Kartika

YÖG
"'This will be my final log. I hope someone up there is still listening. I haven't received a response in... who knows how long.""Hellish swamp and dense jungle canopy, populated entirely by merc companies, freaks, and drifters from the far side of everywhere; that's all Kartika is. And it feels like the inside of an animal's mouth. It's where the Syndicate goes to relieve itself of waste - human and otherwise. They know as well as you, everything is disposable on Kartika.""Creatures here, from the Yog, they defy everything I once took for granted. And I'm not talking about the swarms of virolassks, like I never hoped to see, or the spearvines, and their poisons and their hallucinogenic spores, or even the fucking Kartikan head ticks, which have now infested everyone apparently decent. Out there, in this vast irradiated jungle, there are people - things, there are things which were once men... now, I don't know what to call them. Nothing is...' [The speaker turns to face the jungle treeline. Stares at something distant and hidden from the viewer. Swats an insect blindly as it crawls up his neck.] ""'...Nothing is safe here.' [He mumbles this to himself, before rushing to his feet. He is still, for sixteen wordless seconds, watching the jungle. Nothing moves. Wind break can be heard in the audio. Then he charges the treeline, howling enraged and frantic nonsense until his voice cracks*. He beats his chest and screams another round of garbled obscenities, before trudging back, head low.]""When he sits back down, he continues mid-sentence.""'[unintelligible] ... ours is not the first facility, I know that now. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of them here, and each one stocked complete with survival gear, food, medicine. And guns, we know they have that. They're all commanded to turn away anyone who comes close. Open fire, if necessary.""Fucking... my head is filled with broken glass. Why did you send us out here? Why? Why? There's nothing! You know this! You have known this!'""[The speaker grunts painfully, cradling his head for over a minute, before turning off the camera. When the transmission continues, he is finishing a long draw from something alcoholic.]""'But, I know something you don't. I have their locations. I have detailed descriptions, of some, even the interiors, with attached coordinates to your 'little secrets.' If there isn't a drop ship twenty feet from me within forty-eight hours... we are going to storm checkpoint Vergar. Then I'm sending another transmission, just filled with sensitive information about your operation, directly to the nearest Protectorate commissary. We are going to have ---' The transmission ends abruptly, with the sound of a confused shout, and gunfire."