|
Post by thatguyfuryan on Jan 6, 2020 22:22:38 GMT -5
Chapter 1
Dragging his sled across the basin to another narrow gap, he followed a path that swept down and around, skirting along until he found another rocky cliff face, then following it in the general direction of Base Camp. He focused solely on following the dim navigational line. Without it, he doubted he’d able to make it back to Base Camp, even if he abandoned the sled and attempted going back the same way he came. The terrain started to look the same: the yellows, browns and reds all blurring into each other. Every rock he passed looked like the one he passed earlier. He could easily become lost if that line were to disappear.
The return trip lead across a windswept plain: it was smooth, flat, and barring several massive landforms, was largely unremarkable. It was going to be a two kilometer hike back to Base Camp, half of which was across the plain, which wouldn’t have been so bad had he need be lugging a considerable weight behind him.
Alone with his thoughts, his mind drifted. Back on Earth, he had pulled a pulk with a 90 pound load across snow during a family trip to Aspen, Colorado. He was 16 then, considerably fit for a bookworm and he handled it well he thought. When trying to impress an attractive British girl at the lodge they were both staying at, he was confused when she told him her best was 40kgs as well. For a smart guy, he never really got the imperial to metric conventions until he started UNE training. When he finally worked it out--well after she walked off--it didn’t seem so impressive considering a five foot five girl who weighed—easily--10-20 pounds less could pull just as much as him. Now, he was pulling almost double that, nearly 90kgs at best guess, and it was through sand on a booster section hull fragment. It was not an experience anyone would consider ‘a fun time’.
Internally, he was bitter over his performance so far, scolding himself as he replayed events leading to where he was. If his instructors back on Earth or Jupiter Station could see him now, he was sure they’d be ringing him out for being a dumbass. “When everything goes south, you-work-harder.” the gruff voice of Sergnant Peters, his survival instructor, echoed in his mind, “You keep calm, collected. You. Do. Not . Panic. There is no panic in survival. Panic is the mind killer.”. He hadn’t been thinking straight, he’d been rushing around panicking even if his log didn’t reflect it. His failure recognizing the Water Reclaimer--and he still knew that he hadn’t checked the Environmental Unit-- still hung in his mind. He was in a difficult situation, not an impossible one, but that didn’t mean he could afford to keep making mistakes. Mentally, part of him accepted his situation. The rest of him was still scared, and that fear would hurt his chances of survival—it could very well get him killed. His decision, until he could find what he needed in himself, was to rely on Sasha.
Through gritted teeth, he made his way across the plain and through several low dunes that gave way to a small gathering of trees. He barely noticed the movement in the undergrowth as he plodded along. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something small, some kind of arthropod, almost looked like the tail end of a trilobite. It startled him. He stopped, dropped the sled and grabbed his knife. Whatever it was, it wasn’t interested in him, which was good; he knew his knife had become dull during his salvaging. Whatever the creature was, it burrowed down, kicking up sand and dead leaves a few meters from him, disappearing underground.
The remainder of the journey to Base Camp was uneventful, a fact that pleased Guy immensely. Nothing seemed overly interested in eating his face today, he chuckled to himself. A wave of relief washed over him when he finally dropped his load at the base of the airlocks’ ramp. His hands and forearms had cramped more times than you could remember; his shoulders and back cracked in places he didn’t know they could when he stretched; and his legs hurt worse than any punishing leg day at the gym.
Thristy, his first port of call was to check the Reclaimer. Dropping to one knee, he pulled away the MLI. On the side of the bottle, its luminescent strip was completely blue—it was full. He let out a gleeful, almost childish “Yay”, hastily closed the valve, released the bottle and made for the airlock. Its pressurization cycle wasn’t complete before he released his helmet, then his pack. He inserted the bottle back into the empty slot, bit down on the straw and drew back a long, cool draft of water. It was good. He satiated his thirst, then inhaled what the packaging said was Premium Hungarian Goulash on the side of the ration pack—tasted more like spiced, soggy sawdust.
