ASAAPS #3: Planet Marighettis 047

Chapter 6: Time To Spare

Summary:

After the trainwreak of a morning and Marighettis swiftly approaching, Robin calls for a day off and proposes a movie so the team can rest up and prepare for touch down

Ryley takes the opportunity to learn a little more about the ship's inhabitants.

Notes:

Chapter theme song: https://youtu.be/cU9vskEMj_A

RYLEY:

Life on the ship was definitely interesting for the hermit, it was only a week into their journey and yet, Ryley could see the stark contrast to the hollow solitude of his makeshift base beneath the waves of Adelphi, where as the hours bled together in suffocating monotony, here on this large alien ship, the presence of life refused to be ignored.

Even whilst the inhabitants often gave him adequate space to acclimate, there were always signs of their presence, the running of water, the sound of welcomed footsteps, even the drones nesting under his bed.

Sometimes Ryley would sleep and dream that this, the ship, the precursor and Robin...everything was merely a desperate pipe dream, conjured up by his weakening mind, desperately trying to stay afloat the waves of despair he was slowly sinking beneath.

But then he'd wake to the sound, a soft humming of energy and the smell of fresh coffee filling its pot.

He'd wake with cold terror in his skin, relief was sickening, and though Ryley awknowlaged that he technically wasn't out of the woods just yet, there was still hope, a chance that soon they could return to earth or at best a human settlement!

It may have taken a single researcher and an alien that technically was the cause for all his misfortune, but Ryley had come closer than he had in years..as reluctant as he was to admit it, the engineer was beginning to feel the fledgling buds hope take root within his chest.

Today seemed no different: the duo was inadvertently projecting their presence in the most obnoxious yet entertaining ways possible, and this time their reckless shenanigans had managed to rope the poor hermit into the fiasco.

"Never again!" Robin groaned, her voice tired and defeated as she flopped down beside the hermit to watch the architect flicker about like a damn uranium battery on steroids.

Ryley on the other hand had long realized reasoning with a hyperactive architect was beyond pointless, it was like the alien's attention span shrank from vast to miniscule, what little focus it did have left was wasted honing in on singular irrational worries, and contemplating seemingly nonsensical matters all the while.

Robin definitely had her hands full trying to dissuade the alien from attempting to purge the ship's water sources, tearing out ventilation shafts he suddenly feared weren't working efficiently enough, and anxiously pacing a hole through the ship's hull as paranoia consumed it alive.

It was true the architect was wired..

Its system flooded with caffeine, much to Ryley's suprise coffee seemed far more effective then he initially assumed it would be, yet the precursor still didn't seem able to make the mechanical limbs comply to his command.

"What's he saying..?" Ryley whispered to Robin curiously, his raising a brow at the foreign words the precursor was sighing to itself as it rampaged.