Chapter 2
Consciousness, when it came, was something of mixed blessing. Glad as I was to be awake, the throbbing bruise on my face was something I’d rather have slept through. The pod’s interior lighting hadn’t survived the brutal landing, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw they weren’t the only causalities. Almost every equipment locker had burst open, leaving the floor littered with ration packs, tarps, and the first aid kit that had brained me on the way down. Fortunately, the locker holding survival tools had stay closed. As I searched for a flashlight I tried not to imagine the consequences of getting a pickaxe to the face instead of a first aid kit. Finding one (a flashlight, not a pickaxe to face), I clicked it on, and turned towards the hatch. I quickly located and tore off the metal panel protecting the handle (intended to prevent the handle getting caught on something inside and opening the pod before landing). Taking hold of the handle, I gleefully yanked it toward me, my desire to escape this small metal sphere almost palatable.

The handle snapped off as the hatch’s explosive bolts fired. I stumbled back thrown off balance when the handle detached (something that was intended in the hatch’s design, to prevent a knight standing too close to the hatch being injured by its opening). As I regained my balance, I was dismayed to see the hatch mostly still in place. The evidently damaged hatch had opened only slightly, as only the bolts on one side had detonated. I started to panic, envisioning myself starving to death inside this cold metal grave, the three inch gap between the hatch and the pod existing to mock my desire for freedom.

Before I succumbed to hysteria, my training kicked in, the lessons drilled into me during my time on the Skylark helping me maintain my composure. The Order and its recruits were supposed to be ready for anything, including jammed escape pod doors. Recalling the lecture where I’d been taught how to operate an escape pod, I turned to the still-closed tool locker and after a moment of sorting through the equipment stored inside, found what I was looking for, a standard issue shaped charge launcher Mk II, aka the Pummel Gun. I crouched behind the restraining chair anchored to the side of the pod, pointed the pummel gun at the door, and fired. With a loud bang, the door was blasted free of the pod. The pummel gun’s recoil nearly tore it from my grasp, but I managed to hold onto the bulky rescue tool. Eager get out the pod, I scrambled toward the now open hatch.

I found myself standing on a small plateau overlooking a lightly forested valley. Behind me, a mountain towered into the sky, and I could see several scars on the mountain’s slopes where my red-hot pod had bounced and roll its way down to where it had finally stopped. For a moment, I was reminded of home.

A rustling in the bushes nearby snapped me out of my homesickness. Turning to face them, I saw them shaking one after the other, as whatever was hiding in them charged toward me. Noticing that it was charging in a straight line, I raised my pummel gun and fired. The round vanished into the undergrowth, and an instant later it detonated. A few chunks of meat were hurled out of the bushes, and the rustling stopped.
After retrieving the creature I’d killed (there wasn’t enough left of it to figure out what it had been), I spent the rest of the day turn the crash site into a camp, since my comlink was still jammed by whatever had disabled it during the trip down. Without the ability to contact the rest of the order, I decided to stay put for the moment and await rescue.

The set of tools from the pod made setting up camp a breeze, especially since they, like the pummel gun, were the upgraded Mk II versions. Before the sun went down, I had a tent set up, a fire built, and I’d even had time to dig a berm around the camp’s perimeter. Gazing out over the dirt wall, I saw several other fires scattered across the valley, and my heart soared as I realized they likely belong to fellow knights. However, seeking them out in the middle of the night would be dangerous, especially since I’d already discovered this planet had animal life bold enough to attack a knight. I sketched out their locations on an empty ration pack, and planned to set out on my search at dawn. With any luck, this planet’s day/night cycle wouldn’t be too much longer than Isora’s. Readjusting your entire sleep cycle was always a huge pain.

Fortunately, dawn came just about on time. Before leaving camp, I decided to bring my hatchet and shovel with me, in case I needed them to get through undergrowth or bury supplies for later retrieval. The nearest campsite was about three miles away, which meant I had a lot time to take in my surroundings during the hike. The area I’d landed in showed no signs of intelligent life, and I wondered if we were truly alone here, or if there were other beings who called this place home.

My musings came to abrupt end when I spotted an intact escape ahead of me. Reaching it, I noticed that the pod’s door was still closed. Knocking yielded no results, so I decided to open it myself, dreading what I might find inside. Wrenching the door open, I staggered back as the smell hit me. Steeling myself, I entered the pod, fighting back the urge to vomit as I retrieved the occupant’s body. I couldn’t make out their identity or gender, but I did see they were wearing recruit armor. Turning away, I examined the pod, and after I saw the snapped restraints dangling from the pod’s seat, I realized how its ill-fated rider had died. At least it was quick, I thought as I turned back to the corpse, unfolding my shovel as I did so.

