THREE
 
Heat started to build inside of the pod, sweat rolled down his neck and back as a rumble began to shake him. Sensors and cameras showed the thick mass of clouds moments away from consuming his pod. Alice’s pod hit the storm and disappeared, stricken from the sensors as Kon held tight to the handles on his seat. His desperate breathing filled his ears as alarms began to beep right as he hit the surface of the storm.
It was like hitting a wall. A sudden deceleration as he was slammed into his harness as a howl of tortured metal screamed filled the air. Superheated metal vaporized water and a cloud of steam trailed after him. Sensors were screaming as they were overloaded with data and one after another cameras went out. His last camera disappeared as a blue strike of lighting hit the pod and fried the final camera.
“I’m so dead, I’m so dead, I’m so dead, I’m so dead,” Kon chanted as he was forced into just holding on and hoping that the pod didn’t explode into pieces. The instrument panel in front of him showed that Alice’s beacon wasn’t far ahead of him and that the broken shuttle’s beacon had stopped moving.
As sudden as it had hit, the shaking stopped and Kon groaned as the sudden smooth flight gave him a moment of vertigo and his stomach heaved and bile rose in his throat. He pushed his dinner back down as the anit-grav engine fired for a moment and he slammed back into the harness as the pod started to shed velocity.
What few remaining sensors he had were suddenly pouring forth reliable readings and he saw that he was only moments away from a hard landing. He looked over and saw that Alice’s ship had already crash landed, a few kilometers to his West, and then the pod hit the earth.
Blood filled his mouth as he bit his cheek and then the world dissolved as the pod skipped and rolled over the ground. Kon screamed as the shuttle slowed and then came to a complete stop. Kon’s head pointed down toward the ceiling of the pod, which was now the floor. Three times he batted at the button holding the harness together before it finally released and he hardly caught himself before crashing to the ground.
Thump-thump-thump, a series of small charges went off and the back of the pod split away and let Kon see the planet for the first time.
Silver rain slapped the ground and sent bursts of sitting water up in the air, each strike sounded like hail rather than water it struck with such intensity. Dense foliage covered everywhere he looked aside from the trail of carnage the pod had carved across the landscape.
“I’m alive?” Kon asked himself as he struggled out of the wreckage of the pod and stayed right under the overhang of metal before entering the deluge. His mind was foggy, his breathing unstable and he nearly lurched out and into the jungle before turning and remembering the emergency bag and axe. He ripped open the duffel bag and looked inside.
There was the partially emptied first-aid kit which he carefully set to the side. A clean jumpsuit was vacuum sealed and laid down, but Kon was going to save that. Emergency rations, water purifying tablets, and a small canteen were all put off to the side as he pulled the utility belt out and strapped it on. It had a multitude of pouches and holsters that most of the equipment fit on and he quickly filled it.
The last important piece of equipment was a small, gray, metal box. He pried it open while hoping that everything was intact. He sighed in relief as he saw that nothing had broken during the tumultuous flight. A single shot flare gun with three flares, a firestarter, flashlight, and a small tablet. The tablet was the most important piece of gear in the entire duffle bag for him.
With a few quick clicks he quickly brought the system online and carefully worked his way through menus until he found what he was looking for. A beacon tracker. A blue dot appeared on the screen with a distance, six kilometers, and direction. It was the closest beacon keyed to the tablet, there was a second one fourteen kilometers away, but Kon was certain it was the broken apart shuttle.
Everything stuffed into the utility belt or hanging off a latch on it he picked up the much reduced duffel bag and put the axe inside of it after he wrapped the sharp blades in the spare jumpsuit. He couldn’t use it in any meaningful way with how heavy it was, but Knight Roose would like a weapon. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Now prepared, Kon looked at the torrential rain and sighed before launching himself out of the escape pod and toward the thin shelter of the trees. The first drop hit him like a fist and the slick muddy ground nearly sent him sprawling. He pinwheeled for a second before catching his balance and gritted his teeth through the pain as he got underneath the boughs of the trees.