After taking a short rest break, nature finally called. While UNE rations are designed to be low waste, they still produced some. Considering his situation--everything having a purpose, it may just not have a use straight away—he decided to keep it. Emptying one of the crates he kept in the airlock, he converted it into a ‘makeshift excrement collector’, trying to make light of the fact he just used a crate as a toilet so he could ‘took a dump’. Sasha questioned, “Took a dump?”. Realizing what he had made the comment out loud instead of internally, he embarrassingly told her to dismiss the comment. The standard crate sealed air tight, so he would be able to keep it outside—he suited up, and put it down the side of the airlock--until he needed it again. The cold at night would likely freeze its contents over time, keeping him from gagging every time he needed to use it until a more hygienic situation could be found.
Guy unloaded his sled, leaving the hull section near the crate outside. Returning to the Hab, he took the time to remove the bottle from his suit and then reattached it—now half full--to the Reclaimer, tucked everything back into position and stepped away. It wasn’t likely he’d be able to get more water out of the tank with the sock, it just wouldn’t have enough heat transfer, but until he had a solution to that problem, it was better to keep trying. Now in the center of the Hab, he directed his eyes upwards. Sunlight dimly fell through the gaps of the dust covered geodesic roof. It was still bugging him how much time he’d already wasted; his supplies weren’t endless, they had a limit, and he couldn’t afford to have another Reclaimer incident. He still wasn’t in the game properly. His gaze fell on the Reclaimer then to the Environmental Unit. Thankfully, he had Sasha.
He inhaled. “Alright, Sasha,” turning to face the main airlock door, “what’s next?”.
|
|
|
Post by thatguyfuryan on Jan 19, 2020 7:53:02 GMT -5
Chapter 2
With an audible ping, Sasha began building a three dimensional representation of Base Camp on his HUD, first the Hab’s interior and expanding outwards. A smiling Guy looked around with an amused chuckle, “Cool.”, the ghostly image following his gaze with only a slight delay. He still found the whole process reminiscent of VR training, the same type he underwent on Jupiter Station. Sasha’s projection showed that all structures were complete, bar the Lab, which hadn’t changed. The layout of the Habitat was both basic and unusual at the same time, and this puzzled him. It wasn’t a layout for any UNE mission habitat that he was aware of, if anything it almost felt civilian and a rushed job at that--not set up with mission efficiency or safety in mind.
UNE habitats are oriented with the main airlock always attached to Wall Section 1, an airlock coupler, and continues clockwise numerically. Walls 2-4 was the window overlooking the airlock, a vacant storage rack and the Water Reclaimer. Wall 5 was an airlock door leading to the Bio-domes connecting corridor. Walls 6-8 was one MLI wall which showed up as having mounting points for an Oxygenator, the other two being for the Auxiliary Power Unit and the Environmental Unit respectively. Wall 9 was the airlock leading to the corridor and a four way junction for the Production Bay, Medical Bay and Barracks. Walls 10-12 were two of his MLI walls, though the projection showed that they had mountings for a kitchen unit and storage area, and finally an empty desk beside the main airlock. “This layout is wrong.” he said aloud, more to himself than Sasha. There were many violations of regulations; it was totally against regulations to have the barrack attached to the Production Bay, for example. “Osiris Base Camp was established under orders from the mission Commander as a temporary foothold, primary habitation and operational center was still the Osiris 1, which maintained a geosynchronous orbit above.”. “Still doesn’t feel right.” he muttered, approaching the Environmental Unit.
He put his concerns to the back of his mind as he became inspecting the unit by starting to remove the upper panel. Like all wall modules, it was akin to the size of a large bookshelf, the unit being separated into four distinct segments with a central control unit in the middle of the second. It was clearly a Type C variant: a very advanced, very energy intensive model, which could explain why they hadn’t installed the independent oxygenator. A Type C is a near-complete closed loop system only surpassed by the Type D: it operates as combination Atmospheric Control Unit (which has several air conditioners, carbon dioxide (CO2) Remover and Oxygen/Nitrogen (O2/N2) Regulator); Oxygenator (only needing the most basic design that separates water into hydrogen and oxygen); and houses several advanced pieces of hardware, the Sabiter Reactor, Bosch Reaction Chamber and a Joule-Thomson unit. When fully operational this model would be able to handle all the necessary functions of multiple wall modules, reducing the need to use valuable space inside a habitat or other structure. Overall, it required minimal resources, though had a heavy reliance on maintenance and the energy demands on the power grid were excessive.
