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  He was too young.

  He’d always scoffed at that, except right now, looking at the harsh snowy landscape he was about to be dropped off into, and he was forced to agree. He wasn’t ready for this.

  A klaxon made him jerk as two lights above the closed boarding ramp started blinking. That was the sign that they were nearly at their destination.

  Darren clenched his teeth. His instincts were all over the place. Part of him was afraid of the unknown, another part was eager to jump into the challenge of it. He was pretty sure the second part came from his parents, for it didn’t seem real. He missed his brothers and sisters, wishing they were here with him, but he was going to have to find them out there, for they were all being dropped at different locations with a simple tracking device to find their way to their destination.

  And there was no going back. The maturia was closed to them now, and on a different planet. He didn’t even know the name of this one. He wasn’t allowed to know, except for the fact that the days of him being trained were over. From here on out he was in charge of his own destiny…for he had to craft it for himself, in concert with his Furyan class, in order to survive out here on their own.

  There was no emergency beacon in his pack. No one looking over his shoulder this time. His trainers had deemed him ready, along with the others, and now that would be put to the test…which meant he could also die out here if he screwed up. And the fear of that was definitely coming from him and not his parents’ genetic legacy.

  Darren glanced down at his bare hands, seeing his skin turning bright yellow. Brighter than it ever had before. That meant a Furyan was vulnerable. At least his body was agreeing with his mind right now.

  It hadn’t always, he remembered as he stood up and walked towards the closed hatch, tugging on his backpack to make sure it was secure. In the beginning of his life his body had pretty much run him, and it wasn’t until his father had showed up and taught him what it meant to be a Furyan did he understand the power that he had to control. Others in Star Force had it easier, and their bodies didn’t run them as much, but for a Furyan it could be very bad if you didn’t learn control. If you didn’t make your body your own and adjust it to fit the person inside. Because like it or not, his parents were far beyond him in skill, experience, and badassery. And his body had been based off theirs, so he was getting a lot of powers he hadn’t earned yet, with even more locked into his genome to be discovered later.

  Thankfully his Rensiek was active, so he had some way to keep warm down there in spite of his light clothes. He’d learned to use it 3 years ago, not thinking it was important. He’d never needed to keep warm in the maturia, for it was indoors. None of the training courses had snow on them, and he’d never really been cold in his life. But the outdoors he was about to enter would be below freezing, and he hoped his Rensiek skills would be good enough to keep him alive.

  Another Klaxon sounded, forcing him to take a step back as it scared him…but not as much as the ramp breaking free from the hull and slowly tilting down with an energy shield separating atmospheres over the aperture, but he could still feel the cold seeping through as he suddenly realized the dropship hadn’t stopped moving and was still flying across the landscape.

  When it tipped down far enough he saw a mountain range pass underneath him, almost close enough to reach out and touch. Darren felt his legs go wobbly, and not from the ship shaking, for it was steady and he felt nothing. He put a hand on the floor to keep from falling over and dropped down on his ankles into a tripoint stance and waited there just inside the shield perimeter as the dropship eventually slowed down over top the peak of a ridge-like mountain.

  “Depart,” a voice said, with Darren swallowing hard as he walked through the shield and onto the ramp, feeling a hard wind hit him that sucked the heat out of his face and hands. He tucked the latter into his pockets and sent a surge of Rensiek through him, steeling himself against temperature changes and letting his natural body heat swell underneath his skin.

  He walked to the end, seeing it was 4 meters over the rocky ground, and took his hands back out again. There was no going back. They had told him that already. There was only forward, afraid or not.

  He had to do this.

  Darren stepped off and dropped, catching his shoes on the uneven rock and dropping into a crouch to slow his fall. He managed to keep control and his balance, standing up as the dropship moved away, pulling up its ramp as it accelerated off into a cloud bank that was dropping more snow on the valley below.

  It wasn’t here yet, and the ground under his feet had no snow on it. Only rock. That meant he was probably higher than the weather would get…or maybe not. Right now he didn’t care as he tucked his hands into his pockets again and telekinetically pulled up his hood and snugged it around his neck so only his face was showing.

  “Ok, Darren. Unless this is some giant training exercise and they’re fooling you, this is real and they really left you here. Temperature is going to be colder up here, so going lower will be warm…less cold,” he corrected, staying put for a moment and looking at the scenery. He was at the very top of this ridge and had an unlimited view all around him for miles. The terrain was rough, and there were no cities here. No outposts. No nothing. Just him and his direction finder, which he wore on his left wrist.

  It pointed to his left along the ridgeline, but he didn’t want to stay up here and try to get across. He’d seen a lot of gaps on the flight here, with crevasses he couldn’t jump across. The only way to travel was up and over or along the bottom of the valleys. Which meant he was going to have to zigzag his way to his destination…unless his flight psionic manifested itself in the next few minutes.

  Darren wasn’t going to hold his breath for that one, and speaking of breath, he was having a hard time breathing up here. Maybe it was the cold, or the altitude, or both, but he needed to go lower…and needed to do it without falling. His body may heal fast, but he didn’t have an unlimited amount of food in his pack.

