Story [Issue 82] Cro

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

 

Cro waved cheerily at Hek. “Nice to see you. Thanks for dropping by!”

Hek approached cautiously, squatting on the roots of the nearest tree. “Are you ok?”

Cro shrugged, causing the mire around him to undulate. “I’m not sinking. Pretty sure I have several ribs bruised, maybe even fractured. It hurts a little to breathe. How about you?”

He watched as Hek shifted around to sit on a root. Her right thigh sported a pressure bandage; she was favoring it pretty noticeably.

She followed his gaze and nodded. “The leg is bad, but no arterial bleeding. Got caught on something when I bailed out. I put the bandage on, but haven’t had a chance to clean it or really take a look. Silly question: can you get out?”

Cro patted his backpack, lying flat on the bog just in front of him. “I think I could probably get out by using that as a platform, but I’m pretty sure I’ll bury it in the process. I’m much less sanguine about being able to retrieve it afterwards. I heard from both you and Imp, so waiting here seemed the smart choice.”

“Imp responded? I didn’t see that.” Hek was surveying the area.

“Yes. I’ll need to send another pulse in a bit.”

“Your thoughts on how I should get you out?”

Cro nodded. “If you could make some form of mat, using limbs and fronds, then toss that out to me, I could use it to work myself free. If you have some any rope, you could toss an end over, and I can tie it to my backpack. You can pull that to safety while I get my legs out, then I should be able to roll across the surface to solid ground.”

Hek looked up to where Cro’s ‘chute dangled. “You came in through a clearing. Doesn’t look like you broke any handy branches on the way down.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I aimed for the clearing. It didn’t really occur to me to wonder why there was a clearing, though. I wish I’d had that thought before I jumped down!”

“Hindsight is 20/20,” grunted Hek as she stood. “I’ll be back.” She headed back into the jungle, pausing to twist back. “Hey, since you can see sky, can you get a GPS fix?”

He nodded. “The accuracy isn’t great; there are only a couple of satellites in view, but I can tell you where in the middle of nowhere we are, give or take a hundred meters.”

“Great,” said Hek. “Between that and my fix before penetrating the canopy, we ought to be able to get a good bearing on the transport.” She limped off into the jungle.

Cro relaxed and waited, as he’d been doing for the last couple of hours. It turns out that being trapped in thick mud was actually fairly comfortable. It gripped and supported every inch of his submerged frame. So long as he didn’t move, it seemed happy to hold him. A tiny experiment with struggling had assured him that sinking deeper was still an option, so he relaxed instead, concentrating on regulating his breathing and keeping as still as possible.

Time passed. His NetHand beeped, reminding him that another hour had elapsed, so he triggered an emergency pulse to help guide Imp.

Being immobilized may not have been uncomfortable, but it surely was boring. Cro contemplated resting his head and arms on his backpack for a little nap, but this really didn’t seem like a good time for a snooze. He instead mentally replayed the last few moments before the transport incident, looking for a clue as to what happened.

They had been in the crew area, just aft of the cockpit. Veteran soldiers all, Cro assumed that most had been asleep. He knew he had been. The warning claxon yanked him awake; the air was quickly filling with fumes from burning electronics. The transport shuddered violently, then the red lights signalling bailout strobed. Cro’s training had kicked in, and he had made straight for the nearest exit. Another violent movement by the transport had thrown him against a metal support; that was where his ribs had been injured.

His next clear memory was free falling, the wind filling his ears and beating his face. The ground was far below, but getting closer in a hurry. Mac was right beside him, one hand gripping Cro’s harness, keeping him from tumbling. He must have blacked out and Mac had pulled him from the quad. He gave Mac a thumbs-up; Mac returned the gesture and released him.

Talking during free fall wasn’t really possible; the noise from the wind was too intense. Cro signalled he was ready to pop his parachute. Mac gave another thumbs-up. Cro pulled the cord, and nearly passed out from the pain when his harness pulled tight against his side. When his vision cleared, he saw Mac plummeting below him, Mac’s pilot ‘chute trailing but failing to deploy the main canopy.

Cro counted the seconds, per his training. At eight hippopotamus, he saw Mac’s emergency ‘chute deploy. Good.

He had tried to follow Mac down, but with the smaller emergency ‘chute, Mac descended much more quickly, while Cro’s larger canopy was more susceptible to the directions of the wind. He’d taken some pretty good measurements with his NetHand, though, and knew that Mac was about two kilometers to the west. The fact that Mac hadn’t responded to any of the emergency radio traffic was worrisome; he should have been in range.

“So you decided on a spa treatment?” Imp’s voice startled Cro out of his reverie.

“Son of a,” exclaimed Cro. “You are one sneaky….”