Burying that poor recruit was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, made even harder by the fact that it could have been me or any of my friends lying in that grave had the circumstances been different. Standing before the crude grave, I saluted the battered sword that marked it, a single rank crest the only identification of its occupant. I wish I could have found the words to say something, but my throat choked up every time I tried to say something.

The pod itself yielded little, many of the supplies it carried having been ruined when it crashed. I stashed the handful of items that were still intact in my pack, and resumed my march. By hatchet made short work of the maze of massive, razor sharp thorns surrounding the camp, and as I got closer, I began to notice various, disconcerting details. The camp fire itself was in disarray, the blackened logs and branches that had feed it scattered around the campsite. Deep claw marks were carved into several nearby trees, along with the tell-tale scorch marks of gunfire. And most disturbingly, the campsite’s owner was nowhere to be found, the equipment lying around the only sign that they’d even been here. As I continued to search the campsite, it became harder and harder to deny the obvious. Something bad had happened to this camp’s last inhabitant, something that they may not have survived. When I found a long, bloodstained drag mark leading off into the thorns, I knew that whoever had set up this camp site was dead.

Like the first pod I’d found, most of the equipment I found was unusable. The pod’s tool locker held only outdated Mk 1 equipment, and the only other items I could find were a blood covered proto gun and a few fragments of a proto shield, neither of which I felt were worth taking. I stashed the equipment and moved on to the next camp, where to my horror the same scene awaited me. I found a set of Mk 2 tools and some supplies, but the most valuable item was the shield I found lying in the bushes near this camp’s set of drag marks. It was one of the new “proto ward” shields that were issued to recruits who’d enlisted in the order and had achieved something notable in their civilian life. This shield held no clues to its owner’s identity, and I considered leaving it at the camp as a memorial to the brave knight who’d died here. However, I eventually decided to take it with me, as I was rapidly discovered that I needed every possible advantage to survive this new and hostile world.

Hefting the new shield, I headed back to my campsite, the camps I’d explored having convinced that being under cover during the night was the only safe option. The sun was hanging low in the sky by the time I got back, leaving me little time to prepare for the night. I was able to enlarge the berm surrounding my camp and drive a couple dozen sharpened stakes into it before it got too dark to keep working. Recalling the torn and shredded tents of the camps I’d visited, I decided to spend the night in the pod, and spent the last hour of daylight reattaching the door. As I kindled the fire, I looked out toward the rest of the valley, and saw that several other campsites had gone dark, aside from the ones I’d visited. I hoped that meant the other knights were starting to link up, because the alternative explanation was too horrible to think about.

Unfortunately, the alternative explanation was the true answer. Over the next three days, I continued searching for other survivors, but found only battle damaged, abandoned camps. Some of them showed signs of their inhabitants surviving the night and fleeing, but there were just as many where the isolated knights had been slain. With each camp, my stockpile of looted gear grew, my shovel grew more and more worn, and my spirits sank.
Four days after the crash, as I prepared to hike over to the last remaining camp, I heard someone screaming. I immediately charged toward the direction of the sound, hoping that I wouldn’t be too late. I reached a clearing where a set of footprints transformed into the drag marks I’d become all too familiar with over the past few days. Following the drag marks lead me to the side of the valley, toward a cave that plunged deep into the mountain. I spotted a recruit clinging to the side of the cave and frantically calling out for help. I was still yards away when she lost her grip and was yanked future into the cave. I charged in after her……..but lost the trail among the dozens of twisting, interconnected passages. I found her sword lying a few paces inside the mouth, but that was the only trace I could find. I stopped look after an hour or so, too afraid of being ambushed in the darkness to continue what was almost certainly a pointless, futile search.

Later that day, I reached the last campsite. This camp had been defended by several knights. The knight on watch had been savagely mauled, but his death had brought the rest of the camp enough time to wake up, garb their weapons, and defend themselves. It hadn’t been enough. Including the unlucky watchman, I’d found and buried three bodies, out of the five that the camp may have supported. A set of drag marks accounted for another knight, and a set of footprints that lead back to the clearing I’d found this morning testified to the fate of the last survivor.

As I returned to my own camp, I considered packing my gear and fleeing. I discarded the idea for the same reason I’d always discarded it; with the comm system still jammed, I had no idea where to flee to, or what dangers lurked there. At least in this valley, I knew what I faced, and after studying the overrun camps that littered the area, I had a solid idea of how to fight it. Hopefully, I could hold out long enough to be rescued.

