//------------------------------// // Vidi // Story: Planet of the ponies // by Weeeman //------------------------------// Chapter 2: Vidi Five days had passed since John, Robert and Matheus had awakened aboard the sinking Icarus, and they had managed to establish themselves since. Most of the time they had been exploring their surroundings. They had found a river of potable water and a cave which they inhabited since. They had also sighted some animals running from them. They had eaten some fruits that Matheus had labeled as “edible... I think”. Matheus had opposed to hunting down animals because it would make domestication harder. John had decided that they had to explore further to know the extension of the forest and what could be found beyond it. The plan was to travel East, to a distant mountain Matheus had spotted when he climbed up a tree, and then return, so they only carried light weapons, emergency rations, a med kit and technogloves. The forest was gloomy and slowed them considerably, so a few hours travel would take them most of the day. They had been traveling for six hours when John raised his hand, signaling a possible danger ahead. They all loaded their hunting rifles and placed themselves back to back. After a few seconds they heard a rustling noise coming from a few bushes ten meters away. John aimed, ready to fire against a foe. They heard the noises again and a few leaves and one of the bushes was shaken. Suddenly a small deer jumped from the bushes and sprinted away. Robert lowered his weapon, chuckling. “Be careful! Big bad Bambi wants to eat your intes-”. Suddenly he felt something heavy pouncing on him, making him fall. Everything was noises, pain and darkness for a second and then he managed to open his eyes overcoming the pain. From the ground he saw a menacing wolf biting his left arm and dangerously close to his neck. Robert tried to unsheathe his knife with the spare hand, but the wolf stopped moving and fell on his side before he found the handle. Matheus pulled off his own knife from the beast's skull and helped Robert to get up. John fired his rifle against a bush and they heard a whimper, followed by the noises of the wolves retreating. “Whoa! That was close!” said Robert, “it almost tore my arm off!” “Lieutenant, you forgot one of the basic rules” replied John with coldness, “don't let your guard down unless I order so. You could have died or be crippled, and now we will waste our valuable time and medicines because of your imprudence. Don't fail me again, this is an order.” Robert gulped and nodded to his leader. Matheus didn't say anything as he disinfected Robert's injuries with alcohol and bandaged them. “It could have been worse, the cuts aren't too deep and they will heal in a few days, but you won’t be able to use it without pain until then” said Matheus. They continued advancing in silence for a few hours, eating without stopping and always keen to their surroundings. Soon the sun was too low to illuminate the ground and they lit a camp fire. “Tomorrow we will reach the mountain and climb it, we will take turns watching the fire, those wolves could come back.” “Colonel, may I ask you something?” said Matheus. John nodded. “What are our long-term plans? We have spent five days without talking about it and I think it's about time.” “As you know, with Kato dead we can't colonize anything. Because of that our initial plan has changed. I want to check if there is intelligent life here and how advanced. If there is, we will make contact. If there isn't, I want to retrieve the Icarus from the lake, repair it and go back home.” “How are we supposed to retrieve the ship?” asked Robert. “I don't know, you are the one who should plan how to do it.” “Well, we could domesticate some animals to work as draft animals or something.... Or we could build some kind of crane, maybe we could do both. It will take a lot of effort and time, though. Also, even if we move the Icarus to a dry and safe place, it is very damaged and it will take months or years to repair it, if it is possible at all to perform such repairs”. “Then we can only hope that you can repair the ship. That's pretty much all the plan, Matheus. We will face the problems when we reach them. Any other question?” “If we can't leave the planet and we don't find sentient beings, what will we do?” asked Matheus. “We will live here until we die,” John folded his arms across his chest. “It's not like we have any other option”. They remained silent for a few minutes, staring at the fire, until John stood and told them to sleep while he took the first guard. The night went along without incidences, and they started climbing as soon as the illumination allowed them to do so. After climbing the first meters Matheus found a small path made by the stepping of animals, which eased their ascension. They reached the summit at midday, from there they had a great vision of the surroundings. The forest covered most of the zone, and they could see the desert they had crossed when they looked west. They found that the forest ended a few kilometers East and led to grasslands