*Hull Failure Imminent. Evacuate the Ship Immediately.*

Come on, Sabre. Get out of here. Get to the escape pods.

*Exit to Lifepods as Soon as Possible. Hull Failure Imminent.*

I quickly jump into a lifepod, the door shutting and sealing itself behind me. I waste no time in scrambling to one of the seats mounted to the wall, and sit down. I enter my employee code into the touchpad and the protective brace comes down from above and secures me into the seat, kind of like a rollercoaster ride. But this isn't a fun fair. If this thing doesn't launch in the next few seconds, I'm going to die.

I feel a jolt as the lifepod is disconnected from the ship's bay, and I look out the windowed hatch above me to see the Aurora getting smaller and smaller in my view, it still aflame and going down. The lifepod shakes as I feel it enter the planet's atmosphere.

Suddenly, the Aurora explodes. It sends a shockwave through everything around it, including the lifepod I'm sitting in. I turn my gaze away from the breaking starship just in time to see the fire extinguisher that was mounted to the wall a few seconds before pop out of its shelf and start flying around the lifepod. The shockwave must've loosened it from its place enough for it to fall out.

I watch as the fire extinguisher jostles around, trying to focus on anything but the burning ship above me. The fire extinguisher suddenly hits the power box, the panel to the thing breaking off and joining the fire extinguisher in its zero-gravity flight.

The two items crash to the floor, however still move around a bit. I must be in the planet's gravitational field now. The fire extinguisher stays on the floor, but the power box's loose panel starts flying around again. It's getting a little too close to where I'm sitting for comfort...

The lifepod suddenly jolts backward, and I don't have time to raise my arms up to protect myself from the incoming metal sheet.

The last thing I remember is the panel hitting my head, before I black out.

—————————————————————————————————————

......

... Ugh. Worst headache of my life...

I slowly open my eyes, my head pounding. Probably from the power box panel's collision with my face. I look around the room, and-

OH HOLY SMOKES, THE LIFEPOD'S ON FIRE!

I quickly turn my head to the touchpad, and press the 'release' button. It's not working. I press again and again, still nothing. I panic and punch the touchpad, and the brace around my body pops back up again. I rush to the fire extinguisher on the ground in front of me, and hastily use it on the fire engulfing half the lifepod. Within seconds, the fire's gone, and I can finally take a second to breathe.

Ack- Crap- Nope. Bad idea. Need to air out the smoke first.

I open the above hatch of the lifepod despite my coughing fit, and the smoke from the fire rises out of the lifepod pretty soon. Okay, now I can breathe.

I look around, and thankfully the fire didn't get to much. In fact, I think it was just an electrical fire, as the floor of the lifepod is really only burned along the edges. The only things really destroyed are a few wires that are now on the ground. The power box has a few stray wires poking out of it, sparking occasionally. The lifepod's computer screen is on, only the words 'Lifepod damaged, make repairs before activating systems' on it in a deep red. Eh, makes sense.

I make sure to avoid the sparking power box while I make my way to the small storage units inside the counters in front of the computer screen. I open the first storage unit and find a few different materials for the fabricator to make into things. Wait- the fabricator! Does it still work?!

I run over to the fabricator next to the seat I was sitting in. It opens up and  its crafting menu pops up as soon as I get close to it. Thank goodness, I couldn't survive without that thing.

I walk back over to the open storage unit, and find my PDA. I pick up the futuristic tablet, expecting it to power on as it usually does, but it stays offline. Strange... I poke the screen a few times, and I'm greeted by the familiar Alterra jingle as the PDA boots up. While it's loading, the words 'Booting up in emergency mode' appear above the Alterra logo. A few seconds later, the PDA opens to its databank. A robotic voice echoes from the tablet.

"You have suffered minor head trauma. This is considered an optimal outcome. This PDA has now rebooted in emergency mode with one directive: to keep you alive on an alien world. Please refer to the databank for detailed survival advice. Good luck."

I'm gonna need that good luck, no doubt. I suddenly feel something crumble on my head, seeing something like small bits of something fall past my eyes, and I reach up. I feel dried blood gathered over a small raised spot on my forehead. That must be where the panel hit me... and what the PDA meant by 'minor head trauma'. I'll have to find medical supplies for that later.