  And if he lost his pack…

  That wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t let it.

  The wind was steady and hard up here, and his clothes were already soaking in the cold, so he took one last moment to get his bearings…wishing he had a camera to record the layout…then started slowly walking downward and slipping on gravel immediately.

  He caught himself before he fell, and made sure he took extra small steps as he headed for what looked like the least steep descent…but when he got there he found it was a sheer drop down to more rock, so he backtracked and went further down the ridge line until he came to a slope of loose rock that ended in snow below.

  Darren wanted to curse, but his lips were already starting to get numb despite his Rensiek. He took a moment to actually produce some extra heat and spread it out through his body, then he sat down on the rock and began a four limb crab crawl.

  The rocks were cold, and he had no gloves, but he made his hands glow with heat as he moved and it kept his fingers from freezing as every other hand hold moved the rocks, but as long as he had one foot or hand stable he didn’t slide as the storm finally got to him and began to smack snowflakes into his face as they were blown upward towards the heights by the now sharper wind.

  Several slipped into his mouth and melted there, but he didn’t close it. He was breathing hard and had to keep sucking in the thin, cold air in large amounts until he got to the bottom of the slope and his feet finally hit the accumulated snow on the ground.

  But it wasn’t level ground. It was still a slope, and there was no way to keep his footing…so he put both legs out forward and tried to slide under control the rest of the way down to the trees, only making it halfway before his foot caught on something and sent him careening into a tumble, hitting rock underneath and hurting his arms, legs, and back before he finally came to a stop in a snowbank, half burying himself in it on impact.

  Darren didn’t move for a moment, other than to swipe snow away from his mouth. He was h
urt, but not too badly. He held still and used the healing technique he’d been taught, getting his own body moving faster in repair than normal, then he pulled himself upright and sat down in the snow, looking up the mountain he had just come down and not believing he hadn’t been hurt worse.

  He tucked his hands in his pockets again and just sat there, glad to be out of some of the wind as snow continued to fall around him. It got so bad moments later he could barely see two meters in front of him, but Darren knew he had to keep going lower before he tried to set up a camp. He’d barely traveled at all, so he forced himself onto his feet and began to trudge through knee deep snow down through the sparse trees as the mountainside’s drop continued at a more reasonable tilt.

  He slowly moved for what felt like forever before the falling snow stopped and he could finally see again, though the green tree spikes blocked most of his view at a distance. Darren checked his direction finder again, seeing it still led up the ridgeline, but he hadn’t found the bottom yet and he was already shaking with cold.

  He made himself stop again and warm up, knowing his calories were being burned to do it, but he didn’t want to open his pack yet. He wanted to find the bottom first.

  So he kept walking/crawling through the thick snow that made it so hard. His muscles were burning with the effort, but finally he came to a V in the landscape, with what was before him starting back upward again, meaning he had finally found the bottom of the valley.

  And he stepped down through the snow into water beneath it.

  His foot sunk in past his ankle, with the freezing water scaring him as he scrambled to climb out, clawing at the snow as the ice broke in multiple places beneath his feet, soaking both of them before he got back to dirt or rock or whatever it was beneath him that was solid.

  “Shit,” he said, focusing on his Rensiek as it felt like all the warmth in his legs was now gone.

  He looked around for a flat spot that wasn’t in the center where the water had to be, and began pushing snow away with his hands and arms, as well as using his telekinesis to help, until he had a patch of hard dirt showing up next to a tree trunk thicker than he was.

  Darren pulled off his backpack, making sure to keep one hand on it at all times for fear of losing it, and pulled out the small tent capsule. He twisted the cap on the 8-inch long tube and set it on the ground, letting it unfold itself into a triangular tunnel, then crawled inside and sealed the flap-like door, triggering it to turn solid but with a mesh-like air vent in a strip near the peak.

  He pulled out a small heater and hung it from the roof, which was so low he couldn’t stand up, but right now he didn’t care. He was out of the wind and back inside some semblance of civilization as the heater turned on and began warming up his small refuge as he peeled his shoes and socks off, with both dripping water on the slightly soft floor.

  He grunted and begrudgingly opened the door again…then squeezed out as much water from his socks as possible, then telekinetically did the same thing to his shoes, getting a little more out of those than he thought was in them before bringing his gear back inside and quickly closing the door again and wishing the heater would work faster.

  Darren realized he was starving, so he pulled out four ration bars and downed them all faster than he thought possible. He had no water, but there was snow outside and he got a cup of it, then melted it with a hot finger until it was no longer cold. He drank it down then curled up on the floor with his bare feet feeling warmer now than they had been in his shoes. His heater was doing its job well.

  “You made it through day one,” he told himself. “Day two will take care of itself.”

  He wrapped his arms around himself in lieu of a blanket, wishing he was back in his maturia bed. He was alone and afraid, but part of him was loving this. He guessed it was the freedom of it, and focused on that sensation rather than the fear. If he had his parent’s habits and tendencies in him, he might as well use them right now. Otherwise he was just going to be a ball of fear.

