Wrecked (Dawn Dearest & Mr. M)

[Mr Master]

Stuffy. Hot. Tight. Hard to breathe. Claustrophobic. These were some of the first impressions she had upon coming out of the cold-sleep cycle. The capsule was supposed to open up automatically at the end of it's cycle, but it wasn't. It was only gradually, as she struggled free of the thin blanket and panted for breath, that the memory of what happened came back to her. The low key position on the interstellar cruiser, a reasonably unskilled job but such a lucky opportunity to travel from planet to planet. Then there was the explosion shaking the ship like an earthquake, the alarm sirens, the stomach-churning feeling of the ship dropping out of hyperspace into the real universe again, the scramble to get into the emergency capsules. All of that came back to her, and she realized what must have happened.

The emergency capsules were designed to put their occupants into cold sleep and then drift, using minimal power to broadcast a distress signal and look for a habitable planet somewhere along the way. The only reason it would wake her up on its own is if it had found what it was looking for. But it didn't have the power left to open up automatically. How long had it kept her alive? How long in space? There was no way for her to know. She did manage to finally push the lid open, letting in exotically-scented, slightly cool, but breathable, air. Wherever she was, it was night, but she seemed to be in the middle of some sort of clearing. There were animal noises of some sort, weird calls and tweetings and clickings, like a busy forest or a jungle. Strange stars burned overhead, but nothing seemed to be in the area.

She made a quick inventory of the capsule's emergency supplies. There was a solar-power panel that could generate whatever power she needed, a portable hyperspace beacon, a case of ration bars, a canteen with a built-in purity filter, a few dozen square yards of all-weather tarpaulin, several hundred yards of all-purpose duracord, a large utility knife, and a wrist computer. It was one of those Satisfactory Intelligence programs, no doubt; able to interact like a person, but not a very inventive or particularly interesting one. It most likely had everything she'd need to know about survival, if she could access it. Problem is, the battery telltales were all dark; in however long she'd been in hibernation, the charge had run down. No problem with the memory, it was all solid-state, but there was no power to run it.

So she had until morning -- however long that was, however long nights were around here -- before she could get power to the only other item that might be able to help her.

 

[Dawn Dearest]

Kimberly sighed as she looked around, yanking her helmet off she attempted to breath and realized she could, so she then took her space suit off. Shoving a hand through her hair Kimberly moved slowly as she tried to establish where she was, nearly what felt like an hour later she sighed and sat down against a large rock, she could still see her ship, so she began to relax, trying to imagine where she was.

It didn't take Kimberly long until she dozed off.

 

[Mr Master]

An insistent buzzing like an alarm clock woke her from where she had slumped in the lee of a boulder. Her little survival computer on her wrist had been exposed to the sun when her arm splayed out in her sleep and left the shadowed area, so now it was waking her. Once she began to move, a small voice, made tinny by the tiny speakers, began to talk at her from the computer.

“Are you injured?” was the first thing it asked. It went down a checklist, and made sure of each answer before moving to the next one.

Once it had determined she had not been injured, it immediately said “Have you been in contact with anyone before I became active? Anyone at all.”

“I cannot contact the computer system in the escape pod, it appears to be drained of power. Have you had an opportunity to check for a source of drinkable water or a source of food?”

Once it had gotten the basic answers it needed to establish where it was and what it needed to do, it addressed her in a less imperative voice. “I am Emergency General Guide model 43C. Most users address me as Egg, but you can assign me a nickname that is more to your liking if you wish. My purpose is to assist you with surviving on this planet, helping you find shelter and sustenance and a means to draw attention to yourself from rescuing parties. I am also designed to be a conversational companion in the event rescue takes a long time.”

“Now, the air and environment seem acceptable, I can’t detect any trace elements that might cause you problems. The solar spectrogram doesn’t match anything in my datafile, but atmospheric interference might change the readings. I will have to charge up today and look at the stars tonight before I’ll be able to figure out where we might be. We can use the pod for shelter until we determine what else we can do, and there ought to be emergency provisions. However, one of the first things we need to do is find you a source of water, and then food. That may be more difficult, depending on the local biochemistry, but luckily we have more time with that.”

“Do you feel up for some cautious exploring? Let’s go back to the pod and collect some gear, and you can tell me what’s the last few things you remember before waking up and the crash.”