Braving Soteria by Kat Bastion

Author:Kat Bastion [Bastion, Kat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-73480-613-7
Publisher: Kat Bastion and Stone Bastion

In the split second before crash landing, Tasha somehow did an instinctive whole-body flinch, leading with her left shoulder.

Which began to flip her over.

Then she smacked down onto the very solid ground, shoulder first.

A low grunt rumbled from her throat at the sudden hard impact.

Her head spun, as that slightest left-rotation tumbled her sideways. With great force.

Which struck her as strange… once she’d settled to a stop some half-dozen spins later.

Because the realm purportedly had similar pressure, atmosphere, and gravity as Earth, according to the probes. Yet physical reactions to minuscule movements seemed… amplified.

That clanging alarm bell, the helmet’s low-oxygen warnings, cycled off as she deeply inhaled her environmental suit’s oxygen.

A familiar sweet scent laced the charged air, almost like cotton candy. Residual from the elderberry lozenge… mixed with ionized air?

Resting on her belly, she lifted her head and propped up onto her elbows, in time to catch the others crash down into similar tumbling landings.

Onto a dark blackish brown surface. Rough terrain. Rocky and devoid of any signs of plant life. Like they’d landed onto some volcanic moon.

Soteria’s departure point hovered larger than life above them. Inky black, with its pinpricks of colored lights that moved with great dimension, corkscrewing into a gentle swirl.

A nighttime sky framed the gateway, a softer deep black, speckled with winking silvery stars.

Then from Soteria’s membrane, spat out their three scheduled mission probes. All three plummeted as a group to just above the ground, then hovered.

A giant pale gray ball dropped out next, the operation’s launch-and-land inflatable that contained their gear and weaponry. With greater speed, it came down at a slight angle, bounced once, then again, before rolling away from them, across dark-brown rocky terrain.

“Deflate!” Tasha shouted through her suit’s comm link, pushing up off the ground.

The inflatable instantly obeyed, bursting open.

But with its momentum, the opened ball wobbled, tangled into its inflatable, then thumping-rolled twice more before stopping.

While all three of them gave chase to the thing for a good hundred meters.

“Let’s roll it backwards, to untangle it,” said Trebec. “We’re not going anywhere unarmed.”

Tasha took the near corner of the large two-cubic-meter bundle. Langstad the middle.

Trebec took hold of the opposite corner with both hands, using his greater strength to guide the roll. He grunted, using more force and leverage than the rest of them.

Once they righted the bundle enough to expose its three silver hard cases, bound by webbing with various weapons strategically strapped into place, Tasha and Langstad began to unfasten their laser pistols and rifles.

When Langstad handed Trebec his weapons, he holstered the pistol at his hip, then slung the rifle over his back. While they armed themselves, he pulled back, surveying their surroundings. “Scan.”

Bright green data illuminated across their visors. Readings that their suits picked up from their point out, toward every horizon.

Most of the data matched the pre-jump probe. And the six probes in the two days prior. But… not all.

The atmospheric readings had altered slightly.

Less oxygen.

More of some other element.

“Tropospheric composition.” Tasha needed to drill down, discover why the difference.

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