Graduation from Basic (Adventure) - Reuben Calloway Saga 25

Cadet, Third Degree Reuben Calloway felt the sting of tears around the corners of his eyes but he managed to hold them back as he stood rigidly at attention.  He made it through basic training.  He made it!

His crisp, black and red dress uniform was spotless.  Reuben had polished his boots three times to ensure that they could reflect lights.  On his right arm was the traditional red insignia of the Imperium and on his left he now bore the symbol of Special Assault Corp.

He couldn't see them but he knew his parents were sitting proudly in the audience.  It was every human parent's dream to see their offspring have a distinguished military career.  They all were required to serve their five years but only the best continued on to become high-ranking officers.

Reuben could see himself continuing down this path.  He had been terrified of what he would have to face in training but now he was no longer afraid of his future.  He could handle anything the Rebellion threw at him, he was sure of it.  He still had four more years of schooling and training but it would only serve to make him even better.

The last speaker finally concluded and Sergeant Bamtrob walked onto the stage.  "You are now soldiers of the Imperium.  Soldiers SAL-UTE!"

The audience erupted into cheers and Reuben felt himself swell with pride.  This was the greatest day of his life.  Things could only go up from here.

Recovering (Adventure) - Reuben Calloway Saga 24

Reuben groaned as he tried to wake up.  His eyes still felt heavy and everything ached, especially his throbbing ankle.  Peering through the slits in his eyelids he felt momentarily disoriented.  He expected to see the familiar stone walls of his Gittern cave but instead saw the clean metal paneling of his barracks.

Then he remembered.

The rendezvous point... his tracking device not working... barely making it to the ship just as the doors were closing...

He also remembered making it back to his bunk and feeling as if he could sleep for days.  Perhaps he had?  He had no idea how much time had elapsed since he returned.  He glanced at his chronometer.  It was only a hour or two from dawn.

The sound of light snoring made Reuben look around.  Some of his classmates were also back in their bunks but not all.  A girl he had trained that had had a pretty smile was missing and Reuben felt saddened.  Not everyone had been as lucky as he.

Tapping the screen on his chronometer he saw orders to appear in full dress uniform at 0700... two hours from now.  He leaned back against his hard pillow and let his eyes close again.  He made it.

Survival Day 14 (Adventure) - Reuben Calloway Saga 23

Reuben's eyes felt heavy.  If he could just close them for only a minute everything would be so much better...

No!  I have to stay awake!

There was only one hour left until his rendezvous time.  The pickup point was only twenty minutes away but he couldn't risk leaving too early.  The weather was too unpredictable, too brutal.  The heat seemed to have lessened slightly by Reuben was not fooled.

His stomach growled.  The first thing he was going to do when he got back was eat.  The roots that he had found and the rations had been enough to sustain him, but not much else.  The biting edge of hunger had become an old friend by this point... his only friend.

Forty minutes left.

Reuben peered outside his cave.  The weather still seemed to be holding.  Now was the time.  Tightening the straps on his pack and boots, he set out at a brisk pace despite his protesting ankle.  There would be time enough to let his limbs heal.  He would not be stuck on this lifeless rock.

Twenty-five minutes left.

Vert!

The ankle was slowing him down more than he thought it would.  He was going to have to pick up his pace.  The weather was noticeably cooling off by the second which made Reuben glance around nervously.  Snow was sure to start soon, he could feel it.  There would be no way for him to make the pickup in time with a bad ankle and trekking through feet of snow.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to ignore the pain as best he could and pressed on.

Ten minutes left.

A thin sheen of frost began to form on the skin of the mushrooms.  Reuben looked at the time and quickly did some calculations.  At this pace he should arrive there exactly on time.  Exactly on time.  No room for error.

Two minutes left.

His tracking device began to blink and fuzz out.

"Vert!"

Looking around frantically he search for any signs of the ship.  The mushroom forrest made it impossible to see very far but he should at least be able to hear the ship... anything!

He heard a low rumble coming from the south.  At least he thought it was from that direction.  It was impossible to be certain but he didn't have time to question his decision.

He sprinted in that direction has fast as he could.  The rumbles were growing louder as the engine prepared for take off.  There!  In the small clearing!  He could see the transport shuttle.  The doors were slowly sliding shut.

