Relic Worlds - Lancaster James & the Beast of the Mountaintop

The wind blew so hard it felt like it was biting him, even through the layers of heat jackets and Tempra-scarves Lancaster was wearing. It picked up the flakes of snow and threw them into his eyes so that all he saw was a blinding whiteness. At this altitude, he would be struggling for breath if it wasn't for his Gil-breather. It stretched out his face and made him look like a fish, but it kept his muscles moving. They had to. He could still hear the roar of the three meter tall beast that was hungry and searching for him. He had turned so that he was no longer directly upwind from the creature, but that had brought him to a precipice that overlooked a deep ravine. Peaking over the edge, the wind caught his hat and it flew into the chasm. As he watched it fall, he got an idea of how unendingly deep it was.

He lifted the com to his mouth. "Little Jack," he said, trying to speak softly enough as to not alert the animal.

"I read you," Little Jack responded, his sharp voice piercing through the wind far too loudly. Lancaster heard the creature grunt, a possible reaction to the sound.

He spoke again, trying to talk above the wind, but below the range of the monster. "Still not where you can land to get me. I need coordinates to get down..."

"Try that again!" Little Jack said loudly, almost a shout, through the com. "I can't comprend you with that thing in your mouth!"

The ground shook dramatically with the footfall of the creature. Lancaster stumbled to the side and grasped a jutting rock which grew out of the icy slab he was standing on to cross the chasm. The footfalls continued, and Lancaster held on.

As his fingers dug into the stone, he felt the bumps of a well crafted carving. He pulled his fingers away and brushed off a bit of caked on snow to reveal a design. He got to his knees and looked over the edge. His hand brushed away some more snow, and there, buried below a layer of ice, was the evidence he was searching for. Sentient beings had lived here! Skillful hands had dug out a design and laid down this bridge some thousands of years ago.

He would have hopped for joy, but for the fear that he'd slip off and join his hat in the abyss below.

The beast appeared at one side of the bridge. Its footsteps alone caused Lancaster to shake and almost knocked him off.

The beast was blocking the exit that led down the mountain into wider, softer terrain. The other side led to rocky outcroppings, and higher up the mountain where Little Jack couldn't pick him up. This wasn't going to be easy.

Little Jack had left him off on a flat plateau not far below where the snow layered a couple inches thick over the rocky ground. The wind carried ice crystals and snowflakes horizontally across his face, and they felt like tiny bullets against his scarf. His eyes were covered by large goggles, which gave him basic information through a heads up display on their inside. He knew how high up he was, and that he couldn't go much further without a respirator.

After he got clear of the ship, Little Jack launched Odin's Revenge off the natural platform to fly overhead until Lancaster was ready. Remaining on the surface could be dangerous; not because of the cold alone, Odin's Revenge was used to the freezing temperatures of deep space, but the elements on every planet they went to had a tendency to get inside the workings of the ship and cause them problems; not to mention animals that might be living up in this region.

Lancaster had his comm to call Little Jack if things went bad. Not that it would do a lot of good. Little Jack would not be able to fly into the area Lancaster was going. He was on this planet because he had scanned underground chambers within the most rocky canyons of this mountain. Lancaster could fit inside these walled cliff-sides and balance on these small ledges, but the ship couldn't hope to land anywhere near them.