I then walk to the other side of the counter, minding the still-sparking power box, and open the second storage unit. Inside is a few nutrient blocks and water bottles. I've survived a few months on these stupid worse-than-MREs tasteless bricks... guess I'll have to survive a little longer. And even worse, I have to ration them and the water because I don't know if there's a nearby food or clean water source. Great.

Speaking of rationing, when I pick up the nutrient blocks I realize that I'm both hungry and thirsty. I sigh as I open one of the packages to the nutrient blocks and pick up a bottle of water. Gonna need some for this dry-as-sand crap. I break off a third of the nutrient block and reluctantly eat it, drinking some of the water as soon as I finish. Gross.

I then decide I should see what's around the lifepod. I go over to the open hatch, and climb on the ladder up to the top of the lifepod.

As I guessed, I'm entirely surrounded by ocean. 4546B is known as 'The Unknown Ocean Planet' back home. I see what's left of the Aurora a little ways away from where I am, and it's still on fire. It's must've landed next to me while I was out, or I would've heard it. I look in other directions and see a few coral formations sticking out of the water, a few fish jumping around, clouds, weird bird-like things in the sky... but mostly just more ocean.

Well... gotta work with what I have.

I climb back down and close the top hatch behind me. I then walk over to the counter again, and open a small drawer near the floor. Inside is a wetsuit, with a self-refilling oxygen tank, the mask to the set, and a survival knife. Good to have one pre-made, they're the only approved survival weapons since the incident on Obraxis Prime.

I put on the wetsuit, mask, and oxygen tank, the wetsuit slipping over my normal outfit a little tightly. As the oxygen tank's automatic systems start, I open the lower hatch to the lifepod. Something that looks like a tiny blue manta ray with orange accents swims beneath my feet, and I'm careful not to touch it. Who knows if that thing can poison me or something? As soon as I see the oxygen tank is working on the HUD built into the mask, I jump into the cold ocean water.

I shiver as bubbles float past me, and look around a little. I see the coral I noticed before, a few strange-looking fish, and-

...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I immediately hoist myself back up into the lifepod, still screaming. I quickly slam the lower hatch shut, and lock it. I don't want to take any chances in case this thing is smart enough to open hatches. I don't know what it is, and I don't want to know.

I see whatever that thing is swim up to the hatch and start poking it, a confused look on its face. Okay, so it can't open the hatch. Good.

*Tonk* *Tonk* *Tonk*

Aaand now it's knocking on the hatch window. Great. Hopefully it can't punch through bulletproof glass.

I decide to just sit in the lifepod's chair again and wait out the creature. Maybe if it can't see me, it'll eventually lose interest and go away. I open my PDA and start looking through the survival tips to pass the time while I wait.

—————————————————————————————————————

I've been waiting for a while now. Probably hours.

The sky above turned dark and starry long ago. Man, it was already close to evening? It was morning when the ship crashed... how long was I even out after that panel hit me?

I close my PDA after looking through every survival tip three times to make sure they stick. Considering there's a lot of tips, I've been reading for a while. Hm... maybe that thing is gone.

I get up from the chair, stretch a little, and walk back over to the lower hatch. I peer through the hatch's window... only to see bright red eyes staring back at me.

Nope. It's STILL here.

Its expression changes when it sees me, but before I notice anything else I'm already at the back of the lifepod, trembling in the chair. Why won't this thing leave me alone?! Does- Does it want to eat me or something?!

I'd try to use my survival knife to make it go away, but that would involve opening the hatch, and I don't want to risk that thing climbing in here. I'd have no way out. At least I can lock the hatch, so the only way of it getting in here without opening it is to break in, and I'd notice that and be able to defend myself.

I realize that I'm getting tired. All the panic of today probably used up a bunch of my energy. I don't have a bed, and it's not like I can push the chairs together, so...

With no other choice, I crawl to the floor of the lifepod and lie down. The metal is cold and hard, but it'll have to do until I can get materials for a habitat builder tool and actually make something. So, the floor it is.

