Chapter 83 - Day 66 - Fracture Point
Chapter 83 - Day 66 - Fracture Point
“A man’s gifts are his gifts, and his natur’ is his natur’. I’m a hunter, and a warrior, and a scout, and can be a guide, but I’m not a ruler of settlements or a palaverer in councils.”
— James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans
They spilled out of the portal’s green light into the damp undergrowth, and there it was, the Specter, drifting free in the rain. Luca should’ve spotted it through the viewport, but his head was pounding too hard and his vision kept swimming. The tether had snapped the moment they’d driven into the portal; now their little hovercraft bobbed a meter off the ground, its lights muted in the gathering storm.
“Shit,” Ryan muttered, opening the back ramp. Shoulders squared, he shot Emily a look. She was already unclipping her pack. “I’ve got the line. Emily, you ready?”
She clicked on her tool belt and thumbed open the hatch again. “On it,” she said, voice steady. “I’ll climb up and hook it while you winch it down.”
Luca’s ribs flared with pain, but he didn’t argue. He was useless right now, half-conscious, clutching at his chest, migraine slicing through his temples. So he sat back against his seat, biting back the urge to collapse, and prayed they wouldn’t need him for more than a minute.
Rain spat against them as they climbed out, tether in hand. The Specter bobbed in the air, but Ryan hauled it in fast. Within seconds, the line tightened, the hovercraft swayed, and the Peregrine’s winch re-locked it in place.
“Nice work,” Luca rasped at Ryan. “Gonna ride the hovercraft back, or still saving that for special occasions?”
Ryan shot him a look. “Dude, it’s pouring outside. No hovercraft joyrides today.”
Guess we were all tired.
The portal shut behind them with a low, seismic thrum. It had a forty-eight-hour cooldown, and no mobs would come out of this one, at least. There was just wet forest, red-leaf trees, and too many hours of bruises and blaster fire still echoing in Luca’s bones.
Chris was driving like a fucking maniac.
“Did you try to hit that root?” Luca asked, getting whiplash for the tenth time in as many minutes. He was ninety-percent bandage, ten-percent pain at this point, and he was pretty sure Chris was trying to reopen his wound.
“Obstacle avoidance training,” Chris said dryly. “Joey cleared me this morning, so you could thank me.”
Joey winced up front as they went over another bump. “My spleen’s gonna file a formal complaint.”
Rain hammered the windshield, like the planet was pissed and taking it out on them. Everything outside was a blurry mess, gray sky, red trees all dark and soggy, branches flailing around in the wind. New Dawn: New Problems. They should’ve called it that.
Luca was in the back, half-mummified, half-conscious, recovering from the whole “almost died from alien venom” thing. Emily leaned against his good shoulder, and yeah, her hair smelled like some floral shampoo miracle. He didn’t even care what it was. He’d snort it like a drug if she offered. She was warm and steady and real, and heavy enough to ground him. She almost made the nightmares shut the hell up.
The Vireling wound was healing. It still throbbed, though, and hurt like a bitch.
Chris clipped another rock on purpose. Ryan turned from his seat with that smug grin of his. “For the record, your driving was worse.”
Luca flipped him off. “Yeah? At least I didn’t try to reopen my chest cavity with every fucking pothole.”
In the rear compartment, Danny was shaking one of their sample containers with the flower petals. Zoe was right next to him, a little too comfortable, her legs crossed, flipping through the loot manifest like she was ordering lingerie. Luca caught her smirking at something, probably a new infiltration toy.
Lightning lit up the world. For a second, the red-leaf forest went white, everything sharp and frozen in place. It was beautiful in that oh-fuck-we-might-die kind of way.
Luca should’ve been relaxing. They’d survived. Everyone was alive. And the loot? TL9 gear, real top-shelf stuff. That should’ve been a win.
But his stomach was still in knots.
Every day was a ticking time bomb. The whole damn place was shifting. The System was reacting. And Luca knew what came next: shitstorm.
You fuck around long enough, you find out.
Danny leaned forward from where he was strapped in behind Luca and jabbed him in the shoulder. “You could at least pretend to look excited. You look like someone pissed in your nutrient bar.”
Luca didn’t look up. “We’re behind schedule.”
Ryan groaned. “Oh god. Here we go.”
