A short story

I wake up and slowly open my eyes. In the distant I hear sounds of ships being loaded and faint alien chatter. I am in my ship in a space station located in the Aebashikus system. I arrived here yesterday and I needed some rest and supplies.

It’s been a couple of days now, since my ship was pulled inside a blackhole and brought me to a different universe. I met the entity Atlas, a highly intelligent life form in the shape of a black orb. It was that who brought me here. I asked him how to get back to earth and it gave me a quest to search for my answers in the center of the galaxy. So to find my way back, I need to follow the route of Atlas.

I get up and put on my exosuit, check my Life support system and grab my multitool. The multitool has two functions. The first is a mining beam that can harvest the elements of different objects. Harvested element can than be rearranged with a blueprint to create new objects. The second function is the boltcaster, it fires projectile ammunition and is used for defensive purposes. Both the boltcaster and mining beam are fully charged, so I should be okay. I’m eager to get going, but before I leave I need to make a few purchases from the galactic trade terminal.

I get out of my ship and walk across the hangar bay. I see dozens of different ship’s and aliens all trading and talking to each other. I walk up to the second floor and enter the door. As I enter the room, I can see a strange looking alien sitting behind a desk. When I get closer he looks at me and starts speaking to me in an alien language, but I can’t make head or tails of it. I look at him and make a peaceful gesture with my hand that I mean him no harm and point to the trade terminal. The alien makes a short sound and then gets back to what he was doing. I get up to the terminal and buy a power reservoir and some plutonium to fuel my thrusters.

When I get back to the hangar I take a good look at my ship. It’s a small freighter called the “Jisahaya”. It has plenty of storage room, but only limited defensive capabilities. As i’m walking I accidentally bump into alien. He falls to the ground, but quickly gets up. I make a gesture of apology with my hands, but it slaps them away and starts shouting things I cant understand. It’s a weird almost binary sort of language. Knowing not what to do, I make a small bow and continue walking towards my ship, all the time the alien is shouting things at me. When I reach my ship, I fuel the launch thruster with plutonium and walk around the ship to check if everything is in order. I take one last look at the hangar bay and then climb into the cockpit.

My goal for today is to mine some elements I need to continue my journey. When I arrived in this system yesterday, I made a system wide scan and it revealed a couple of planets and moons where I hope to find the things i’m looking for. Sitting comfortably in my chair I buckle in and start the engines. All systems report green and I’m ready to leave. I engage my launch thrusters and within seconds i’m out of the space station. Outside, I take a look in the computer to find a suitable planet for mining. The farthest is the most hospitable one, so I type in the coordinates and fire the pulse engines, I’m on my way.

An hour has past and I’m halfway to my destination. I’m making a checklist for all the things I need, when suddenly an alarm goes off and a computer voice say’s: “Hostile subspace scan detected”. Before I realize what is going on, I’m surrounded by four ships and I’m being hailed. A strange creaky voice shouts things through the intercom. It's the same language as the alien I bumped into, but again I don't know what it all means. All of sudden a phase beam shoots past the left side of my ship, missing me by just a hair and within seconds another one. Thinking that these guys are up to no good, I put my shields up and push the throttle all the way up and make a sharp turn to the right. This ship isn’t build for combat and the only hope I have, is to outrun them. There is a small planet only a couple of minutes away, if I make it I might have a change of escaping them. I give the engines a boost and make my way to an astroid field hoping they don't follow me in, but before I reach it I take a full hit from a phase beam, which knocks out my shield.

I reach the astroid field, but my pursuers wont give up. One of them is behind me and I need to shake him. I see two astroids in front of me that are about to hit each other. Without thinking I give the engines everything they got and fly straight between them. My pursuer does the same, but he is too late, he gets crushed between the astroids. I let out a cheer of joy and think that they may have backed off. I couldn’t be more wrong. From my left and right two ships are approaching, I see them to late and they hit me with their photon cannons. All alarms go off and the computer say’s I took critical damage. I make it out of the astroid field and into the atmosphere off the planet, with my attackers still in pursuit. My cockpit window is engulfed in flames and I cant see a thing. A minute later a green landscape with high mountains is revealed. I try to get as low as I can and I struggle to keep the ship in the air. I spot one of the attackers coming straight at me and I arm my photon cannon and fire. My projectiles hit him and he breaks off his attack, but two of his buddies get behind me. They fire, I try to evade, but it has no use. They hit me and I lose control of the ship.

