Chapter 5

“Wake up Zooty!”

Zooty woke with an irritable squeak the following morning when Tashy nudged him awake. He was so snug he didn’t want to wake up, “breakfast’s being served.”

“Just a few more minutes,” Zooty huffed sleepily as he snuggled back into his blanket, "I need my eighteen hours."

“Oh no you don’t!” The ferret laughed, Zooty yelped as Tashy took him by the tail and dragged him, protesting, out of bed. The weasel dissented at first but a good yank on his tail made him realize just how unexpectedly strong the ferret was.

So Zooty resigned himself (and he liked her anyway) and was towed, huffing, all the way through the medical ward, through the squad quarters, past the many curious onlookers, and finally into the mess hall filled with FURs happily nibbling at their breakfast.

“Hello Zooty!” Reiko laughed, “did you sleep well?”

“For awhile,” the rather disgruntled weasel said as he sat by Tashy. It was obvious the other giggling FURs had found it amusing. The tables were riddled with fruits, ration sticks, and many kinds of exotic bread.

"So, will I be joining you for whatever you're doing today?"

Reiko nodded, "we'll be receiving orders soon," the mess hall went silent as an excited mouse scurried in and started calling out squad names from a list and their assigned tasks. They were things such as dispersing the waste dispersion tunnel, gathering supplies, raiding the surface for artifice, and many others Zooty quickly forgot. Soon the mouse called out "Reiko Squad you're on scavenger duty in the snowgear wastes."

"What's scavenger duty?" Zooty asked as he gave his plate to one of the mouse cooks and followed Tashy, Reiko, and Twitch to the dock. On their way they each took a gas mask, a few layers of thermal clothing, some anti-freezing gloves, and a gravity gun from the armory. Unlike Tippet, each of the squads had their own ship for getting around.

"To put it blatantly, we're going to look through the Cynid's waste for spare parts," Reiko explained as he found their ship room. It was tiny but well armored; it only had enough room for one pilot in the cockpit and three passengers in a tight compartment. Inside this compartment were spare SACRED clips and emergency provisions.

“It’s tiny!” Zooty remarked, “how are we all gonna fit in there?”

“Trust me if I can fit anyone can,” Reiko said cheerily as Tashy took the pilot’s seat and opened up the passenger compartment. They squeezed inside and shut it behind them.

The Snowgear wastes were a seemingly endless stretch of snow covered with artifice coated with the stench of depleted HEX. It was disturbingly silent, save for the soft pattering of paws coming from the FURs sifting through the scrap.

“I’ve never liked the smell of this place,” Reiko muttered as they departed from their ship, “let’s split up and find what you can, and be back before sundown, we don’t want to be here when the harvesters come back. Tashy stick with Zooty. Twitch you’re with me.” The squirrel eagerly nodded and scurried ahead, which left Reiko chasing after him.

Zooty followed Tashy to a suitable spot that wasn’t already occupied by a squad, and started sifting through the mess of scrap for anything that could be interesting with her. “Why don’t we want to be here after sundown?” Zooty asked as he picked up a motion sensor whose screen was cracked.

“The harvesters come out after dark,” the ferret explained as she inspected a gun-mounted camera. She brought the device over to the pile they would take back and continued looking.

“That could be why no one on Tippet traveled to the surface at night,” Zooty huffed, he brushed the snow from a still intact weapon and found it was a heavy Flux-Carbine, which he tossed into the pile. “So what are they?”

“They’re enormous nocturnal spiders from the Cynid’s assimilated homeworld who are born without eyes but with the ability to pinpoint sound locations. The ‘nids have enhanced their senses with an echo visor.”

“What’s an echo visor?” Zooty asked.

“It allows them to pinpoint the location of where sounds originate from.” She turned over the cracked nozzle from an Infurnerator in her paws and tossed it back. “The Conclave relies on them to collect subjects for Cyresis.”

Zooty pulled out a deployable turret lodged in the snow and brushed it clean. He exclaimed when he realized it was crawling with many tiny slug-like machines with enormous eyes. “What are they!?” Zooty exclaimed.

“We call them Rustugs,” Tashy laughed when she saw the weasel’s surprised face, “the Cynids built them to preserve metals by eating rust. They’re harmless.”

"Oh good," Zooty sighed in relief as he sat the turret in the pile and picked up a strange round object, "I haven’t seen one of these before, what is it?" He asked as he showed it to Tashy. He peered over it curiously and turned it over in his paws, "it looks like a ball!"

“Strange how we’d find one of these out here, it’s a roller drone,” Tashy mused, “they're deployed by harvesters to scout areas suitable for Cyresis. We use them for weaseyball," Zooty was about to ask her what weaseyball was but suddenly the roller drone spun out of his paws and sped off.

“After it, quick!” Tashy laughed. After a frantic pursuit Zooty dived for the roller drone and just barely managed to catch it in his arms. Unfortunately he was too late to realise he had chased the roller drone off the edge of a very steep valley, and tumbled down all the way to the bottom. The weasel huffed as he smacked his head on something very hard. He stumbled back to get a better look at what he had bumped into, and gaped in surprise.

Harvester!!

"Zooty! Are you okay?" Tashy called.

It took a few moments for Zooty to get over his shock. Then when he had a closer look he found the machine was covered with so much rust it was a wonder it wasn’t falling apart.

"I’m okay, my brain cushioned the fall!” He called up, “you better get Reiko to take a look at this. You'll never guess what I've found!" The ferret told him she'd be back and soon returned with the raccoon and squirrel.

"What's up Zooty?” Reiko called down to him, “have you found something?"

"I sure have!" The weasel called up excitedly, "come and take a look!"