Now continuing from FFM 2026 8: The Utility Belt. Relevant catch-up TL;DR: Following him joining QWERTY’s project of getting back at gossipers in FFM 2025 27: Mech Intrigue and seeing the end results of it in and after FFM 2025 28: Proof of Concept, Steirdrar ended up getting a bad feeling about it because he used infiltrate and destabilize the AIRF and other enemy organizations prior to his defection and decided it was for the best for him to back away. He has discussed it with Beyari already to get some idea of how QWERTY would likely react to that (they also switched to first-name basis when off-duty at that point).
1036 words that were a bit of a pain to prune in the first draft. Oops. Looks like I’ve gotten into gear now I guess.
The latter half of this story is brought to you by my steadily deteriorating mental health as I remain trapped in the endless cycle of “need a job to get work experience but can’t get a job because I don’t have enough work experience” and the escapism I indulge in to try to cope.
“I feel like it’s warranted to say out loud that I’m not looking to hold this over your head or take advantage of you.”
On a logical level, Steirdrar had no trouble believing it. Not just because of the consequences that Beyari expected to face if she did take advantage of him, but also because he knew by now that she placed a lot of importance in her honor as a warrior. She would not tarnish that voluntarily.
It was all the other levels where believing was proving to be challenging at best. Now that he had had some time to himself, he had concluded that it stemmed from all the time spent spying when anyone gaining even the slightest bit of an advantage over him had the potential to ruin him. Logically, Beyari already had plenty advantage over him, both by outranking him and by her reputation as a steadfast AIRF member who has been there from the very beginning, but now the potential advantage was more personal — and exclusive to Beyari alone.
All his instincts from his training were telling him to turn her offer down as to not give her a tangible edge over him. The rest of his instincts were telling him to agree to the offer, because saying no could very well come across as either him thinking her work is not good enough for him or that he’s acting out of fear and thus being a coward (which he likely was, to be entirely honest). Hiding behind the cost would not work either since he would only be paying for materials; that would make him come across as a cheapskate, which would also be a terrible look.
Staring at the bunk above him was not giving him any clarity. If anything, it was only making the feeling of being trapped on this base worse; no place outside of AIRF bases was safe as long as he had a bounty on his head and if he spurned an Eskel-Zai of all people, then there would be enough people who hated his guts that he would literally never know peace on any AIRF base ever again (at least outside of infirmaries).
He was backed into a corner and he could not do a damn thing to get out of there. No matter what path he tried to think of, it was all just dead ends where he would be cornered again. Just exchanging a corner where he was stuck in for another. No way out. Just no way out of this mess he had gotten himself into.
And he still had not officially backed out of QWERTY’s project.
A slightly hysterical part of him got the fleeting thought that maybe he should have stayed in the IRS to the very end. No doubt he would have been tortured for information and probably eventually executed once he would have run out of his usefulness as anything other than someone to make an example of, but at least he would have no doubts about what he had or would be signing up for.
Maybe he could retire in the rainforests (or non-rain forests) on this planet. Just live off the land like his very distant ancestors. He might be able to make primitive farming equipment for himself, maybe even loot a solar panel and useful electronics to charge with it from something permanently lost among the trees.
The idea of being a technologically advanced hunter-gatherer and a primitive farmer sounded awfully appealing right about now. On an uninteresting arboreal planet like Sasat, he could just get away from people and live a life where he bothered no one and no one bothered him.
The bottom of the above bunk was too close. If was suffocating. The entire room was.
He had to get up and go outside before he would suffocate in there.
Boots and jacket on. No one would notice that he was wearing pajama pants, if they even cared to look in the first place. Out the door and towards the nearest exit.
Out into the open and to the nearest trees. Deeper into the dusky forest. The spaces between trees were narrowing fast but it did not make him feel claustrophobic like his bunk had.
Logically, he knew he would have to make the walk back later, so he walked as straight a line as he could until he came to a stop at an overgrown clearing. The trees this deep were large enough for their roots to form good shelter even for someone as big as him.
He checked the nearest suitable-looking tree for any animals already occupying the shelter it provided. He found none, so he settled down under its roots and let himself breathe and live his daydream. As long as he could light a fire and had some kind of weapon to hunt with, he could survive on Sasat, although without successfully farming something nutritious he would eventually get deficiency diseases and likely start losing muscle mass, assuming something like pathogens, sepsis or fauna did not kill him before that. If he had something that could connect to the network safely, he could keep up with how the war was going, maybe even ask for someone to come pick him up if the AIRF won and his bounty got rescinded.
Nothing more than just him and the native flora, fauna and funga. No need to deal with people who may or may not have bad intentions towards him. Just him and the straightforward rules of nature — coexist if feasible and kill or be killed. A simple life with likely an undignified or violent death, but at least it would be straightforward with no space or need for overthinking or unreasonable demands.
It was easy to breathe here, so Steirdrar let the escapism calm him. He set a timer for when he would have to go back to the base, closed his eyes and dozed off to the sounds of the forest.
Seriously, the fantasy of being a technologically advanced hunter-gatherer (or just simply wandering into the woods and abandoning society to be free of all that BS in the nature) is very appealing right now, not that I’d have any chance of surviving it as I am IRL.
A cozy little scifi base in a safe area where I can steadily grow enough food a la Subnautica or Empyrion, though? I wouldn’t mind that at all. And neither would Steirdrar now that he’s feeling even more trapped than I am.
(Insert some witty ironic “send help” line here)
WindySilver 
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