[Sabre's POV]

Making sure to stick close to the ocean's surface, I swim with Orange closer to the village as all of the other Orange Steves start to approach. After just a minute, we're both swarmed.

Well... it's mostly me being swarmed.

People looking similar to Orange and Loud are pretty much in my face, ones all around me being pushed out of the way by others. Speaking of Loud, I spot him in the crowd, still overly excited about meeting me. I notice these other Orange Steves all have slight differences from one another, so I'm able to tell that they're basically cycling around me. Someone's in front of me, they get pushed out of the way, a different one is there for a few seconds, and the first one pushes their way back in front of me again.

Everything is going so fast, I almost have trouble processing what's going on. All of them are asking questions all at once, I can only hear the ones that are practically yelling clearly. I spot Orange a few times, and while he's also being pestered by a few other Orange Steves, it looks like he was shoved out of the circle around me. He keeps trying to swim back to me, but gets blocked by people trying to get to the front of the crowd. I lose sight of him again for a while.

I try to move around a bit, but for some reason that just makes the mob more excited and they swim closer, making me back up again. Every time I try to open my mouth to say something, I get cut off by more questions before I can speak.

This is a social anxiety nightma-

aaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THEY STARTED POKING ME, WHY-

"H-Hey, stop-!" I shout, curling up into a ball to try and send the message that I don't like this, but my voice is drowned out by tons of others.

"What are you?"

"Can it understand us?"

"What's all the things on it for?"

"What's that slate thing in your hand?"

"Why do you have a weird helmet?"

"Does it have fins too?"

"Why are you covering your eyes?"

"Do you even have eyes?"

"What color is it?"

"Are you orange too?"

Suddenly, a big... stick? Appears out of nowhere and smacks a few of the Orange Steves' heads. They all back up, trying to avoid being hit, as Orange gets between them and me and swings the stick around some more.

"ALL OF YOU, BACK. UP." He yells. "JEEZ, THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN WHEN I BROUGHT RED HERE! YOU'RE ALL ACTING LIKE PERSONAL SPACE ISN'T A THING!"

The crowd backs off, a few of the ones in front rubbing spots on their heads where they were whacked. Ouch. Orange continues waving the stick around, when a voice is heard over the chaos, and makes all of the Orange Steves shut up and freeze in place.

"WHAT in the name of Origin is going on here?!" The voice demands, sounding angry.

Everybody turns their heads to see where the voice came from, and there's an Orange Steve there that looks... official. He has a gold headpiece resembling a crown, with other gold accents on his long, flowy outfit, fancier looking fins, and his color seems brighter than the rest. Following meekly behind him is an Orange Steve that looks just as scared as I am.

"Hi, Leader." Orange sighs, still holding the stick up. He notices one of the Orange Steves in the crowd reaching out to poke me again and smacks his hand away with it.

"Orange, what'd I say about hitting people with sticks?" The Leader facepalms.

"Hey, I had reason to this time! They wouldn't leave Sabre alone!"

"'Sabre'? Who...?"

The Orange Leader looks behind Orange and sees me. I'm still curled into a ball slightly and glancing around, making sure nobody's trying to reach out at me again. Not wanting to be rude, I momentarily make eye contact and wave slightly.

The Orange Leader stares, dumbfounded for a few minutes. He then takes a deep breath and looks to the crowd.

"You all harassed Orange into bringing the new alien here, didn't you?" The Leader asks blankly, already knowing the answer. The other Orange Steves look embarrassed.

Orange and I both nod.

"Nosy started it! He followed Orange and told us!" An Orange Steves quickly shouts, pointing at another.

"Wh- Hey! I did not, Happy!" The other Orange Steve says, crossing his arms.

"Liar." The crowd says in unison, including Orange.

"...Hmph, snitch..." The Orange Steve, apparently called Nosy, mumbles.

"All of you, back off. Now." The Orange Leader says. "Orange, you and your new friend come with me. I'd like to speak calmly with him."

The swarm of people make way for us as Orange and I swim towards the Leader. The Orange Leader then heads in the direction of a small sea garden in front of a larger house, presumably his. The different spots of color is a nice change in the mass of red seagrass.

As we swim towards it, Orange and the Leader begin talking, while I and the more timid Orange Steve lag behind a bit. After a minute, though, he talks to me.

"H-Hey, sorry about the others..." He says. "Th-They were just e-excited. M-My name is Shy, y-you saw me earlier at Orange's house with Happy and Funny... I-I only went w-with them because I-I knew they'd d-do something dumb if I-I wasn't. A-And um... I d-did kinda want to meet you..."

"Well, hello then Shy. Nice to meet you." I reply. "It's alright, I understand being excited, I just wasn't expecting... that."

"Y-Yeah, I wasn't e-either." Shy says. "Th-They don't usually g-go that f-far."

The four of us reach the small garden, and the Orange Leader seems to be less tense now. Shy goes back to staying behind him.

"My sincerest apologies about that, Sabre." The Leader says. "Nobody in the village is usually that riled up about something new, although that's really no excuse. I don't know what's gotten into them."

