Dawn on Tartarus did not break. It crept slowly, seeping through the sickly yellow-green sky until it lightened to a jaundiced lemon.
Long, twisted shadows stretched across the canyon floor. The fire had burned down to embers, and the cold of the planet had sunk deep into Kaelen's bones. He had been awake for hours, his soldier's discipline pushing aside exhaustion.
He watched SC, who slept fitfully, his face tense even in sleep.
As the light grew, Kaelen stood and began a careful survey of their resources. The escape pod was destroyed, its systems fried, its hull breached, yet it was a treasure trove.
He salvaged wiring, removed the remaining power cells, and tore apart a seat for its fire-resistant fabric and he found a small emergency kit with nutrient bars, a water purifier, and a basic multi-tool.
It was a meager supply, but on a planet like this, it was a kingdom.
SC woke suddenly, hand flying to the pistol at his waistband. He relaxed when he saw Kaelen, a flicker of vulnerability crossing his face before the usual mask returned.
"Morning, General. Enjoying the local ambiance?"
Kaelen ignored the joke and pointed to the small pile of salvaged gear.
"We have enough power for your scanner for maybe fifty standard hours. Six nutrient bars. The purifier can handle twenty liters. We need to move."
SC nodded and pulled out his datapad. The screen flickered to life, showing a topographical map of the region.
It was a patchwork of satellite images, some clear, some hopelessly pixelated, with large areas blacked out as uncharted.
A single red icon pulsed far across the map, hundreds of kilometers away.
"This is our destination," SC said, pointing to the icon. "The coordinates are approximate, but they mark a geologically stable, high-energy region in the northern volcanic plains. Perfect for a hidden research facility that consumes a lot of power."
Kaelen studied the map. It was a cartographer's nightmare. To reach the volcanic plains, they would have to cross a vast stretch labeled Ferrous Wastes and then navigate a dense, mountainous jungle known only as the Gorgon's Maze.
The map told them where to go. It did not tell them how.
"This tells us where to go. It doesn't tell us how," Kaelen said flatly.
"That, General, is your department," SC replied. "I am the navigator. You are the guide."
Their first priority was water , and the purifier was useless without a source.
Kaelen, drawing on survival training he hadn't used since the academy, studied the terrain.
He ignored the alien flora and focused on the basics: geology and gravity. He pointed to a series of dark stains on the canyon wall.
"Those lines in the rock. The stone is porous there. Water would seep through and collect at the base. We start there."
An hour later, they found a shallow, brackish pool of oily, rainbow-sheened water at the bottom of a crevice. It smelled of sulfur and metal.
SC looked at it in disgust.
"We're going to drink that?"
Kaelen said nothing. He unpacked the purifier, placed the intake hose in the pool, and activated it.
A low hum filled the air. After a minute, a thin trickle of clear, clean water dripped into their salvaged canteens.
Kaelen's practical approach quietly mocked SC's squeamishness.
With water secured, they began their trek out of the canyon into the Ferrous Wastes. The landscape was a vision of industrial hell.
It wasn't sand, but a plain of fine, rust-colored dust and metallic grit that crunched under their boots.
The ground was full with twisted metal formations that looked like petrified trees, their bark flaking into sharp, dangerous shards.
The air was hazy with red dust, coating their throats and stinging their eyes. The sun, a pale, indifferent disc in the jaundiced sky, offered no warmth, only harsh light that revealed every hazard.
They walked in silence for hours, Kaelen setting a steady, relentless pace, and SC struggling to keep up.
The general's body was built for endurance. The analyst's was not.
By midday, the sky darkened with dense, green-tinged clouds. Kaelen stopped and sniffed the air. The chemical scent he had noticed before had grown sharper and more acidic.
"Rain," he said grimly. "We need shelter. Now."
SC looked up, confused. "It's just a little rain."
Kaelen grabbed a piece of metal debris from the ground, a hand-sized plate from the pod's hull, and held it out.
"This isn't water."
As he spoke, the first drops fell. They were thick, viscous splatters of greenish liquid. Where a drop hit the metal plate, it sizzled, sending up a wisp of acrid smoke and leaving a pitted, corroded mark. Acid rain.
SC's eyes widened and he sprinted for the only cover nearby, a deep overhang in a cluster of metallic rock formations.
They huddled beneath it as the drizzle turned into a downpour, the acid hissing as it struck the ground, dissolving the red dust into a bubbling, toxic sludge.
They were trapped, prisoners of Tartarus's deadly chemistry, watching as the world outside their small shelter was slowly destroyed.
The land itself was not just dangerous.
It was trying to erase them.