Chapter Text
This absolutely was not happening.
“Attention, hull failure imminent. All personal, abandon ship.”
Racing through the shaking ship, you head straight for the designated escape pod area, your mind running at over a thousand miles per second. The alarms overhead are blaring so loudly it feels as if they might burst your eardrums, but you don’t have enough energy left to feel annoyed with them.
No, no, no, all your energy right now is fueling the feeling of pure, unadulterated and true terror.
Alterra is supposed to be the safest means of transportation across intergalactic space, yet here you are! Experiencing a crashing spaceship in all its glory.
It’s horrendous, terrible, awful glory.
Reaching the escape pods at last, you slam open the pods hatch and slide in, fumbling to press the eject button before you’ve even fully secured yourself to your seat; the empty seat parallel to you spared not a glance nor a thought.
After missing the eject button two times in a row thanks to the shaking of the pod and your blurry eyesight, you finally hit it just as the entire ship shudders from the force of another explosion. Something pops loudly to your left and finally, your escape pod is ejected. The feeling of your stomach trying to come up through your throat as the pod rockets downwards makes you swallow roughly and almost choke.
Hello stomach, we are not vomiting right now! You plea mentally with it.
You will not throw up during this event, no matter how acceptable it seems. You are a respectable human being with humility.
Glancing up to the top hatch, the faintest gasp leaves your lips as you witness the Aurora shudder and then explode again, the force and sound, coupled with your fast descent making your ears pop and pod shake. Alongside the shaking, the fire extinguisher loosens and gets thrown across the room, causing the panel covering some very important looking wires to come loose and begin to fly around, smacking against the floor and walls.
You barely have time to register the fact that if it hits you, you might suffer an awful concussion before the cover does just that and smacks right into your face.
And just like that, you are out like a light.
It’s hot, you realize as you come to. Like, impossibly, unbearably hot. Cracking your eyes open to see what could possibly be the cause of so much heat, you panic almost immediately upon seeing the large fire roaring only inches away from you.
“Ohhh, fuck!” You cry out, ”Holy shit! Let me out, let me out!” You smash your fists against the controls of the seat, the thing taking a few good hits before it finally releases you and you scramble forwards, coughing and choking on the amount of smoke inside the pod.
Thankfully the fire extinguisher is right at your feet, and your mind has enough sense to grab and unpin it before unleashing the spray inside. It takes maybe a minute before you somehow, with a stroke of luck, manage to put the fire out. As soon as the fire is out, the pod seems to kick into gear, and you hear the hiss of air as it begins filtering the smoke out and pushing oxygen in. According to the big ass, ’Look Here!’ screen on the wall of the pod, it seems most of the systems are offline though due to the fried and broken wires in the box that had lost its cover.
The cover that had knocked you unconscious.
You shoot the thing a dirty look and then crouch down, trying to gather your bearings.
You’re alive.
Stranded, possibly alone, but alive.
That had to count for something, right?
Swallowing the urge to vomit back down yet again, your mind tries to find an objective. Anything to focus on besides the reality of your situation. It’s not a healthy coping mechanism, ( certainly not one your professors would have approved of had you slapped it on a medical essay. ), but it’s something. Your eyes eventually settle on the pod’s emergency container and opening it reveals two water bottles, two blocks of nutrient food, some flares, an all-environmental protection suit and... a PDA!
You grab the electronic device so quickly you almost drop it. Taking a deep breath to recollect yourself, you tap the little machine on and watch it boot up, your patience wearing thin as the thing takes forever to load.
“Come on, come on,” you mutter.
“You have suffered minor head trauma. This is considered an optimal outcome.”
You flinch slightly at the voice of the PDA's virtual intelligence, before you feel your lips pull into a frown, ”Optimal— optimal outcome?! You’re joking, right?”
"This PDA has now rebooted in emergency mode with one directive: to keep you alive on an alien world. Please refer to the databank for detailed survival advice. Good luck.”
You stammer uselessly before placing the PDA down and taking a deep breath. Okay, okay, you’ve got this. The PDA is here to help and Alterra is one of the most well-equipped space-voyaging companies out there, which must mean this escape-pod has everything you need to survive.
Your glance of the escape pod reaffirms your worst fear.
The escape pod does not have everything you need to survive. The nutrient blocks and water bottles will only last so long, and the lack of tools and materials to build those tools means you’re going to have to leave and venture out to get those materials.
It can’t be that bad right? Glancing at the PDA informs you that the planet you’ve landed on has a breathable atmosphere at least, but it also says the planet is oceanic.
Well, that doesn’t mean there isn’t any land, just not any that’s big enough for long-range space scans to pick up. Taking another deep breath, you give yourself the mental pep-talk of a lifetime.
Okay, it’s a pretty shitty pep talk, but it makes do.
You have to leave because it’s the only way to survive, and your mama didn’t raise no quitter.
Scrabbling up the ladder, you force yourself not to hesitate and throw open the top hatch, emerging on top of the escape pod.
Your eyes land on the sight of the totally, utterly wrecked Aurora that is half sunk in the distance, which really punches you in the gut. You are stuck. Stranded. Possibly alone. Your PDA decides now is the best time to chirp up.
“The Aurora suffered orbital hull failure. Cause: unknown. Zero human life forms detected.”