“Who else has been here?”

“How did you… nevermind.” Cro had long since given up on understanding how Imp knew things. He was almost on the opposite side of the mire from where Hek had appeared, but apparently Imp saw enough to tell him that there had been another arrival. “Hek was here. She’s off in the jungle, looking for materials to rescue me. She’s been gone a little over an hour.”

Imp sat down on an exposed root. “I’ll wait here and see what she comes back with. I passed some bamboo on the way if she doesn’t find anything else suitable. Who else have we heard from?”

“No one yet. I’m worried about Mac. His primary didn’t deploy, so he rode the emergency ‘chute down. He landed about two clicks west of here, but he hasn’t responded to any of the emergency radio signals.”

Imp frowned. “That is worrisome. Hek know?”

Cro shook his head. “Didn’t come up. She was only here a minute before heading out. Her leg is wounded, by the way.”

Imp nodded. “Ok.” Taking out his NetHand, he toggled the radio. “Imp calling Hek. Imp calling Hek. I’m here with Cro. What’s your status? Over.”

“What are you doing?” exclaimed Cro.

“We were sabotaged,” said Imp. “Whoever did it was on the transport, not hiding down here in the jungle. We don’t need to worry about being detected.”

“Sabotaged?”

Imp look at Cro, genuine puzzlement on his face. “You didn’t hear it? The ping of the stator locks engaging?”

It was Cro’s turn to look puzzled. “What is a stator lock?”

“A safety device used when performing maintenance on the engines. It locks the rotor to the stator, preventing the turbine from spinning.” He leaned forward, looking intently at Cro. “They make a very distinctive sound!”

“And that means sabotage?”

Imp nodded. “Most likely. To engage the maintenance system while the engines are in operation, you would have to hack the transport’s OS. While that may be possible from an external source, you would need a very powerful targeted RF beam and precision knowledge of the operating system and command structure. You would be hacking blind. No, it’s much more likely the hacker was on board.”

While Cro contemplated this, Imp looked at the radio. “She’s not going to answer, is she?”

“Hek, violate protocol? Not in this life.”

Imp looked thoughtfully at the jungle. “You think she’s circled back to surveil us?”

“Depends on how far out she was. I’m sure she’s on the way.”

“Oh, she’s close,” said Hek, stepping out of the jungle directly behind Imp, who leapt to his feet, startled.

Cro let out a whoop of laughter, then cringed as his ribs throbbed. “Looks like you’re not the only jungle ninja,” he groaned.

Working together, Hek and Imp were able to strip several limbs, making serviceable poles. These they tossed to Cro, who laid them in overlapping triangles around himself. Once several layers of these poles were in place, he had a surface on which to push and begin the slow, painful process of prying himself free.

Hek and Imp conversed, deciding on the best course of action. It was clear that Cro would need a couple of hours to get free, and that daylight would be in short supply by then. Mac’s situation was definitely a priority, but so was staying together. After several rounds of back-and-forth, Imp left to look for Mac while Hek stayed with Cro.

As Cro continued his slow struggle, Hek began gathering more wood for a fire. The ground was quite wet, but she found a spot where the roots from several trees entangled to form a plateau of sorts. It seemed likely they would be overnighting here; a fire would bring at least the illusion of comfort.

A little over an hour after he left, Imp checked in. The contact was worrisome, but not overtly alarming. He hadn’t found Mac, and was having difficulty proceeding. Hek pushed her concern to the back of her mind. Of the entire team, Imp was the best in the woods. He’d be fine. She needed to focus on herself and Cro.

Cro finally crawled to solid land while the sun was still in the sky, but clearly on its way down. Hek used handfuls of leaves to help him scrape away a few layers of caked-on mud, then they took off most of his clothes and his boots, placing them on sticks near the fire to dry. Hek gently wrapped his ribs with an elastic bandage.

“Do you want me to look at your leg?” Cro asked. Hek nodded.

The bleeding had slowed quite a bit, but still oozed plenty once the compression bandage was removed.

“This looks fairly clean,” commented Cro.

“It happened on the quad, and I bandaged it while I was hanging in a tree,” responded Hek. “It didn’t have a lot of time to get dirty.”

Cro pulled the auto-suture from his medkit. “I’m thinking about eight stitches. You?”

Hek nodded.

“Painkiller?”

Hek shook her head. “I think I want my wits more than my comfort.”

After washing his hands in a stingy splash of canteen water, Cro cleaned Hek’s wound with alcohol then wiped it with a sterile gauze, pretending not to notice the grimaces of pain on Hek’s face. The eight sutures clearly weren’t an enjoyable experience either. By the time he placed a new pressure bandage on her thigh, Cro was worried she may pass out.