"Wait!  I'm here!"

Survival Day 13 (Adventure) - Reuben Calloway Saga 22

It wouldn't have even mattered if he could walk.  There was nowhere to go.  The heat seemed to be growing more and more intense as each day dragged by, turning Reuben's hideout into a veritable oven.  The only problem was that it was still hotter outside the oven than in.

Tomorrow.  They're coming to pick me up tomorrow.  All I have to do is make it to the rendezvous coordinates they send.

The heat was making him delirious and his ankle was so swollen he could barely move his foot.  It didn't matter.  There was no where to go.  Best to put off the agony of shoving on his boots until the last possible minute.

What if they forget about me?  What if the season changes make landing impossible?  Or what if they interfere with the rendezvous signal?  What if I'm stuck here?  

Reuben tried to shake off the unsettling thoughts but found it impossible to totally reassure himself.  Prolonged isolation had toyed with his mind, making him paranoid.

They're going to forget me.  I'm just one cadet among thousands.  Why would they care if I was alive or dead?  There will be twenty more to replace me.

Best not to sleep then.  It was the only way to ensure that he heard the communication signal when it came.

What if it already came?  What if I miscounted the days and they've already come and gone?

Survival Day 10 (Adventure) - Reuben Calloway Saga 21

The heat and painful throbbing of his ankle woke Reuben up for the umpteenth time.  He saw that his sprained appendage was turning several different shades of purple and blue.  With a groan he grit his teeth against the pain and leaned back against the cool stone floor of his cave.

For the second time he had barely outrun the vicious storm.  There he had been dangling twenty feet above the ground and watching the lightning roll in with brutal efficiency.  He had had no choice.  He had pulled his knife out of the mushroom stalk and slid the rest of the way down grabbing whatever he could to slow his decent.

His landing had been less than graceful, the force of the hitting the ground was enough to make him roll his ankle despite the thick combat boots he wore.  Fueled by adrenaline he had managed to make it to the cave right as the first wave of deadly bolts began to strike the ground.

 Four more days.  Just four more days of this and I'm done.

Four days might as well have been an eternity.  His survival pack contained bandages and coagulants but nothing so trivial as a pain reliever.  Which meant he couldn't even find respite in sleep.  Added to that the heat and humidity of the early summer season was oppressive.

Four days.  I can do this.  Only four more days...

Survival Day 8 (Adventure) - Reuben Calloway Saga 20

This is not good.  Not good at all.  Vert!

Getting stuck on top of a giant, slippery mushroom was not something they had covered in basic survival training.  In fact, if any of his commanding officers saw him now they'd probably laugh at his foolish mistake.

But there was no way I could have stopped it from happening!  I wonder how many cadets end up like this?

It was a question he wasn't really sure he wanted an answer to.  He'd seen the ferocity of Gittern's storms.  He'd seen how many mushrooms had populated the planet before compared to after.  He didn't stand much of a chance and unlike the mushrooms he didn't just grow back.

He had to figure a way out of this.  He did not want his parents to suffer the humiliation of receiving a transmission saying he died during basic training due to getting stuck on top of a three-story piece of fungus.

This wasn't going to be easy.  Despite the rapid growth rate he could see happening all over the surface of the planet, no other shorter mushrooms had sprouted nearby.  So jumping down was out of the question.  The dome of the mushroom he was perched on was far too slicked to safely hang on to the edge to see if there were any grips on the underneath side.

Reuben had managed to hang on to his survival pack but unfortunately it contained no cord or climbing gear.  Which mean he was going to have to improvise.

The only tools he had where his pistol and knife.  Not much but better than nothing.  Setting his pistol to the lowest energy setting, he aimed carefully at a portion of the dome a little bit away from where he was sitting.  There was a sizzle followed by an unpleasant smell.  Reuben inspected his work and saw that there was a hole large enough to stick his fist in... or be used as a foothold.

He briefly considered blasting a hole straight through the dome to the stalk.  But he nixed the idea based on the size of the mushroom and how little damage the low power setting had caused.  To cut through the dome would take almost the entire charge of his pistol's power cell.