I crawled into my pod as soon as I got back, and went to sleep, so that I would be as refreshed as possible come nightfall. I woke up an hour or so before dusk, and performed one last inspection of my defenses before dark. As shadows lengthened and the sun slipped beneath the horizon, I crouched behind the crude wall surrounding my camp, and waited.

Several hours later, I heard the howls, echoing in the distance. As they got closer, I readied my weapons and watched the first line of traps. One of the fallen camps had been set up by a biotech, and in his journal (or at least, the half-eaten bits of it I’d recovered) he’d managed to record a wealth of information about the creatures that had been attacking the camps. He’d even come with a name for the nasty little beasts, Wolvers.

The massive, grey furred wolver leading the pack, called an Alpha Wolver in the biotech’s notes, charged toward me. As it emerged from the woods, the ground beneath it gave way with a loud snap. As the wolver dropped into the pit traps, I heard it yelp out in pain as it was impaled by the sharpened wood stakes concealed at the bottom of the pit. Several other wolvers met the same fate, but many more evaded the pits and kept coming.
They crashed into the second line of traps, a collection of tripwires attached to salvaged proto guns. More wolvers were cut down as the energy bolts illuminated the night. The pack, maddened by their injuries and bloodlust, pushed forward. A few of them impaled themselves on the stakes embedded in the berm, but most evaded the spikes and surged over. The traps had killed or wounded about two thirds of the pack; dealing with the rest would be up to me.

I stabbed two wolvers as they made their way through the stakes, and put an energy bolt through another’s midsection. I turned around to face the rest of the pack. They were shifting and jumping around too much to get a headcount, but I estimated their numbers as being no more than a dozen…..which was still more than enough to tear me apart if I screwed up. The fire light made their dull brown fur look blood red as they danced around me, searching for an opening. One of them leaped toward me, only to have its jaw sliced open by my sword. As I recovered my balance, the last remaining alphas lunged at me. My shield blocked the first hit, but it quickly caved in as the huge creature surge forward twice more. The last impact knocked out my shield, and as I struggled to get clear of the pack and buy it time to regenerate, another wolver crashed into the back of my legs. I fell face first into the dirt, dropping my sword as I tumbled. I’d only managed to get to my knees when the pack charged me.

Images of the camps I’d search flashed through my mind, and I thought to myself, Not this time, monsters. Not this time. As the pack surged toward me, I lunged forward, grabbing onto the nearest wolver and lifting it up in the air. Holding the squirming beast like a club, I swung it in a short arc, dazing several of its pack mates with the impact. As it reached the end of the arc, I let go, flinging it through the air and toward the bottom of the valley. “Who’s next!?” I roared.

An instant later I found myself thrown the ground by the alpha, and I barely managed to get my arm in between its jaws and my throat. It clamped onto my arm and tried to shove it out of the way, as its clawed feet scratched at my armor. I screamed as one of its feet found a weak point and drove its claws into my leg, the rest of the pack closing in again. I used my free arm to punch at the wolver’s head, and its grip on my arm slackened as my gauntleted fist slammed into it over and over again.

As soon as its jaw loosened, I ripped my arm free and clamped my hands around the wolvers neck. I squeezed, slowly crushing the beast’s windpipe. It squirmed and yelped, trying to get free, but its efforts were in vain. With an ugly snap, its neck broke. Tossing the corpse off of me, I snatched up my sword and faced the rest of the pack, a jolt of pain shooting up my leg as I did so. The pack closed in, then backed away again, perhaps trying to bait me, perhaps wary of me after I tore their pack leader apart. One of them charged me, only to be disemboweled by my bloodstained proto sword. The rest of the pack broke and ran as I did so, scrambling toward the woods as fast as their legs could carry them. I considered chasing after them for a moment, before my sense of reason reasserted itself.

I dealt with the wounded and dying wolvers, and then started dealing with the dozens of bodies scattered around my camp. As I dragged the corpses away from the camp and hurled them off the plateau, I saw a pair of blood red eyes staring back at me from valley below. Seconds later, a bizarre, warbling howl echoed through the valley and the eyes vanished. I was in no shape for another fight, and hoped that whatever I’d seen down there would be kind enough to stay down there. I hobbled my way into the pod and sealed the door. I ripped open a first aid kit and patched up my leg, then cleaned and repaired my equipment. I drifted off to sleep seconds after I finished that.