  And that wasn’t going to help him.

  Darren ate one more ration bar, then with the tent fully heated, he let himself rest for a bit and fell asleep far faster than he expected…

  5

  December 15, 158399

  Toyland System (Vinshen Kingdom)

  Terapye

  Darren had been walking through the valley floors, up and over ridgelines, and having to backtrack a half dozen times when he came to impassible terrain over the past three days, all the while following the direction finder that gave him no idea of the distance he needed to travel. His supplies were three quarters gone and he was beginning to worry about running out, though his other worries had since faded away.

  He was able to move through the snow and rocky terrain with predictability now, and after his first night he no longer feared being alone. That first emotional day had been rough, but now it was like his genetic legacy was kicking in and he felt a confidence he didn’t think he truly deserved.

  That was normal, though. Feeling and thinking things that he didn’t ever remember learning. Maybe he did and he just forgot, but the challenge of what was before him was satisfying as he covered ground towards his unknown objective…but the dwindling food was not something he could brave his way through.

  There wasn’t anything visible up here to eat, and even if he did find some local wildlife he wasn’t going to eat them. Those that did were referred to as ‘feral,’ and it was the polar opposite of civilization…rather a failure of civilization, but something that all races seemed to have the potential to devolve into if all else failed. No Furyan had ever gone feral, but they’d been warned that there were instincts in them that could be awakened that would put them in that state if they embraced them, and Darren was not going to start down that path. Nor could he kill someone else, no matter how primitive, on purpose. But what if he found a dead one just lying there?

  No. He’d push through with no food if he had to. This was all planned, so they weren’t going to have to starve to death…unless there was a way to find food out here and they had to discover it? That would be like the trainers, so as Darren walked he considered what could be eaten out here.

  With all the snow, roots were the best option if this area had a summer season. If it didn’t, then there probably wasn’t going to be anything to eat unless you could digest cellulose, and that was one psionic that he didn’t have unlocked. Why he didn’t know, for it would have been useful to eat the spiky green leaves, but without that particular digestive enzyme the calories in them wouldn’t be accessible, only minerals, vitamins, and other stuff that were useful but couldn’t be used as energy.

  People who lived in these environments either could digest cellulose, which most plants’ structures were built on, or they killed and ate those who did. But with civilization you had another option, and in his pack was a piece of a larger machine that was useless to him now, and he suspected it would combine with those of the others to give them the ability to manufacture food out here.

  At least he hoped. He couldn’t identify what it was, but if they were to live out here without getting resupply, they’d have to make their own food…or he’d have to learn something about this environment he didn’t know. All he did know at the moment was the direction he needed to move towards, but the dwindling supplies in his pack was not something he could completely ignore.

  The tracker was pointed in a straight line, but the terrain was not so straight and veered to the right again. That meant he had to go up and over or hope the valley turned left later. He didn’t have time to go out of his way again on that hope, so he started climbing with heavy steps as he sensed another storm coming.

  Darren decided not to wait it out, wanting to get up to the top before he got another foot of snow to deal with. Sliding down the snow was far easier than trudging up through it, so he pressed on and got blanketed in white just before he got to the bare rock up top and actually climbed above the clouds that were dumping the preci
pitation.

  And up here it was actually sunny. Cold, but sunny. He traveled a bit further to the peak and posed there, looking back at the storm in the valley he had come from that obscured it like a fog, and then at the other side which had no storm…at least not yet. He was on an extra high spot, and further down the way he had come he could see it start to spill over a lower section.

  It was going to work its way back to him, he guessed, so he didn’t waste time and started to descend carefully, trying to avoid a cliff that would make him backtrack again as he raced the snowstorm to get to the bottom.

  He didn’t win, but he did make it into the trees as the snow started to blow, and he found a large one that he pushed the snow away from the base of, piling it up in a wall on either side in a V-shape with the trunk at the center. In the triangular clearing he set up his tent and dove inside as the heavy snow began to pile up…then reached a cup back out to scoop some in before sealing his tent up for what would probably be another few hours.

  Darren warmed the snow with his heater, refusing to burn more calories to do it with his finger, and added some chocolate-flavored powder that was very high in sugar. He mixed it in and sucked it down slowly after it was warm enough, feeling both the heat and the calories as a welcome relief.

  He had 3 packets left, 8 ration bars, and 4 vitamin bricks. Two days, he guessed, if he spaced them out. Then he’d be out of fuel and couldn’t keep walking very far on the limited fat stored in his body.

  Darren checked his direction finder again, wondering if it was broken, but it kept pointing the same direction up this valley and across it. Wherever he was going, he needed to get there soon.

  After the snow stopped falling he climbed out, having to push it off the door as he’d gotten not one foot, but at least two feet of new snow on top of what was already there.

  “Shit,” he said, knowing that was going to make the travel even slower and more energy consuming, but there was only one way to go now, and that was forward, so he packed up his tent and began climbing through the hip-deep snow as he luckily descended through the forest.