"It's alright, sir." I say, giving a small smile. "My arrival on this planet wasn't exactly that... subtle. It's kinda understandable that people would still be a bit jittery." The Leader chuckles.

"Well, it did look like the sky was on fire when that vessel crashed." He says. "Anyway, I just wanted to let you have the chance to get a calmer first impression of the other Orange Steves. A lot of us are naturally curious, given that this section of the planet is one of the only two that can sustain life, and something as grand as another intelligent species would cause at least some excitement. Our village is normally a much quieter part of the area, when we're not working on construction projects. The others are actually very welcoming and less... bold, most of the time. I'd understand if you've been put off by all of this, so if you and Orange would rather go back home once this conversation ends, you're welcome to go ahead and do so."

"Well, thank you for that, sir. I actually do just want to go, no offense..." I answer. "Maybe once everyone calms down, I could come back another day and be properly introduced to everyone, if you'd like?"

"Yeah, then we could actually show Sabre around the village and stuff, and everyone wouldn't be so pushy about Sabre answering questions they have about him. Literally..." Orange adds.

"Oh, that'd be nice!" The Leader smiles. "Yes, it's probably for the best that you come back another time. You're probably still busy trying to adapt to this new world, and the village is currently having a bit of a... problem."

The Orange Leader looks a bit upset during that last sentence. Maybe that's why he seemed so frustrated when he interrupted the crowd, he was probably in the middle of trying to manage whatever issue the Orange Steves are having with something.

"I should leave you to your work then, it seems important." I reply.

"I'll still be keeping in contact Leader, like always!" Orange grins.

"Alright, you two." The Leader says. "Safe travels, watch out for any of the local threats. There's been more sandsharks than usual around lately."

The Leader and Shy both wave to us as we go, and Orange and I wave back. Seems the other Orange Steves are still embarrassed from a few minutes ago, because they stay out of our way as we leave the village.

We approach the mountain from before, and decide against going through the cave again, taking the way around it. After a while, I go up to refill my oxygen tank, and when I come back Orange starts a conversation.

"So, how do you know all that official talk? Y'know, when you were talking with the Leader?" He asks. "You're usually just as much of a goof as I am."

"Oh, I had a job on that ship, and I had a lot of people that had higher positions than me." I say. "If I didn't talk to them with respect, I would get into a lot of trouble. For some reason, my usual way of talking counted as disrespect to them. I guess it was just a reflex since the Orange Leader is, well... a Leader."

"Ohhh, that makes sense." Orange says. "Man, it sounds like a lot of people on that ship were jerks to you."

"Buddy, you have no idea." I groan, remembering all of the bullcrap those higher-ups pulled just to prove a point. The other crew members too, sometimes. "Once, I got blamed because one of the research team members didn't clean their mechanical equipment. It wasn't even in my job's sector! I was an engineer, not their tech janitor."

"Yikes." Orange says. "At least you had your friends though. They sound awesome."

"They are. I just hope they're all okay..." I reply, getting a little worried.

"Hey, if they're anything like you, they're probably kicking a Reaper's tail right now." Orange smiles, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Uh... Orange? What's a Reaper?" I ask.

Orange has an 'oh crap' look on his face for a second.

"I'll, uh... tell you later." Orange says. "Now c'mon, we're almost home. Any plans for once we get back?"

"I was just planning on gathering some more materials to make stuff I need, batteries and a charging station are the main concern right now since the ones I have in my equipment already are all I've got." I say. "Maybe some more titanium for emergency building material, just in case."

"We could probably collect some of that stuff right now!" Orange says excitedly.

He looks around for a second, then points to something a little to our left.

"I mean, there's some scrap heaps right there! And whatever we can't scavenge from parts of the wreck, we can find in the caves near home!" He says.

"There's debris over there?" I ask, looking.

Sure enough, he's right. There's a few piles of ship debris along the route. They're mostly buried by sand, but I can already see a few useful items poking out from the seafloor.

Orange quickly swims over to them, and I follow close behind. He's already lifted a few bits of sheet metal out of the sand, and is curiously poking around what was underneath. I see a few extra survival knives, some electrical components, a few wiring kits, and some smaller bits of scrap when I look over his shoulder.

While I start grabbing the scrap metal and components, Orange takes one of the survival knives and starts playing with it. He tosses it upward and catches it as it slowly sinks into the water, balances the tip of the blade on his finger, and then begins to slash randomly at nothing. It sort of reminds me how kids use stuff to pretend to be pirates.

"Careful with that, Orange. It's an actual blade." I warn him, worried he might accidentally cut himself.

"I'm being careful, it's fine." Orange says. He then examines the knife. "We can't usually make sharp blades this small, it either won't fit the handle or the ropes we use have nothing to grip. How'd your people do it?"

"We have a lot of different ways of making weapons, how we make knives is a common one." I explain. "A hidden part of the blade is fused inside the handle, making it secure without the use of tying something around it. Works better than tying, too."