A loud, insistent beeping jarred me awake hours later. In my fatigued state, it took me several moments to realize it was coming from the long-dormant comlink. I frantically hammered down on the activation icon, thrilled to finally make contact with another knight. A distorted, static filled image of another knight filled the screen.

The other knight was Redon, on of the recon knights tasked with rescuing survivors of the crash. After I filled him in on my situation, he informed me that the surviving command staff had managed to establish a base of operations a few days ago, and had ordered everyone to rendezvous there. That was the good news. The bad news was that our lifepods had scatter across an entire hemisphere, which made the rescue effort an unholy nightmare. Guiding them all to Haven, our new base, was straining HQ’s resources to the limit, and many recruits were going to be on their own for most of the journey. I was one of those unlucky recruits.

Fortunately for me, a large group of knights had landed a few days away from me, and had established a small camp. According to Redon, I had a week to hike over to them before they moved on. Before hanging up, he had one last order.
“You say that you’ve salvaged a fair amount of gear from crashed pods? Bring as much of it as you can to the rescue camp. Ignore what the regs say about carry limits, and bring us that gear. Understood?”

“Uh…yes sir, understood. May I ask why?” I said, mystified by the amount of value Redon attached to the pile of near-worthless junk I’d accumulated.
Redon squirmed. “Someone will explain why later. Right now, just follow orders. Good luck, Santis. Redon out.” He said.

The only thing worse than knowing something strange is going on, is knowing that something strange is going on but having no idea what it is. However, orders were orders, and if HQ wanted the gear I’d found, then I wasn’t going to argue. After a few hours of packing, I was ready to leave. Munching on a chunk of roast wolver, I shouldered my pack and set out.

By the end of the 2nd day, I was scaling a hill that stood at the entrance to the valley. My fight with the wolver pack a few days ago seemed to have inflicted enough losses to deter them from attacking me again, letting me escape the valley uncontested. I noted bitterly noted that my footprints were the only ones leading out of that awful place. A dozen other knights had landed in that valley, and I was the only one leave. I hoped that the rest of the order had been luckier with their landings, because if they hadn’t, the order would find itself ripped apart piecemeal before we even got the chance to reach Haven.

The next day, I heard the sounds of combat echoing through the woods around me. I surged ahead, fearing a fellow knight had found trouble. Crashing through a line of bushes, I found myself in the middle of fight between a trio of large, rat-like creatures and some kind of robot. After a moment, I recognized the three creatures as gremlins, an illusive group of beings that seemed to be native to Cradle. Spiral HQ was eager to make contact with them and see if they could help us survive this rather hostile place. I didn’t recognize their mechanical opponent, a battered robot that bore a striking similarity to one of my fellow knights. A mecha knight, if you will. It even had a sword.

I stepped away, uncertain of what my next action should be. One of the gremlins made that decision for me. He barked an order to his comrades, and one of them turned away from the robot and charged toward me. I dived out of the way, barely evading a blow from the massive wrench the gremlin wielded. Another blow reverberated against my shield as I blocked the gremlins follow up strike.

“Hold on, I’m friendly! I don’t want a fight!” I shouted, trying to defuse the situation and getting another attack for my trouble. “I’m not your enemy!” I said, backing away from the gremlin. His only response was to charge me again. My shield couldn’t take many more hits before it failed, so I decided to abandon diplomacy. I rolled out of the way of a powerful overhead blow from the gremlins wrench, and charged toward him as a he recovered. I drove him back with a furious series of slashes, getting in several solid hits as he retreated. He swung at me again, the strike made slow and clumsy by his wounds. I easily parried the weak strike, and finished the gremlin off with a quick strike to the throat.

Leaving the gremlin lying in a pool of his own blood, I turned back to the main fight. Both gremlins were still on their feet, hammering away at the mecha knight with their back to me. Any port in a storm, I thought as I charged to the robot’s aid. I jammed my sword through the spine of one of them, dropping him instantly. His compatriot noticed, and dived out of the way of my follow-up strike. He shouted, and a half dozen gremlins surged out of woods. As they moved to surround me, I felt something bump into me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the mecha knight had taken position behind me. Back to back, we face the crowd.

A few bloody, brutal minutes later, I put a bullet through the head of the last gremlin still on his feet. As I caught my breath, I heard something behind me hit the ground with a loud, metallic clang. Turning, I saw the mecha knight lying on the ground in a battered heap. A quick inspection of the fallen machine revealed the problem: its power source had been caved in sometime during the fight. Unwilling to abandon the first thing I’d meet out here that wasn’t trying to kill me, I dragged the disabled robot into a cave I’d found a mile or so away. Depositing it along with the hammer-like wrenches (or perhaps wrench-like hammers) of the gremlins we’d bested. Staring at the busted machine, I pulled out my comlink and made some calls.

