Glancing up at the sky, he tried to make out the stars through the city's light pollution. There wasn't much to work with. Basic astro-navigation is something every soldier had to learn if they were going to planet-hop. That doesn't mean he memorized constellations of the hundreds of planets he'd set his boots down on. Maybe he could get enough to let the suit figure it out?
Whatever he could see through the dull blue of the sky wouldn't be enough for it to work with.
After another 20 minutes of crawling through the landfill, and being generally grateful he had protection to prevent what would have been countless lacerations, he passed between two large rock faces and ended up on a crest just above the level of the dams. That was a good start, it meant he didn't have to worry about climbing them. Hopefully.
But the mass of discarded… everything, it seemed like, kept going until the hill he climbed curved down and out of sight.
Unless someone has satellite coverage here, there's no surveillance. This area is too large and there's no infrastructure besides the dams.
Besides, why would they monitor a landfill? Judging by how a lot of the garbage he'd been crawling through was rusted into unrecognizable heaps, it had been there a while.
Pushing himself to a crouch, he peered over at the city. Without the dam obstructing his view, he could get a much clearer picture.
And it looked nothing like any city he'd ever seen. The towers that seemed to stretch into the sky were there, but their designs were… wrong. Most towers on inner-colony worlds were fairly utilitarian. Some places had recognizable designs but they were usually consistent, at least. This was… not.
The buildings were a mixture of different styles from various cultures on Earth before humanity had taken to inhabiting other planets. He was able to recognize a few: some classical Japanese design and mid-21st century Chinese with screens taking up entire sides of buildings. A lot of them were just… different. Like someone wired a bunch of LED strips in strange, geometric patterns across a building's face with no regard for whether it fit. Some were tall and thin, like someone wanted to turn a spire into a building in the middle of the city. Others had the generic, unstyled look he'd come to associate with many inner-colony structures. Shorter buildings were mixed in with the behemoths too, looking out of place, ready to get crushed by their encroaching neighbors.
It all looked like a bunch of people had designed their own city individually before smashing it together into one big mess.
The only place he could think of that might have the resources and time to build something like this was Earth and… he couldn't think of any city that would be what he was looking at. Beyond the city was the ocean, gleaming with the reflected light of the cobbled-together metropolis.
As he learned more, everything made less sense.
Turning back to look at the dam he'd fallen off of, he didn't see anything that suggested there was an FLP base. Everything beyond that point was dark.
I don't know where I am, how I got here, or where 'here' is. No one has tried to contact me, and there's no evidence of an Insurrectionist base. Am I in a coma? Am I dead? Is this a dream?
The still-present waves of pain radiating from his left arm and chest sure felt real.
Alright, guess it's time to start gathering information… The best source of that information, at this point, is people. He'd have to be careful since he had no idea what was happening. For the time being, recon and observation. If he had to make contact, it would be once he determined the risks of doing so.
X
The walk through the landfill took another 20 minutes. It covered almost two klicks. He couldn't help but try to guess just how much garbage had to have been dumped there. Every guess he had felt… way too low.
And that was another oddity. No UEG world would have something like this, especially near a major urban center. They'd long ago figured out how to use materials as efficiently as possible and what materials gave them the best usability/reusability. Landfills like this were a thing of the distant past.
Between the city and this landfill, he had just enough information to be incredibly confused. He had two dots and it didn't seem possible to connect them.
If those had been the only dots he had to figure out how to connect, it would have been a challenge.
Then the world threw a third one at him.