Watching Yute (3 page)

“
Feeling better?” McKinney
asked Cassidy wen she got to the station.

“
What?” Cassidy forgot the
manner in which she’d left him yesterday. “Uh, yeah, I don’t know
what it was, I’m sorry I didn’t even contact you later.”

“
It’s cool. Sick is
sick.”

She considered coming clean. He was an
okay guy, he wouldn’t spaz. But at the same time, she didn’t want
his pity, or any such garbage. “Yeah, I’m still not a hundred
percent, but good enough.”

During patrol, her terminal wiggled
with another message. Brandy? She had to find a private spot again.
“McKinney? Can I split for a sec?”

“
Uh? Er, yeah, take your
time.”

She made haste to the nearest washroom,
and checked her messages.

“
Hello, Leftenent Cassidy!”
What the heck, the message wasn’t Brandy, it was the weird older
guy from the other night, when she threw the gun at the drunk. He
was in a cheerful mood.

“
Last night I was talking to
your C.O., Colonel Calvert, and I asked if I might maybe have you
transferred to my unit. I don’t think I properly introduced myself
last night. Major Marcus Douglas. I run the Yute temple honour
guard. Anyway, I had come to the Yute Central base to finally meet
Calvert and request a replacement troop, and then I ran into you.
You seemed like a good choice, so I asked Calvert if I could ask
you to come over to my unit. It’s your call, but it’s a nice post,
and it comes with a bit of a pay raise. I’ve attached the basic
infodump briefing on the installation. Let me know, and if you have
any questions, just ask.”

The message ended, and Cassidy noticed
that same look in his eyes that she saw that night. It was a calm
look that seemed to just stare right out of the screen, through her
head, the ceiling, and up into the sky, into space.

Cassidy huffed, absorbing the
information. She opened the attached infodump. It popped up
onscreen.

INFODUMP: YUTE TEMPLE HONOUR
GUARD

In accordance with treaties with the
aboriginal Aguei nation, the Aguola military maintains an outpost
for an honour guard to protect the Yute temple.

This vigil consists of six soldiers at
any one time, generally separated into 3 standard 8 hour shifts per
day. These soldiers carry weapons inspired by the traditional Aguei
people.

“
Wow, informative.” Cassidy
shrugged. The underlined phrases led to other infodumps. The Aguola
infodump was doubtlessly a sprawling documentary, from the first
European settlers, to the forming of the world’s second largest
island nation (after Australia), then through the involvement in
the world wars, blah blah blah.

She certainly didn’t need to hear any
more about the Aguei, being the largest minority on the continent
nation of Aguola. It was common knowledge. When settlers first
arrived, relations were less than smooth, but a few hundred years
had found a balance much as it had in Aguola's 'sister-nation'
Australia, or the Americas.

Cassidy had heard of the Yute temple,
but wasn’t as familiar with it. Of course everyone at the Yute
Central base was aware of it, but on the whole, it was ignored. She
tapped the link just to see. It took on a more documentary tone,
and less military.

INFODUMP: YUTE TEMPLE

Deep within the Yute Desert, lies a
ruined city, assumed to have been built by the ancestors of the
Aguei. The Aguei knowledge base however, holds little to illuminate
the details behind the grand temple that sits in the middle of the
ruins. Lacking its original name, it has become known only as the
Yute Temple. The temple exhibits construction of similar technique,
but of better quality than the surrounding ruins, While the ruins
are nearly entirely destroyed, the temple has withstood centuries
of sandstorms much better.

The temple’s outward appearance would
make it remarkable enough, but this becomes secondary in
consideration of the grand statue in the middle of the temple. It
bears no resemblance to anything in Aguei lore, but its fierce
appearance has garnered it the nickname of “The Yute
Demon”.

While the Aguei consider the temple and
statue sacred, there has never been a direct link to known Aguei
lore to explicitly explain this.

[Images: No images. Photography and
tourism is not permitted on the Yute temple ruins, by
treaty.]