Luca ignored him. “We’ve spent three weeks on New Dawn. Day sixty-six since we left the Genesis Platform. Out of a hundred and eighty. And we haven’t even touched the other planets. We’re still surveying. Still fighting. Now stuck with mobs spawning everywhere.”
From the back, Zoe chimed in like she’d been waiting. “You mean mobs you helped spawn?”
Luca could feel Emily smiling against his shoulder without even turning. “And who was it that wanted to open that portal first? Who said, what was it, ‘We’re not here to set off a chain reaction we can’t control?’”
Fucking traitors, all of them.
Ryan swiveled in his seat like he was moderating a debate show. “To be fair, it was worth it. Level-ups? XP out the ass?”
Zoe kicked the back of his seat lightly. “We got mutated spiders, psycho ferret-things, glowing acid virelings, and oh, your ass getting flung off a walkway. Let’s not forget that.”
“Battle scars,” Ryan said, brushing a hand over his not-quite-healed shoulder. “Chicks dig them.”
Emily snorted. “You mean having me drag you out of the dirt while Danny screamed about losing fusion-pollinators?”
Danny threw his hands up. “That greenhouse was irreplaceable! Do you know how much data we could’ve studied?”
Luca finally turned, snapping a little. “Do we have enough data to leave the damn planet?”
That shut them up.
He pulled up the company interface, needing to see the numbers that would settle this once and for all.
[Triumph Initiative - Adventuring Company]
Company Overview Level: 1
Designation: Survey and Exploration
Membership: 7 / 100
Contribution Points: 418,025 / 600,000
Credits: 100,000,000
Tax Rate: 0%
Affiliation: Interstellar Frontier Company (IFC)>
Assets:
Triumph of Darron - Exploration Vessel, Helios Class Mk-I
Percival - Orbit-to-Surface Dropship, Heavy Transport Class
Peregrine - Light Combat Vehicle, Reconnaissance Class
[Expand for complete list...]>
Officers:
Company Leader: Luca Rossi – Level 65 – Starship Commander
Mission Control: Emily Berrow – Level 65 – Operations Executive
Science Officer: Danny Donahue – Level 65 – United Theorist
Medical Officer: Joey Donahue – Level 65 – Clinical Strategist
Quartermaster: Ryan Mitchell – Level 65 – Integrated Engineer
Exploration Officer: Zoe Woods – Level 65 – Spatial Analyst
Field Operations Officer: Chris Valtz – Level 65 – Tactical Systems Engineer>
Objectives:
Recruit 20 members to establish permanent headquarters – [Pending]
Complete missions to advance Company Level – [In Progress]
Define contribution objectives – [Pending]>
Contracts & Charters:
[Charter Activated: Alpha Centauri Survey Expedition]
Pre-Requisites: FTL-Capable Vessel [Complete]
Mission Checkpoints: Depart Sol System with a qualified crew - [Complete]
Arrive in Alpha Centauri - [Complete]
Map all planetary bodies and major asteroid fields - [64/? Mapped]
Conduct surface surveys on habitable zone planet - [1/? Mapped]
Return with verifiable data - [Pending]
Reward: See Mission Compensation Table.
That confirmed it, they were done, even though Emily’s objectives were still short. She’d gone overboard with the numbers when she set their objectives.
[SURVEY PROGRESS UPDATED]
[Objective: Water Source Survey] (31/40)
[Objective: Collect Core Samples] (12/12) - COMPLETE
[Objective: Alien Biosignature Detection] (40/40) - COMPLETE
[Objective: Flora Sample Collection] (150/150) - COMPLETE
[Objective: Fauna Sample Collection] (67/75)
Luca stared at the floating display for a long moment, then dismissed it.
The numbers didn’t lie. They were done, technically, officially, completely done with New Dawn’s survey requirements. The weight of that hit him physically. All the stress, the constant pressure and the ticking clock in his head had been for nothing. They’d already succeeded.
His shoulders sagged. The tension he’d been carrying for weeks evaporated. It left him hollow and drained, like someone had pulled a plug and let all his anxiety out at once.
“We’re done,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “We’re actually done.”
