Titans Ch. 00

Oh shit. Anna...

The thought struck him like a punch to the gut. If she had survived, she might have ended up here, and she probably wouldn't have been lucky enough to meet the local military, never mind on friendly terms.

She can take care of herself, he repeated to himself, though it did little to assuage his worries.

Giant, nearly indestructible combat mech or not, she was his responsibility. Something on this planet could put a dent in the best armour the Space Corps could make through shields and a nanite coating; and that meant she was in danger.

"I will," he nodded, "But I need information when I get there. I have people I need to contact and things I need to organise."

She pursed her lips and smirked lopsidedly, then extended her hand for a shake.

"You have a deal Captain Murray," her grip was firm, and her hands hard but smooth, "You can call me Elizabeth Swift. Major Elizabeth Swift."

He acknowledged her rank with a smart salute.

"I'm out scouting, my camp is a few hours South, we'll stay the night and then press on in the morning. The main body of the army is camped another day's march to the South-West. Understood soldier?"

She seemed much more relaxed now that it was clear he respected her rank. It was rare to meet someone who directly outranked even the lowest members of the mech corps, but politeness cost nothing, and he didn't think she'd take well to a captain giving her orders even if he had military law behind him.

"Yes ma'am." he stood to attention and saluted again, old instincts coming back to him.

"Can this thing march?" Major Swift asked, gesturing at the mech.

Captain Murray grinned widely; he so rarely got to show off his toys to someone new.

"Want to find out?"

*****

The major gazed out at the forest from the outstretched palm of the mech with a look of awe on her face. For the first ten minutes she had looked a bit unwell as it picked its way through the trees, but Alex had gotten steadily better at keeping his gait stable, and her travel sickness had been forced out by a sense of exploration that he could tell was familiar to her. She seemed to really appreciate the new viewpoint on familiar territory. Alex had left his cockpit open, and was experiencing the disconcerting effect of viewing the forest in front from two perspectives. He looked over at Elizabeth, fighting to do so with his head rather than the mech's.

"You seem to have taken this fairly well, considering you had never seen a mech before," he said.

She reluctantly pulled her gaze away from the forest to look over the body of the mech again.

"I've seen artificing before, just never on this scale. Where do you come from that machinery like this is allowed to wander off?" she asked.

"Well I'm from New Holland, but the suit was built on Mars. As for being allowed to wander off, well..." his mouth twitched into a sad smile, "It wasn't exactly my choice, we had an accident travelling through slipspace."

"I have heard of none of these places," Elizabeth shook her head, "You said 'we', you had travelling companions?"

"I did," he said wistfully, "Another mech pilot like myself could have survived, the rest are probably dead."

She reached over, put a hand on his shoulder and smiled sadly.

"I'm sorry, we have all of us lost people in these dark times."

The rest of the journey passed in silence. The scout's camp consisted of a basic lean-to, that covered a set of furs for sleeping to protect them from any rain. A pile of charcoal and ash remained from a previous fire, and a small pile of logs and twigs lay beside it. A canvas rucksack hung from a low branch, and Elizabeth pulled it down, drawing forth a small box and a cloth bag. She took out kindling and a flint and tinder, assembling a tidy fire and setting it going. The warm crackle eased into Alex's bones, expelling a cold he hadn't realised had dug itself in. Fragrant smoke wafted skywards and his muscles ached and complained as the knots unwound themselves. He leaned easily against a giant metal foot. Now that he had finally stopped moving all the bumps and bruises he had sustained in the crash landing made their presence known again. His head felt a little fuzzy and the edges of his vision began to blur. Before long he had slipped once more into unconsciousness.

Elizabeth heaved a large flat stone onto the edge of the fire and set about skinning a plump rabbit which had also been within the hanging bag. Thin cuts of meat came off easily under a sharp knife, and sizzled as she lay them on the stone. With the food cooking, the major looked over to her guest, seeing him dozing against the foot of the giant-slaying armor. Curious, she wandered over and laid a hand on his shoulder. The clothing he was wearing covered him from just beneath his chin to the tips of his fingers and toes. It was dark as night, smooth and soft, compressing like thick wool when she squeezed lightly. As she did so, his head lolled to one side, revealing a geometric pattern of wires surrounding a metal circle with a small hole in the centre, visible through a bald patch on the back of his skull. The metal circle had a number inscribed on it: 11

"How strange," she murmured to herself.

When Alexander came to, the major was already helping herself to the first cut of cooked meat; eating it delicately with small bites. Wordlessly, she picked up a second piece from the hot stone with the flat of her blade and held it out to him. He walked over and gratefully took it, popping it into his mouth all in one and chewing vigorously. They ate in silence, taking it in turns to pick pieces of meat, eat a mouthful of dry bread and swig from a leather waterskin.

As he chewed, Alex gradually became aware of an insistent buzzing in the back of his head. He willed it forward and his implant dumped a load of information into his forebrain. As he had sustained injuries it had put him into a short healing coma when he next relaxed, as it was programmed to do. Briefly, parts of his body began to tingle as the implant made him aware of where his injuries were. As he had expected, almost all his muscles had been bruised to some extent, he had suffered a minor concussion, made less severe by the protective measures built into his brain cavity to protect the expensive neural implant. His right wrist was fractured - no, broken - and his suit had stiffened to splint it. His right collarbone and three of his ribs were cracked, and his internal organs had been jostled about, though they hadn't been severely damaged. All things considered, he was lucky he had been able to get up after the landing, and even luckier that his sense of pain was being suppressed.

"What material is your clothing made from?" asked Elizabeth as they finished eating, "I have never seen the likes of it before."

Alex smiled.