And as you turn away, no longer able to stomach looking at what had been your safe haven hours before, you realize that everything around you is exactly what the PDA said it was.
Ocean.
Your mama may not have raised a quitter, but she did raise a coward.
Retreating to the inside of the pod only takes seconds and before you know it, you’ve collapsed on the ground and broken down. Sobs wrack your body as you rock back and forth, trying to comfort yourself. You are a mess.
Rightfully so.
Your crying only comes to a stop when you notice your throat burning. Grasping one of the water bottles, you give it a mournful look before taking two sips and then closing it and putting it back. You can’t afford to waste your resources, no matter how thirsty your crying has made you.
A measured breath, counting to four, exhaling and then repeating that same pattern for a few minutes brings your mind back to a sane-ish state.
The minor head trauma the PDA mentioned earlier, it was probably a concussion from the panel hitting you earlier. Based off the fact that you didn’t die while passed out, it really must have been minor. You probably have a big ass bruise on your forehead, but for now, everything else is fine.
The panel. Its exposed wires are broken, sparking and fried, and you don’t know how to fix them, which means you are going to need one of those tools the PDA had a recipe for. The... the repair tool. Simple enough, right? You just... need to leave the pod, gather the materials and make the tool.
That’s your goal.
Get the materials. Make the repair tool. Fix the pod.
The all-environmental protection suit in the emergency locker is a surprisingly good fit as you pull it over your body. The lack of fins on the feet and a proper air tank makes you frown though.
Materials. Repair tool. Pod. Oxygen tank and fins after.
After pysching yourself up once more, you grasp the PDA and attach it to the built-in place the protection suit has for it; before finally opening the bottom hatch. A few strange fish swim by and you wait for them to pass before dropping into the water, eyes unwillingly sliding shut.
You float for a moment and peel your eyes open.
Your breath catches at the sight around you. Beyond the built in interface the suit mask has, ( that tells you of your oxygen limit and temperature. ) lies an incredibly diverse yet beautiful reef. Plenty of small, different looking fauna seem to inhabit this area and for a moment, you can’t believe your luck. To land in such a shallow, pretty area, you must really have done something good in your life.
No big predators that this planet might have could hang around here, right? Right.
You spare some time to swim upwards and pop your head above the water, refilling your very minor oxygen built-in holder on the mask, pointedly avoiding looking in the direction of the Aurora.
Once your mask's in-built oxygen container is full, you sink back below the gentle waves and begin to swim a bit further, making sure to keep your pod in sight. Some of the small caves or edges of landforms had these limestone outcroppings that would give you either copper or titanium after breaking them open. You are forced to make multiple trips, as you can’t carry much in your arms, but by the time you exhaust your body, ( which takes a shorter time then you’d readily admit. ) you have managed to pick up quite a few things.
You have a few chunks of titanium, copper, quartz, and some acid mushrooms. Thankfully it seems during the escape, the fabricator in the pod was not damaged in any way. You carefully place the acid mushrooms and copper on the fabricator and then select the battery option, watching as they are transformed into the electronic you asked for.
You still have some leftover, so you chuck some titanium on the fabricator after and then select the recipe for a scanner. The battery and a piece of titanium are quickly beamed up and made into the very first tool you will ever get your hands on.
It’s not the repair tool, but it’s still better than nothing.
The repair tool requires silicone rubber and cave sulfur, both which you struggled to find. Your PDA informs you that the cave sulfur is in caves, ( no duh. ) but the silicone rubber is more commonly found in some area called the ‘Creepvine Forest’. You had accidentally gained the data entry for that creepy area when you swam way too far out on accident, the water becoming murkier and green. The sudden long and wavy kelp planets had freaked you out and you barely wasted any time before turning around and booking it back to your safe shallows.
Swallowing the onslaught of nerves that the memory causes, you brush your gloved hands against the pants of your environmental suit and turn your gaze to the ceiling hatch. The daylight is dimmer, no doubt thanks to the sun beginning to set, but it’s still bright enough that you can risk a trip to some of the caves and finding at least one more ingredient for your repair tool.
Slipping back into the water, you kick your feet and propel yourself forward, heading towards the closest set of caves you know of. The compass itself requires things you don’t even have in your database yet, ( thanks for that PDA, getting corrupted on the way down and losing half of your recipes. ) so you are forced to rely on your memory.
Thankfully, that is one of your stronger suits.
You slip inside a cave and begin to explore deeper when something behind you suddenly shrills. Your instincts react before your mind does and you're swimming out of the cave as fast as you can, not having liked that sound at all.
The shrilling only seems to follow you however, and then something explodes and the force causes you to get knocked forward.
“Fuck!” you exclaim, losing a good chunk of air. Turning, you barely catch a glimpse of a few chunks of exploded fish.
“It explodes?!” you exclaim as you breach the surface and breathe in a greedy mouthful of air, ”What kind of fish fucking explodes?! That’s so stupid! How does it even live?”
Your disbelief at such a fish is furthered when you duck back into the cave and find that the plant it had shot out from contained the cave sulfur you were looking for. You collect as much of it as you can before swimming back to your pod, shaking your head along the way.
Emerging back inside the escape pod, you dump the sulfur into the locker and collapse, bringing your hands to your face.
The sky outside is beginning to darken; Your first day, survived.
“The fish.. explodes.”