This terrain was soft, like loose sand or more mud. Struggling to maintain equilibrium, Larkin picked his way across the malleable, grassy terrain. He seemed to have landed on the slope of some huge hill, or mountain, considering the way the ground angled beneath him ever so slightly. Finally, he felt a safe distance away from his shuffle to pause and look back.
The Wayfarer expedition craft had weathered the crash better than expected. Its hull seemed intact, save for some minor scarring and soot from the rapid re-entry. It was still sunken into the soft ground, but his landing didn't seem to have left any furrows or much of a crater, just the soft indentation that the craft rested in now.
Wade sat on the yielding earth and looked up at the starry night sky. He never really got used to seeing the galaxy from a different perspective with every new planet he'd been to. This one had a gorgeous view, with practically zero light pollution. If there was any intelligent life on this planet, it was a quiet presence.
Wade considered his options as he pulled his thick, sturdy traversal pants on and laced up his well-worn boots. After that was his re-enforced surveyor's vest, lined with pockets, fitted with gear and stamped with the Wayfarer company logo over one breast. He tugged at the collar as he zipped up, finally feeling in some measure of control. This wasn't the first time he'd had a bumpy landing on an alien world, and his shuttle was definitely salvageable. If he couldn't get it spaceworthy, then his worst case scenario so far was roughing it for a month or so until someone figured out that he hadn't reported back and sent a rescue.
It wasn't ideal, but Larkin tried to tell himself that it might be a welcome change of pace to his last few weeks of idle comfort.
He almost believed himself.
The surveyor's training kicked in as his list of priorities assembled itself in his mind. He had to secure his landing zone and shelter, then locate a source of water and familiarise himself with the surrounding terrain. He had equipment designed to keep him alive, navigation gear and mapmaking hardware. His canteen's auto filters could make damn near anything drinkable, and he had two weeks of rations in his pockets, with way more in the shuttle, potentially limitless if he could get the synthesiser working. The thought of a hot breakfast made his stomach growl.
Larkin's bushy tail twitched as one of the devices at his hip flashed out a warning light. He pulled it loose and checked the alert. It was a comms unit designed to monitor incoming broadcast sources or pre-existing networks, and would be his first warning when someone was finally deployed to come get him. It going off now meant an incoming signal. Something was headed towards him. Something fast.
The Wayfarer company had very strict non-interference policies when it came to indigenous species and societies, and Wade had personal reasons not to be detected by whatever called this place home just yet. He scanned the environment for cover, but beyond the short, soft grass that stretched around him, he couldn't make out a tuft of vegetation or any sort of outcropping. Deciding to flee the crash site, Larkin hoofed it down the inclined terrain until he felt the ground grow steeper beneath him. It looked as though the hill sloped ahead of him into a subtle dropoff. The change in elevation might be enough to give him cover. A quick burst of illumination from his flashlight confirmed that it was a jump of a few feet, which he made easily, the spongy ground absorbing his fall easily.
What the hell was he walking on?
Larkin examined the dropoff from below. There was no sheer or erosion to signify the cause of the elevation change. The surface remained homogenous, simply folding over on itself as if it were the product of a pyroclastic flow. Larkin raised an eyebrow as he brought a hand down to feel the ground. It was yielding, and warm.
Had he landed on the slope of an active volcano? Was there liquid magma beneath him right now, softening the earth he walked on? It still didn't explain the fine, thin grass that grew over and under every inch of his surroundings. He brushed his hands back and forth, tugging at it. It was firmly rooted, but downy and flexible. If he didn't have any better words for it, he would have described it as furry.
Larkin's brief geological survey was interrupted by the soft, warbling hum of something airborne approaching his position. Wade stayed low as a dark shape passed overhead, light emanating from its front and dotting its sides. There was another hum, and then several more, each one at a slightly different frequency. They formed a chorus when they overlapped that the Vestimyr found oddly soothing. The singing, flying objects seem to have arrived in response to his crash landing.
Larkin decided to get a better look. Careful not to puncture anything, he grabbed a handful of rolling terrain and then another. His fingers could’t dig in at all, but it was easy enough to pinch a handful of ground like he was working dough. With two firm handholds, he pulled himself upwards, pushing in his feet to support himself as he climbed back up the rise in order to get a look at what had found his craft.
