Avitus was completely strapped in, completely secured,
unable to move. There was nothing that
could affect him, nothing that could do him harm; all the same where he should
have felt invincible, he felt the absolute most helpless. Part of what made him so secure was that he
was rendered completely immobile, any physical shock to his pod would be
completely dissipated by the time it was transferred to him, and that he could
not move prevented him from injuring himself.
However, that was just it.
He was rendered completely immobile and deprived of his senses, nearing
nothing and seeing only Eigengrau. They
only shut him in five minutes before the pods were to be jettisoned from the troopship,
but when one feels as though they are enclosed into a coffin and that there was
no way of knowing whether one was dead or alive but from the faint glow of the screens
just before his eyes. In days past they
had once looked directly through holes in the helmet, but this structural
weakness led to superfluous casualties from eye-wounds. Now there are armoured cameras where the eyes
are, in order to transmit a simulated stereopsis to the small screens suspended
directly before the eyes. Less death,
only slightly sub-optimal visual acuity.
Best for everyone.
Thinking thoughts such as these helped to stem the feeling
of being entombed like a corpse within his pod, but he’d thought them all so
many times before that by now that they’d become fleeting, passing ever so
quickly whilst the time in his pod continued to crawl at a grueling pace,
leaving only the thumping of blood in his veins to keep him company, slowly
ticking on, the thumping his pendulum to keep the time, but each pulse seemed
to go by even more slowly than the last.
He tensed all this muscles, he railed against his chains that they may
give him some hope of movement.
None. He breathed in sharply
through his teeth; quick, shallow breaths struggling to give him more air, to
make him think more clearly.
Nothing helped. He
screamed. He screamed long enough and
hard enough that sweat began to bead along his brow and his face became flushed
with blood. On the Lucullus, the troopship that bore him, there would be someone who
was monitoring his vitals, and everyone in squad would be able to hear
him. That is, unless he was sealed in
his pod. It was completely cut off from
the outside and no one could hear him scream.
Frankly, if he died no one would know until he hit the ground. They were designed with state of the art
stealth technology, which included the inability to transmit any information in
or out of the pod, just in case some enemy were able to change landing
coordinates, leading the soldier to their untimely death.
He breathed in more slowly, in through his nose and out
through pursed lips. “Calm yourself
Lucan,” he whispered to himself. If one
has no one else to reassure him, one has only but oneself to do this. “Once you’ve gotten down, everything will be
okay.” His breathing began to pick up a bit
more speed again. “How many times have
you done this? How many times have you
gone through the simulators, which are just as bad? You’ll be fine. Think of something relaxing, not stuck in
here. Think of sprawling in bed, or having
too much to drink. Think of both.”
This only led to him attempting to sprawl out himself, which
was met only with futility. He started
to let out a growl when he felt a sudden downwards lurching movement. The hatch beneath him had slid open and his
pod adjusted into a launching position.
It wasn’t long now. Avitus took
in a few short breaths, counting down in his head, finally taking in one large
gulp of air. The pod launched, shooting
out from the troopship, screaming down into orbit. He’d be on the ground soon.
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