Transmission Lost

by Stefan Mazzara

  When finally they broke through the woods, Jack was surprised by how tall the mountain range was. He tilted his head all the way back, trying to see the top, but the summit was concealed from their view by a layer of low-flying, thick white clouds. The mountains were not bare rock like one might expect to see, but were covered with the greens and purples of plant life. As far as Jack could see, it didn't look like trees, but more like high shrubs and grasses.

  Aria was relieved to see that they wouldn't have to climb sheer walls, at least not at first. The bottoms of the mountains were grass and rock slopes; they were steep, but they appeared to be manageable. Her fur smoothed a little as her anxiety lessened.

  “Right, Jack,” Aria said. She adjusted the sling on her heavy rifle, strapping it over her shoulder and securing it to her pack with a clip to leave her hands free. “We begin, yes? You first.”

  The human mimicked Aria, strapping his rifle out of the way in the same fashion. “Me first? Why me?”

  Aria waved her hand at him. “Smaller. Find paths easier. Also. I able to catch you if you fall. You not be able to catch me. You fall, we safe. I fall, we both fall. Make sense, yes?”

  Jack stroked his chin. “I guess that makes sense.” He shrugged. “Alright, we'll do it your way.” Jack faced the cliff, considering. Slightly to their left, he saw a natural path carved between two rocks, lined with grass poking up between coarse gravel. He pointed to that. “Let's start off that way. Looks like it'll have decent traction, so long as we watch our footing.”

  The Ailian nodded, taking a deep breath to steel herself. Jack led the way, starting the climb. The morning was still cool, and for the first few minutes of climbing he didn't sweat. The slope was gradual, though not quite what one would call easy. They found themselves not talking very much, conserving their breath for the climb.

  When they were five hundred meters or so above where they had begun, Jack started to notice the wildlife waking up from overnight. He looked around, seeing a variety of birds flying around the mountain. All of them were very colorful, decorated in feathers of bright reds, blues, and greens. They seemed similar to parrots, except with long, straight beaks instead of the short curved ones of those more familiar birds. The birds flew about on two pairs of wings, filling the air with shrill caws and trills. Jack thought they looked to be the size of just regular birds, but as he watched them one flew closer and closer, and he suddenly realized that they were nearly as big as he was.

  “Damn...,” Jack said, stopping his climb to watch in fascination. “Aria, are you seeing this? You ever seen birds this huge before?”

  Aria took her eyes away from their path to look. Her eyes widened in surprise. “No. Is amazing...” She watched the bird fly very close past them, the fur on her head rustling in the wash from its wings. The bird glanced at them as it went by, but seemed to pay them little mind. “Lucky it not seem hungry right now...” Jack watched in some amusement as Aria licked her lips. “But...Hmm...I wonder what it taste like...”

  “Maybe we can try bringing one down when we get to a resting place,” Jack suggested. He waved to her. “Come on. Looks like the serious climbing is about to begin.”

  Following the direction Jack indicated, Aria's ears flattened to her head as she saw what was before them. They had about another three hundred or so meters of sloping ground, and then the mountain took a sharp jump upwards. While not exactly a sheer cliff, it was very steep. Grey rock, crisscrossed with thick mottled purple vines, went up for at least three kilometers.

  “Not looking forward to this...,” Aria growled, her tail bushing out.

  “I'll find the path,” Jack reminded her. “I'll try not to lead us on a bad one. We have to do this, remember?” Turning away from her he continued climbing, going up.

  Before long they reached the rock wall. At Aria's insistence, Jack spent some time seeing if he could pick a way around, but after trying several promising paths that ended up dead ends, he reported that they would have to climb.

  “Very well...” Aria shivered a little, and Jack could see the shadows of fear on her face. “If we must, we must...”