"I'm not surprised; they keep this stuff a close secret. Only mech pilots wear it."

He looked her over, taking in the woollen cloak and what looked like a plant-fibre tunic.

"I'm guessing you're not familiar with advanced materials science?" he asked rhetorically.

The major shook her head anyway, looking on with a mixture of confusion and interest.

"I don't know the exact blend, but the surface is a weave of extremely fine carbon and Kevlar fibres, plus a resin that bonds it together. The tiny fibres woven together are much stronger than larger fibres, in the same way that you could break a stick," he picked up a stick as thick as two fingers and snapped it across his knee, "but you couldn't break a bundles of twigs."

He gathered about a dozen twigs, together forming a strand roughly the same thickness as the first stick, and attempted to break them all at once. He hadn't put much pressure on before his wrist twinged in complaint, even through the pain blockers. He handed Elizabeth the bundle, and she bent it thoughtfully. They flexed rather a lot, but held together.

"I think I understand, it's like many layers of chain mail rather than a single plate?" she looked to him for confirmation.

"Sort of, yes. The gel layer underneath is a bit harder to explain, it's soft enough to move freely but it goes solid when it gets hit. Like how you can push your hand easily through water, but if you slap the surface of a lake, it stings."

Major Swift nodded slowly.

"This 'Mars' place is truly a wonder if it can produce such materials."

The Captain smiled, thinking back to the times he had visited the industrial world. Forges so large that the night time was a perpetual orange twilight, and robotic cranes the size of skyscrapers moving raw materials with steps that shook the ground.

"You wouldn't believe it, it's a heck of a sight to see."

As the sun slowly set, Alex regaled her with explanations of the systems in his mech; covering everything from the nanite coating to the slipspace powercell concealed in the 'backpack' of the machine. Elizabeth understood almost none of it, but he seemed to be enjoying attempting to teach her the rudiments of this 'advanced materials science' so she let him try. For his part, he was glad to have the distraction from his situation and the occasional shot of pain from his injuries. She was clearly very intelligent, asking questions and drawing comparisons that - even if they were often wrong - showed an inquisitive mind, but the fundamentals of science eluded her. She knew that materials were made of atoms and different materials were made of combinations of elements, but she had no idea about electricity or radiation, and she had never even seen anything like a computer.

Gradually, the sun set, and the forest lapsed into the noisy silence of an area teeming with life. Elizabeth extinguished the embers of the fire by kicking damp dirt over it, then turned to Alex.

"This area is usually safe enough - I've been sleeping out on my own for a week - but now that there are two of us we should alternate watches, just in case."

Alex nodded in agreement. It was a good idea, but something was bothering him.

"You trust me not to do anything while you sleep?"

Elizabeth smirked.

"You have a suit of armor that fires - what was it, plasma? - from its wrists. What could you possibly do while I sleep that you couldn't do while I am awake? All the same, I will take first watch, I'll wake you in three hours."

The furs were soft and warm, and even without the implant insisting he go into a healing coma again Alex would have had no trouble falling asleep. Elizabeth drew one of the furs around herself, notched an arrow and settled in for the watch. She made note of the position of the moon based on what little light made it through the trees and watched its steady progress out of the corner of her eye while she slowly scanned the surroundings. Every circuit of the area around them her gaze caught upon the giant-slaying armor as it joined her in silently standing sentinel over the sleeping captain.

When the time came, she turned to wake Captain Murray, only to find him already stirring as the implant brought him back to consciousness. He sat up and vacated the thicker patch of furs he had been sleeping on to the major, the rustling of their movements was loud in the still air. She made to hand him the bow, but he waved her off. She shrugged and began to remove her armor. The captain quickly turned his back, but the sounds of sliding fabric and the clank of metal plating were more than enough material for his imagination to assemble the scene unfolding behind him.

When she was finally done, he heard her pull the furs back and slip under. She tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to look. She was wearing only a thin cotton shirt that clung to her chest, outlining surprisingly large breasts above a taut stomach. Her nipples stood erect in the cold air and made very definite bumps in the cloth. Her lower half was concealed but he had no trouble picturing the shapely legs beneath the covers. Alex swallowed and forced himself to maintain eye contact with her.

"Wake me in three more hours," she whispered, seemingly ignoring his blatant staring.

He nodded sharply and turned his back again. When it was clear he wouldn't see her, Elizabeth bit her lip to suppress a giggle, then rolled over and slipped into an easy sleep.

Alex drew his pistol and rested it on his knee, idly checking the display. Thanks to a full charge from the mech's powercell, it would last for about fifty high-impact shots - twice that for low velocity rounds - and the metal block that the individual pellets were carved from was fresh, good for at least five hundred trigger pulls. Unlike the major, he got up and wandered around as he did his watch, keeping himself warm through movement. When he tired of doing laps of the fire pit, he set about climbing to the shoulders of his mech; finding footholds in the dark from memory and trying not to rely on his broken wrist despite the pilot suit making it usable.

He reached the top, panting from the exertion, and was finally able to get a good look through the canopy. What he saw made his blood run cold. Rather than black sky with white stars as was the case on every world in the universe with a breathable atmosphere, the deep black that stretched from horizon to horizon was stained with shifting purple tendrils. He had hoped that once he broadcast his beacon to any form of military command, rescue would only be a matter of time in coming. He had been prepared to wait decades if that was what it took. But here, nobody would ever receive his beacon. Here, rescue would never come. The hole in slipspace he had fallen through to get here hadn't opened onto some forgotten planet on the outer rim of the galaxy; he had never left slipspace at all. As he tumbled through an infinite, unmappable void on the surface of a planet that shouldn't exist, Captain Alexander Murray began to weep.