It takes a while to fall asleep, due to both my fear of the weird creature outside and the fact I'm sleeping on the floor, but eventually I drift off.

Hopefully tomorrow is better...

—————————————————————————————————————

[Red Steve's POV]

I've been looking into this pod for hours now, waiting for whatever that thing was to come out again.

I didn't mean to scare it, but I guess I do look a little fearsome... and the poor thing is probably still all shaken up about whatever happened to the ship it was on. It's been a long while since the last time the little thing looked through this weird hatch.

Watching through the window is getting tiresome, though, so I swim back a little bit to look around the strange object. It looks kind of like a tiny habitat that we build, but metal...

I swim around, looking for something else. I then remember I saw the strange thing exit this pod from the top, so there's probably a hatch there too.

I see a few little notches in one of the sides of the pod, and use them to quietly climb up so I don't scare this creature again. Sure enough, there's a hatch at the top of the pod, with a window just like the other one. I use the window to peek inside.

Oh, the little guy is curled up on the floor... seems uncomfortable, but I guess it doesn't really have anything else. It must be asleep. I look around a little more, and see a computer screen, a counter in front of that, a few bottles of something and some little rectangular packages, and a sharp little thing on the counter. It looks like a tiny sword, kind of.

I decide I better leave in case the creature wakes up, so I don't scare it. I know exactly who to tell about all this. I carefully climb back down the pod and splash into the water, and swim off towards my friend's home.

It's nighttime, which means I have to swim fast. Sandsharks are out more when it's dark. I quickly weave my way through coral and stone structures, occasionally having to hide in a hollow to make sure I'm not seen by the ocean's dangers. I eventually reach my friend's home, hidden in a creepvine forest. I knock on his door, and he immediately pulls me inside as soon as he sees me.

"What are you doing, Red?!" Orange exclaims, closing the door. "You tell me yourself that it's dangerous to go out at night, you hypocrite!"

"I know, Orange, I know. I'm going against my own advice." I say. "But I found something amazing near that ship that crashed a week ago!"

Orange forgets his annoyance and then looks excited.

"What?! What did you find?!" He asks.

"So, you know how we've only found dead members of the supposed crew of the ship, right?" I begin.

"Yeah, it's a shame... I wonder what got them." Orange sighs.

"Well, I found one of those pods intact and perfectly okay, floating on the surface! I was swimming over to check it out as it had probably been there for the whole week, and I was almost there, and. Guess. What."

"Just tell me, Red, dangit! What was it?!" Orange says, smiling excitedly.

"There was one there. Alive. There's a living alien right past my house, Orange!" I exclaim. "A real, actual alien!"

"NO FRICKING WAY!" Orange yells, probably waking a few non-intelligent neighbors. "For real?! You're serious?! There's one alive?!"

"Yes, yes, and yes!" I laugh, and Orange excitedly spins around. He then starts bombarding me with questions.

"This is awesome, where exactly is it?! Can we go now?! Do you know if it's friendly?! What color is it?! Did it look like us?! Did you see if it has unknown technology?! Did you talk to it?! Did-"

"Woah, Orange, slow down. You're gonna give yourself an aneurysm." I chuckle. "We can't go now, it's too dark out. We can go in the morning. I couldn't really tell what color it was, it had a suit of some kind on. It was actually pretty scared of me, it swam and hid back inside its pod as soon as it saw me, so I wasn't able to talk to it. I waited for a while, but it didn't come back outside the pod. I looked into the pod just before I left, and it did actually have some tech I don't recognize."

"Aw..." Orange says, a little disappointed that we can't go see it. "Well, maybe tomorrow we can actually get it to come out and talk to us! Or- It can't stay in there forever, right? Maybe while it's out and a little bit away we can approach it!"

"If we do, we're gonna have to approach it slowly and calmly, Orange." I say. "We don't want it getting scared again. It'll have to wait until morning, though."

"Alright, alright." Orange says. "Come on, it's too late for you to go back to your home, so you can take the guest room tonight."

"Thanks, Orange." I say, as Orange and I go further into his home.

"No problem, Red." Orange smiles.

I hope the little thing will actually come outside its pod tomorrow.