Chapter 7
It was not often she wished to be anywhere but here; here being the frozen wasteland of Buran IV and its altogether trivial accommodations scratched into the merciless tundra and rock hard ice. Oddly, it wasn't often she wished anything at all, and she puzzled over this, wondering if some vital system within her had at last shut down, or if it merely meant she was doing the job she was good at. And that job was the merciless liquidation of the numerous morons that Humanity had made enemies of over the course of a few Galactic generations. They came to Buran for its wormhole links, they stayed for the weather? She laughed, despite herself; a hollow, brittle sounding laugh, as if her laughter, unused for so long, had forgotten how to properly sound.
The truth was simpler, of course; there was no air here. She stood atop a crumbling piece of limestone nearly two kilometers high and covered with two kilometers of hard-packed snow. What little atmosphere Buran had (that wasn't frozen) was down south, in the valleys, faintly swirling small eddies of snowflakes. Here, just her suit, full of gel, and helmet, full of the same gel, protected her from the terrible sucking cold.
Or at least they tried. She blinked in the wan daylight, fixing her sights, and moved stiff limbs again, trying not to let her metabolism kick on, so her calories would last longer. Nanites fed her brain oxygen directly; the rest of her body was...well..left out in the cold.
Regardless, she was on the move, heading south-southwest from her current position (named 'Mt Erebus' on Colonial Maps) toward Fischel Glacier, about twenty klicks out. Movement was slow, as it meant picking her way over cracked ice and rock strewn waste, all for the singular joy of killing a group of people she had never met.
She had to admit she liked her jobs perks.
And she tried very hard, over the next hour, to not think of Buran as Hell; a place of lost souls; who could fly away, if only any other place would have them.
And lets face it, no other place would feel so much like home...
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The truth was simpler, of course; there was no air here. She stood atop a crumbling piece of limestone nearly two kilometers high and covered with two kilometers of hard-packed snow. What little atmosphere Buran had (that wasn't frozen) was down south, in the valleys, faintly swirling small eddies of snowflakes. Here, just her suit, full of gel, and helmet, full of the same gel, protected her from the terrible sucking cold.
Or at least they tried. She blinked in the wan daylight, fixing her sights, and moved stiff limbs again, trying not to let her metabolism kick on, so her calories would last longer. Nanites fed her brain oxygen directly; the rest of her body was...well..left out in the cold.
Regardless, she was on the move, heading south-southwest from her current position (named 'Mt Erebus' on Colonial Maps) toward Fischel Glacier, about twenty klicks out. Movement was slow, as it meant picking her way over cracked ice and rock strewn waste, all for the singular joy of killing a group of people she had never met.
She had to admit she liked her jobs perks.
And she tried very hard, over the next hour, to not think of Buran as Hell; a place of lost souls; who could fly away, if only any other place would have them.
And lets face it, no other place would feel so much like home...
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