The dump seemed to inform just enough
to let you know how much you don’t know. It almost seemed worth
taking the post just to see it all. Cassidy stowed the terminal,
and caught up with McKinney. He welcomed her back to patrol with a
small wave. “Hey Stanton. You okay?”

“
Er, yeah, it was nothing.
But I got an odd call while I was in there.” She pulled out her
terminal and played Major Marcus Douglas’ message for
McKinney.

“
Hm!” McKinney seemed
surprised, but gave no indication on his opinion
otherwise.

“
Hm? Seems like an odd post,
don’t you think? They’re guarding the temple? From what?
Dust?”

“
Seems like a pointless
post, if you ask me.” McKinney said, with his eyebrows up in
apathy. Most who knew about the Yute Honour Guard generally thought
of the whole post as a waste of money and resources.

“
Well, someone doesn’t think
so; it exists, after all.” Cassidy passively skimmed over the
infodumps again as they walked. “The Aguei, namely...”

McKinney gave a little huff. “Sure. So
we have people there picking their noses so that Aguei nation
activists have one less thing to whine about? If it’s so important
to them, you’d think they’d guard it themselves.”

Well, that was a decent point. Cassidy
chalked it up to some gesture of good faith in part of some bigger
treaty. “Maybe… maybe the Aguei just don’t have the resources to
maintain a post there. I don’t know. Sounds like easy work either
way.”

McKinney glanced over to Cassidy,
weighing the tone of her voice “You considering it? You’d be one
more step away from civilization, you know.”

Civilization. Where Brandy was, in
other words. Cassidy called her one more time, only to see the word
“blocked” pop up once more. “Well, like I have any fucking use for
civilization anymore.”

~~~

At the end of the shift, and a lot more
brewing of the notion, Cassidy called Major Marcus Douglas on her
terminal.

“
Yello-, Oh! Leftenent
Cassidy! Got my message, I take it?”

“
Y-yes Sir. Cassidy’s my
first name by the way, Sir.”

“
Yup, It is- Oh, I see what
I did. Sorry, it’s a habit of mine. Should I be calling you
‘Stanton’ instead?”

Cassidy blinked. Major Douglas managed
to speak with a cheerful tone and still maintain a sense of calm.
The thought flashed though her mind that it was a little creepy for
an older superior officer to be calling her by her first name so
casually, but it really did just seem to be his way. “Er… Cassidy
is fine, Sir.”

“
Good good, in that case,
you can tone down the ‘Sir’ stuff. The men and women in my troupe
just usually call me Marcus. Which brings me to ask-“ he stopped,
and cocked his head, waiting for Cassidy to pick up the
slack.

“
To ask if I’d be joining
up.” Cassidy sighed. “I gotta admit, I have my
reservations…”

“
Well, give it a try, and if
you don’t feel at home after a month or so, I can have you
transferred right back if ya want.”

That was unusually accommodating.
“Well…. Well okay then, I’m onboard..! What do I do?”

“
Great! I’ll deal with the
paperwork. How soon can you get your stuff together, and say your
goodbyes?”

Her goodbyes would be short, she only
really knew McKinney, and they weren’t that close. Her oversized
duffel would probably be more than enough to cram her stuff into.
“Geez.. A couple hours?”

Marcus looked at his watch. Alright
then, be at the helipads in three hours.”

~~~

Cassidy wandered onto the helipad deck
of the base ten minutes or so early. Her duffel was packed a bit
tighter than she’d expected, and her stride betrayed its
weight.

The deck had a dozen helipads to
accommodate choppers and the more advanced VTOL ‘flying outpost’
airlimbs. One of the airlimbs was being loaded with elite Storm
unit personnel. Another, that wasn’t showing any outward activity,
was the AZU-1 airlimb.

Cassidy took a moment to try and spot
any members of AZU-1, but none made themselves visible. That unit
had become famous after their role in the Erebus
incident.

