Forerunner's Child (24) (Patreon)

When she could see again, she was hanging upside-down, suspended by her seatbelt over the faintly gray, icy surface. She squinted until her eyes focused, and she could read the little display embedded in the helmet. Internal pressure good—seals holding. A little silhouette of her own body showed bruising along the shoulders and across her chest, exactly where the straps caught her.

She wiggled her fingers, her toes, her tail. All worked. 

Then she glanced to the side.

Wren sat on the ground now, her straps unhooked, and her suit dented and scratched from the impact.

"Kit Red Squirrel?" she asked. So, the radio still worked. "Can you hear me?"

She nodded, reaching forward with both arms. She needed to get out!

"Wait!" Wren moved, crawling sideways until she was under Kit's seat. "Now do it. Let me catch you."

"Easier... said... than..." Her fingers finally settled on the release. It clicked, and both straps zipped away from her. She dropped, slow enough to see Wren shifting to one side, then catching her.

She landed on Wren's chest with a thump, driving the ermine painfully to the ground. She rolled sideways into the dirt, breath fogging the inside of her helmet.

"Your... suit..." Kit whispered. "Leaks?"

"None," she replied. "Slow crash. Suit... resists damage. Metamaterial." 

Kit nodded along, though the words meant nothing to her. She ran over the last few minutes in her mind—failing motor, then the crash. She tried to stop it—couldn't keep control. Now they were lying at the bottom of a crater, kilometers from home.

"We have to... get to the road," Wren said. "Up there. Transport."

The transport that would take them back to Forerunner's daycare for animal geniuses, to return in failure. Forerunner would probably send her down to Remedial, and never trust her on another EVA again. This failure might be her last.

"Right. I think I can move." No walls and no windshield meant escaping the rover was a relatively easy task. Even with the front crumpled and rocks piled up on their left, they could still slip out on the right. Wren helped Kit to her feet, and the two finally had their first good view.

The crater wasn't deep, maybe twenty meters in total, and as wide as the Institute's central dome at least.

Up ahead, the transport came to a stop, its lights pivoting sideways to aim in their direction. Not trying to blind them, but low, shining down on the rocks at their feet instead. As they walked, the lights slowly tracked them up the slope.

Lucky for Wren, the ermine didn't freeze with fear the way she had outside the Institute. Kit wasn't strong enough to bring her up from the crater on her own. Instead, the two held hands, so one could steady the other when they needed it.

Kit stopped about halfway up; attention drawn to a tuft of orange lying sprawled on the rocks. She gestured, then pried her hand free of Wren, crossing sideways to it. Kit dropped to one knee, brushing away the dirt.

Maddie's drone had no seatbelt, no spacesuit, no protection at all. The poor thing was clearly broken, snapped right down the spine. Only the fur kept her in one piece. 

"Maddie!" Kit wedged both hands under the fox, then lifted carefully. Even without the same technical mastery as everyone else, Kit knew the feel of something badly broken when she touched it. Joints bent at odd angles, or else hung from nothing.

But it still tried to move. The head turned in her direction, eyes opening. Then Maddie's voice came over the radio, almost perfectly clear. "Well, that was exciting! It's been too long since I died. Can't even remember the last time."

Kit stood, cradling the wrecked drone against her chest. She should've discarded it without even thinking—but looking at the broken robot produced a reflexive wave of pain in herself. Past her convincing human skin, how much of her looked like this fox on the inside? She might be broken exactly the same way, broken and dying at the bottom of a rocky crater.

"It's okay, Maddie. I'll... get you back with us..."

The engineer answered with a giggling, energetic squeaking. "No, Kit. I think her final resting place should be right there. I won't have you putting your real life at risk over a toy fox. I'll continue with you in spirit."

Wren met her a few seconds later, catching Kit's arm to steady her. "Maddie's right. Leave the drone. She'll just use this as an excuse to build a better one."

"I wasn't thinking that," Maddie insisted, a little too quickly. "But now that you mention it..."

Kit lowered the fox down in both arms, depositing her at the base of a large rock. At least there the fox could rest her head up and see the stars. Until the sun rose and cooked her to a crisp. "Sorry," she said. "That wasn't supposed to happen. The motor..."

"The motor I warned you about," Forerunner said. "If you had followed my instructions, you would not be subjected to such dangers. I believe this lesson to be generally applicable."

Only the crater's edge remained. Though it looked steep, the low gravity made it relatively straightforward to climb. A few minutes of struggle and Kit hauled herself up onto the road, past the broken plastic reflector.

She lay motionless for a time, face-down in the gravel. She made it so far—so close she could see the lights moving in Solstice. So close that the city might send a rescue. But every time she looked up, she found only empty ground there, a lifeless expanse unbroken by all except a few blocky structures and the dome's outline.

Finally, something nudged her shoulder. She rolled sideways, looking up at the Director.

Wren held out her hand, grinning weakly. "You ready, squirrel?"

She took the offered hand and stood. Her ears hung flat, tail drooping against her suit. "We made it so far, Wren. See it? Right there."

