"FLAKK IT ALL TO HELL!!" Human Bear roared as he punched his way out of the ice and snow of the Avalanche that had just swallowed him. "IS THAT ALL YOU GOT!?" He raged at the mountain.
"Human Bear!" Vren cried. "We have 3 that are still trapped in the ice!"
Bear's rage instantly turned to terror. He had to find the lost ones before there Livesuits failed to to their jobs... -- Anon Guest
[AN: Bear's other stories are here and here if you're interested]
Livesuits do their job, but they're only good for so long and can only resist so much. They're designed to help the wearers live for long enough to get to help. Alas, as part of the Galactic Survey Team, they were a very long flight away from help. That's why they had Bear in the first place.
Bear survived a direct hit with half a mountain's worth of ice and snow. Vren managed to escape with a lucky dodge. They almost got the shock of their life when Human Bear literally punched his way out of the drift, all fury and venom.
"I lived, bitch," he roared, "Is that all you flakkin' got?"
Vren was the one with the presence of mind to check their scanners. Two others free on the other side of the pile and... "We still have three under the ice." Vrenn would never forget the look on Human Bear's face for the rest of their days. Never before had a Human gone from hot rage to cold terror in less time.
"Point me the right way," Human Bear demanded, reflexively deploying a collapsible shovel that Venn didn't even know he had in his livesuit.
What followed next was an exercise in frenzied desperation, mixed evenly and homogeneously with obsession and past trauma. Bear attacked the ice like he had a vendetta against it, gouging a hole in a straight line between him and the next-closest survivor. There was only one thing that Venn and the other two scouts who were free of the impact could do.
They pitched in. Using debris as buckets and fallen trees as levers, and Bear's seemingly eternal supply of ductape in lieu of joinery, they improvised equipment to clear the tunnels of the chunks Bear cut loose.
He would pay his life for one life saved. They knew this. They had heard his stories. One life was not enough when there were others in peril. Bear was an all or nothing Human. He needed to get everyone out of the wreckage, preferably alive.
The trapped crew survived the initial impact, the livesuits did what they were designed to do. They may be temporarily 'walking wounded' but they were alive. Vrenn was reassured every time they heard Bear's triumphant whoop of victory.
Three living. No dead. A lot of dents and one minor repair job were necessary to get the team back up to relatively full operating status.
Bear, for the record, did a Human victory dance that involved a lot of censorable gestures in the vague direction of the avalanche's source. It was one step on the path to getting past a failure in his history.
Not every encounter ends with victory, but the crew were determined to make sure Bear had enough victories.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / schorsch]
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