Manifold [An Interstellar Sci-Fi Progression Story with LitRPG Elements]

Their encampment was set atop the Treblink Inselberg*, the tents being pitched across the undulating, rocky ground.

*[Known amongst route haulers as the site of an Ayish-Bejana mass grave.]

Betelgeuse ordered that it be torn down with all possible haste, leaving the work to Voke, Douglas and Misha to administer and then retiring with Filippov to the center of the encampment. Filippov carried a harness on his back in which Thete was strapped, and though she squirmed and groaned throughout that short journey from vehicle park to makeshift Infirmary, she held herself together with admirable restraint.

The inside of the Infirmary was enclosed in a clear plastic to keep the oxygen in, so that Betelgeuse had to unzip several layers of flaps in order to enter.

Edith Pavlov was sitting on her foam mattress, her Incunabulum set beside her and her Bloam-tumor still large enough to slant her head at an odd angle. At her side was the remaining Private, the Lotuszhink girl that Betelgeuse had only recently learnt was named Paisley. Betelgeuse had assigned the mousy-faced Private Paisley to hold down the Infirmary, and so far it seemed she was doing a decent job taking care of Edith.

"Ah, she's awake," Filippov said, his slitted eyes focused on Edith. He let a heavily breathing Thete down onto the floor and then helped her up onto a stretcher with Betelgeuse.

"...appened to her?" Edith rasped, staring out of deep-seated eyes. She had put on a few more kilograms in the past few weeks, though her body still looked underweight. Betelgeuse still winced at the sight of the conspicuous tumor. Since Betelgeuse had saved her from the Detention Barracks, it had only reduced about 10% in size.

"Some choolie kakked her up," Filippov muttered. Private Paisley scuttled over to the Standard Issue table to retrieve a Rejuvenator and fitted it over Thete's skull. She flipped the switch to induce unconsciousness, causing Thete's features to slacken, then stood back and eyed Betelgeuse warily.

"B.T., I think we gotta leave her for at least thirty minutes," Filippov said, turning to Betelgeuse. "Let her insides firm up some. It's not going to look good without a churgeon to set her ribs, so we gotta get to Gehen ASAP."

"That's fine," Betelgeuse said, removing his helmet and gloves and then nodding curtly.

"I gotta collapse my lab," Filippov said. Then he pointed a knobby finger to an object flushed to the end of the tent, a humming mass of shiny metal and filtration chambers—a carbon dioxide-scrubber, scuttled from a broken-down Maschinenfabrik truck they found near the edge of the Elluhada. Scrubber-chambers, Filippov had called his makeshift invention.

"Remember to turn that off before you transport it outside. If not, the thing's gone."

"Leave it to us," Betelgeuse said, observing Edith's darting pupils. Filippov hurried out the entrance flaps.

Betelgeuse stepped up to Edith and planted his palm onto her forehead. It felt a little hotter than usual. Edith had been having sporadic fevers ever since they'd set up here at the top of the Treblink Inselberg. Unlike Filippov, she hadn't managed to recover from her Bloaming. Filippov's hypothesis was that she'd reached a threshold that required immunosuppressants to aid her natural recovery.

Betelgeuse didn't know jack about the medical technicalities surrounding Bloaming symptoms, and assumed Filippov knew what he was talking about.

His palm was still on her forehead. Edith raised her eyes to meet his, and he felt her body start to relax. He lowered his hand and gazed into her eyes, the tips of his lips twisting upwards. A blip in his heartbeat.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a face watching him from beside Thete's bed across the aisle. Looking up, he saw Private Paisley staring at him intently.

Narrowed eyes. The press of delicate lips. Then, a sudden lowering of her head. A delayed reaction.

"Were there any complications?" Betelgeuse addressed Private Paisley, wiping absentmindedly at his penal brand. His fingers came away wet.

"No, sir," Private Paisley returned, her eyes still lowered. Somehow, Betelgeuse didn't think she was very intimidated by him. "The fever comes and goes, but I think she's stable."