“Yeah. Technically? We are,” Danny said behind him, like Luca hadn’t just verbally slapped the whole cabin. “Air’s breathable, water’s stable, gravity within optimal variance. Zero long-term pathogens. The soil supports Earth crops. We’ve logged over two hundred species of fauna and flora, and the environmental modeling has been consistent.”
Danny shot a look at Joey, who gave a silent thumbs-up from the co-pilot seat.
Danny continued, “New Dawn hits every marker for the Habitable World part of the mission charter. We just need to confirm the signal origin.”
Out there, past more portals and more monster spawns, past the point where the wildlife had decided evolution wasn’t moving fast enough and hit the gas, was the persistent signal that had started this whole planetary side-quest. And they couldn’t ignore it.
It was part of the charter, part of the payout, part of the reason they were still fucking around down here.
Luca leaned his head back, sighing through clenched teeth. “We still don’t have full armor coverage. I just need the Tactical Vest and the Gauntlets.” He lifted his head and said it louder. “We should’ve brought backups.”
Backups wouldn’t have helped anyway.
What the fuck were backups gonna do? They were underclassed and out-leveled, burned and bitten, and twelve pieces of armor short of not dying horribly. They’d come to New Dawn thinking they were hot shit in TL8 gear, and now the System was laughing in their faces.
Danny shrugged like the universe had taught him Zen. “Hindsight’s 20/20.”
Ryan checked his PAC, swiping through what was probably their painfully incomplete loot manifest. “We need more than that. Emily and Chris are still in their old gear, and you’re two pieces short. We’re not fully equipped for anything higher than Level 64.”
Another pothole rocked the vehicle. Emily’s head bounced against Luca’s shoulder.
Ryan kept going. “We all need full sets. If higher-level portals exist on the other planets, and you know they do, we need to be ready before the next spike. Better we gear now while we still can.”
Luca didn’t respond. He stared through the rain-streaked viewport as lightning danced in the distance like the sky was flipping them off.
What the hell had they done?
Chris grunted from the front. “We’re five minutes out. There’s a big rock formation ahead, and I think it’s dry. Looks like a good place to stop.”
Luca squinted. Out there, rising up from the soggy hellscape was a jagged, looming hulk of stone. It was black and sharp and definitely unfriendly, but dry, towering like a fortress over the valley.
Even he had to admit it, yeah. It looked like a good spot to park their collective trauma.
Emily’s voice was soft in his ear. “See? Not every day has to be a disaster.”
The next jolt shook the whole cabin. Luca barely kept from biting his tongue.
The Peregrine came to a crawl beneath the overhang, its shielding flickering once before stabilizing against the jagged stone. The rain, which had been hitting the roof relentlessly for the past few hours, finally stopped.
Chris killed the engine. The silence that followed was almost startling.
The back hatch hissed open.
Everyone moved like they were two hundred years old. Zoe groaned as she stepped into the shelter, her spine popping loud enough to make Luca wince.
“I swear this planet’s terrain has it out for my spine,” she muttered.
“Same,” Danny grunted as he dropped down beside her, decked out in his shiny new Juggernaut armor. The thing hissed like it had asthma every time he moved. “And that was with power assistance.”
Joey followed with Chris, then Emily. Ryan came out behind them, all smug and limber, and cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders and did the whole Look at me, I survived another hellstorm routine.
Luca stepped out last.
The sky was gray, and the red trees were fading to muted slate. The overhang rose above them like a half-buried crescent moon, and around them, the forest was a mess, whistling rain and distant thunder.
Chris tapped the perimeter shield, and it shimmered out around them. It was enough to pretend they were safe, and it wouldn’t stop a pissed-off caterpillar on New Dawn, let alone whatever was leveling up out there now.
“Right,” Ryan said, clapping his gloved hands. “Let’s find something burnable.”
Danny looked around the soaked clearing with a frown. “You mean... in this mess?”
Ryan pointed at the far tree line. “You’re in the armor. You’re pulling.” The Specter hovercraft was still tethered to the Peregrine’s undercarriage. Ryan untethered it and got inside.
“Don’t kill us,” Chris called, already halfway into a ration bar.
Ryan winked and spun the throttle, the asshole.
Danny stomped after him like a very angry mech suit, each step thudding with a servo-assisted grunt. “You drive, I’ll pick.”
“Deal,” Ryan said with a grin. “And no, we’re not towing the whole forest.”
