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  When he got to the bottom he followed the valley without getting in the center where there might be a river, and got to a thinner area of snow where he decided to try and cross…which apparently had not been an original idea, for he found fresh tracks in the snow going across that very spot.

  Fresh tracks and a breakthrough into the water, which told him where not to step. He came up to the hole, saw it was only a few inches deep, and gathered himself for a jump across. His legs were tired, but he managed the two legged hop to the other side, hearing the ice crunch underneath his feet on landing, but apparently there was no water beneath.

  He followed in the tracks, wondering whose they were, as they were headed where his direction finder was pointing him…but they’d come from over the ridgeline here, meaning whoever this was had been deposited not in the exact area as him, but close.

  Darren couldn’t feel anyone yet, but as he made better time using the other person’s tracks, eventually he felt one of his brothers up ahead. He didn’t have telepathy yet, but he could sense them regardless. Not a name, just a sort of buzz that he felt whenever around them but not the trainers, and it only worked if they were within 300 meters or so.

  He accelerated his pace, not caring about calories right now, and tried to catch up enough to see who was ahead of him. Fortunately that person also sensed him and stopped, with him finally seeing the hooded figure of Neiva waving at him in a snow drift as high as her chest.

  “Hey!” she shouted, walking back a few steps then waiting on him.

  “Hey!” he said, partially out of breath as he caught up and put his hands on his knees for a moment. “You’re the first I’ve seen.”

  “Same here,” she said. “How long have you been following me?”

  “Since the water,” he said, looking down towards her feet. “You soaked?”

  “Yes, damn it. And I’m hungry enough without having to use Rensiek again. How are you with food?”

  “Not much left. Two days tops.”

  “Better than me. I’ve got a day’s left. Did they tell you where we were going?”

  “Nope. Total silence. They just said follow the direction finder.”

  “Same. At least we can make tracks for each other now. Care to take a turn?”

  Darren starred at her warily. “I just ran to catch up to you.”

  “Oh, right. You want to take a break?”

  “Can’t if you’ve only got a day of food left. Keep going and I’ll switch out when I get my strength back.”

  “Deal,” she said, turning and plowing into the drift, punching through part of it until she got to the other side and the snow was only knee deep. “No joke about me falling in the water?”

  “I did the first day. Been scanning the low areas with Pefbar ever since.”

  “I didn’t even think to. I’ve been on the peaks the whole time.”

  “Really? How’d you get by the gaps?”

  “I jumped. They weren’t that big.”

  “Mine were. And Pefbar only lets you know where the water is, not where the ice will break. Are your feet freezing?”

  “Trying not to think about it. I was hoping the physical effort of moving through the snow would warm them, but I think I’m going to have to use Rensiek pretty soon.”

  “Don’t wait too long. Actually, stop,” he said, kicking the snow aside to make a small gap behind her. “Take your shoes off and I’ll get the water out of them. You do your socks.”

  “And stand in the snow? No thanks.”

  “One foot at a time then. The water will soak up heat from your Rensiek and waste it.”

  “Good point,” she said, pulling up her right foot and sticking it in front of him. “All yours.”

  Darren knelt down and pulled her shoe off, then her sock as she stood on one foot, passing the sock to her as he dealt with the more stubborn shoe, twisting and wringing it physically to get a few drops out, then he used a telekinetic trick he’d learned from his own misfortune and got a little rivulet to fall into the snow.

  Neiva got a lot more out of the sock as her blue foot got yellower and yellower in the cold.

  “Did your skin go back blue the second day too?” Darren asked as she put her less wet sock back on and he handed her the shoe.

  “Yeah. The snow is just annoying now,” she said, standing on her reshoed foot again. “That does feel better.”

  “Other one,” he said, with her giving him her left foot as they repeated the process.

  “How long do you think we have to stay out here?”

  “I got the impression we have to live out here. The question is if there’s a building where we’re going or just a camp site.”

  “And do what?”

  “No clue. But it’s going to be fun.”

  “Fun?” she said, wringing the sock extra hard as she said the word. “You call this cold fun?”

  “Not the cold. But have they ever given us something boring to do?”

  “Yeah, it’s called training.”

  “They’re not sending us out here to stagnate to death. They’ve got something planned. Something big.”

  “That’s not the impression I got,” she said, putting her sock and shoe back on, then closing her eyes for a moment as she surged heat into both feet, but only as much as she felt was needed. “No point in guessing. We’ll find out when we get there.”

  “Wherever that is,” Darren echoed.

  “It’s on the other side of the far ridge.”

  “What? How do you know that?”

  “I saw a clearing from the top,” she said, pointing to the ridgeline further ahead than Darren had passed over. “That’s why I came down rather than staying up there.”

  “Two ridges to go?” he clarified.

  “Yeah. Sort of a plateau. Not in the valley bottom. Direction finder pointed right at it. Maybe it’s a way point, but it’s where we’re going. I’m sure of it.”

  “Two ridges to cross in a day,” he said, cringing.

