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I will not let that sharp little voice in my headspace be right.
CHAPTERFIVE
Brooks
Plan B, Plan B.
I wish I could remember the damn direction of the stream, because if it flows away from the base, I don’t need a Plan B. Just as my big green friend said, I can follow it to a river. Fish.
I can recall the basics of making nets, poles. My survival classes were a long time ago, and for environments vastly different to this forest, but I can improvise. Improvisation was always one of my stronger skills. Not every commander saw that as an asset, but the better ones did.
A flash of memory. Standing before a panel of commanders - men I’d only heard talked about, never met - all of them staring hard at me, as if they could see through to my soul. Me standing ramrod straight, bearing it all. The sense that I had to do well.
A selection process? Or a disciplinary?
But before I can get a true hold on it, the memory slips away, my mind no more able to grasp it than my fingers can grip the water of the stream.
The stream that feels every bit as real in this dream world as it does in real life. Cold and crisp where it flows over my fingers.
I rise to my feet, shaking my hand and wiping it down on my trousers. The coarse material abrades my skin. A beam of sunlight kisses the back of my neck. Wind tickles through my hair.
All of it far too vivid for a normal dream.
Which begs the question once again - what the fuck did Mercenia pump me full of before shoving me in cryostasis? And is it responsible for the gaps in my memory?
I wish I could remember what we were doing here on this alien world. Research. But research of what? Hallucinogenic plants? Some sort of dream manipulation?
I probably wasn’t ever privy to that information. Mercenia operates on a very ‘need to know’ basis, and as a grunt on the protection detail, I likely only ever knew the part I can remember - protect the research team. Protect the scientists like that woman in the cryostasis chamber.
Did I put her in cryostasis? Was that protecting her, protecting myself?
Questions. So many questions, and no answers rising up out of the void in my head. Just shadows, impressions of memories that, no matter how hard I focus on them, won’t solidify. Won’t take shape.
“It’s a diversion,” I remind myself out loud. “A distraction. What happened doesn’t matter. Eating does.”
“What happened?” my green friend says. “What do you speak of, linasha?”
That word again. I’ve given my subconscious that hostile’s face and put that word back on his lips.
“Useful things only,” I remind him, and myself.
“Or be quiet,” he responds, grinning.
He looks more human when he grins like that. Not in any physical sense. He’s still big and green and alien looking. But he feels more human. It’s just more projection. Putting human expressions on his alien face. Psych eval would probably have a lot to say about all this.
I drag my thoughts back in to line, try to focus on the immediate problems.
Snares, I think. We were taught to make snares to trap food. For the possible scenarios where we were stranded, out of MREs and far from help or civilisation. Not that anyone I ever knew had been in that kind of situation, but Mercenia likes to prepare for all eventualities.
And I’m in that kind of situation now, so I guess they were right to. But the years between me and those lessons don’t make it easy.
“Snares,” I say.
I don’t normally think out loud, but I have a sounding board. May as well use him. It. Him. Whatever.
“The thinner vines make for good snares,” my alien subconscious says.
I look up at the tree trunks. I don’t recall seeing any vines earlier, but it was dark. It would make sense for there to be some in a landscape like this, though.
