sensation was strange. I felt like a
marionette being pulled up right by its strings. Cass was excruciatingly slow
and was careful enough that I didn’t feel much pain for the first few minutes.
However, when it came to bending my right leg I had to set my teeth firmly
together to stop myself from screaming. It didn’t hurt as bad when she moved
the lower armor into an upright position, but by then my weight was fully
supported by the inside of the suit.
Every part of my body produced a dull
ache as the armor brought my torso upright. Even though I was being supported,
I was still changing my orientation to the planet’s gravity and my chest began
to hurt. It wasn’t as bad as my leg, but I was noticing that none of my muscles
were comfortable being moved after days of inactivity. I started to feel a
little sick.
As if she could tell what was going
on—and with her scanners, that very well may have been the case—Cass dislodged
the faceplate and my visor rose up and out of my face. For the first time in
over a week I was no longer sealed in with my own breath and sweat. I’m sure at
any other time I would have found the planet’s air heavy and uncomfortable, but
at that moment it was like taking a first cool breath after being in a
stiflingly hot room for hours. It was refreshing.
“Okay. Done for now, Burke. How do you
feel?”
“I’ve been better. I’ve been worse,
too.”
“Good. We’re going to walk to the
wreckage of the base. You’re going to get tired but you can’t sleep. You need
to be conscious so you don’t accidentally move against the suit.”
“Okay,” I was starting to feel like a
burden than a bounty hunter. I was growing suspicious about how bad my leg
really was.
“We need to bring something with us.”
I felt something pop down at my belt and
knew that Cass had released the grappling hook. I had to remind myself not to
look down at it in case she moved the armor at the same time. I could do some
major damage to my neck.
“I think I can manage this part, if you
don’t mind.”
She hesitated for a moment and then
spoke: “Of course, Burke. Go ahead.”
She released control over my right arm
and I slowly moved it down to the hook. I gripped it in my hand and felt that
part of it had broken off in the fall. It had previously had four sharp claws
that could latch onto whatever it was thrown at. Two of them had snapped
cleanly from the base of the hook and a third felt weakened. Cass walked us
over to the corpse of the animal I shot and knelt us down. She did her best to
minimize the movement of my right leg but I still had to stifle another scream.
I stabbed the animal in the throat and
caught part of its spine with the single remaining claw. I tugged at it to make
sure it was secure and then let go. When Cass resumed out movement again, I
could feel the added weight of the body being dragged behind us. It would
provide a decent amount of food, and I had to agree with her decision to wake
me up when she did.
I had no idea exactly how far we had
landed from the thieves’s base, but it took hours for us to reach it. The sky
grew brighter with each passing minute, and Cass had been right that I was
tired enough to sleep. I made it a point to not have to rely on her to wake me
up. I may have been damaged, maybe irreparably so, but I was determined to
maintain control of whatever I could and keep my dignity. It was a long walk to
that base.
The sky was a bright, wispy blue when we
reached our destination. The fires had long been extinguished and I saw that
some of the bodies had been picked at by animals or burned in the fires. Adam
hadn’t spared any explosives and all three of the buildings were ruined.
Cass and I spent some time searching the
ruins for any clear areas. One of the two smaller buildings had fared better
than the others and had been fortunate enough not to endure a direct hit. The
nearby explosives had still damaged it enough that not all of its walls