Aiming again he fired a few more blasts, enough for him climb down the side of the dome and dangle off the edge.  The decent was still dangerous, the inside contents of the mushroom were squishy and unstable.  More than once he almost slipped right out.

Gripping the edge of the dome as firmly as he could, Reuben took three bracing breaths and then took the plunge.  Panic tore through him as he realized that the piece he held on to was not strong enough to support his full hanging weight and the main stalk was too far away for him to reach.

His left hand completely slipped off the dome and he could feel his right wouldn't be far behind.  Realizing that he had to act now or never, he reached across his belt and grabbed his knife.  Swinging his body once... twice... he heaved himself toward the stalk with as much force as he could muster just before the piece of mushroom he held onto broke off.

For one heart stopping moment he was suspended in air.

He slammed into the stalk hard enough to knock the wind out of him while jamming his knife into it with all of his strength.

The knife sliced through the mushroom's outer membrane easily.  Too easily.  At first Reuben thought it might not be enough to slow his decent.  After plummeting several yards down he finally came to rest.  He was still dangling nearly twenty feet off the ground however.

With a grunt of effort he reached for his pistol with his right hand and blasted a few uneven holes for his feet.  Using his knife as a sort of climbing pick to steady himself and his pistol to make footholes in the smooth surface, Reuben was managing to climb down... very slowly.

He only had about ten feet left when a familiar roar tore through the sky.  He knew that sound.  Another storm was about to start.  He had minutes, maybe less.

There's not enough time.

Survival Day 7 (Adventure) - Reuben Calloway Saga 19

It was the middle of the night and Reuben had been watching the lightning for hours now.  At first it had been an exciting spectacle.  Now he really just wanted it to stop.  He knew that surviving should be keeping him occupied but, quite frankly, he was bored.  Bored and lonely.  He hadn't realized it before but until this training regiment he had never gone this long without speaking to a single creature.  He had always taken light pleasantries for granted.  Now he would give just about anything to be able to say a simple "hi" to someone in passing.

The loneliness and boredom gnawed at Reuben, amplifying how featureless the cave walls were and how hungry he was.  He was by no means starving.  But intensive rationing did not allow for him to eat until his belly was full.  If he had been in the thick of action he probably would not have even noticed.  But sitting in this cave...

The rain abruptly stopped making the silence that followed almost eerie.  Reuben knew he had no time to waste.  Grabbing his pack he sprinted out of the cave and straight back to the large mushroom he had tried to start work on before.  Fortunately, the rain had made the ground soft.  The lack of snow also made digging much faster.

It didn't take long to find the roots.  The mushroom was large enough that even the shallower growths were nearly as thick as Reuben's arm.  He touched the root and held his finger there for a few seconds.  No burning sensation, no allergic reaction... so far, good good.

He pulled his knife out and sliced off a chunk.  Nothing oozed out, also a good sign.  He bit off a tiny piece and held it in his mouth, his heart hammering in anticipation as he waited for any possible toxic side effects to take place.  The root was bitter but not completely revolting.  More importantly, it was food.

Aside from leaving a dry taste in his mouth, nothing seemed to be happening.  His tongue still felt like its normal size, there was no itching or swelling on his body and, after checking his reflection on the blade of his knife, no strange spots.  It may not be gourmet dining but food was food.

Reuben began to hastily slice off more root sections.  Time seemed to be his greatest enemy on this planet.  Not enough time to gather and far too much time doing nothing but twirl his thumbs in the cave.

A deep rumble shook the ground.

Vert!  Not another storm!

Another rumble.  It occurred to Reuben that it didn't sound the same as the storm he had heard before.  This noise wasn't coming from the sky.  It was almost as if...

The ground started to move.  Yelping in surprise, Reuben managed to grab an armful of the roots before a huge dome shaped something began to push its way up right where he had been standing.  Reuben watched in awe as a huge mushroom sprung from the soil and grew right in front of him at an incredible rate.

So that's how those things survive.

The soil beneath his boots began to shift again.  Reuben shifted the weight of his bundle and started to sprint back to his cave but it was too late.  This time the mushroom was faster than he was.  It was all he could do to hang on for dear life as the newly formed fungus stretched itself toward the sky.