I’m going to crash.

When I regain consciousness, everything is a blur and my head hurts like hell. I’m still in my cockpit or what is left of it, none of the displays work anymore and my window is covered in green looking dirt. I check my life support, its at 25%. I pull the manual release lever to unlock my cockpit window and it blows away. Immediately my exosuit gives me an acidic hazard warning. I grab my backpack and multitool and climb out of the ship. I take a few steps away from the ship and turn around. The ship is almost unrecognizable, the cargo bay is missing and everywhere you look is debris. I quickly realize that the ship is unsalvageable and that it is a miracle I got out in one piece. Thinking that my attackers might come back, I decide to leave the ship and head for some mountains in the distance hoping to find a cave for shelter.

Some time later I arrive at the mountain ridge and see a small entry into a cave. I turn on the light on my helmet and go into the cave. It’s a small cavern and I’m relieved that it is uninhabited. I sit down and open my inventory. I have the power reservoir that I bought and a shielding shard. I use the power reservoir to recharge my life support and the shielding shard to charge my hazard protection. I sit down for a moment and think of the difficult situation I’m in. With my ship gone, how do I get off this planet? For a while I keep thinking and then I fall asleep.

I wake up to a strange screeching sound, that is coming from outside the cave. I must have slept for quite some hours, because it is dark outside. I grab my multitool and set it to boltcaster mode. I’m wondering what kind of creature could live in these kind of weather conditions and if it’s friendly? Slowly walking towards the exit, I turn off the light of my helmet. When I get outside there is nothing but darkness and silence. Whatever it was, its gone now, but there is something else. In the distance I can see a bright orange light beam shining straight up into the sky. This could mean that there is some kind of civilization here and maybe a way off this planet. I turn around to get back in the cave and suddenly stare into the eyes of a strange creature.

I look at his face, It has sharp teeth sticking out of his mouth and his eyes are completely dark. For a moment we just look at each other, but then It makes a loud sound and charges at me. It happens so fast that I fall flat on my back. The creature is about to attack again, but I manage to draw and aim my boltcaster. I fire a few shots at the creature and it cries out in pain and runs off. Full of adrenaline I rush back into the cave and hide. The screeching continues, but stops after a while. When the sun is up I grab my things en head out into the toxic wasteland towards the light.

A couple of hours later, there is no sign of the creature that I shot. I’m almost at my destination and as I walk over a hill I see a couple of buildings and the base of the light beam beneath me. I’m getting exited for the fact that this could be my way out of here and run towards the building and enter it, only to find it empty.

It looks like no one has been here for years. I take a look around and see some kind of terminal in the middle of the room. When I touch it, a screen appears with some kind of encryption pattern, it must be a security code. When I look closer I see the numbers: 1-2-6-24-120-xxx. I recognize the mathematical pattern and I type in 720 for an answer. A blue screen lights up and shows me the location of a crashed ship not far from here. I’m thinking to myself; “this could be it, this can be my way out of here, the ship could be salvageable”. With those thoughts in mind, I head out, hoping this nightmare will end soon.

When I arrive the sun is already setting, but I can see the ship, it looks like an old freighter. I walk around it and see that there is damage too the engines and the hull, but the cockpit looks intact. The cockpit window is covered in green dirt and as I wipe the dirt off I’m startled, the former pilot is still in his seat. It’s completely mummified and I notice that he has no exosuit. The poor soul, he couldn’t get out of his ship, because he had no protection against the acidic atmosphere. He must have died of thirst and starvation, what a bad way to go.