with a few mountains here and there. “I thought the forest would be larger” Robert said. “Well, we may be in the narrowest part, which is already 20 kilometres long, so it may be bigger than it looks like” replied Matheus. “I see something weird... Is it me or there is smoke coming out that cave?” said John as he pointed South. They followed his arm to the nearest mountain, where a faint column of smoke ascended from a cave. “I see it too. Could it be some kind of intelligent beings using fire?” asked Robert, suddenly nervous. “It is a possibility that we can’t ignore. If there is a sapient race in this world we must establish contact as soon as possible, so let’s go” replied John. Luckily, the cave was near the bottom of the mountain, so it took them less than an hour to descend from their mountain and reach the cave’s entrance. The entrance was big enough for them to enter side by side, and they couldn’t reach the highest part even if they jumped. From the dark depths a slow, deep and regular rumble could be heard. “It sounds weird, could it be some kind of volcanic activity?” asked John. “Probably, we should avoid breathing the smoke just in case.” replied Robert, as he donned his technoglove on his unharmed arm. He threw a small ball into the cave which illuminated the zone. “Are those rocks... moving?” “Those aren’t rocks! Those are scales! Let’s get the hell out of here!” The three of them ran to the forest as a brutal and angry roar erupted from the cave. “What the fuck man?! There are freaking dinosaurs in this planet!” cried Matheus. Robert looked back for a brief second before resuming running. “Shit shit shit it’s coming out of the cave!” he said. John looked back too and he paled. “It’s huge and it has wings! Run faster or he’ll eat us roasted!” They ran through the forest, as they heard the wings of the beast flapping above them and it’s powerful growls. Fortunately, the trees were too big and too close for the creature to land. Robert felt a heat wave behind him and, when he turned around, he saw a wall of fire between John and him. “Keep on running! I will distract it and meet you in our cave!” John shouted as he readied his weapon. “Are you crazy? Those bullets won’t harm him!” “I will aim for the eyes! Now obey my order!” he replied as he turned back. Robert ran, never turning his back, until the sounds of the beast and John’s weapon were only a murmur. He stopped to recover his breath and noticed that Matheus was leaning on a tree a few meters away. They both locked eyes, too shocked to say anything. “So... That thing was a dragon?” quietly asked Matheus. “I... Think so”. “So we’ve landed on a planet with giant flying fire-breathing lizards”. “...” “And John is facing that thing with a weapon that couldn’t kill an elephant”. “... Yes?” “OK, it’s official: We’re fucked” “We aren’t. We are going to return to our base, wait for John and next time we will bring the armor-piercing bullets and tore holes the size of melons on anything that looks dangerous”. Matheus looked convinced and started walking to their cave’s location. “That thing must be the apex predator of this place, and we have enough firepower to kill it... We may have a chance after all”. They walked fast for a few minutes in silence, trying to hear John or the dragon. Soon they stopped trying. “So... Now that John is missing... Who’s the superior officer?” asked Robert. “We have the same rank so there’s no leader. Don’t do anything stupid and I won’t have to order you around”. Many hours later they found an apple tree and decided to rest while they ate apples. They would never admit it, but they hadn’t stopped until then because they were afraid of being found by the dragon or some other creature. When they finished eating it was already too dark to continue, so they decided to sleep until sunrise. Robert was soon sleeping while Matheus took the first watch. The sound of an alarm clock woke Robert up. He immediately got up, confused. ‘Why would Matheus use an alarm instead of waking me up himself?’ he thought. He shook his head to force the sleepiness out and looked around. Matheus had disappeared. The clock was still making noises, so he looked after it. What he found was Matheus’ technoglove, laying beside his sleeping bag. Robert donned it and the alarm stopped, only for a recorded message to replace it. It was Matheus’ ragged voice. “I can’t take this anymore. Kato and John are dead. We’re stranded in an hostile planet with no chance of escape, rescue or survival. N-nothing of this should have happened... Everything was supposed to be fine... I have lost all hope, and I don’t want to live without a purpose, waiting for death to come and take us. Because of that, when you listen to this I will already be dead. I know it’s very selfish, but I want you to make something for me... I want you to make sure that humanity will know about us if someone else ever comes here. I’m really, really sorry for leaving you alone like this, but I made my decision days ago and I couldn’t let you interfere. Goodbye, Robert Eisenfaust, it’s been a pleasure to work with you. Goodbye, my