  “Waiting will only burn more calories.”

  “How about we get up this one and find a spot to take a break at the top. You’ve been sleeping up there, haven’t you?”

  “You have to pick the right spot so you don’t get blown over, but yeah, why?”

  “We put up one of our tents, squeeze in together, get out of these jackets, and share some body heat for a couple of hours.”

  “Sounds good, but it’s still burning calories we don’t have to spare.”

  “Killjoy,” he grunted. “Alright, on we go.”

  Darren and Nieva alternated twice going up the ridge, which was her first time doing so, after which she changed her mind about stopping and taking a nap. An hour and a half later they packed up and headed down unable to see over the next ridge to where the clearing was supposed to be. They kept moving all night long, using their Pefbar to navigate in turns, and got to the top of the next ridgeline just as the sun started to rise.

  And there, on the far side up about halfway, was an area with no trees, the ground was level, and they could see a few small tents set up around what looked like an obelisk made out of blue stone.

  “Told you,” Neiva said, pulling out her last ration bar and gobbling it. “5 minute break?”

  “Deal,” he said, sitting down on the rocky ground at the top and soaking in the first rays of sunlight on his face. “You gotta admit, the scenery is pretty good. Different than the holo environments.”

  “Yeah. Makes the galaxy feel bigger when you’re out here. Maybe that’s why they sent us.”

  “Hopefully someone will know something when we get there,” Darren said. “And I’m guessing that big blue rock has something to do with it.”

  “Please not be any more training.”

  Darren and Neiva sat a few more minutes recharging their legs, then began the descent as eagerly as they could manage. When they got to the bottom they managed to get across the much wider river there without breaking through the ice, but didn’t
come across any other tracks until they were almost to the plateau and the buzz in their minds increased considerably.

  “Hello there?” Neiva called out as they climbed the rather steep side that had some trees growing out of it.

  “Come on up,” someone said before appearing over the edge and giving them a telekinetic tug to make it easier. “You out of food yet?” Leni asked.

  “I am, he’s not,” Neiva said, getting her foot on the flat ground and making one final push to get the rest of her body up. “Ah…don’t want to do that again.”

  “Same here,” Leni said, helping Darren up with a physical hand. “You two dropped together?”

  “No, we met up yesterday,” Darren said, looking around. “How many are here?”

  “14, now 16 counting you two.”

  “Please tell me there’s food,” Neiva pleaded.

  “Big crate over there,” Leni said, thumbing behind her.

  “Thank you,” Neiva said, running across the smooth snow towards it.

  “Any instructions?” Darren asked, staying with Leni.

  “There’s a check-in at the obelisk. We all have to get here and log in to get our next directions.”

  “Is that what we’ve been tracking?”

  “Yep. It’s a holo terminal, we think. Extra supplies were at the base of it when Veer got here.”

  “He was first?”

  “Yeah. Says he was here a day before anyone else. We’ve been trying to plot our drop off points, and it looks like we weren’t all set down at the same distance. Some were further than others.”

  “Well that’s not fair,” Darren grumbled. “No trainers though?”

  “No. Just us, for once. It’s cold, but I like it. I got to sleep in for the first time in my life.”

  “No showers though?”

  “Sorry. Just gotta live with the stink unless you want to ice bathe.”

  Darren shuttered at the thought. “No thanks. Anybody tried to start a fire?”

  “We have extra batteries for the tent heaters.”

  “Is that a no?”

  “What are we going to burn?”

  “Trees have sticks. Find some under the snow.”

  “Why? Just go inside your tent.”

  “Because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when camping?”

  “Says who?”

  “All those movies.”

  “Hey, if you want to try, knock yourself out. But I’m not going around looking for sticks buried in the snow.”

  “Later,” he said, ignoring her and following Neiva’s tracks toward where the extra food was.

  “What’s the point?” Leni asked his back.

  “Because we can and I feel like burning something,” he yelled. “And there’s nobody here to tell me I can’t.”

  Leni blinked. “Oh. Well now…when you put it that way…yeah, I kinda want to make a fire too,” she relented. “Where’s the best place to look for sticks?”

  6

  The next day most of the others arrived, with the last showing up two days after that already having run out of food and barely dragging themselves in, but everyone made it. Darren and the others spent a few hours warming up around the three bonfires they had going and eating their fill as darkness fell, but rather than wait for morning they all decided to see what the obelisk had to say now.

  Each of them placed a hand on it, registering their identity, and when all were simultaneously touching, it began to glow and a hologram twice their height appeared standing to the west of it and looking away. All of the Furyans walked around to the far side so they could face it, seeing it was Greg-073, their father.

  “If you are seeing this, then all of you have reached the obelisk and are wondering what comes next. Well keep wondering, because I’m not going to tell you,” he said with a smirk. “But I am going to explain something about being Furyan. As you know, a lot of your bodies and minds come from us, and we’re not simple. Quite complex, actually, and there’s one aspect of us that cannot be trained for. You see, we built the Star Force military from scratch, built the Clans from scratch, and helped build a lot of other parts of Star Force. The Monarchs didn’t do it all. Davis didn’t do it all. We…meaning me and the other 99 members of the original Archon class…had no one to teach us, so we had to figure things out as we went.”

