Sand...
Sand everywhere, damn it.
Looking around, I climb the nearest dune, hoping for the umpteenth time to see something other than the weary landscape that surrounds me on all sides.
Of all the cursed options, I got stuck with sand.
Okay, I'm exaggerating, of course.
In my situation, whether it was icy wastes, jungles, or especially oceanic planets—it would have been roughly the same level of disgust...
And the same level of survival chances.
Adjusting the makeshift hat on my head, I brush drops of sweat onto the scorching sand, which immediately responds with a hiss.
Hissing, damn it, do you understand?
Stumbling from exhaustion, I roll down the dune, tumbling into a hollow between the drifts.
For a few minutes, I lay on the sand, staring at the sunny sky... Bitch, it's always sunny. Because there are two suns here, almost constantly replacing each other. I don't even know if night ever falls here... And if it does, I feel like the planet freezes through in that moment.
"Need to get up... Come on, move..."
My hands burned like fire, as did my back, parts of my ankles, and my face. I didn't have enough materials to make a fully enclosed suit; that's even considering I had to gut the seats, cutting off the soft upholstery to wear as a vest, while I rigged my own torn poncho onto my head, fearing sunstroke.
"How did they ever... in the movies and cartoons of the past..." Panting, I trudged among the dunes, occasionally stumbling into the shadows cast by overhanging sandy giants. "...walk around bare-chested? This is complete..."
I didn't get to finish my thought, for a tremor erupted beneath my feet.
Mental reflexes kicked in before the body could even process anything. Overcoming its own limits, my small frame lunged to the side, tumbling a couple of times, straining ligaments in several places and wrenching my shoulder from a high-speed impact.
A second later, a fountain of sand exploded on the spot where I had been standing. Scattering cursed grains of sand across the area, some giant alligator-monitor lizard emerged with a disgruntled roar.
Opening its maw, it squinted at the sun's rays, swinging its snout from side to side until its small eyes finally landed on me.
"Oh, come on, no!"
It was just humanly insulting. Out of all the paths, did I have to choose the one where I'd run into this overgrown caiman?
I was comforting myself this way, hoping these creatures didn't swim under the sand like fish in water—that option was several times worse than the one I had voiced first.
Breaking into a semblance of a run, sliding on the sand and frequently stumbling, I climbed a dune and immediately rolled down the other side.
Only, there wasn't much point in that.
A crocodile the size of a gazelle rammed through the crest of the dune with its body, showering me from head to toe, causing my improvised hat to fly off into the distance. But I didn't despair; I just continued to run further, trying to choose routes with ascents and slopes to make it harder for the freak to chase me.
The creature erupted in roars and cries, clearly dissatisfied that the prey was escaping so nimbly, and along such an inconvenient trail at that.
"Are you complaining or something?" Maybe I'd lost my mind, but at one point it seemed to me that my pursuer was shouting indignantly after me, demanding that I run fairly! "Completely lazy, you alien trash! Holy freedom, if you were in my former world, they'd have bred you down to the level of house pets!"
A new explosion of sand sounded behind my back. Swinging its snout excitedly, the lizard carved its way through, frequently slamming its face into the dunes... Well, into their crests. It wasn't quite big enough to smash through them at the base, where the sand reached a thickness of a couple of dozen meters.
And it seems the sun really had gotten to my head, and thirst was taking its toll, for the monster answered my last words with a mocking growl and, accelerating, tried to run around the dune before I could climb it. Apparently, it planned to wait for me on the other side, but I wasn't born yesterday either, so I just slid back down, letting gravity pull me.
Truth be told, I overdid it with the momentum and slammed into the sand with all my might, getting stuck up to my knees.
"Gravity... you heartless bitch."
A mocking wind brought a few grains of sand to my face in response, and then my pursuer ran out from behind the dune, snapping its jaws and slowing down. It slowly crept closer, enjoying its victory. Clearly showing off, the crocodile began to circle me, measuring which part of my pathetic little body to start with.
