On the Outer Rim

Chapter 9: Hunting with Computers

Date – January 24th 3035

Time – 5:34am

System – Outer Rim system Alpha

Planet – -unknown-

Location – -Somewhere off to the East-

Status – Scraps remaining

Covy and Amber got much further than they expected from the east of the clearing. It was a long jog and they past many items and objects to get where they were now. Many interesting items to help with their endeavors they must admit.

They passed ponds and pools of clay and silicon just in an area all by itself. The planet proved to abundantly fruitful with metals and non-metals as it was with food and animals. After jogging through the night, non-stop, they stopped for a minute to take a break from jogging.

Surprisingly Covy had no problem keeping up with Amber although her training was supposed to condition her for much further travel. Covy was very tired though and Amber was just a bit winded stopped wanted to catch her breath.

They rested at a reasonably sized lake. The ground around it was covered with orange and yellow tree leaves slowly making the ground even better for farming. Amber and Covy helped themselves to the lake water and snacked on their bag of berries.

Amber sat on a rock letting the wind blow through her hair. A leaf fell from a tree above them and she examined the leaf. "Its fall."

"What? No way." Covy quickly pulled out her holopad from her bag and started taking scans of the leaves that were falling around her. Even though it was certainly obvious that it should be fall, Covy left it up to her scans.

Amber chuckled "Do you seriously need to scan a leaf to figure out what time of year it is on this planet?" Covy gave Amber a blank stare to say "Obviously." without saying it.

Amber was hard at working gathering sticks and string to make a bow and sharping sticks for arrows. Before five minutes past she had the bow and was easily sharping sticks for arrows. "Isn't that a bit silly?" She asked grinning but Covy shrugged.

"The holopad is so much more accurate."

"But your common sense is better than a machine's thoughts on a situation. Tell me, if that holopad said that you'd only have a 99% chance to hit the side of a barn, you wouldn't try?"

"Wouldn't that be a waste of time? Obviously I can't hit it." Amber sighed and laid back on her friend to get a bit closer and to show her she was willing to trust her. Amber never reveals her back to anyone.

"Trust in instincts, not machinery and percentages. Come on, let's go." She helped Covy up and they continued their jog forward. The further along, they went through a swamp and coming out of a large, tall tree, forest an open field with nothing but a canyon in the middle of it all.

They climbed a tree to get a better observation point and Amber squealed with a smile on her face. "Holy crap its a herd of wild boar!" Covy was skeptical and scanned the animals from afar.

"No...the system says they're unidentified. I have no idea what those things are." Amber face palmed. Although it is an alien planet they were obviously wild boar ripe for hunting purposes.

The boars were sniffing the ground by a small pond. They were having their way with the mushrooms and berry bushes they came across, there was about six of them, they even seemed to be larger than the average boar but just slightly in comparison in all honesty.

They slid down and headed for a few bushes to conceal their position from the boars. Amber pulled on her bow. She barely breathed to center her line of sight on the boar furthest from the group eating some form of vegetation on the ground.