  “And you have been patterned off of us, so there’s a part of you that operates the same way. If you never face a situation where you have to figure it out, if we tell you everything you need to know, that piece of you will never manifest. It’s a skillset that has to be given air to breath on its own, so that’s why you’re here. To develop this piece of you, as well as continue to develop the rest in new ways. I don’t know what each of your futures will hold, but if you’re even remotely like us, you need to know what freedom tastes like, and without the danger that goes with it, you’ll never really feel it.”

  “So you’re getting no help. You’ve got supplies to last about a year, and that long to figure out how to stay alive. You’ve all got the basic equipment to build a colony. How you do it, is up to you. What you do, you have to figure out. But don’t waste the small foothold we’ve given you, because you won’t get another. If you fail and near death, there is a panic button in this obelisk. Help will come, but only when that panic button is pressed and for no other reason. There is no recording function in the obelisk, and there are no recording machines in the forest or in orbit. You are off the grid, and what you do or don’t do is entirely up to you.”

  “That said, don’t turn into bad guys or we’ll have to deal with you. Hold to the lightside, always. For those of you who wish to continue your training, the obelisk holds data files on more than you could hope to learn. Use it, or just kick back and starve to death. It’s up you. That’s what freedom is, and if you misuse it, it bites…hard. We’ve insulated you from it, protected you, as we have most of Star Force. That’s a luxury we gladly provide, for not everyone is a warrior. But for those of us who are, you’ll understand when you have no backup and your success or failure rides on you and you alone.”

  “We can’t give you that in training, and while I can’t tell you what the future entails, I can say there is a plan. The mystery of it you must discover, but expect to be here for a very long time and plan accordingly. Yes, you get to make the plans now. There’s no instruction manual in the obelisk for this mission…because it’s not a mission. It’s a test. And it’s a test no one else in Star Force takes except Furyans, and except those of us who went through a similar test set by the universe itself.”

  “I will say, the other Furyan classes that have come before you, have all muddled through. Not well, and there were some serious injuries and other issues, but none have actually failed. So there is a way, and you are tough enough. But potential does not equal results. Results must be fought for and earned. Now we’ll see if you can chart your own course, or if you’re just a bunch of follow-monkeys who can’t hack it on their own.”

  Greg sighed. “There’s a lot more I want to say, but there are some lessons you have to learn the hard way, and you’re going to encounter many of them here. So when things get bad, just remember this one thing,” the hologram said, leaning towards them slightly as if imparting a secret. “We had it way worse. So suck it up and grow into your potential. That’s the only way you’re getting through this. And no, you don’t get to opt out of it. You’re stuck here, and don’t try to walk out of it. You’ll see why later. Make your base camp near the obelisk…and build. And before you start thinking of tree houses and stick forts, take a closer look at the non-edible stuff in your packs. Oh, and winter in this part of the planet is permanent. You’ll get a few warm streaks occasionally, but expect snow to be a standard thing. You’ve got about 16 months until the bad winter weather hits. Be prepared.”

  “And that’s the last tip you get. Now huddle up, figure out what to do, and good luck. You’re going to need it,” Greg said, giving them a two fingered
salute before the hologram shut down except for a new interactive portal that glowed to life near the base.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Parsivir exclaimed, with many others offering similar sentiments of discontent. “We’re supposed to be here years?”

  “Easy everyone,” Trevor said, waving his hands at them to calm down. “We knew this was going to be big, we just didn’t know how big. And look on the bright side…we finally get to do what we want, when we want, so let’s take a closer look at those mechanical components and see what we’ve got to work with.”

  There wasn’t much complaining after that, and the buzz amongst their semi-telepathic group mojo was a ‘work the problem’ thing rather than a ‘stand still and bitch’ waste of time. They’d learned that lesson in the maturia, but it appeared they’d be teaching themselves from here on out.

  Darren pulled out his component and set it down on the ground next to the others, with a few of the Furyans stepping in to assemble parts that fit together, eventually working them all down into three different machines…none of which looked familiar, until Kaen though to use the data in the obelisk to look them up.

  “Mobile mining equipment,” he said, bringing up holographic diagrams to match each. “Molecular sifter. Alchemy pod. Basic fabricator.”

  “We can use those to make other machines,” Darren said, suddenly realizing their potential as did some of the others.

  “We can make every piece of Star Force equipment using those,” Nathan added. “If we don’t break them. If we do we’re back to sticks and rocks.”

  “What do we need to make duplicates?” Trevor asked.

  “A lot,” Kaen said, not even trying to look it up now. “But if the plans are in here, it’s possible. We have to harvest resources, though, to put into the sifter. The closer to what we need the better.”

  “What powers them?” Ina said, getting to the next logical point ahead of the others.