I open the cockpit window, drag the alien out and apologize that I don’t have any time to bury him. Back in the cockpit I switch on main power and I’m surprised that there’s still some power left. I perform a system wide diagnostic and see that almost every system needs to be recharged or repaired. I get out and take a good look at the engines. There’s damage to the exhaust vents and thrusters, but I think I can fix it.

First I need some thick plates of metal to repair the engines and hull. I check my multitool’s blueprint database and find one for carite metal sheets, but I need iron to construct them. A couple of feet away I see a small rock formation and I perform an elemental scan of it using the multitool. It reveals that there’s plenty of iron in it and I start to mine. When I have enough, I create several pieces of carite sheets and start repairing the engines and hull with it.

After about an hour i’m done and the sun has completely set. The only thing I need now is fuel for the engines, plutonium should do it. I make a scan of the area, but nothing comes up. Plutonium can be harvested from red plutonium crystals which are often found in caves. I remember passing some caves on my way over here which might have what I need and they are not that far. I check my life support and see it has only a 20% charge left, which means I have to hurry. I grab my multitool and want to start running when suddenly, I hear loud screeching noises in the distant.

I’m running as fast as I can towards the caves. The screeching noises are getting louder and louder. Now I know why I haven't seen any of them during the day, they hunt at night. I make it safely to the caves and enter. Inside I scan the area for plutonium crystals and find some nearby. When i’m done mining, I run back towards the entrance, but when I get there one of those creatures is in my way. It sees me and attacks. Without hesitation I grab my multitool, switch to boltcutter mode and fire at it, hitting it straight in the head. The creature falls down to the ground, I jump over it and exit the cave.

When I get outside there are two more of them. I expect them to attack but they don’t, they sort of taunt me. I fire at them and they run away. I take a step forward and suddenly get jumped from behind. I can feel sharp teeth coming straight through my exosuit and right into my flesh. I grab the creature by the head, throw him to the ground and shoot him a couple of times until it’s dead. It seems these creatures are more intelligent at hunting than I thought. The pain is almost unbearable and I have holes in my suit. I check my life support again and see its at eight percent. This isn't good, I need to make it to the ship and fast!

I keep on running and I can hear the creatures all around me, but for some reason they don’t attack. Maybe seeing one of their friends get shot scared them off a little. I come up to a hill and know that beneath it is the ship, but when I get to the top I see why the creatures did not attack me. The whole place is swarming with them, they lured me into a trap. I turn around and see dozens of creatures charging me. I take a step back and I fall down the hill. The pain in my shoulder is immense, but I manage to get up. The creatures have formed a large circle around me and I wonder why they don’t attack, then out of the darkness another creature emerges. It’s twice as large as the others and has bigger teeth and fangs than the rest of them. This is clearly the alfa male or female. It walks into the circle and stops about 40 feet in front of me. For a moment we look each other in the eye and then it charges. I aim my boltcaster and fire, but the creature keeps running toward me. I jump to the left, it misses me by inches and I fall on the ground. I get up and see a piece of scrap metal lying in the dirt. I pick it up, run toward the creature and stick it in its back. It cries out in pain, turns around and gives me a kick with its legs. I land on my back several feet away and a voice in my helmet say’s: “life support offline”. The creature jumps on my ship and makes a screeching sound so loud it makes my ears hurt. I look to the left and see my multitool lying there and I crawl toward it. I turn around and the creature is still on top of the ship and it looks at me. After a few seconds it jumps with its claws forward and everything turns to slow motion. I grab the multitool, put the setting on mining, aim and pull the trigger. A beam of energy hits the creature and splices it from top to bottom.

When I get up i’m almost out of air, but luckily all of the other creatures have run away. I get to the ship, fuel the thruster with the plutonium, crawl into the cockpit and close the window. I strap in, start the engines and push the launch button. With great force the ship launches itself into the air and I make my way into space. When I get there I almost start to cry from happiness and cant believe it worked. I take one last look at the planet and then make my way to the space station.

I am in sickbay now, recovering from my ordeal and writing this story. Tomorrow I am going to continue my journey towards the center of the galaxy hoping to find a way home.

To be continued……

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eindbas