I, however, was surprisingly calm and just examined the local predator with weariness in my eyes. There was no fear. After hundreds and thousands of my deaths, many in rather gruesome ways—dying in the mouth of this little animal wouldn't even be in the top hundred.
Therefore, when the beast's head was pierced through by a high-caliber shot, I only indifferently shifted my gaze to the shooter standing at the top of the nearest dune, aiming a rifle at the creature that had fallen onto the sand.
"Hey, kid! You alive down there? Or dead?"
"Alive, alive..."
"Well, wonders never cease—really alive," laughing, the man pumped one more bullet into the lizard's head just in case and only then descended. He was thin and tall, with a regal mustache covering half his face. He was dressed in a gray cloak with heavy army boots. His head was adorned with a conical hat made of some kind of fiber. All his clothes were beige, so the man practically blended into the sand the moment you looked away from him. "Heh-heh... and here I thought I'd finally lost my marbles in my old age."
Coming closer to me, despite his slight build, he pulled me out of the sand in one jerk, helping me stand on my feet.
"Well, what is it, little one? Shook up? Ha-ha-ha..."
"Nothing left to shake out; everything fell out while I was dropping in the pod."
"In a pod, then," his gaze shifted for a moment, after which the man smirked kindly, clapping me on the shoulder, "my name is Mizuna. I don't know what your plans were, but I'm a fairly decent person, so I'll pull your ass out of here."
"I'm not against that," my head was spinning. The run through the desert hadn't been easy, and the body's last resources had been spent on saving my life. My legs ached mercilessly, and my back was shivering, betraying the tension. "Got any water, by any chance?"
"Kheh... Listen to him, quite the businessman. Water in the desert is a pricey thing, but..." Pulling a canteen from his breast, he handed it to me, watching closely how I handled his gift. Uncorking the simple cap, I took a couple of tiny sips just to wet my mouth, and only after ten seconds, when almost all the water had been absorbed into my parched oral cavity, did I swallow the rest. "Smart kid. Good job, you'll go far..."
"Yeah." With the last of my strength, I tried to thank the old man, but my body failed me, and I shamelessly collapsed face-first into the sand. At least, that was the plan, but strong, thin arms, more like the branches of an old tree, caught me near the ground, preventing the fall.
***
"Dad! Why the hell do we need him? Just wasting water on him..."
A child's voice broke through my sleep. And I was dreaming of nothing other than yet another battle for Super Earth. More precisely, I don't remember Earth itself, but I had occasion to fight under its flags on all sorts of planets.
That time, we were rescuing essential personnel from a surrounded research station. Thirty workers and scientists without any weapons or survival skills on a planet surrounded by enemies.
I remember how we burst into the fire-ravaged complex back then. The Terminids were already breaking through tunnels to the bunkers, hoping to feast on the people hoistered inside, but we got there first.
A bloody battle. Screams, explosions. Everything as it always is for Helldivers.
But that's not what I remembered. I remembered the faces of the people we pulled out of there.
Grateful, joyful, confident that as long as we stood beside them, not a single enemy in the Universe was a threat to them. Perhaps that was when my heart first wavered under the pressure of propaganda and hammered-in dogmas. The first time, but far from the last.
Opening my eyes slightly, trying to drive away the vision that made my heart beat faster, I look around, realizing I'm in some kind of hovel...
"We don't live very rich here..."
"Listen here, hovel! I'll knock all your teeth out right now!"
Apparently, I had spoken my last thoughts aloud. Propping myself up on an elbow, I see an amusing scene: a small, scrawny kid is trying to lunge in my direction, but his... father, probably. His father is holding him by the head with one hand, preventing him from reaching me.
"What do you think I saved him for? So you could attack him here?"
"But, Dad! Did you hear what he said?"
"Well, his manners are no better than yours, it seems," glancing in my direction, my mustachioed savior smirked, "I see you're still having a hard time. I'm Mizuna, in case you forgot..."