In the top segment lay a pair of large cylinders flanked by two distinct black boxes on either side. This was one of the key modules that he needed to work—it being the CO2 Remover. Inside each cylinder is a framework holding several zeolite beds, their function is to absorb the CO2 from the air, once saturated with CO2 the cylinders would automatically heat to release pure CO2 gas--to be used as feedstock--and simultaneously rejuvenating the beds so they could be reused. The cylinders had handled caps and a small viewing panel, about the size of a coin, though in his suit they were useless, he wouldn’t be able to peer inside the cylinders. He resisted the urge to open the cylinders so that he could check them, he knew full well that dust and the heavy CO2 environment of the habitat would saturate the beds if they weren’t already, and if the unit had been damaged he would waste what absorption they had left. He didn’t have confidence he would be able to rig something up if the unit was damaged.
Unscrewing the bottom panel, Guy double took. “What the hell is that?” he said slowly, confusion across his voice. He knelt lower, shoulder to the floor to get a closer look. It was a damaged piece of hardware, covered in soot. He got close, so close his visor was touching the blackened hardware, his head moving inside his helmet so he could get a better angle. After a second he recognized what it was. “No. Can’t be.”, more confused. He looked again. It was what he thought it was. “You crazy bastards! Why the hell would they do that?” “Do what, Guy?” “Do you know about this?” he asked in a high tone, hands pushing apart melted hoses so he could look more to the back. “I need more information, Guy: do I know about what?”. “They attached a miniature Acetylene Plant to their environmental system.” he replied slowly, dumbfounded. “No, Guy, I was not aware. Records indicate no such modification to the Type C Environmental System of the Hab. Such an action is not following any UNE guidelines”. Guy rocked himself onto his backside. “I mean, it would work. Heating the methane from the Reactor releases hydrogen and acetylene.” his voice vague, working out the mechanics of it in his head, “Hydrogen returns into the loop, acetylene gets dumped to an external tank. I just don’t see why they would do it, it’s unnecessary. And it clearly didn’t last long.”, pointing at the damage. A thought came to mind, he titled his head, “Where’s the water going? Where’d they be getting their oxygen?” he pondered, his gaze falling to the side towards the Production Bay. Sasha lit up the wall panels of the three auxiliary structures, though her results came back negative. “According to the last known configuration of Base Camp, the Bio-Dome was fitted with a Type A Environmental system.”. A Type A was the most basic oxygenator. Guy looked in that direction, a reticle pinpointing where the unit should be. “No. They wouldn’t be that stupid? Running the base off this setup--” he said, tapping the unit in front of him with his boot, “--and a Bio-Dome environmental system?”. “Theoretically speaking, the installed system of the Bio-dome could produce the necessary oxygen.” Sasha informed him. “OK. I’ll take your word for it.”. Lurching forward, he reached a hand into a gap along the side of the plant, clenched a fistful of partially fused power cables and pulled them free, then felt around for a valve hidden out of sight, closing it. “Let’s see if I can get this working.”.
Getting power to the Environmental Unit took a bit of work. The power system was not playing ball, but it did give him some time to think. Earlier, he had been beating himself up about things, now he was glad he didn’t check the Environmental Unit to begin with--in his rush, given his state and the state of the unit, without a clear head he might have set something off that would be irreversible. With some clever rewiring, power was re-established and a small standby light on its control lit up. Sure that he had isolated the damaged plant from the rest of the system, Guy initiated a maintenance check. There was some loud grinding of motors as they struggled to life, soon clearing and producing a familiar quiet hum. On the units display a series of icons appeared, representations of each module of the unit—the Acetylene plant showing as “Incompatible Hardware Detected”, was red with a small yellow X at the top, representing module isolation. It would take a few minutes to run through the cycle, time enough for him to check on the Bio-Dome “We didn’t detect the Osiris 1 when we entered system, somehow we lost track of it completely.”. “Without connection to the communication array I have no data and the current whereabouts of the Osiris 1, Guy. Last known whereabouts was geosynchronous orbit above Proteus 2 21 days ago.”. “That’s an awfully long time gap.” “Yes. I was taken offline shortly after Base Camp was established, as such I have gaps in memory when checking against Dawnrunner mission data.” “Why?” “My server is located in the Production Bay.”, Guy looked in that direction, a large server case highlighted, “On Day 23, there was a mechanical issue with my operating hardware caused by feedback from a faulty Fabricator, which also overloaded the power grid. It was deemed necessary to take me and other systems offline to effect repairs. Whatever happened to the crew and Base Camp occurred during this time.”. “Could explain why the Oxygenator is missing.”, he stopped, “Not the wall, of course.” he added, “Sometimes it is just easier to pull the whole unit and repair it”. While great care was given to the design and operation of descent vehicles, it wasn’t uncommon for equipment to be damaged during the descent, crews often finding faults at the most inopportune times. He reached the airlock leading to the Bio-dome. “How did you end up on Martins PDA, by the--”, Sasha interrupted him before he could finish, “Alert. Temperature increase detected.”