"... We're going up to Gehen," Betelgeuse said, returning his attention to Edith. "Get you something for that."

"About damn time," Edith groused, poking at her neck-tumor and turning up her button-nose at Betelgeuse. "It's fuckin' uncomfortable and I can't walk properly. It'd have been pretty bad without Paisley."

Where did that come from?

Betelgeuse raised his eyes to regard Paisley once more. Her intentionality flared, even as her eyes remained stubbornly lowered. Ash Incunabulum. Was she hiding something?

Why did Edith mention her?

"... Good to know," Betelgeuse said, taking a step backward but realizing that Edith was clutching at his vest.

Edith opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything. She released her hold on his vest, the tension building in her wiry frame again. Her hair was bunned up neatly behind her head, but as she exhaled deeply one of her hairs escaped the hold of her hair-tie.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"Don't worry, we'll get you those immunosuppressants soon," Betelgeuse said.

"I'm not worrying," Edith said, affording Betelgeuse a sweet smile which did not go unnoticed by Private Paisley.

"Ah, I… have to go pack up the command tent," Betelgeuse said, turning suddenly. "Remember to turn off the scrubber-chambers like Filippov said. And remember to bring Entuban along."

***

[Hours later]

Night had fallen over the Elluhada. The blood-moon Larua hung low in the sky.

Betelgeuse chewed on a piece of jerky and leaned back in the truck-seat, holding his ration-pack in his hands. The vehicle trundled across the desert expanse, bobbing up and down with the vague undulations of the sandy hillocks.

Their convoy comprised 7 vehicles—an APC that was close to falling apart, and 6 trucks. Once again, Betelgeuse rode in the head truck with Misha and Private Altunis. Edith joined them in the cabin because of her ability to sense threats.

Voke was assigned to the second truck in the convoy, while Douglas took command of the last one, accompanied by the injured Thete. Filippov brought up the rear in the APC.

"Edith," Misha said. At this, Betelgeuse cast a sidelong glance at the gray-eyed Jegorichian sitting to his right. "Maybe I can help you with that."

Edith turned left to glance at Misha. Edith was holding in her hands a nondescript urn that was about as large as flower pot. Her vest looked overly bulky on her frame.

"I can do it," Edith replied, after several seconds of thought.

"No, no, it's no trouble at all," Misha said, her tone almost pleading. "You should let me handle that."

Edith frowned, then handed over the urn gingerly. Misha took it in her hands and placed it on the seat between her thighs. Betelgeuse saw Misha's lips begin to move in a whispered prayer, murmuring Common phrases he recognized. These were likely taught to the Jegorichian by Voke.

Betelgeuse raised his notepad and eyed the checklist he'd jotted down about a fortnight ago:

Secure base in Jegorich

Get rich (start with Kanogg)

Buy spaceship

Return to Earth

Find Chrys

Taking a barely-functional pen from a vest pouch, Betelgeuse added a step before the first item:

—> Stopover at Gehen

Secure base in Jegorich

Get rich (start with Kanogg)

Buy spaceship

Return to Earth

Find Chrys

'No rest for the wicked,' he thought, secreting his notepad into his vest-pocket beneath the three Incunabula he carried with him. He looked out the windshield and scanned the horizon. A vast cosmos swirled in the depths of space. Because Desert was cloudless, the firmament was always exposed in its full glory to night-time observers.

A roughly sketched map of the Elluhada was spread across the dashboard. Each time Filippov's voice crackled through the comms with updates, Misha marked stars on the map. Though Filippov was in charge of navigation, Betelgeuse wanted to track their westward approach to Gehen as far as could be approximated.

Back during the first week of their journey across the Elluhada, Betelgeuse had 'convinced' the foreman of another one of those freelance overland-transport charter* to prepare the sketch for him. This, together with maybe a hundred gallons of hypergolic fuel, bought the safety of that convoy from Betelgeuse. The foreman had complained, of course, but he wasn't willing to risk the lives of his employees.