It was just as well that she didn’t
spot any members; the two most famous members had retired
anyway.

Cassidy found the
supervising Captain of the deck, and asked where and when Major
Douglas was expected. The Captain paused before answering, as if to
say “Oh… so you have something to do with it.” Or “Oh, Major
Douglas. From the temple base.. those guys.”

But when he opened his mouth, he simply
hollered “Deck three!” He pointed, since it was hard to hear over
the various engines running on the decks. “Any minute
now!”

Cassidy saluted, and hauled her duffel
in front of deck three. Soon enough, a big, older chopper came in
and rested its weary self on the pad. She waved at the pilot, who
waved her over.

“
You Stanton?” the pilot
yelled over the engine noise.

“
Yup!”

“
Get on then! Let’s
go!”

Cassidy heaved her duffel in, and got
in the co-pilot chair. There was no one in the back to talk to. The
pilot conversed with the control tower, and along with the onboard
computer, the needed confirmations were made to get underway. Once
airborne, Cassidy decided to start conversation.

“
So! This bird belong to the
temple base?”

“
Nope, I’m just playing
shuttle today!”

“
So you’re not in the
unit.”

“
Nope. You?”

“
Yeah, as of
today.”

“
Eh… Congrats, I
guess.”

Cassidy tried to distill some meaning
from the pilot’s attitude, unsuccessfully. “You guess? Why?
Something wrong with it?”

He shrugged, “I guess not. Not
really.”

The time in the air passed, and the
terrain below changed from parched, cracked soil, to pure, soft
sand. It was one thing to see these sands in pictures, but to be
above them with their light gold hue spreading as far as the eye
could see, was a very different thing altogether. It was almost
striking enough to make her forget the sound of the
engine.

She took a deep breath, and held the
warm air inside for a bit before releasing it. She felt tears build
behind her eyes, and turned her head away from the pilot while she
tamed them. While the view was moving enough, she couldn’t blame
that for the urge to cry.

She pulled out her terminal and called
Brandy once more, with the screen out of view of the pilot.
“Blocked” popped up again. She closed her eyes and sighed.
Whatever.

“
There it is.” the pilot
hollered over the noise. Cassidy opened her eyes and saw he was
pointing at the horizon. All around were the shattered stone
remains of an ancient city. The tallest pieces were only fragments
of a wall here and there, worn down by time and
windstorms.

The exception was the temple. It sat in
the middle of the ruins, with a hundred or so metres of flat
terrain all around it, as if the other ruins sat back in awe of
it.

The temple bore similarities to a
pyramid, or ziggurat. The sides sloped up about a third of the way,
then became a huge boxy structure. The south side had stairs up the
slope, and some kind of openings into the boxy part. The temple was
doing amazingly well compared to the other ruins. From the air, it
looked to be entirely intact.

The south stairs ran down into a
pathway, which stretched through the ruins, uninterrupted.
Following it for a while, one found a helipad on a hill, and a
unique little building. (Little compared to the temple, that
is.)

It was partly made of ruins, and partly
made of modern black metal enhancements. So, this would be
home.

They settled on the pad, and the ground
reflected the noise of the chopper back up at them.

“
Alright!” The pilot yelled,
“You’re clear!”

Cassidy nodded at him in a way of
thanking him and piled off, pulling her duffel onto her shoulder
again. She scooted off the pad and waved. He waved back, and was
soon off again, the chopper fading into the hues of gold, taking
its boisterous fuss with it.

Cassidy had dismissed the sand in the
air as being the chopper’s fault, but it persisted after the
chopper was quite clear. It seemed she was in the middle of a small
natural phenomenon. It wasn’t a sandstorm by any stretch of the
imagination, but even after trying to shake the sand off, she felt
the need for a shower. Hopefully this kind of thing wasn’t a
frequent occurrence around here.

She saw a soldier coming from the
direction of the building she’d singled out earlier.