  Nodding, Jack took the first step. As much as Aria he wasn't looking forward to making the climb without ropes, or even chalk to dust his hands with, but there was nothing for it. He surveyed the rock in front of him, and a few feet above his head he saw a suitable handhold. Reaching for it, he grabbed it and pulled himself up. His foot found a hold as well, and he started climbing. Looking down, he saw Aria hesitate for a few moments and then follow him. She had an advantage over him: her tough claws served as makeshift crampons, giving her something she could fall back on should she not be able to find a good hand- or foothold right away.

  Jack was definitely starting to sweat, now. The sun was higher in the sky, and he was exerting himself far more than before. He had to frequently wipe his hands on his fatigue jacket to keep them from getting too slick. He reflected that as annoying as the sweat was, at least it helped to keep him cool. With a random thought, Jack wondered how Aria was feeling. She was covered in fur, and if the Ailian body worked anything like Earth felines, she probably didn't sweat. Casually, Jack glanced down, looking at Aria.

  Surprised, he saw that it looked like she did sweat, at least a little bit. Her orange fur was slightly matted where it showed. Jack stifled a childish giggle as he saw that she was also panting, kind of like how a dog would. She noticed him staring and growled, then looked down behind her and squeaked in terror, quickly looking back up with her eyes wide.

  “Come on, Aria,” Jack called. “I think I see a ledge a few meters above us. Just a few more minutes of climbing and then we can take a rest.”

  “A-Alright.”

  Jack continued his climb, his arms and legs aching from the effort. He was starting to see the benefit of Aria's pushiness. In just two weeks of almost nonstop traveling across the planet, he was already feeling as though he was in better shape. He was sure that if he'd had to do this from the beginning, he wouldn't have been able to climb this high.

  With one final reach, Jack's hand found the ledge he'd been aiming for. Hauling himself up, he rolled onto the relatively flat ground, breathing hard. A minute or so later Aria's hand appeared, scrabbling around for purchase on the ledge, and she climbed up beside him. As soon as she was up, she scrambled as far away from the edge as she could, pressing her back tight against the mountainside. Jack moved to sit next to her, and he took a long drink from his canteen.

  “See? That wasn't so bad, was it?” Jack lightly elbowed Aria in the side.

  The taller female looked down at him, gritting her teeth. “Shut...up...,” she gasped out between pants. “Is not funny. Not like climbing.”

  “You're doing okay. Besides...” Jack crawled to the edge, gazing over. “Look at how high we've climbed already. I bet we're halfway up this mountain already.” Indeed, Jack was surprised how high they'd gone. From where they'd begun ascending the rock wall it looked as though they'd covered slightly over a kilometer. The trees down below, as tall as they appeared from the ground, looked like little more than fuzzy toothpicks.

  At his suggestion that she look, Aria shook her head emphatically. “Not look. If I look, I be sick.” She rested her head back against the rock, laying a hand across her face. “Not want to climb anymore...”

  “Well, we can't go back down,” Jack pointed out. “That's suicide without ropes. All we can do is keep going up.” He left unsaid the uncomfortable thought that they would still have to go down the other side of the mountain. Jack would rather not think about that right now. He crawled back over to Aria. “Come on. Let's eat something, rest for an hour or so, and then we'll get back to it.”

  “Alright,” Aria agreed, giving a sigh.

  “Besides, whenever you get back home and make a report about all this, do you really want to have to tell your superiors that you couldn't do the same thing as a weak, puny human?”

  At least this time Aria managed a weak smile
, and even a small laugh. “Is true, I not want to have to say that,” she said. “Though this human not that weak or puny.”

  “Wow, that might be the nicest thing you've said to me.”

  ******

  When they were both ready, they continued the climb. Jack could still feel a little soreness, but the rest they'd taken had allowed him to recover significantly. The vines were also starting to grow more numerous, giving them additional handholds. Both of them were astounded at how strong the vines were; they were able to support even Aria's weight with no problems. Experimentally, Jack borrowed Aria's knife and tried to cut through one of them. He got barely a quarter of the way through the vine before he had to give up, lest the knife grow too dull to be of any use. That was a shame. Jack had been thinking of trying to cut a few lengths to take along with them for use as ropes.