The flying things were difficult to make out against the dark sky and the blaring bright light that each one shone on the crash site. Larkin counted five light sources, each emanating from some hovering…object about the size of a rain barrel. Smaller lights along their sides let the surveyor make out their general dimensions. They were smooth, sort of a flattened egg shape and seemed capable of moving very quickly. He couldn't discount the possibility of wildlife, but instinct told him that these were machines of some kind.
Larkin stayed in cover as they swept the ground around the crash site, and one let out a whine as it seemed to scan his shuttle, projecting a laser grid pattern across its topology. The group of flying objects clicked amongst themselves, then their beams of light flared intensely.
Larkin watched in horror as entire sections of his shuttle began to peel away into nothing. Its hull glimmered, then evaporated. Layers of shielding were stripped away in an instant and the exposed internals shimmered before boiling away under the pulsing glare of the beam. The flying objects swept the craft and the surrounding area, similarly obliterating any debris while leaving the planet surface untouched. The shuttle was down to its framework in less than a minute and then, it was gone. The slight dip in the ground it's presence had caused was smoothed out, and one of the machines swooped low, becoming more visible as it carefully scanned the ground, humming slightly. It seemed to be checking for damage to the terrain. Satisfied, the smooth, white craft drifted upwards to rejoin its squadron. No trace of the crash, or Larkin's shuttle was left. No smoke or ash or signs of destruction, it was like it had never been there at all.
Three of the flying craft began to move away in branching directions. They were searching the surrounding area. Searching for him.
Larkin ran.
The surveyor’s legs worked hard against the soft planetary surface. It felt like running in sand. He slid down a new embarkment and off another fold in the terrain, dismounting clumsily on his backside. The ground rippled slightly where he landed. There was a hum as another craft passed overhead, but no bright light, no chorus of hums to zero in on his position. Larkin didn't dare to turn on his flashlight, and there was still no sign of any viable cover. Every second he spent out in the open just put him in greater danger.
There was the hum of another incoming flyer. Taking a gamble, the surveyor reached into one of his many pouches and pulled out a swiftly-expanding sheet of thermal cloth. Designed to conserve heat and provide a layer of waterproofing, the reflective, insulatory fabric could also mask vitals from a wide-spectrum scan. Wade squeezed himself into the seam where overhanging ground met the surface below it, and huddled under the blanket. The whizz of the device passed overhead. Larkin's breath slowed, and his rust-red fur stopped standing on end. He had cover, of a sort, though it was quickly growing very sweaty inside of his makeshift blind. The thermal blanket wasn't just trapping his own heat, but the natural temperature emanating from his surroundings. He risked letting the air in on one side to avoid broiling himself and let his head rest against the pillowy landmass he had found himself on. The safest course of action would be to lay low and wait for his pursuers to leave. The exhaustion of his crash landing and swift retreat was creeping up on him all at once, and Larkin found it difficult to keep his eyes open. He let himself relax against the ground. It was oddly comfortable, and the fuzzy growth that carpeted this mountain reminded him of the all-too distant sensation of burying his face in a lover's chest. He felt safe. Safe enough to catch a little sleep...
—
The glimmer of sunlight peeking through his blanket finally woke Larkin up. He blinked the last of the sleep from his eyes and for one blissful moment, forgot where he was and why he was lying on what felt like the comfiest bed he'd ever enjoyed.
Then it all snapped back into focus, and in seconds, he was on his feet, scanning his surroundings.
The revealing light of day confirmed his immediate suspicions. The surface of this strange landmass was featureless, save for its own smooth, curving dimensions. The grass under his feet was a tawny light brown, and fluffier than he remembered. He looked upwards into the sunny blue sky and saw no sign of the flying devices from last night. A few sizable clouds drifted overhead, but aside from that, it seemed like a perfect, sunny day.
Larkin's gaze fell to the horizon, and his eyebrows raised. He must have landed in some sort of mountain range, but the jutting formations around him were like no other he'd ever seen. They all were… round, softly sloped and incredibly bulbous, as though formed by vast volcanic eruptions and rapidly cooled while the lava was still bubbling and flowing. From a distance, he could make out similar vast folds of terrain to the ones he had navigated, though several of these formations seemed dominated by a huge, round swell that formed the shape of each one. Even more curiously, each titanic landmass varied in colour, from dark brown, to purple, to vibrant green to a soft yellow. The exact shade fluctuated across each mountain’s surface, with huge swaths of lighter coloured land taking up the central swell of most of them.
