Arthur walked up a hill as it was assaulted by an endless torrent of snow, his vision was obscured almost completely.
It had been two months since he had sat down in that cafe, and he still dreamed of the warmth it bled into his hands. He was now on a cold, icy planet called Malvo, it existed just on the outer reaches of the CCs domain. He was sent on a simple mission, meet with a group of soldiers that had landed on this planet two weeks ago and aid them in their assault on the military base. Simple may have been oversimplifying his current predicament, as the blizzard had blocked out the signal on his communicator.
Did the small device have a map downloaded into it?
Yes.
Despite that fact, it only had the last known location of the group, who moved everyday to avoid detection. That was at least a week ago, he only knew that because his watch, which was gifted to him by Alara, was an old world model, and didn't require batteries. If you pull a dial back and wait a full day, then push the dial back to its original position, it aligns its internal time to that of the planet you are on.
He silently thanked the wonderful woman for her gift and continued his trek through the snow, pulling his thick, white coat closer to his body. He pulled his goggles down over his face and pushed a button on the side, swapping the internal display to scan for thermal signatures.
Letting out a sigh, he reached into the sleek, battery powered bag on his back and pulled out a thermos, it was searing hot against the cold but was welcome. He sipped from it and felt the warm water run down his throat. Impervious to damage or not, it was still cold as all hell.
After a few minutes he heard an earth shattering rumbling from behind him, turning around he saw a light pierce through the sheer snow wall. The light grew larger and eventually passed over him, slowly.
...
The man sat at the head of the massive cargo walker, placed before him was an immensely complicated panel with hundreds of lights and dozens of monitors. He looked out the thick, plated window separating him from the elements and maneuvered the hulking machine to look down, he saw a man in a thick coat looking back at him. For a moment he was confused and turned back to a man behind him.
"Hey did we have any personnel on foot?"
The other man looked back at him, just as perplexed.
"No, why do you ask."
The man began to turn back to the window.
"Well there's this guy dow-"
The man in a thick coat was pressed against the window, smiling menacingly. He fell from his chair against the heated metal floor in a panic.
"What the fuck!"
Arthur couldn't help the smile on his face, he dug his fingers into the metal and crawled like a spider across its cold, angular surface looking for a door. He saw a small panel on its underside and ripped it from its hinges. He poked his head through the torn hole in the behemoth and felt the warm air escaping through, pushing against his face. His goggles steam up instantly and he put it back in his bag.
'About damn time.'
He began moving through the machine, walking up and down its hallways for some semblance of life, he saw at least two men the cabin-head of the metal hulk, and was for more.
He rounded the corner at the end of a long hallway and spotted a man fiddling with an opened panel on the wall.
"Son of a bitch."
"What's wrong?"
"Well the heating is off in the lower floors is off and I think the issue is here."
"Oh that has got to suck, I just came from outside and it was horrible."
"You don't say... wait a damn minute."
He spun on the spot just as Arthur slammed his head against the wall, splattering his head and its contents up the wall. Arthur pulled a knife from his belt and grabbed his hand, sawing through flesh, muscle, and bone. After he was finished, he stole the gun holstered on his hip, and began down the corridor.
A man opened a door on the left, intending to investigate the loud noise that had echoed through the ship. He looked at Arthur and began panicking, he was a wanted man after all. Arthur shot him in the knee, he fell to the ground and began to crawl away back into the room, before he could Arthur blew his head open with the pistol. He slumped down as a cry escaped from his mouth, blood pouring from the open wound.
He proceeded further into the bowels of this colossal machine, hunting and killing everyone he could find. Using the disembodied hand to pass biometric locks. The crawler must've been hundreds of meters long, it continued marching onwards, unwavering to the slaughter happening within. Once he finally completed the task, he reached the cabin doors and noticed they had been manually locked from the inside.
He placed a finger on the crack and pushed it through, the alloy bending and screaming in resistance, he pushed the door open and murdered the two men inside.
He sat down at the console and put on the autopilot, commanding the land vessel to push onwards towards the base. He knew he wasn't going to find the military group in charge of this operation, the snowstorm would push them back weeks. What he could do is start the fighting ahead of schedule, and hope they'd hear or see it from their vantage point in the mountains surrounding their staging ground.
Even if they decided not to get involved, why risk their lives when ultimately he wasn't risking his own. Was it brazen, rash, and insane? Incredibly so, but he proceeded with the plan regardless. He thought back to his conversation with Coleman, and crossed his legs in his chair. He wasn't taking his own advice.
He leaned back into the console and gave it a new command, telling it to stop in front of the mountain range to the north of the base, near their last known location. He decided to trust Coleman's planning in this mission, maybe it would be best if they didn't know Arthur was here.