Hazel and Klunk (An RnC Subnautica AU)

Chapter 2: Surviving

We slept on the floor that night. I ate a nutrient block and drank some water for breakfast. If I knew anything, we'd need a seabase somewhere nearby with storage, beds, a farm—if we could find grow-bed blueprints—and a reliable power source to recharge batteries and fabricate new resources beyond what the Lifepod fabricator could produce: the vehicle bay and the vehicle upgrade console in a moonpool. This meant that we would need a habitat builder, and I wanted a laser-cutter and a stasis rifle. However, I needed blueprints for those which pissed me off. A lot of this adventure would definitely be farming and searching for materials. I knew it would be a long journey from here to the point where we could leave 4546B and its star system.

Klunk thought he knew best and decided to try for the laser-cutter first.

"Do you happen to have Laser-cutter blueprints somewhere in that database of yours?" I asked, raising a knowing eyebrow. I stared him down, almost positive that he didn't. As far as I knew, he was starting to study chemistry and a Laser-cutter isn't something he would really need.

"Umm..."

"I thought not," I said. "For that, we need the blueprints, and I know for a fact I need diamonds to make one. There aren't any outcroppings that have diamonds in them in our immediate vicinity. All of my tool blueprints were deleted when the PDA rebooted; since every employee PDA has a finger/glove print and facial recognition apparatus, it would have recognized me and this job would have been a million times easier." I shook my head and hair and sighed, "Habitat Builder is really dang easy: Computer Chip, Wiring Kit, and a Battery. If I've calculated correctly, we can build two of them and build the base together. I saw the optimum location while I was swimming around near a thermal vent, so when we find thermal reactor fragments, we can use the planet's natural thermal energy instead of solar energy which could go out during the night if we have too many power-sucking devices."

"Wiring kit is just silver, so I will make a couple of those. Aaaaaaand the computer chip is...." Klunk says, searching through the PDA for the blueprint, "two Table Coral Samples (?), Copper, and Copper Wire."

"I'll go find four table coral samples... I think I saw some. We have plenty of copper, so use some of that to make copper wire, and when I come back if we don't have enough, tell me." I slid back out into the water to gather some table coral.

I gathered way more than I needed, and we made two habitat builders. I took Klunk out to the location I saw, and we built a foundation and a few compartments nearby the vent. However, since we didn't have a thermal reactor, we had to use Solar power. I had never used one of these before, but my training for the Aurora Mission taught me how to use it. Once we put a fabricator, some lockers, and a radio inside, I figured out that I could easily make a High Capacity O2 Tank!

"Are you kidding me?! I have plenty of quartz; I could have made this yesterday!" I exclaimed in frustration. "Oh, well..." I sighed. Once I made the new tank, the PDA gave me the blueprints for the Rebreather, which was also really easy. "Okay, rebreather: Fiber mesh and a wiring kit... well how dafuq am I supposed to get fiber mesh?"

"Try Creepvine samples," Klunk suggested, handing me the survival knife. "I am going to make another knife."

"Fair enough, Klunk." I disembarked our seabase and swam towards the Creepvine forest. I wondered how Klunk knew how to make fiber mesh, but I suppose it would be something he would know from hanging around Dr. Nefarious. I swam back after grabbing the samples and quickly made the mesh, wiring kit, and then finally made myself a rebreather. "Okay, now communication will be extra easy with this thing!" I exclaimed, adjusting it and hooking it to my air tank.

The PDA warned us that the nuclear reactors in the Aurora's drive core were degrading and the drive core would explode within the next two or three days. That meant that radiation would envelop the entire area. We had lead, so we could make radiation suits and I could upgrade Klunk to resist the radiation. I knew from engineering the core itself that the radiation wouldn't spread everywhere, but it would affect a lot of areas around us. Because of this, I warned Klunk that it wouldn't be a good idea to stray too far from the seabase in the shallows, at least without a seaglide in tow. I asked him—politely—to stick close to me while I searched for seaglide fragments. I was very aware that there were fish much bigger than the Peeper, the "Crashfish," and the Garryfish. I wanted an extra set of eyes looking out for me.