  After almost an hour of climbing, Aria felt as though she couldn't take anymore. “Is...Is almost the top, yes?”

  Trying to keep his handholds, Jack blinked sweat out of his eyes. “I'm not sure...I think I see something that looks like a ledge, but...” He paused, listening, his ears straining. “I think I hear running water.”

  “Water? Good...” Aria's hand slipped, and she swiped her claws out, hurriedly clutching at a vine to steady herself. “Will need a bath...after all this...”

  “Come on...If we're near the top, we can't stop for too long...My arms won't last.”

  It took nearly twenty minutes more of hard climbing, but they finally came to the top. As Jack and Aria pulled themselves up and stood on flat ground, they found themselves surprised once more at what the uncharted planet had in store for them. Instead of just a simple rock ledge, they were standing on what appeared to be a wide, expansive mesa. In front of them, stretching as far as they could see, was a thick jungle of tall green shrubs, high purple ferns, and short feathery grasses of numerous colors. To their left, the mountain continued climbing up, forming a wall border for the jungle. To their right, perhaps five kilometers away, a second peak rose up, creating a valley in between the two.

  “So many plants, so high up...,” Aria murmured, her breathing still heavy from the climb. “This planet...is strange...”

  “Yeah...,” Jack agreed. “Full of surprises.”

  Aria's ears perked up, her tail swishing back and forth eagerly. She could hear the sound of running water that Jack had heard earlier. “Come. I want to find the water.” She shook her canteen, which was nearly empty. “Thirsty after climb.”

  Jack agreed wholeheartedly with this. Too, he was extremely tired and felt like they'd want to set up camp soon. There was still plenty of daylight left, but this day had been their most trying one yet, physically speaking. With Aria leading the way now, Jack followed. As they walked, the sound of water grew louder and louder. Before too long, the shrubs and ferns gave way to a clearing, and Aria gave a loud “Ooooh!” of delight.

  Cascading down the rock wall very near to their left was a wide, rushing waterfall, feeding down into a large, shallow pool. The water was relatively clear, although there were white swirls throughout that Jack assumed were clouds of minerals carried down from the mountaintop. Sunlight illuminated the entire clearing, giving a shimmery, diamond-like appearance to the surface of the pond. Floating here and there on the water's surface were large, iridescent blue flowers with broad green leaf pads underneath, similar to water lilies. Jack thought he could see small fish swimming here and there in the water, but he wasn't sure.

  “Thank gods...,” Aria sighed. She stretched her arms, gazing at the water with true desire on her face. “Have not had a bath in...since crashing. And I want these bandages off.”

  “Don't get ahead of yourself,” Jack said. “Let's set up camp first, alright?”

  Aria reluctantly agreed, and they got to work pitching their tent near the edge of the water. Jack dug a pit for a fire, though he wasn't sure he'd be able to find much wood. Trees had been few and far between so far at this high altitude, with the vast majority of plant life being vines and leafy shrubs. Then again, the vines up here were very thick and durable, and fallen chunks of them seemed to be plentiful. Perhaps they'd do in a pinch.

  Once the campsite was established, Aria clapped her hands loudly. “Good enough, yes?” She turned her head in the direction of the water, looking at it longingly. Her tail and ears were twitching in anticipation.

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Good enough, I guess. Go ahead and take a bath if you want.” He picked up his rifle, checking it over and jacking a round into the chamber. “In the meantime, I'm going to go have a look around and see if I can gather some fuel for the fire. And what you said earlier got me thinking about dinner. We're getting low on preserved food, so I figured I'd see if I could hunt down some meat. Maybe one of those birds we saw earlier in the day. We should take every chance we have to stretch out our supplies.”

  Aria nodded her head approvingly. “Good. You thinking more like soldier every day.” She stretched her arms again, joints popping. “And good soldiers keep clean. So...” She turned around and headed for the water's edge.

  “Enjoy yourself. I'll be back before long.” Jack turned as well, trekking off into the mountaintop jungle.