Larkin squinted as he turned and stared at two identical, massive, vaguely spherical orbs in the distance, and the vast, deep valley that ran between them. He suddenly had the distant impression that someone, somewhere was laughing at him.
The surveyor sighed, and tried to get his affairs back in order. With his shuttle gone and the crash site an area of interest for those…things, he had to fall back on his basic priorities. First was to find water, and that meant low ground. Choosing one of the closer mountainous formations to move towards, he set out.
The folds and rolls of terrain gave way to a long, wide expanse after roughly an hour of walking. Getting the sensation that the ground beneath him was beginning to grow steeper, Larkin adjusted his path in an attempt to avoid the major dropoff that was formed by the central, swollen protrusion on the other formations. His hunch proved useful, as the wide, smooth expanse he had traversed met with another swell of terrain, forming a soft crevasse that he was able to navigate safely down to an eventual terminus. The experienced surveyor made sure to keep his feet clear of the deeper, narrow bottom of the rift, as it looked capable of swallowing him whole.
After several hours of hiking and careful navigation of the spongy terrain, Larkin had found a point where the tawny-brown grass of his hill overlapped with a dull yellow one. A new entire landscape, a new entire mountain to climb.
Larkin’s stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since last night. Picking a comfy spot of softness to sit down, the surveyor congratulated himself for his journey with a swig of water and a well-earned ration pack. As he chewed on the mealy, meat-ish flavoured bar, he began to idly stroke the fuzzy yellow growth of the new terrain. It definitely felt like fur. And the soft heat below it was far too reminiscent of flesh.
He tried to think rationally. It couldn't be…
His eyes drifted across the new, yellowish expanse until he started to recognize a pattern. Every several dozen metres, there was a circular dark patch, dotted in the middle with more yellow. It was regular and faint enough to blend into texture at a distance, but up close, was unmistakable. He glanced down at his own rust-coloured fur, and the regular black stripes that ran along his white-tufted tail and extended up his back.
No way.
The thought that he was standing on…no, navigating some sort of megafauna had never occurred to the Vestimyr. It was too big. Nothing could function at that size. Forget Arcturan Goliath Whales, an entire pod of them could swim around in one of these gargantuan creatures. He scratched at the back of his neck, his inner explorer compelling him to investigate. If that huge, central swell on each mountain was what he thought it was, then he had to know for sure.
Carefully picking his way along the seam between these two titanic entities took Larkin the better part of the day, and by the time he stopped for another food and water break, the massive central swell cast a long shadow over him. He kept walking as the fur shifted from yellow to a tawny beige, and the sun was growing low in the sky when he finally reached what he was looking for. Progress had been slow going, and difficult, but after a full day's travel, Larkin had circumvented the exterior of the spotted mass and stood in front of a massive recess in the otherwise unblemished expanse. It was broad, taller and wider than he was, but not very deep. The interior sagged and swelled against itself, puckering away to a tight crevasse a few feet in. It was blown up to a massive degree, but Larkin knew a belly button when he saw one. This…mass. This soft, furry blob whose dimensions could be measured in kilometres had a navel, was alive and a confirmed mammal. Wade pressed against the tawny mass behind him, processing the fact that this was a living creature. The sun was going down, and Larkin had no idea of the perceptive capacities of the flying machines that patrolled this…ecosystem. He had little confidence in travelling at night, so opted to wrap himself in his profile-masking blanket and settle in, resting in the cover of the colossal navel.
—
The first chapter of a longstanding project I've been working on alongside
roundwombo, who is responsible for the delightful cover art for each chapter.
Stay tuned for more to come!
Larkin Wade leaned back in his chair, putting his sock-clad feet up on the console of his ship. The touch sensors around his heels automatically detected the unusual point of contact and temporarily deactivated themselves, so there would be no risk of the ship spiralling wildly off course from an idle shift of weight. Larkin took a long sip from a chilled, fruity beverage that the spacecraft's synthesiser had whipped up for him as his triangular ears flicked at the air in thought.
