Darren glanced down at his bare hands, seeing his skin turning bright yellow. Brighter than it ever had before. That meant a Furyan was vulnerable. At least his body was agreeing with his mind right now.
It hadn’t always, he remembered as he stood up and walked towards the closed hatch, tugging on his backpack to make sure it was secure. In the beginning of his life his body had pretty much run him, and it wasn’t until his father had showed up and taught him what it meant to be a Furyan did he understand the power that he had to control. Others in Star Force had it easier, and their bodies didn’t run them as much, but for a Furyan it could be very bad if you didn’t learn control. If you didn’t make your body your own and adjust it to fit the person inside. Because like it or not, his parents were far beyond him in skill, experience, and badassery. And his body had been based off theirs, so he was getting a lot of powers he hadn’t earned yet, with even more locked into his genome to be discovered later.
Thankfully his Rensiek was active, so he had some way to keep warm down there in spite of his light clothes. He’d learned to use it 3 years ago, not thinking it was important. He’d never needed to keep warm in the maturia, for it was indoors. None of the training courses had snow on them, and he’d never really been cold in his life. But the outdoors he was about to enter would be below freezing, and he hoped his Rensiek skills would be good enough to keep him alive.
Another Klaxon sounded, forcing him to take a step back as it scared him…but not as much as the ramp breaking free from the hull and slowly tilting down with an energy shield separating atmospheres over the aperture, but he could still feel the cold seeping through as he suddenly realized the dropship hadn’t stopped moving and was still flying across the landscape.
When it tipped down far enough he saw a mountain range pass underneath him, almost close enough to reach out and touch. Darren felt his legs go wobbly, and not from the ship shaking, for it was steady and he felt nothing. He put a hand on the floor to keep from falling over and dropped down on his ankles into a tripoint stance and waited there just inside the shield perimeter as the dropship eventually slowed down over top the peak of a ridge-like mountain.
“Depart,” a voice said, with Darren swallowing hard as he walked through the shield and onto the ramp, feeling a hard wind hit him that sucked the heat out of his face and hands. He tucked the latter into his pockets and sent a surge of Rensiek through him, steeling himself against temperature changes and letting his natural body heat swell underneath his skin.
He walked to the end, seeing it was 4 meters over the rocky ground, and took his hands back out again. There was no going back. They had told him that already. There was only forward, afraid or not.
He had to do this.
Darren stepped off and dropped, catching his shoes on the uneven rock and dropping into a crouch to slow his fall. He managed to keep control and his balance, standing up as the dropship moved away, pulling up its ramp as it accelerated off into a cloud bank that was dropping more snow on the valley below.
It wasn’t here yet, and the ground under his feet had no snow on it. Only rock. That meant he was probably higher than the weather would get…or maybe not. Right now he didn’t care as he tucked his hands into his pockets again and telekinetically pulled up his hood and snugged it around his neck so only his face was showing.
“Ok, Darren. Unless this is some giant training exercise and they’re fooling you, this is real and they really left you here. Temperature is going to be colder up here, so going lower will be warm…less cold,” he corrected, staying put for a moment and looking at the scenery. He was at the very top of this ridge and had an unlimited view all around him for miles. The terrain was rough, and there were no cities here. No outposts. No nothing. Just him and his direction finder, which he wore on his left wrist.
It pointed to his left along the ridgeline, but he didn’t want to stay up here and try to get across. He’d seen a lot of gaps on the flight here, with crevasses he couldn’t jump across. The only way to travel was up and over or along the bottom of the valleys. Which meant he was going to have to zigzag his way to his destination…unless his flight psionic manifested itself in the next few minutes.
Darren wasn’t going to hold his breath for that one, and speaking of breath, he was having a hard time breathing up here. Maybe it was the cold, or the altitude, or both, but he needed to go lower…and needed to do it without falling. His body may heal fast, but he didn’t have an unlimited amount of food in his pack.
And if he lost his pack…
That wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t let it.
The wind was steady and hard up here, and his clothes were already soaking in the cold, so he took one last moment to get his bearings…wishing he had a camera to record the layout…then started slowly walking downward and slipping on gravel immediately.
He caught himself before he fell, and made sure he took extra small steps