  ******

  Once Jack was out of sight, Aria removed her belt and unzipped her flight suit, peeling it down her body and stepping out of it. She wrinkled her nose at the musty smell that wafted up. “Kas'ne a reil...” Her flight suit was fairly soaked with sweat and caked with dirt on the outside from the climbing. She shivered as she remembered having to scale that rock wall. She really was scared of heights, just as Jack had said.

  Going to the water, she knelt down and dunked her clothes in it. After a few minutes of hard scrubbing, the garment was reasonably clean. Shaking it out, Aria carried it to a large, flat rock that was sitting in sunlight and laid it out flat to dry. Going back to the water's edge, Aria just stood there for a few minutes, breathing deep and letting the breeze blow over her bare fur. Unsheathing a claw from one finger, she starting tearing through her bandages, unwrapping them from the parts of her body where she'd been wounded. All of her wounds seemed to have healed, leaving no scars. She balled them up and pitched them into the fire pit, where they could be burned up later. Looking down at her body, Aria idly traced a finger along the lengthy scar down her front. A faint echo of the pain from that wound echoed through her. Nearly two years had passed since she'd gotten that injury, in her first battle...She'd been younger and less careful then.

  Wasting no more time, Aria stepped down into the water. Instantly she sighed in pleased surprise. The water was heated by some natural trick. The Ailian walked deeper into the hot spring until she got to the deepest point, where the water came about to her waist. She waved her tail around in the water, sending ripples through the pool. With another long, purring sigh, she lowered herself, kneeling in the water so that it came up to her neck.

  “Ah...Rek la a'lash ke ran...,” Aria purred.

  Her bath would have been much more effective if she'd had soap or something else to wash with, but the warm water was doing wonders for her mental health. Submerged in the water, she started scrubbing her hands all over her body, untangling her fur as the heat worked on her sore muscles. All the while she was washing, small, brightly colored fish flitted about underneath the water, seemingly undisturbed by this intruder in their home.

  After perhaps an hour of enjoying the warm water, Aria was feeling totally relaxed, recovered from the long day. Standing back up, little rivulets of water dripping down her fur, she waded through the the pool to the waterfall. Standing by it, she stretched an arm out and put her hand into the deluge. The water falling down was slightly chilled, not warm like the pool itself. Taking a deep breath, Aria stepped into the waterfall, arching her back with her hands behind her head and letting the cool water refresh her.

  ******

  When Jack came back to the camp, it was with a feeling of great success. Not only had he managed to ga
ther a sizable bundle of fallen vines, but he'd also downed one of the flying creatures they'd seen. While not as big as the one that had flown close to them at the rock wall, it was still fat and would probably make a good meal, assuming it was edible. He hoped it would be, as he was getting tired of the preserved rations they'd been eating.

  Walking into the clearing, Jack dumped his load of thick vines and set down the dead bird. He was about to set to work plucking and cleaning the animal when a splash from the water caught his attention. Looking over, he felt a tingle shoot up his spine.

  Aria was standing in the waterfall, her face turned up to the cascade as she let the water flow over her. She was turned towards Jack, slightly to one side, but she hadn't seemed to notice him. Inadvertently she was giving him quite the eyeful. Jack had already seen her nude a few times before, of course, when he was tending her wounds and in the tent, but that had been in close quarters and he hadn't been bold enough, or interested enough, to look for more than a few seconds. But now the setting and her unguarded appearance was piquing his curiosity.

  Even though he knew he shouldn't stare, for some reason Jack couldn't help it. Aria's tall form, covered in her pale shade of orange fur with black stripes, was strangely alluring. He'd never thought of Ailians in this way before he'd met her. She had a muscular body, though not beefy like a bodybuilder. As he watched, she rubbed her hands down her shoulders, down over her large breasts. Her cream-colored belly fur, like the rest of her, was slicked wet with water, plastering it to her, leaving absolutely nothing of her curvy form to his imagination. The only thing that marred her body was the long scar that snaked down from her collarbone, between her breasts, to her navel. And even that scar only seemed to accentuate the rest of her looks.