“Suki…bring up Mud and Wire. Where did I leave off?"
There was a short, electric whistle as the shipboard assistant chimed to life.
“Season 3, Episode 6. The Jaws of Etterasque.” the synthetic voice offered. “Would you like to continue?”
“Play it.” Larkin sighed. The wartime drama spooled to life on his primary monitor as Larkin finished his drink. It was a decent, refreshing concoction. He had a feeling that it was one of the more interesting beverages the ship could churn out with its policy safeguards in place. For the dozenth time, he entertained the thought of cracking open the circuit panels and disabling the corporate blocks that prevented the synthesiser from producing anything boozey. Once again, he reminded himself that proof of such tinkering would probably cost him any shares for this whole venture.
“Another week in the black and I might set up a still...” the surveyor grunted. “That’d really make em’ mad.”
A planetary survey tech like Larkin usually had more to do on the job than be crammed in an automated shuttle, be babysat by the shipboard virtual assistant and binge schlocky vidreels. He was used to picking his way across rocky terrain, mapping terraformations, repairing isolated atmosphere gauges and occasionally dodging hostile wildlife. His lean, muscular body reflected the duties of an explorer, a field man.
Sometimes those duties that kept him so active also sent him to the furthest armpit of deep space to investigate some anomaly or intriguing signal. Orders from corporate felt as blandly automatic as the contained living space he found himself ferried in. Some flagged message that detected a blip on the star charts had filtered down through the bureaucracy of the Wayfinder company into Larkin’s lap and he was being asked to go look, even if it meant going over a hundred lightyears out of his way. No eyes were on it, no one to tell him what the hell was considered important enough to shoot some mook off into uncharted space, just coordinates and protocol to follow.
At least he was flying first class. The Wayfinder company’s long-distance shuttles didn’t lack for comfort, fully stocked with accommodations, thousands of hours of entertainment programs and a small exercise area in the back that he had admittedly left almost untouched. If he was going to spend damn near a month in isolation flying out into the middle of nowhere, he might as well spend it in the lap of luxury.
Larkin picked at the ice in his glass with his straw, finally summoning the energy to get up and drop the remains of his drink into the matter reclamation chute. His show continued to blare in the background as he scrolled through menu options on the synthesiser, eventually deciding on a crispy fish platter on a bed of spiced grains. The Vestimyr’s long, fluffy tail twitched behind him as he watched the meal assemble, molecule by molecule, with the glimmer of fabricated matter fading away as the synthesiser let out a light ding of completion. Returning to his chair with his freshly composed dinner, the surveyor paused his entertainment program as he placed the steaming dish in front of him on a slide-out tray. He might as well do some actual work while he was eating.
Larkin called up the specs of his mission. They were depressingly minimal, primarily focused around the distance from any registered checkpoints, the potential habitability of the world and the most basic geological information possible at such long range scans. He seemed relegated to the unenviable position of a sneak and peek, zipping in and out of this distant rock's biosphere just to ascertain the nature of the anomaly before hightailing back to civilization. If Wade had anything to say about it, he'd at least log a few hours of boots on the ground before getting bundled up in his flying hotel suite. A little fresh air and open vista would be a welcome change of pace. With any luck , it would take the onboard sensors a day or so to find the source of this phantom signal.
After finishing his meal and the rest of his program, the scruffy surveyor touched a button that would recline his cushy passenger chair into a bed, dimming the lights and replacing the bright glare of the infoscreen with a dark starscape visible through the wide, front viewport. His shuttle's perspective of the star-speckled void was blurred and warbled by the sustained FTL trajectory it had maintained for weeks. Larkin's gaze drifted to the roof of his pod, and he activated the ceiling view with a gesture. Another screen hanging above him extended the starscape as the myriad of heavenly bodies passed by overhead. He let out a yawn.
"Suki, Estimated time of arrival to the projected coordinates."
Another whistle. "6 standard Pollosian hours, 23 minutes. Please stand by for further accuracy."
"That's fine." Larkin dismissed any further readouts. "Just ah…wake me when we get there." He let out a short yawn and adjusted himself, idly watching the stars pass overhead until sleep found him.
-‐—
The blare of an alarm was never the most ideal way to wake up, and the several sirens and alerts that were going off at once brought Larkin to even more abrupt consciousness.