There were two distinct popping sounds from behind. Guy swung around quickly, his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. The Environmental Unit was spewing forth what looked like sparks from the caps of the cylinders, then two jets of flames erupted from where the zeolite beds were. “No-no-no-no-no-no!” he shouted, dashing forward. The power in the Hab cut out before he could reach it, the flames illuminating the interior with a violent, flicking glow. Without hesitation and ignoring the thermal warning on his HUD, he reached through the flames, grabbed hold of the handles, twisted and pulled. Even before he could pull both frames free their housing, the zeolite crumbled away, showering him in short lived fiery debris. He flung his hands down to his sides, the smoking, now empty frames skidding across the floor. The carbon dioxide atmosphere quickly stifled any remaining flames. He stood there in shock, breathing painfully deep, disappointment heavy in his voice, “Of all the things.”. He eyed the smoking soot upon his suit before dusting it off. He sighed, “For Gods sake.”.
Guy isolated the unit and restored power to the Hab, when the lights were back he went about investigating what happened. After a few minutes his best guess was that there had been damage to the flow regulators. The Sabiter Reactor appeared to have backfilled methane into the CO2 remover, saturating the zeolite beds with methane. When the maintenance cycle started, oxygen not nitrogen was blown into the CO2 remover when checking for dust from zeolite breakdown, it filled the space with a supply of oxygen and travelled into the Reactor, which ignited when the Sabiter Reactor shorted out, causing an electrical spark. It may have been more or less complicated than that, it didn’t matter--it didn’t change the fact that the unit was now heavily damaged beyond his level of repair. As much use as it was, the Air Conditioners were still intact—though their filters were spent--as well as the Joule-Thomson Unit, everything else required repairs.
|
|
|
Post by thatguyfuryan on Jan 19, 2020 7:55:43 GMT -5
Chapter 3
The loss of the CO2 remover was quite a blow to Guy’s morale. He worked silently as he dealt with the Environmental Unit; removing the damaged modules and anything that might pose a risk to those that still worked. Without the remover he knew his suit scrubbers would only be effective for another day or so--two tops. Likewise, the air he was using in the airlock would become toxic shortly after that. The atmospheric extractors outside were of the wrong type for what he needed, assuming they still worked. While they would have their own zeolite beds they would be of a type to absorb water vapor from the air as opposed to capturing carbon dioxide. Water wasn’t such an immediate issue, so he could check on the extractors later.
Certain that he had done all he could, he left the Environmental Unit and headed towards the Bio-dome’s airlock. Opening the door, he stopped. The corridor was nearly pitch black, his suit lights kicked in and caught the dust and sand quietly swirling from a light breeze. “How?”, knowing it had only been a handful of hours since dawn, “I’ve only been up a few hours.” “Proteus 2 has a short orbital period around the parent planet, Thesius Prime. A complete day/night cycle is only 14 hours and 23 minutes. It is currently 9:53pm local time.” He sighed, “Great.” He had forgotten about the planetary information. It was part of his briefing package, yet admittedly he had not read it fully. They were in quite a rush to launch. A lot of the data was not mission critical, in the event where a landing was necessary, he wouldn’t have been part of the team to go down. His role was mission support; staying aboard to maintain ship systems with Jennifer and offer support to the team below when required.