"Inside the handle? I've never heard of something like that!" Orange says, looking at the knife in awe. "I guess that's how it has that hole in the top of the handle too."

"Yeah, the people that made the design had more room to spare on the handle since they did that, so they added a hole for more ways to grip the blade."

"How?"

"You can put one of your fingers through the hole in the handle to have the knife point in the same direction as your knuckles. You don't have to, usually the traditional way to hold a knife is better, but if you're in a tough situation it helps. You can also put a string through it and tie the string to yourself so you don't have to worry about accidentally dropping the knife."

Orange looks at the knife for a moment, then tries doing what I explained. He looks shocked when it actually works, and now he basically has a very pointy brass knuckle. His expression makes me laugh.

"You can keep the knife, y'know." I smile.

"Wait, really?!" Orange asks, looking excited.

"Hey, it ain't my knife, and clearly nobody's using it." I jokingly shrug. "Scavengers' rules; finders keepers."

"Aw, yeah!" Orange says, holding the knife normally now and pointing it in front of him. "The next sandshark that comes after me is gonna have one heck of a bad day!"

"Don't jinx it." I laugh. "But I can make you a sheath for it when we get home if you want."

"That'd be awesome!" Orange smiles. "Thanks, Sabre!"

"No problem, least I could do since you've been helping me this whole time." I say.

After checking through the rest of the debris, we quickly make our way back to the Shallows. The familiar rocky hill on the ocean floor comes into view soon enough, and Orange and I each duck into our respective shelters to find places for the stuff we collected.

Putting the materials I gathered where they belong, I realize that I almost have enough for a battery charging station. That's going to be handy when stuff like my Seaglide or scanner runs out of battery, and I won't be creating a pile of dead batteries by making the station first. I've always hated being wasteful with materials, and during other planetary expeditions people would often make the mistake of doing so by prioritizing just batteries.

That reminds me, I need to remember to make a communications relay in this base. The one on the lifepod was broken to the point of attempted repairs being useless, so I have no idea if other survivors have been sending radio messages or distress signals. I don't know if there's been contact with Alterra, and they're planning a rescue.

...I don't know if my friends have been trying to contact me.

Anyway, that's the next thing I need to focus on building after making the charging station. Although, I might need to make more solar panels or even try making a bioreactor if I don't have enough power for either-

Wait, reactor. That's another thing I forgot.

Putting away the last of the new materials, I quickly take out my PDA and set it to scan the surrounding area for radiation. If it's already causing harm to the life here, even blocking paths to civilizations, this could be a huge problem.

The PDA scans for a few minutes, then results show up.

"Radiation level: 2. Highly advise against going into irradiated areas, as it could cause permanent damage."

Level 2? Already? That's bad, but what in the world could be causing so much radiation to spread? It must be something big.

I open a map of the scanned areas, and the PDA shows something similar to a topography map, but I know that the highlights are showing radiation levels. Swiping around for a moment, I see that the radiation has spread over a large area of the Shallows, but I can't see the full extent of the damage. So, I zoom out.

It's worse than I thought. The irradiated area is stretched over the Shallows almost entirely, barely missing where Orange and I currently are. It has considerable spread in the red grassy area Orange and I visited earlier, and it's starting to get close to the village. There's also big patches of it in areas I don't know about. Level 2 isn't nuclear apocalypse levels of bad, and is fairly manageable, but the fact that it's spread so far is worrying. And now that I've zoomed out, I can see where it's all coming from:

The Aurora crash site, specifically from the Aurora itself. Something must've broken inside the ship, and it's leaking radiation everywhere. However, if I can find out what exactly is broken and go to fix it, the radiation should clear up pretty quickly on its own. Actually, the scan should probably be able to pick it up...

I once again go to the scanning screen and edit the scan target, but when I try to activate the scan it shows an error code. I recognize this one; it needs a small satellite dish. Nothing big, it's the same one the comm relay will need, but it's still something I don't have. Shoot.

I sigh and put my PDA back on my belt. Hopefully I can get it up and running before it's too late, so I can figure out how to fix this. It's coming from the ship I arrived to this planet on, so I feel kind of responsible for it. I don't want to ruin this world when it's not even my world to live in, and I worry for how it'll affect the Steves. Sure, they seem much stronger than humans based off what I've seen already, but radiation is a danger to everything. It could even affect them in worse ways than humans...

My thoughts are interrupted when I hear Orange enter the base.

"Hey Sabre, there's a bunch of skyrays gathering on the water and I wanna show you something funny you can do with them!" He yells excitedly, looking for me. Orange then spots me as I walk out of the storage room.

"Skyrays are the bird-like things, right?" I ask.

"I dunno what a bird is, but they're the things that fly and land on inconvenient places, aaand are one of the few things that can't breathe in water." Orange says. "Anyway, do you wanna see the thing or not?"

"Uh... sure, I guess?" I say, not exactly knowing what he's gonna do. Besides, this could help take my mind off the Aurora situation.

"Awesome! C'mon!" Orange says, grabbing my hand and leading me to the entrance hatch. "So, it involves that one really floaty type of coral..."