"Ugh, Suki, report!" He yelled over the din, trying to find himself as he snapped his chair back into an upright position.
"Syst- eh-.....disrup-....task…" The voice of the virtual assistant garbled with electronic distortion. Wade slapped at the controls, summoning and dismissing system failure alerts and proximity alarms one after another until he could look through the front viewport. Flames licked at the nose of the craft, the friction of a planet’s atmosphere creating spontaneous combustion against his shuttle’s hull.
The Vestimyr gritted his teeth in anxiety. He was already in atmo? How could that have happened? The ship would have alerted him before he even entered orbit, much less breaking the upper atmosphere. Now he was trying to attain his bearings in a crippled ship full of failing systems during reentry.
Waving away the last blaring alert, the surveyor's hands danced over his control interface. The autopilot systems were completely offline and he was falling out of the sky like a brick. Manual reset of the drive core brought thrusters online and the entire ship lurched sideways as his descent began to level out. Larkin was pressed back into his seat by the sudden Gs. On cue, an automatic harness snapped out of the chair, wrapping across his waist and chest. The ship rattled with another hard bump that would have sent him crashing into the ceiling if not for his restraints.
Larkin swore and summoned the flight diagnostics onto his main viewer. Whatever had scrambled his shuttle's systems had also done a number to the sensors and readouts. Half of it was unintelligible and what he could make out wasn't reassuring. Flame burned all around the craft as it punched through into the lower stratosphere and the entire craft shuddered again. The frame of the ship groaned with the building pressure of a denser atmosphere, and Larkin felt his entire body pulled in two different directions as the ship's artificial gravity struggled to compensate against the planet's natural gravity well. Fighting a wave of nausea from falling in two different directions at once, Larkin disabled the gravity plates manually, and felt his entire body suddenly pulled forward against his harness. He was pointing nose down, towards the surface. Clouds whipped past, the flickering bow lights illuminating a night sky and distant horizon as moisture streaked against the ship's exterior.
The Vestimyr's black-tipped ears folded flat against his skull as he wrestled with the controls. Servos and sub thrusters whined with effort as he attempted to right the craft. He checked the artificial horizon as it slowly began to settle, then tried to slow the rapidly spiralling altimeter. 6200 metres above ground level. 5080 metres…3740…
Wade gripped the steering column and yanked upwards. He looked up. The ship was past cloud cover, and he could see a dim, hilly horizon blotting out half the night sky. He needed to slow down, he needed drag. Bringing up the system's power grid, he gunned energy into the ventral bow thrusters, dragging the nose up into the air and converting the shuttles shrieking nosedive into a graceless belly flop. Restoring equal power, Larkin fought to prevent himself from flipping bow over stern as he bled velocity.
2345 metres. 1900 metres. 1200 metres. 900 metres.
Larkin dipped his nose, evening out. He triggered the emergency coolant systems, liquid nitrogen venting across the hull to bring down temperature and hopefully prevent a brushfire wherever he landed.
500 metres.
300 metres.
Wade cranked the landing drive to maximum, wrapping the ship in a bubble of antigravity that would hopefully soften his landing.
100 meters.
He could see the ground through the forward viewport. Rolling, smooth, grassy and coming up on him way too fast. He glanced down, and realised for the first time in days that he wasn't wearing pants.
Contact.
Wade felt the entire craft skip and bounce, each moment of impact knocking something else loose inside of the ship. The restraint harness cut into his chest, keeping him from rattling around the compartment like everything else. There was another lurch, and Larkin felt the wind knocked out of him. Then, silence.
‐—
Larkin must have been unconscious only for a few seconds. He shook his head as his vision cleared, the first thing he noticed being the way he leaned into his harness at an awkward angle. The entire ship was resting at a hard diagonal. He looked through the fizzing viewscreen to see the askew horizon. His craft must have been half-buried on impact, or more damaged than he thought.
Larkin swore again, hitting the emergency release for his chair and climbing out of it. The ship wasn't stable, and that meant he had to immediately evacuate.