He had been planetside on quite a few planets, but the metallic looking trees were strange to say the least. In the thin light that made it through the storm, he was able to see that the trunks looked mostly like burnished steel. There were threads of what looked like copper or tin or gold through them, melding together like a watercolor painting.
Branches creaked ominous above him and a broad leaf fell to the ground and splattered him in mud as it hit the ground with an audible splat. His curiosity got the better of him and he scooped it up and hissed as the sharp edge split his skin. The stem of the leaf was dull and he held the heavy leaf up to his eye level. It was iron or something similar to it, dark, sharp and heavy.
“This place is weird,” Kon muttered as he tossed the leaf to the ground before looking up above him. Thousands of leaves rustled, any one of them could fall and end him in a moment. He started to run.
The training above the Dragon’s Maw had been mostly physical with some basic weapons and martial arts mixed in. Cadets were supposed to spend years honing their bodies in gravity assisted weight rooms, A.I taught classrooms, and time in simulators learning primary weapons systems. Before one could become a Squire they had to earn that right.
Kon had been a cadet for less than a year. He was in much better shape than he had been when he had transferred to the ship. It still wasn’t enough. Aches and pain started to make their presence known as he ran, fire burned down his throat as he gasped air through his mouth, and his legs began to feel deadweights that only rose with the most extreme of effort.
He stopped at times to check the tablet, correcting his course when needed, and restarting. Every time he stopped it took more effort to start. By the time he got close to Alice’s beacon his feet were dragging in the mud and several leafs had brushed across his back as they fell. Blood now mixed with the sweat and the rain, the salt of his sweat making the thin cuts burn.
The first of the signs of her pod was a long sliver of metal embedded into a tree. Then more and more pieces of metal scattered about and torn apart vegetation. Kon looked at a splintered tree and realized the entire thing wasn’t metal, but rather just the outer layers were, the core of it was still regular wood.
Putting the tablet away he followed the trail of destruction toward where Alice was hopefully at. Kon was caked in mud, from boots to shoulders and he staggered free of the forest and into the clearing of wrecked wood just to watch as Alice staggered out of the crash.
She looked much like she had earlier, covered in blood and exhausted, but the pelting rain didn’t seem to hurt her. Water ran and pulled the tacky blood off of her it and she stood and lifted her remaining arm and waited as the rain cleansed her.
“I can hear you breathing over there. Hope you remembered to bring my axe,” Alice called out, her voice cutting across and over the storm without problem. Kon was still gasping for air and couldn’t formulate a sentence if his life depended on it. He lurched forward and to the edge of the destruction before his legs gave out and he fell.
“That’s embarrassing. Take a few minutes and recover. It’s been a long day. We should have a few minutes before we’re attacked,” Alice said as she started to walk over toward him. Kon picked his head up from the dirt and stared at her incredulously.
“Attacked?” He managed to get out between heaving breaths.
“Oh yes. There’s quite an abundance of rifts about. Can’t you feel the mana density in the air? It's the only reason I’m on my feet,” Alice added the last part under her breath and Kon didn’t think he was supposed to have heard it.
“Have. Axe.” Kon got out as he weakly pulled at the strap on his back. Alice beamed above him, her smile lighting up her wan face. She reached down and plucked the bag off of him and Kon gasped as he was finally relieved of the heavy burden.
An empty bag hit the ground a second later and the hiss of the sharp blade cutting the air came immediately after.
“Good piece of steel. Should be able to hold up when I start really going wild. Pity I lost my armor. You have a tracker? We need to find the rest of the survivors and regroup.” Alice was a barrage of statements and questions while Kon just contemplated how soft and welcoming the mud was.
“ON YOUR FEET, CADET!” Alice roared and muscle memory and a spike of adrenaline got him to his feet, back rigid, as he stood at attention. Alice chuckled darkly as she stared at him.
“I don’t miss those days. Alright, I’m in terrible shape, but you don’t seem to have anything going on besides some basic training. No mana shaping at all? Or enforcement maybe?”
“No, ma’am. I haven’t established a node yet. We were supposed to start on that in the next week or two,” Kon explained.
“That’s not great. Stay behind me and I’ll try to keep whatever is coming toward us from eating you. No promises though. Which way are we heading?”