The hovercraft screamed to life, lifted above the mud, and shot off into the tree line.
The rest of them stayed under the overhang, waiting.
They’d opened a portal. They’d triggered the System. They’d activated the mobs. And sure, they’d gotten XP, armor, loot, TL9 gear out of it. But what had they lost?
Luca knew the answer. He was the answer. They’d lost control, the schedule, order and time, the one fucking thing he could never get back, the one thing they didn’t have enough of to begin with.
They were twenty days into New Dawn and sixty-six into the voyage. They were meant to scout and survey, not bunker down, fight tooth and nail, and pray the next dungeon wouldn’t wipe someone out.
Wind howled through the valley. The shield shimmered. Luca adjusted his bandages under his bodysuit and said nothing.
A distant whine echoed through the canopy.
Something snapped with a massive crack.
It crashed into view, bark shredding off in chunks as it skidded down the slope. A half-rotted tree, fucking enormous, dragged behind the Specter. Danny was holding it upright with both hands like he was at the Olympics. Ryan zipped circles around him in the hovercraft, running the winch line like it was a damn sport.
“Told you I’d find one!” Ryan shouted, grinning ear to ear.
Danny dropped it with a ground-shaking thud just under the shelter’s lip.
Chris blinked. “We’re gonna burn that?”
“Damn right we are,” Danny said, brushing tree bark off his armor. “Or die trying.”
Ryan hopped off the Specter, yanked the plasma torch off his belt, and tossed it like a mic drop. “Let’s get this fire going.”
Ryan was still trying to intimidate the tree into catching fire, wrestling the plasma torch like it had personally offended him. Blue flame sputtered against soaked bark while he muttered curses under his breath like that’d change the laws of thermodynamics.
“It’s not catching,” he growled.
Chris didn’t even look up. “That’s because it’s soaked.”
“I know it’s soaked. I’m trying to un-soak it.”
“You’re burning the bark, not the wood.”
Ryan turned to him, torch flaring uselessly. “Is there a difference?”
“Yes,” Chris said, in a tone that could’ve been printed on a sign that read Idiot Detected.
Emily was in her throne, a folding camp chair, arms crossed, legs tucked under a blanket, watching the whole disaster like it was the evening’s entertainment. She smirked, lips twitching, trying real hard not to laugh.
Luca was done watching.
The scout suit was tighter than he remembered. It was Level 48 gear, the spare, the one he hadn’t worn since he was seventeen and a few centimeters narrower through the chest. His legs had filled out since then, more running, more fighting, more everything, and now the suit fit more like a compression sock. Every time he moved, he felt a little ridiculous and a lot exposed.
It was still better than walking out there naked. Waterproof, right?
Luca pulled his plasma sniper from the weapons rack and slung it over his shoulder. The weight felt good and familiar. He popped open the suit’s cell slot and slid in a Power Cell. They were low on the regular Energy Cells, but the TL9 Power Cells ran cleaner, hotter, longer. The HUD blinked to life inside the helmet. It was the older interface, dimmer than the new stuff, but it worked.
Emily shot him a look, eyes sharp under that lazy smirk. “Where are you going?”
She was lounging, hair pulled back, looking about as relaxed as anyone could after three weeks of near-death scenarios.
Luca didn’t quite meet her eye. “Hunting,” he muttered. “Need some air.”
She tilted her head but didn’t press. She nodded.
Luca stepped past Ryan and Danny, who were still playing Survivor: Wet Wood Edition, and headed toward the Specter. It sat a few meters away, hovering thirty centimeters off the mud, repulsors low and steady.
Zoe’s voice dropped in from above.
“Can I come?”
Luca stopped.
She was perched on the Peregrine’s roof like some kind of sniper gargoyle, legs swinging, rifle across her lap. Her visor was up, her face unreadable in the gray dusk.
He thought about it.
“No,” he said. “I just... need some air. I’ll be back soon.”
She didn’t argue. She gave him a small, almost understanding nod.
Ryan stood up, mud stuck to his gloves. “Careful with the accelerator,” he called out. “The Specter kicks harder than it looks.”
Luca shot him a look over his shoulder. “Thanks, Dad.”
“I’m serious,” Ryan said, grinning. “The repulsors bite if you’re not lined up clean.”
Yeah. So do I.