Grabbing his survival pack and the rest of his field uniform, Larkin manoeuvred through the shuttle interior to the nearest entry hatch. With every step, we could feel the ship sway and shift, as if it were immersed in soft mud. Pulling the emergency lever for the escape door set off a series of small charges that blew it off of its hinges. The first fresh air that Wade had tasted in almost a month hit his lungs as he climbed out, pausing only to rest on the nearly sideways hull for a moment before jumping free and onto the smooth, grassy surface of this new planet.
He stumbled as his feet sank in slightly. This terrain was soft, like loose sand or more mud. Struggling to maintain equilibrium, Larkin picked his way across the malleable, grassy terrain. He seemed to have landed on the slope of some huge hill, or mountain, considering the way the ground angled beneath him ever so slightly. Finally, he felt a safe distance away from his shuffle to pause and look back.
The Wayfarer expedition craft had weathered the crash better than expected. Its hull seemed intact, save for some minor scarring and soot from the rapid re-entry. It was still sunken into the soft ground, but his landing didn't seem to have left any furrows or much of a crater, just the soft indentation that the craft rested in now.
Wade sat on the yielding earth and looked up at the starry night sky. He never really got used to seeing the galaxy from a different perspective with every new planet he'd been to. This one had a gorgeous view, with practically zero light pollution. If there was any intelligent life on this planet, it was a quiet presence.
Wade considered his options as he pulled his thick, sturdy traversal pants on and laced up his well-worn boots. After that was his re-enforced surveyor's vest, lined with pockets, fitted with gear and stamped with the Wayfarer company logo over one breast. He tugged at the collar as he zipped up, finally feeling in some measure of control. This wasn't the first time he'd had a bumpy landing on an alien world, and his shuttle was definitely salvageable. If he couldn't get it spaceworthy, then his worst case scenario so far was roughing it for a month or so until someone figured out that he hadn't reported back and sent a rescue.
It wasn't ideal, but Larkin tried to tell himself that it might be a welcome change of pace to his last few weeks of idle comfort.
He almost believed himself.
The surveyor's training kicked in as his list of priorities assembled itself in his mind. He had to secure his landing zone and shelter, then locate a source of water and familiarise himself with the surrounding terrain. He had equipment designed to keep him alive, navigation gear and mapmaking hardware. His canteen's auto filters could make damn near anything drinkable, and he had two weeks of rations in his pockets, with way more in the shuttle, potentially limitless if he could get the synthesiser working. The thought of a hot breakfast made his stomach growl.
Larkin's bushy tail twitched as one of the devices at his hip flashed out a warning light. He pulled it loose and checked the alert. It was a comms unit designed to monitor incoming broadcast sources or pre-existing networks, and would be his first warning when someone was finally deployed to come get him. It going off now meant an incoming signal. Something was headed towards him. Something fast.
The Wayfarer company had very strict non-interference policies when it came to indigenous species and societies, and Wade had personal reasons not to be detected by whatever called this place home just yet. He scanned the environment for cover, but beyond the short, soft grass that stretched around him, he couldn't make out a tuft of vegetation or any sort of outcropping. Deciding to flee the crash site, Larkin hoofed it down the inclined terrain until he felt the ground grow steeper beneath him. It looked as though the hill sloped ahead of him into a subtle dropoff. The change in elevation might be enough to give him cover. A quick burst of illumination from his flashlight confirmed that it was a jump of a few feet, which he made easily, the spongy ground absorbing his fall easily.
What the hell was he walking on?
Larkin examined the dropoff from below. There was no sheer or erosion to signify the cause of the elevation change. The surface remained homogenous, simply folding over on itself as if it were the product of a pyroclastic flow. Larkin raised an eyebrow as he brought a hand down to feel the ground. It was yielding, and warm.
Had he landed on the slope of an active volcano? Was there liquid magma beneath him right now, softening the earth he walked on? It still didn't explain the fine, thin grass that grew over and under every inch of his surroundings. He brushed his hands back and forth, tugging at it. It was firmly rooted, but downy and flexible. If he didn't have any better words for it, he would have described it as furry.
Larkin's brief geological survey was interrupted by the soft, warbling hum of something airborne approaching his position. Wade stayed low as a dark shape passed overhead, light emanating from its front and dotting its sides. There was another hum, and then several more, each one at a slightly different frequency. They formed a chorus when they overlapped that the Vestimyr found oddly soothing. The singing, flying objects seem to have arrived in response to his crash landing.