Anxiety crept into his mind. He clutched at the handle of his knife before beginning. The corridor—cylinder shaped, roughly fifteen meters long--was full of sand, knee deep in some areas, ankle deep everywhere else. Loose panels and some wires hung from its ceiling. The hull had been punctured in several places, Guy could see outside as he passed. “I am 20 light years from Earth, stranded on an alien moon by myself and I know there are things out there that want to eat my face for dinner,” looking out a puncture has he passed it, “Finding out there is actual full blown alien life, and their assholes. And here I am armed with a dull knife made scrap metal and duct tape. No lasers, no mazer beams, no fusion cannons. No shields. Just a guy with a knife against Hell knows what.” He paused. “You know what, all those shows I watched as a kid, all total bullshit!”
As he approached the end of the corridor, he could make out that the coupler for the bio-dome has been damaged, buckling in the middle, which forced its door to be jammed open away from him—opposite to the way it should open. He couldn’t budge though it was ajar enough for him to squeeze through.
The Bio-dome is geodesic structure: a dome with a triangular lattice shell made of metal and glass. They always reminded Guy of the aviary his mother had for her birds when he was a child, though this one was far larger and designed to operate in alien environments. Compared to other designs for their purpose, this dome wasn’t a particularly largest variant having a fifteen meter diameter, enough space to produce crops for a small team or to conduct experiments. Like all UNE technologies it was an over-engineered, being far stronger than it needed to be. Something catastrophic had happened to it that collapsed half of the roof, leaving it a shadow of its former self--a twisted mangle of metal and broken glass. The sand covering the floor was laced with it; metal and glass debris crunched underfoot, as well as frozen plants.
Several grow beds had been toppled over, their contents buried with just the tips of leaves peaking out. He didn't need to check them, he knew they were dead; had the atmosphere not killed them, the temperatures would have. Across the floor, a desk with botany supplies had collapsed under the weight of damaged framing. Ahead of him, still half attached to the exterior mounting plate, was the domes environmental unit. The framing around it has collapsed on itself, essentially popping the unit through the mounting plate and into the interior. Some good fortune rolled his way, Guy found that the unit faired better than everything else in the Bio-dome. Apart from some warping of the case--that had crushed its power supply--it was quite recoverable.
He took his pistol grip to it, unscrewing what he could or forcing the rest open with his body weight. Unsurprising, dust and sand was all through it. To his relief its Oxygenator module was intact. It was a simple piece of technology, essentially a water cylinder with wires and tubing on the inside and several connections and valves on its exterior. When filled and powered, an electrical current would separate water into oxygen and hydrogen, both gases being routed to external tanks or to another part of the environmental systems for further processing.
Guy salvaged whatever else he could from the unit: a flow regulator, small pumps, water filter and a few other bits and pieces. On his way out, arms ladened with his salvage, a piece of glass by the door caught his eye--it was a foot long and had a near flat edge. Something one of his instructors had said popped into mind. His lips went thin and he considered for a moment before shrugging, "Why the hell not." he concluded and he carefully picked it up.
|
|
|
Post by thatguyfuryan on Jan 19, 2020 7:57:33 GMT -5
Chapter 4
Returning to the Hab, he placed his salvage down and went to the last airlock. The corridor sustained more damage to it than the first, having lost entire sections of the exterior hull, exposing the interior to the environment. He noticed that the paint on the interior—as was true with the junction—was stripped away. Given the time frame, it didn’t seem like that was just from weathering alone. Standing at the junction with the corridor to his back, the Production Bay was to his right, Medical Bay in front, and the Barracks to his left. He decided to check the most damaged of the structures first, going right into the Production Bay.
The basic auxiliary building is a rounded rectangular shape, roughly twice as long as it is it wide; in this case being about seven meters wide and fifteen long. They can act as independent structures—used for simple site specific tasks when more robust faculties weren’t required, acting as simple research stations, mining or production buildings--or attached to the habitat directly, or via corridors and junctions, to be used a barracks, medical bays and the likes; making them a solid multiple purpose building. Guy’s eyes focused on the projection of what was. This Production Bays setup was nothing markable, it used all nine wall sections; the four rounded corners being storage units and the five main walls each had stations attached: to his left were the general production stations, an Assembler and Fabricator unit; in front was a Material Processor, a unit designed to process ores crushed by the Ore Processor--that appeared to be attached directly to a transfer hard-point in the wall--into consumables used by the Fabricator. To his right was a workbench and Sasha’s servers, which was closest to the door.