"No, no... I'm sorry. Thank you, I just haven't fully come to my senses yet."
"That's understandable; you had so many injuries," laughing, he popped some black gunk from a small aluminum tin into his mouth, beginning to chew actively and tucking the contents under his lip. "Is this tobacco? Want some?"
"I think I'll pass," sitting up on the bed, I clutch my splitting head, replaying everything that happened in my memory, "do you live here alone?"
"If you mean the house, then yes," a new smirk and a chuckle supplemented the answer, "if you mean our village... well, there's about three hundred people. Maybe another fifty on top of that, but no more. The moisture farm won't support any more, so we huddle together tightly."
"A farm? Are there many like that here?"
I didn't want to stay silent, so I began questioning the man about everything, asking generalized questions to make his answers last as long as possible, giving me more nuances and food for thought.
We talked for almost two hours, until during the conversation Mizuna's offended son calmed down and ran out into the street, where screams and curses were heard a couple of minutes later.
Lamenting the reckless boy, my savior poured me a local variation of tea, based on mushrooms and the dried innards of some local animals, after which he invited me to the table and told me about everything more thoroughly.
I was in a real shithole. I'd complained about Minoris, but what was happening here turned out to be many times worse and sadder.
An endless desert with rare oases, each of which is under someone's control. Constant war between settlements for water and resources, and most importantly, even with all that, the desert, the heat, and the drought were not the most dangerous enemies on this planet, whose name is Tatooine. Yes, that very Tatooine that played far too great a role for the protagonists of the Star Wars saga.
But now this was a completely different Tatooine, not that horrific haven for bandits and killers ruled by the Hutts. No, now it was a horrific home to monsters, wild tribes, and small settlements full of feral humans who take ancient technologies for miracles.
"Fortunately, they haven't forgotten what blasters and far more effective weapons look like; it's just that Mizuna turned out to be such a lover of antiquity."
A true Wild West, where everyone is for themselves and you can only trust a handful of people who have lived with you since childhood... and even then, not if water becomes the issue.
It's hard to put into words all the shit currently happening on Tatooine. The colonists who arrived with the first ships were gradually sliding back in development, and the few miners who arrived with a mining corporation were but a drop in the ocean and, with the destruction of the station in orbit, had locked themselves in their villages, shooting at anyone who tried to approach them.
Mizuna also spoke of some poor souls who fell onto the planet nearly thirty years ago and crashed on the other side of Tatooine. None of the locals know exactly what's happening there, but word is there's even a spaceport and proper walls, with weapons and food. Doubtful, of course, but such tales are always in circulation.
Also inhabiting the deserts were the indigenous inhabitants, if the word could even be applied to them. No one knew their exact name, but most called them the Sand People, though the words raiders, marauders, and assholes featured more often...
Cruel and harsh beings who always wrapped themselves in their strange clothes, they attacked quickly and mercilessly, carrying off everything useful and often taking settlers into slavery. It was unclear how they survived in the desert, and Mizuna himself could tell little of their culture and customs, only telling me that if you're unlucky enough to meet one "sandie," you can be sure there are about twenty more nearby.
He told me about various forms of life that could be encountered in the desert, and the more I listened to him, the more I understood...
It's not all that deserted! Forgive the tautology. A hell of a lot of creatures have lived here since ancient times. Some of them are theoretically immortal and cannot die of old age.
And all these people, desert dwellers, monsters, and wild beasts... they all continue to live in this harsh world. Truly live, not just survive. They trade among themselves, build things, and win back new plots of land for living.
A harsh place where I would fit in perfectly.
Even halfway through the story, I realized how hard it is to live here. So as Mizuna's reflections progressed, I became more convinced that I shouldn't rush things and should instead stay and grow stronger in the harsh conditions of this planet, while simultaneously bringing the wonders of freedom and democracy to this world.
Pity that with my behavior, I had—without noticing it myself—given rise to entirely different reflections and hopes in my companion.