Larkin decided to get a better look. Careful not to puncture anything, he grabbed a handful of rolling terrain and then another. His fingers could’t dig in at all, but it was easy enough to pinch a handful of ground like he was working dough. With two firm handholds, he pulled himself upwards, pushing in his feet to support himself as he climbed back up the rise in order to get a look at what had found his craft.
The flying things were difficult to make out against the dark sky and the blaring bright light that each one shone on the crash site. Larkin counted five light sources, each emanating from some hovering…object about the size of a rain barrel. Smaller lights along their sides let the surveyor make out their general dimensions. They were smooth, sort of a flattened egg shape and seemed capable of moving very quickly. He couldn't discount the possibility of wildlife, but instinct told him that these were machines of some kind.
Larkin stayed in cover as they swept the ground around the crash site, and one let out a whine as it seemed to scan his shuttle, projecting a laser grid pattern across its topology. The group of flying objects clicked amongst themselves, then their beams of light flared intensely.
Larkin watched in horror as entire sections of his shuttle began to peel away into nothing. Its hull glimmered, then evaporated. Layers of shielding were stripped away in an instant and the exposed internals shimmered before boiling away under the pulsing glare of the beam. The flying objects swept the craft and the surrounding area, similarly obliterating any debris while leaving the planet surface untouched. The shuttle was down to its framework in less than a minute and then, it was gone. The slight dip in the ground it's presence had caused was smoothed out, and one of the machines swooped low, becoming more visible as it carefully scanned the ground, humming slightly. It seemed to be checking for damage to the terrain. Satisfied, the smooth, white craft drifted upwards to rejoin its squadron. No trace of the crash, or Larkin's shuttle was left. No smoke or ash or signs of destruction, it was like it had never been there at all.
Three of the flying craft began to move away in branching directions. They were searching the surrounding area. Searching for him.
Larkin ran.
The surveyor’s legs worked hard against the soft planetary surface. It felt like running in sand. He slid down a new embarkment and off another fold in the terrain, dismounting clumsily on his backside. The ground rippled slightly where he landed. There was a hum as another craft passed overhead, but no bright light, no chorus of hums to zero in on his position. Larkin didn't dare to turn on his flashlight, and there was still no sign of any viable cover. Every second he spent out in the open just put him in greater danger.
There was the hum of another incoming flyer. Taking a gamble, the surveyor reached into one of his many pouches and pulled out a swiftly-expanding sheet of thermal cloth. Designed to conserve heat and provide a layer of waterproofing, the reflective, insulatory fabric could also mask vitals from a wide-spectrum scan. Wade squeezed himself into the seam where overhanging ground met the surface below it, and huddled under the blanket. The whizz of the device passed overhead. Larkin's breath slowed, and his rust-red fur stopped standing on end. He had cover, of a sort, though it was quickly growing very sweaty inside of his makeshift blind. The thermal blanket wasn't just trapping his own heat, but the natural temperature emanating from his surroundings. He risked letting the air in on one side to avoid broiling himself and let his head rest against the pillowy landmass he had found himself on. The safest course of action would be to lay low and wait for his pursuers to leave. The exhaustion of his crash landing and swift retreat was creeping up on him all at once, and Larkin found it difficult to keep his eyes open. He let himself relax against the ground. It was oddly comfortable, and the fuzzy growth that carpeted this mountain reminded him of the all-too distant sensation of burying his face in a lover's chest. He felt safe. Safe enough to catch a little sleep...
—
The glimmer of sunlight peeking through his blanket finally woke Larkin up. He blinked the last of the sleep from his eyes and for one blissful moment, forgot where he was and why he was lying on what felt like the comfiest bed he'd ever enjoyed.
Then it all snapped back into focus, and in seconds, he was on his feet, scanning his surroundings.
The revealing light of day confirmed his immediate suspicions. The surface of this strange landmass was featureless, save for its own smooth, curving dimensions. The grass under his feet was a tawny light brown, and fluffier than he remembered. He looked upwards into the sunny blue sky and saw no sign of the flying devices from last night. A few sizable clouds drifted overhead, but aside from that, it seemed like a perfect, sunny day.