What was left was a jarring reality. Had he not had Sasha’s information he would have been none the wiser. “Are you sure your records are accurate?” “Yes, Guy.” The entire Production Bay was a skeleton, reduced to its most basic framework, leaving only one storage unit—the left unit closest to the door and the wall behind where the Assembler would have been. Everything else was gone and that made no sense. He walked the floor, nothing was where it should be and what was there was only sand. Even outside where the Ore Processor should be, as well as some kind of storage tank—possibly for fuel—there was nothing by swirls of sand. “Did someone salvage the entire Bay?” he pondered. “I cannot answer that, Guy.” He looked to his right, through the frame to see his two MLI walls of the Hab, a little further around, he saw the corridor, the missing hull sections were closest to the Bay. What could have done all this, he thought to himself, unable to think of anything. He’d never seen or heard of anything like it. It didn’t seem deliberate, while the Production Bay had equipment that would be prized salvage but why leave the Water Re-claimer and the Environmental Unit? Why modify the Environmental Unit when you could fabricate an independent Acetylene Plant? None of it made any sense. Guys eyes darted around the ceiling. Something he should of thought of came to mind. “Sasha, where is the Production… wait—“ he interrupted himself, “Where are the monitoring devices for Base Camp?”.
Sasha pinged several cameras in their various locations across the Base, there were two in the Habitat and one in each of the auxiliary buildings. He looked to where the closest one was, it was positioned above the left most storage unit in the Production Bay. He spun around to find it, what he found was barely half a camera. It looked as if it had been sliced cleanly in two, with only the back still attached to the ceiling. “What the hell?”. “You seem distressed, Guy.” “It’s all gone, even everything outside. The camera has been halved” he explained as he paced the floor, “The only thing left standing is the frame, a storage unit I’ve already checked and one wall” he added as he walked back over to the lone wall, thumping a fist against it in frustration. His fist went straight through it. That startled him. The wall crumbled slightly around the hole as he pulled his fist back through. He stared at it perplexed. “I just put my fist through wall.”. “You must be mistaken, Guy. That wall is made out of alum—“ “I know what it’s made of.” “Then you will know that it would be impossible for you to punch your fist through it.” Normally that would be true, a standard wall consists of two 4mm thick sheets of aluminum with several layers of insulation and aluminium framing sandwiched between them. That hadn’t stopped his fist from going right through. He pinch gripped part of the metal, it broke away easily. It was brittle, he crunched it in his palm. “Something has made it brittle. It reminds me of what gallium does to aluminum.” “I have no way of accounting for this, Guy. Geological data indicated an extremely low gallium content of local bauxite-like and zinc ores, never to the quantity that could affect any aluminum hull to such a degree. I have no records of any other liquid or gas that could do as you describe in stock.” “What about fuel production? Gallium and aluminum catalyst. Fast way to get hydrogen.” “No fuel production using that method was established.”
Curious, Guy approached one of the support struts of the frame. It was made of steel. He banged it with his fist, a puff of dust floated down. He grabs it with one hand and pulled with all his might, and just as he was about to stop he felt a slight give. Letting go, several steel fragments stayed on his glove. What had affected the aluminum of the walls had also affected the steel of the frame, but not to the same degree. “What the hell is going on in this place.” He studied the fragments for a moment before shaking them loss. Somewhat fearful, he checked his glove just in case something was happening to it, thankfully nothing appeared to have changed. “I need to find a damn camera.”
Chapter 5
With a swift pace, Guy made his way into what was the Medical Bay. His HUD showed him a simple stock standard layout: two medical cots, two desks for the crew's doctor to use, storage and two medical stations—the Multi-Analyzer, used to diagnose a wide range of conditions and aliments, and the Medical Fabricator, used to produce the various medical supplies that any crew would use. In his previous salvage he had grabbed anything that was useful, with Sasha’s information nothing else stuck out that required his attention—everything was destroyed one way or anything. He found the Bay’s camera where is should be above the doorway, which he gently detached from its mounting. It was in bad shape, the outer casing was both melted and worn down from weathering. There had been a fire inside Base Camp at some point, that explained quite a few things but it didn’t explain others.