*[A freelance charter for the transport of various salts to be used in the clean-up of nuclear waste. Crucial for Saltilla given the destruction of its Ninsei-run nuclear-plants.]

What was important about the map wasn't its illustration of the general contours of the Elluhada's shifting dunes, or even the vague locations of its spaced-out Ayish-Bejana communities (which were in any case nomadic), but the entry points into the labyrinthine Mining Tunnels below the surface of Desert.

Betelgeuse saw these as potential escape routes should they face a stronger enemy, making it crucial to know their whereabouts.

"Betelgeuse," Edith suddenly sounded, her soft voice vibrating with alarm.

He instinctively knew what that tone meant. Danger.

Betelgeuse set his ration pack on the dashboard, straightened, and peered out the window. A towering dune loomed ahead, obscuring the northwest frontage.

Filippov's voice transmitted dully through the comms: "*krrshk* Go right and around."

"Filippov," Betelgeuse said. "Edith says there's something up ahead. Do you sense anything?"

"krrshk I read you. I'll have to get out and check," Filippov returned.

"I'm stopping the convoy," Betelgeuse said. Turning to Private Altunis, he instructed the truck to be halted.

The vehicle ground to a stop. Twin cones of light made large patches on the dune ahead, and Betelgeuse motioned for the headlights to be turned off.

A minute later, Filippov transmitted back: "*krrshk* Five minutes. Wait out."

Betelgeuse stayed put. Edith was squirming. Misha looked quite uncertain of herself, and she gripped the urn between her legs tightly.

Betelgeuse checked that his railgun's solenoids were initialized. At least they had bullets.

"Articulate!" Betelgeuse snapped, reaching past Misha to tap Edith's shoulder.

"...It's… I think they know we're here. They're coming," Edith managed, turning anxious eyes to Betelgeuse.

A patch of light shot out past the dune, angling into the windshield. All four of them ducked reflexively, taking cover under the dashboard.

"Hail!" a feminine voice called from outside. Whoever it was, she was using a powerful speakerphone.

Betelgeuse didn't answer. He was pressed up against Misha, with Entuban's urn held between them and Betelgeuse' railgun sticking out uncomfortably into the seat-cushion. To the other side of Misha, Edith was curled up into herself and whimpering softly.

"*krrshk* Kakkin shit, B.T.," Filippov's voice crackled. "They're behind the dune!"

"Hail!" the voice called again, this time more insistently.

"Filippov, you have eyes?" Betelgeuse asked, raising his body and peering over the dashboard.

Ahead of the truck stood a tall figure, swathed in a thick scarf that obscured their silhouette. Sticking out above their head was a large, unwieldy banner, emblazoned with a black sun and crossed out by a messily inked 'X'.

Filippov cursed vehemently.

"Speak to me," Betelgeuse said.

"*krrshk* I see it. Not good. Another one of the crazies," Filippov said.

Betelgeuse' heart sank.

"... Which one is it now?" Betelgeuse asked.

"krrshk Queen She. It's the crazy bitch that's usually north of Gehen. Last reports of her were around the Crag-Hack Delta. But for some reason she's come back down—"

"Betelgeuse, I can feel them. They're going to attack," Edith cried, interrupting Filippov, her body wracked with shivers. "You need to answer them!"

"Hail!" the messenger shouted. "The Queen She Who Castrates seeks a parley!"

"Filippov, what the fuck is that name!?" Betelgeuse yelled, the tension rising.

"*krrshk* Queen She's what you would call an extremist. The Fem-D wish they could be her," Filippov said simply. "What are you thinking?"

Betelgeuse pursed his lips, his mind racing at a million miles per minute. With a name like that…

Turning to Misha, Betelgeuse said: "Misha, hail her back. You're going to take my suit and we'll find out what this piece of work wants."