“It’s lumpy as hell,” he said, gesturing at the root-laced ground. “Still, I think you should lie down. I’ll keep watch until Imp comes back.”

Cro spread a thin mylar emergency blanket on the ground to insulate against the moisture. Hek barely fidgeted before closing her eyes. Seconds later, her breathing slowed and deepened. Cro watched for a moment, then carefully reached to slip her NetHand from its pocket. Sitting down on a root, he pulled out his own, and began consolidating data.

Hek didn’t have any imaging of the quad’s actual crash site; it had still been airbourne when she landed, albeit not by much. But its smoke trail was straight, and the rate of descent had looked pretty constant. He best estimate put the crash site a good 50 km east of them. Blazing a trail through the jungle was a difficult endeavor, and very slow. Both he and Hek were wounded, which would further reduce their rate of travel. And since Mac hadn’t responded but was nearby, Cro felt safe in assuming he would be more likely to be listed as a “burden” than an “asset.”

So, pessimistically, assume an average sustained speed of one km/h. Hope for ten hours a day of actual travel. That would be five days before they had covered enough ground to begin searching for the transport. Plus whatever time they spent searching for Mac before they left. Plus any encounters they may have along the way.

The standard supplies in their backpacks only had three days’ worth of full rations. They could maybe stretch that to five days, but traversing a jungle was hard work; they would need the calories and nutrition. Which meant scavenging. Which took time. So, add a day. Six days to reach ground zero for their search pattern. Plus the day they had already lost, so seven. And they hadn’t actually found Mac. Make it eight. Then, once there, how long to find the quad? There was no way to know. It was a large thing, and would have made quite a mess crashing down through the canopy. Maybe even started a fire. But it could still take them days to find it; more, since they were starting with spotty data at best, and would have to rely mostly on compass bearings instead of GPS for the trip. And still more, since at the moment, only Imp would really be doing much searching once they got there. So, call it another seven days.

Two weeks from now, if all went according to plan, they would find the wreckage of the transport. And then what?

Mahalo (thank you) for reading; I hope you enjoyed! This story is part of a series. Information on the series, and links to the other stories, can be found here.

 

[P.4.R.K.O.U.R 329]

Imp frowned. “That is worrisome. Hek know?”

Pun or typo?! :unsure:

 

A great job, anyway.

Edited December 8, 2018 by P.4.R.K.O.U.R

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Pun or typo?! :unsure:

 

A great job, anyway.

It's not much of a pun, but it ain't no typo! Just a casual conversation, where Imp was asking "Does Hek know?"

 

With the abbreviated name scheme I've used for this series, there are going to be opportunities for some pretty godawful puns. We'll see if I'm a disciplined-enough writer to avoid them...

[P.4.R.K.O.U.R 329]

It's not much of a pun, but it ain't no typo! Just a casual conversation, where Imp was asking "Does Hek know?"

 

With the abbreviated name scheme I've used for this series, there are going to be opportunities for some pretty godawful puns. We'll see if I'm a disciplined-enough writer to avoid them...

Wait, can "Does Hek know?" be shortened to "Hek know?" instead of "Hek knows?"

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Wait, can "Does Hek know?" be shortened to "Hek know?" instead of "Hek knows?"

Clearly, it can. I don't assert that it's grammatically correct, merely that it's a commonplace vernacular. Besides which, "Hek knows?" isn't a pun.

[P.4.R.K.O.U.R 329]

KK

I guess I haven't explored much of English literature. Why, even yesterday I didn't know that 'It ain't no...' asserted negative. I used to wonder whether 'It ain't no typo' meant 'It is not no typo' and thus was a typo.

[thethiefofvictory 339]

KK

I guess I haven't explored much of English literature. Why, even yesterday I didn't know that 'It ain't no...' asserted negative. I used to wonder whether 'It ain't no typo' meant 'It is not no typo' and thus was a typo.

It's some weird slang, I agree. Rather silly, really, tbh.

 

Anyways great story!

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

KK

I guess I haven't explored much of English literature. Why, even yesterday I didn't know that 'It ain't no...' asserted negative. I used to wonder whether 'It ain't no typo' meant 'It is not no typo' and thus was a typo.

"Ain't" is tricky. According to Wikipedia, 

Ain't is found throughout the English-speaking world across regions and classes, and is among the most pervasive nonstandard terms in English. It is one of two negation features (the other being the double negative) that are known to appear in all nonstandard English dialects

 

Despite its ubiquity, the actual meaning varies not only geographically, but temporally. In historical writings, the meaning may be different.

 

I use it the way it was used in the land of my youth, but I only use it when trying to make a point. It's not in my daily vocabulary.