Larkin's gaze fell to the horizon, and his eyebrows raised. He must have landed in some sort of mountain range, but the jutting formations around him were like no other he'd ever seen. They all were… round, softly sloped and incredibly bulbous, as though formed by vast volcanic eruptions and rapidly cooled while the lava was still bubbling and flowing. From a distance, he could make out similar vast folds of terrain to the ones he had navigated, though several of these formations seemed dominated by a huge, round swell that formed the shape of each one. Even more curiously, each titanic landmass varied in colour, from dark brown, to purple, to vibrant green to a soft yellow. The exact shade fluctuated across each mountain’s surface, with huge swaths of lighter coloured land taking up the central swell of most of them.
Larkin squinted as he turned and stared at two identical, massive, vaguely spherical orbs in the distance, and the vast, deep valley that ran between them. He suddenly had the distant impression that someone, somewhere was laughing at him.
The surveyor sighed, and tried to get his affairs back in order. With his shuttle gone and the crash site an area of interest for those…things, he had to fall back on his basic priorities. First was to find water, and that meant low ground. Choosing one of the closer mountainous formations to move towards, he set out.
The folds and rolls of terrain gave way to a long, wide expanse after roughly an hour of walking. Getting the sensation that the ground beneath him was beginning to grow steeper, Larkin adjusted his path in an attempt to avoid the major dropoff that was formed by the central, swollen protrusion on the other formations. His hunch proved useful, as the wide, smooth expanse he had traversed met with another swell of terrain, forming a soft crevasse that he was able to navigate safely down to an eventual terminus. The experienced surveyor made sure to keep his feet clear of the deeper, narrow bottom of the rift, as it looked capable of swallowing him whole.
After several hours of hiking and careful navigation of the spongy terrain, Larkin had found a point where the tawny-brown grass of his hill overlapped with a dull yellow one. A new entire landscape, a new entire mountain to climb.
Larkin’s stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since last night. Picking a comfy spot of softness to sit down, the surveyor congratulated himself for his journey with a swig of water and a well-earned ration pack. As he chewed on the mealy, meat-ish flavoured bar, he began to idly stroke the fuzzy yellow growth of the new terrain. It definitely felt like fur. And the soft heat below it was far too reminiscent of flesh.
He tried to think rationally. It couldn't be…
His eyes drifted across the new, yellowish expanse until he started to recognize a pattern. Every several dozen metres, there was a circular dark patch, dotted in the middle with more yellow. It was regular and faint enough to blend into texture at a distance, but up close, was unmistakable. He glanced down at his own rust-coloured fur, and the regular black stripes that ran along his white-tufted tail and extended up his back.
No way.
The thought that he was standing on…no, navigating some sort of megafauna had never occurred to the Vestimyr. It was too big. Nothing could function at that size. Forget Arcturan Goliath Whales, an entire pod of them could swim around in one of these gargantuan creatures. He scratched at the back of his neck, his inner explorer compelling him to investigate. If that huge, central swell on each mountain was what he thought it was, then he had to know for sure.
Carefully picking his way along the seam between these two titanic entities took Larkin the better part of the day, and by the time he stopped for another food and water break, the massive central swell cast a long shadow over him. He kept walking as the fur shifted from yellow to a tawny beige, and the sun was growing low in the sky when he finally reached what he was looking for. Progress had been slow going, and difficult, but after a full day's travel, Larkin had circumvented the exterior of the spotted mass and stood in front of a massive recess in the otherwise unblemished expanse. It was broad, taller and wider than he was, but not very deep. The interior sagged and swelled against itself, puckering away to a tight crevasse a few feet in. It was blown up to a massive degree, but Larkin knew a belly button when he saw one. This…mass. This soft, furry blob whose dimensions could be measured in kilometres had a navel, was alive and a confirmed mammal. Wade pressed against the tawny mass behind him, processing the fact that this was a living creature. The sun was going down, and Larkin had no idea of the perceptive capacities of the flying machines that patrolled this…ecosystem. He had little confidence in travelling at night, so opted to wrap himself in his profile-masking blanket and settle in, resting in the cover of the colossal navel.
—
The first chapter of a longstanding project I've been working on alongside
roundwombo, who is responsible for the delightful cover art for each chapter.Stay tuned for more to come!
Category Story / Fat Furs
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Male
Size 782 x 1012px
File Size 457.7 kB
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