friend.” A few noises could be heard and then: “Oh! Don’t worry about my corpse. You know I don’t believe in afterlife and all those things so don’t waste your time with a burial. Also, you would have a hard time finding it, I’m rather good at hiding, he he”. The faint laugh sounded more like crying. Robert stood still for a minute, waiting for Matheus to appear shouting “April’s fools” or something like that. He had always thought that Matheus was as strong-willed as he was physically. The idea of Matheus so depressed that he resorted to suicide after a week was unthinkable. Slow but steady, shock faded and a mixture of sadness and anger appeared in Robert’s mind. He throwed Matheus’ glove away and started crying and shouting profanities that would make a drill sergeant blush. It took him a few minutes to be serene enough to stop making noises that could attract predators and start gathering his things. He left most of Matheus’ belongings, but he took the technoglove and his weapon. He wondered how Matheus had managed to kill himself without it, but he decided to stop thinking such morbid thoughts. He succeeded in forcing everything out of his mind and focusing only in the present. Ideally, he could reach the cave before the sunset. His right arm was occupied by his rifle, so he had to carry more weight with his left arm than he would like due to his injuries. It was midday when he arrived to a lake. He hadn’t heard any suspicious noises since he woke up, but his left arm remembered him, with a wave of pain when he dropped everything, how dangerous it was to assume he was safe. He didn’t feel hungry and his stomach didn’t want to cooperate, but he forced himself to eat something to have enough energy. He had sweat more than he expected due to the extra weight and he had to renew the bandages, so he decided to swim in the lake for a while. The crystal clear water was simply too tempting. He scanned the lake with his technoglove’s sonar, afraid of being eaten by some kind of lake monster while he swam. The scan didn’t show anything weird, so he put off his clothes and bandages and jumped into the water. It was a bit cold, but he didn’t care. He had been swimming for twenty minutes when he heard rustling noises behind him, where his clothes and equipment was. He quickly reached the shore to find that all his possessions had disappeared. He caught a glimpse of something moving past the trees, so he ran to catch it. Little by little he managed to shorten the distance and discover new details of the thief. It was running on it’s hind legs and one foreleg, while the other was occupied carrying the stolen things. The creature’s anatomy resembled that of a gorilla, but it was taller. Robert felt worried because of that, the creature could be way stronger than him and he had no weapons. However, if it was escaping it may be scared of him so he didn’t stop. Soon the creature stumbled over a fallen tree and fell to the ground, unable to stabilise itself with only a foreleg. It quickly got up and faced Robert, who discovered that the creature resembled a mix of gorilla and dog. It snarled, but Robert stood his ground. Robert was almost sure that the beast was stronger than him, but he had to use the creature’s instinct against it. If he acted like he was the strongest one, his opponent would escape instead of risking it’s life against an unknown foe. Then Robert noticed that the beast wore a leather collar. ‘Clothing means intelligence! Are these creatures domesticated by others or intelligent on their own?’ he thought while he maintained his façade. “Leave!” Robert shouted as he gesticulated with his arms, “those are MY things!” “Now they are mine!” it answered. Robert was paralyzed by what he had heard, his mind full of questions regarding that alien creature that spoke English. The talking creature noticed that Robert was stunned, so it dropped Robert’s belongings  and attacked. Robert was too slow to avoid the charging creature, who lunged at him. The beast was over Robert, who quickly delivered a knee to it’s private parts. While the creature was immobilized by pain Robert got up and ran for his weapons. He took his rifle but the dog lunged at him again while he was turning. It tried to bite Robert in the neck, but he beat the dog in the face with the rifle’s butt. The beast growled and started swiping, aiming at Robert’s neck and face. Most of the attacks failed as Robert blocked them with his rifle. He knew the beast would eventually beat him if he didn’t do something, so he fired his weapon. The dog stopped attacking when it heard the gunfire and Robert took that chance to shot the dog in the chest. The beast cried with a half-human, half-dog voice that chilled Robert’s bones and fell to the ground besides the human. Robert got up and blew the dog’s head off with another shot. He panted a few times and noticed an intense pain in the neck. He touched the zone with his left hand and noticed it was now covered in blood. He numbly thought that he had to cover the wound before he fainted. He blacked out before he could look for the bandages.