Guy took another glance at the various stations, just in case. As he expected and he had seen prior, there wasn’t much left. Delicate materials and components of the Analyzer and Fabricator—and those kept in storage--had been destroyed or otherwise rendered useless from the power cutting out, fire or the elements. His HUD gave some detailed information on appliances, but most of redundant now; he could recycle bits and pieces of what was left once he had established himself properly, but fabricating the most sensitive and essential components to repair them and producing the medical supplies required to use them was going to take some time and required materials he simply didn’t know how to locate at the moment. An upside though, he missed one of the corner storage units that was closest to the door. Requiring a little forceful persuasion with the tip of this knife to pry it open, he found a pair of emergency face masks with their small oxygen bottles intact, much to his delight. They wouldn’t do much for him in his situation but he had some thoughts on how he could use them.
Before leaving the Medical Bay, his attention fell upon the camera in his hand. Again, using his knife he gently pried a stem open before cracking it open by hand. The lens and much of the mechanism had been damaged by fire or the environment, upon inspection it seemed at least one of the on board memory chips was intact; if it had sustained damage he couldn’t see was another question.
“How do I access one of cameras onboard memory? “Access port on the side.”
Guy checked the side of the camera, finding that the port had been partly melted over. “No such luck there.” “The onboard memory chips can be installed into an adaptor or swapped out with another unit.” Guy looked towards the Barracks, seeing where the camera should be and went to find it. As with the others, the camera was where it should be above the doorway. He pulled it free, part of the casing cracks under pressure. “This camera looks in bad shape as well.” His eyes drifted around the Barracks, “Who am I kidding? Everything looks in bad shape.”
The Barracks had the usual awkward layout: there were three double bunks suitable for six crew members; a table for eating and recreation; what would have been an entertainment area with a television; as well as the shower and toilet unit at the far end of the floor plan. That last bit always made Guy raise an eyebrow. UNE planners didn’t really focus on privacy for the most intimate of human processes.
“Nothing like having a toilet in your—“
Something outside caught his ear, sounded almost like a howl. His face immediately went white. He stopped and listened. The wind had picked up without him noticing. Quietly he slowly spun around, eyes falling into the void where the Production Bays walls would have been. His light barely illuminated passed the edge of its floor, catching the wisps of dust and sand dancing along in the increasing wind. He brought his hands up in front, hand poised to increase the sensitivity of his helmet’s external microphone. A large bang echoed through the Medical Bay on his left, followed by a low groaning noise. Guy pretty much jumped out of his own skin. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stick up, his breathing and heart rate went rapid. He wasn’t going to stick around to find out what it was.
Bolting from the Barracks, he raced down the corridor, stumbling as he made his way through the airlock door, before slamming it shut and engaging the manual door lock. Inside the Hab, he couldn’t hear the wind so much, but felt another impact reverberate down the corridor. He couldn’t really tell if it was moving closer, but that’s not what his brain was telling him. His anxiety was building. His eyes feverishly scanned his surroundings, his ears peaked at everything that didn’t sound like wind. He rushed over and grabbed the pickaxe, clenching the handle in both hands as he faced the direction he came from.
“Guy—“ He interrupted her with a shush.
Intuitively, Sasha brought various audio information on his HUD as the previous 3D information faded away. More sensitive than his own ears, the suits microphone--located on the sides of his helmet --were picking up more information. A distinct peak rippled through one waveform, Guy heard the corresponding bang. It wasn’t as loud as the previous.
Over the next minute there were several more impacts down the corridor. Something was definitely out there. He didn’t know what it was but something was there moving around in the cover of night, or using the stormy weather that was picking up. Without Sasha uttering a word and from estimations on his HUD, he guessed that whatever it wasn’t getting closer, either distracted by the structures or something else. As useful as it was, the information Sasha was providing wasn’t helping his anxiety. What was really only a minute or two tops felt like it was being dragged out to eternity. When whatever it was had done doing whatever it was doing, Guy realized he had been gripping the handle so hard his fingers were throbbing. Out of sight and his own hearing—though still detectable by the helmet—whatever it was had abandoned base camp and was moving away. Sasha’s voice made him jump. “Unable to detect unknown entity, Guy.” He lets out a long, trembling sigh, “This place sucks.”