Beside them, Kit's headlight glittered on a metal wall. It swung open to a transport interior unchanged from Kit's last use. The blanket Maddie gave her was still inside. A few steps, and Kit could be in there too, where it was warm and safe and didn't vibrate so much her limbs hurt.

Wren urged her forward, pushing gently on her back. "They'll tell stories about this for centuries. How we went out and defied Forerunner. Drove all the way to Solstice, before almost dying in a crater! Someone will probably dramatize it into a movie."

Wren hopped up the steps into the transport, holding out her hand for Kit. All she had to do was take it.

Kit turned away. She walked past the transport, tracing its length with one gloved hand. "This story isn't over yet, Director. Not quite."

Wren hopped out, emerging from behind the transport. She put both hands on her hips, glaring back. "Kit! Stop!"

She didn't stop, or even slow down. "When we came this far?" she asked. Her voice might be high and small—but it couldn't force Kit. She couldn't be made timid just by making her a squirrel. 

"Kit Red Squirrel!" Wren yelled, now as loud as the suit speakers could reproduce. "Kit, I no longer support this mission! We've already endured unacceptable risk. We have to draw the line somewhere, and this is it! We're not going any further."

Kit kept walking. She had no way of knowing what Wren was doing—whether the director was chasing after her or standing still beside the transport. Kit continued, following the road's gentle curve around a bend. A little past the rocks and she would be in Solstice. Forerunner couldn't lie to her anymore. Maybe the people there would help liberate the Institute!

"Kit, please." This time the request came mentally, with a very real layer of fear underneath. "We made it. This was good enough. We can go home now."

Kit stopped then, glaring back the way she'd come. Wren wasn't following—she remained by the transport, one hand against its metal side. "Far enough? Director, this isn't why we're out here! We didn't drive a rover because it was fun, we drove it to get to Solstice. I crossed the universe, crossed gulfs of time I can't even imagine right now—I'm not giving up because of one last kilometer."

She turned her back on the director and walked. 

Kit was alone with her thoughts then—alone with the crunch of aice under her boots. Alone with the steady flashing atop the dome, repeated once every minute. Alone with the vast black sky, overflowing with little pinpricks of starlight.

No one came out to meet her from the dome. No other traffic moved in the distance, no drones worked, no rovers rolled. It was just her and the road, remaining narrow as she finally rounded the bend.

The dome continued about fifty meters up, until the side was obscured by rock. It wasn't just a smaller dome than she thought—it was incomplete, a rising length of thick clear material that ended in a perfectly straight line. No damage waited on the other side, no crushed buildings and rubble.

Kit circled around it, slowing as she reached the edge. The plastic ended in a sharp line, with a single metal pillar holding it upright. Cable ran along the inside, up to a high tower with that bright, flashing light.

Kit hopped up onto the foundation, then followed the huge space until she reached the park she'd seen. Unnaturally bright plastic foliage, lit from reflective lights just out of view around the corner. She tugged at one, and it crumbled easily.

Kit dropped to her knees in the airless fake park, sinking into the plastic turf. "This is... Kit Red Squirrel..." she called over the radio. But her words came halting and unsteady. Kit no longer expected anyone to answer. "Mayday. I repeat, mayday. This is... Kit Red Squirrel of the ISS Aether. Mayday."

Finally, someone answered—but not anyone she wanted to hear. Wren spoke over the radio. "There is no one to receive that transmission, Kit. Solstice isn't real."

She'd come all this way to find it—even with the evidence irrefutably surrounding her, Kit rebelled. She lowered her head into her hands. "Can't be. Someone... residents came from somewhere. Other cities." She sat up, bracing one arm against the fake tree. She stood, then turned back the way she came. "I just need a stronger transmission!"

Maybe she could use the dome itself, with that fake flashing light. With the right equipment...

"There are no other cities either, Kit," Forerunner said. "The Institute of Perpetual Luminescence is the entire extent of human colonization on Mara. If you want to rally your kind to action, they are all behind you."

Kit stumbled out of the dome. Even in low gravity, her shock and exhaustion were too much, and she lost her footing. She fell, rolling painfully along the ground, before eventually coming to rest in the center of the road. It continued past the fake dome, hinting at greater civilization that did not exist.

"Why?" Kit gasped, struggling to her hands and knees. She crawled forward through the ice—not because she had a real destination anymore. She just needed to keep moving. Someone would rescue her, if she could only make it a little further. "What's the point? Why lie?"

The transport circled around her, swerving slightly off the road to avoid hitting her. It stopped a few meters ahead. Lights came on, and the door swung open. 

Wren hopped out, extending her hand to Kit. "I'll tell you everything, squirrel."

Kit looked away, dropping defiantly to the ground. "Maybe I don't want to. Maybe I just stay out here until the sunrise. I'll... cook. Maybe the radiation will be bad enough that you can't bring me back."

"It will not," Forerunner said. "Because there is no sunrise coming. Mara has no sun. Please come back. Your friends are worried about you."

Kit could fight through a lot. She could crash, crawl through rubble, fly an impossible starship faster than light itself. But even she could push too far.

Now, she had.

Kit stood up and followed Wren into the transport.