Waterlogged

2: Resolve to Survive

"Day one of being stranded on the newly designated planet, NX003. As anyone listening to the interrupted section of this recording may have already deduced, NX003 contains life. At least in the form of indigenous flora." Syrus narrated into his recorder, "Based on the bright color of said flora, I can only assume they are poisonous by default."

He slid the device in his pocket, finished.

The air was oxygen rich, containing even more than Earth's own atmosphere. If there were more than flora on this world, they would certainly have room for more diversity. But any biologist already knows that, thus it's not worth explaining in the log.

The pod contained everything he managed to fit inside it along with the emergency supplies.

Even though the rescue was a month away, the emergency supplies didn't even include enough for a month. This was indeed worth mentioning, so the dolts who made that oversight didn't repeat it. He had to dig the recorder back out of his pocket once again.

"Despite being told rescue would come in a month, the provided emergency supplies might not even last half that." He sighed into the microphone, only to remember he was also a dolt not for realizing immediately.

"I'm not being rescued..." He mumbled almost incoherently.

He quivers slightly before his resolve to pioneer space exploration takes over.

"I have a month to construct a powerful enough radio to reach the gate, or find a way to disable what destroyed the Recurva. If I fail, the rescue ship will be destroyed the same way." He states with an aura of confidence into the damp, warm air. "I can do this. I have to do this. I'll be the first human to survive on an alien planet!"

First he had to make sure the life here was at least biocompatible.

He ravaged through the heap of tools in the pod until he found exactly what he needed.

A quantum reconstructor!

It wasn't good at scanning on its own, but something like DNA should be identifiable enough for it to detect.

Syrus cautiously approached one of the strange flowers further inland and started a scan, unsure of what to do if nothing on this planet is edible.

To his relief, the screen flashes with a warning.

"Warning: Unethical use of this tool may result in severe consequences."

At the very least, this world must have similar enough biology for the tool to recognize life, so DNA and proteins were likely present.

But the problem is figuring out if they're poisonous or not. He no longer has an AI to explain the results...

He'll just have to move on to creating shelter for now.

It's clearly about to turn night on this planet, the moon is clearly visible before the sky even starts to darken.

Thank god the moon is far enough away, or the tides on this water planet would be a catastrophe.

Syrus was ready to turn his attention to creating fire, when he could swear he saw a shadow out of the corner of his vision.

Terrified as he should be, he ran back to the pod for the weapon, but after retrieving it, the surroundings were just as quiet as they were initially.

Shaking, he pushed forward and started using his reconstructor to cut off a plank of hopefully flammable wood from one of the trees.

Then he piled thin strips and covered it with strands of cut grasses, which the knife his mother sent with him was easier to use than the more modern tool.

He figured there were some technologies that would just never lose their place.

But lighting the fire would have been so difficult without this pulse rifle from his sister.

He simply had to aim and shoot, and bam! Instant fire!

The faint light of the flames illuminated the sand around it as night fell.

Syrus wasn't sure why creating something as simple as a fire induced such an ethereal feeling.

Snapping out of it, he was lucky the emergency pod included a portable bed which even came with enough accessories to sleep through a cold snap, but that was where his luck ended.

It's hard to sleep in a place he's certainly not alone in.

"The end of the first day was unproductive, my only achievement being fire, which humans had already mastered long before the first quantum breakthrough. Adequate sleep is paramount, but I'm unsure if I can do it," He logged, "This world would be a vacation if it were Earth, but when I look in the trees, shadows move and disappear, and when I look in the water I could swear of seeing letters in the reflections."

Syrus just considered himself lucky that so far he's only encountered plants.

Despite being shaken he eventually managed to fall asleep, even if the dreams weren't pleasant.

But as the next day arrived, he finally had a full day to work, maybe even longer than a normal Earth day.

"Day 2. Setting a goal is difficult, the mainland- rather, the only known landmass I could refer to as a mainland from this island, is not an extreme distance away. I could probably reach it with a crude raft, or perhaps I should fully explore this smaller island first?" Syrus started the day in his record, unsure of what he should be doing.

The clouds in the sky were far more intense than they were, and he knew if it did rain it was going to get pretty bad.

Exploring was probably the better option for now, trying to cross the sea if there could be a storm was a bad idea. Even if the land was visible on the horizon.

Walking along the beach because he was afraid to go too deep into the island, he observed many different plants until he found something new.

There were numerous rocks and even some boulders piled up on one side of the island, it was a mystery why only this side had them.

Syrus was about to record that observation, when something more important showed up.

Small crab-like creatures appeared out of the water and scuttled around the sands, weaving through rocks and debris.

Syrus observed from a distance,

"I've confirmed that NX003 hosts animal life, even capable of living on land. Considering NX003's lack of numerous land masses, this evolution must be incredible." He continued, "This creature seems to resemble an earth crab. It has four legs for movement and two arm-like protrusions near its assumed mouth, though they lack any claws for grip and are instead needle shaped."

As he finishes describing them, one of them turns and rushes towards him at a crazy speed.

Syrus is shocked and tries to shoot it but misses multiple times because of its speed.

The crab creature tries to jump at him, but he barely dodges away and manages to hit it with the pulse rifle during its recovery.

The force of the blast launches it into the sand, where it thrashes for a few seconds before turning limp, its underside slightly charred from the plasma.

Syrus decided it was a good idea to get away from there quickly and stay away.

The only rational conclusion for something that small to lunge at him so energetically was being venomous enough to defeat things much bigger in size.

He was already unsure of anything being edible, but something venomous wasn't even worth considering.

Most venoms are harmless when ingested instead of injected, but even on Earth there are exceptions to that.

As he slowly calmed down he started finally considering exploring deeper into the island, though he was now more afraid of encountering anything worse.