Chapter 6
When Guy finally calmed himself down the weather overhead had broken out into a full blown storm. Mindful that something might still be out there, he checked his MLI walls, locked all the airlocks and closed the manual shutters on the window and airlock doors. Though the roof did have a shutter to cover it, it was so caked over with sand that it was difficult seeing out—let alone in—during the storm. Being inside was the best thing for him, there was no telling what such a storm could do, or what it could hide. To reduce the chances of being discovered by anything undesirable, Guy decided that shutting off all exterior lights and running on basic interior lighting was best. Once satisfied, he went back to his previous task.
The Hab was supposed to have two cameras, one to the side of the main airlock and the other opposite it on the floor plan. He found one, the one beside the main airlock. He found the mounting point for the second, the camera was nowhere to be found; it was possible it had been taken down for repairs during Sasha’s down time or part of another mystery.
The airlock’s camera was in relatively good condition, there had been some weathering, but Guy regarded it well. He connected Martin’s PDA to the camera. It responded almost immediately, drawing power from the PDA to which Sasha connected to remotely.
“Negotiating with remote host. Connection established.”
“How is it?”
“Hardware and data checks are in progress. Internal memory checks indicate 22% capacity reached.” Guy was impatient, too impatient to wait. “Playback most recent file.”
The screen flickered white, then came up with static that rolled into colorful distortions and back again; back and forth like waves on a beach. The sound wasn’t much better, coming through as static or heavily warped--what could have been voices sounding more like hyperactive chipmunks. It was difficult to make anything out. Guy tilted an ear towards the camera, forgetting he was hearing it through his helmet speakers. He could have sworn he heard laughter, then some shouting and then nothing but noise. “Memory indexing is unstable. File integrity is compromised. Data files reporting errors. No hardware faults reported.”
“What could have caused that other than, you know, weather?”
“Given the history of faults suffered by Base Camp, possible data corruption from internal software error, or electrical damage from power grid feedback.”
“Great!” he exclaimed, half-hardheartedly thumping his fist against the airlock door, half expecting a repeat of earlier. The door was rock solid. “Can it be fixed?”
“Possibly. Loading the necessary—“
“Good, get started on that.”
“I cannot.”
“You just said it was possible.” his voice carrying the undertones of annoyance.
“Guy, you interrupted. It is possible to recover the data, providing an adequate computing unit is available.” Guy deflated, knowing a long form answer for ‘not right now, you idiot’ was about to follow. “While my archives contain several suites of software for data recovery, the necessary software has requirements beyond the capacity of any hardware currently available.” Guy inhaled deeply, cheeks filling with air, then exhaled slowly through tight lips. “Good. Good. Is this thing going to be any good to me?” giving the camera a little shake.
“The remainder of the camera appears stable. Recommend removing the memory chip in slot 1 and storing for later recovery.”
Sasha gave him detailed instructions on how to safely open the camera and remove the necessary memory chip, which he did. He inquired if there was any point of checking the other chip, the one from the Barrack’s camera, Sasha estimated a low likelihood of the chip working and a high possibility of the same kind of issues as the first, recommending waiting until a more powerful unit was available to check both thoroughly. Guy was in no mood to disagree, wrapping both chips in a small piece of MLI to protect them, which he in turn tucked into a pouch on the inside of the toolkit for safe keeping. Resealing the camera, Guy then watched the screen as the self diagnostic tool on the camera ran again. Finding no faults and no data on either of the remaining chips, he instructed that it be reformatted back to a factory setup from Sasha’s archives, just to be safe. One plus from all this was that he now had a working camera--not suitable to replace the one destroyed during the crash—though with several gigabytes of memory on each chip, it would do as a visual diary.
|
|
gamer
Senior Member
Posts: 9
|
Post by gamer on Oct 30, 2020 15:08:56 GMT -5
Very good fan fiction... plz continue...............
|
|
atom
Senior Member
Posts: 5
|
Post by atom on Oct 31, 2020 15:08:08 GMT -5
Please continue your fiction... I love your narrative of the game.
|
|