Two hours, four scrapped handguns, two stripped comlinks, and three mystified technicians later, I clicked a replacement power cell into place. Light returned to the cross-shaped slit in its head and shined off the purple armor that covered it. It staggered to its feet and turned to face me. I handed it the sword it had wielded, along with one of the shields I’d scavenged. It hefted the weapons and stared at me. “Friend?” I asked. The comlinks I’d wired into it’s CPU should have let it understand what I was saying, but I was dealing with a completely alien technology. I kept a hand on the hilt of my own sword in case the answer was no.

After what felt like an eternity, the mecha knight nodded, and slipped the sword into it’s sheath. I released a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, and pointed toward the cave’s mouth. “Shall we?”

Accompanied by my new metal buddy, I continued the journey to the rescue camp. The mecha knight didn’t have a name, so after some thought I named him Danju. It meant veteran, which seemed appropriate given he’d been running around Cradle for longer than I had. We didn’t run into any more gremlins, which was a definite upside to the day. The last thing I wanted was to get into a fight with something smart enough to target Danju’s jury-rigged power cell.

We reached the rescue camp at around noon the next day, having encountered nothing more dangerous than a pack of slimes during our trip. I found it disturbing that I’d seen enough combat that almost getting enveloped by a gelatinous pink cube only registered as a minor incident. At this rate, I’d become a jaded, burned out veteran by the time I got to Haven. At the rescue camp, I was surprised to discover Sergeant Greta in command. The Skylark’s premier drill instructor was looking a lot worse for wear, but I doubted that I looked all that great either. It had been a long two weeks for both of us. After discussing Danju, and more pointedly if we could trust him, Greta decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and asked him to patrol the camp’s perimeter. Oddly, he didn’t move until I repeated the request, thinking that he hadn’t heard Greta. It wasn’t until later that I realized he would only follow my orders or requests, and not anyone else’s.

Redon was also at the rescue camp, as part of our escort. Which was odd, as escort operations were usually something Guardian Knights would be tasked with. When I asked about it, Redon explained that all of the Order’s remaining Guardians were deployed, leaving him as the next best option. I also told him about my encounter with the gremlins, and their sudden hostility.

“I’m afraid that’s not much of a surprise.” He said. “The gremlins have become much more aggressive over the past few days, and several of our patrols have been attacked without provocation. In light of that change, HQ is considering issuing permission to engage on sight.”

“Any idea why they changed their attitude?” I asked.

“We have absolutely no clue.” He said. “But it’s been causing us a lot of grief, especially since the gremlins seem to have some measure of control over the Clockworks.”

“The what?” I asked.

Redon shot me a surprised look. “No one told you?”

“Told me what?”

He sighed and walked over to the computer terminal in the center of the camp, gesturing for me to follow. After pressing a few buttons, a strange looking picture popped onto the screen. It looked like a circle, with a set of spokes radiating out from the center, and each spoke passed through the center of several massive gears. “Sir, what am I looking at?” I asked.

“This is Cradle.” He pointed to circle. “This is Cradle’s surface,” he pointed to the spokes, “And these are the Clockworks. Hundreds of these support struts are underneath Cradle’s surface, interlocking with each other at these gears. Each gear contains several bio-domes, which consist of an isolated and self-contained environment. Elevator shafts like that one,” He pointed to a large, industrial looking elevator in one corner of the camp, “allow movement between different tiers and their bio-domes.” He tapped a few more keys, and displayed an image of a pair of Clockwork struts in a V shape. “By traveling down through the clockworks, hopping over to another strut, and then returning to the surface, you can vastly reduce the amount of time you spend traveling.” As he spoke, lines appeared at the top of the struts and at a point halfway down, showing the distance between the two struts at those points.

“Tomorrow, we’ll be going into the Clockworks. It’s the only way for us to reach Haven in any reasonable amount of time.” He tapped a few more keys and restored the image of Cradle. Another key sequence brought up the route we’ll be taking. “We won’t be going very deep, only tier one. But we’ll still be able to cut the transit time significantly.”

“What’s tier one?” I asked. “And why aren’t we going any deeper?”

“Lt. Feron will explain that once we reach Haven. For the moment, just know that travel gets more dangerous the deeper you go.” He turned off the console. “Get some sleep, recruit. Tomorrow’s gonna be a rough day.” He ordered.