Thomas Redpoint's Story

Andromeda was about to protest that she had already promised the food to Corki when Tom already took a bite before it had had a chance to cool. Corki didn’t seem interested in eating the ugly thing, so it didn’t matter enough to say anything about it. Andromeda moved finding pleasant-looking food to near the top of her mental list of priorities, there would probably be something near the water she hoped to find. She felt bad for Corki sleeping hungry, but stopped worrying about it once she considered that it was her friend’s own choice not to eat the only thing that was available. Andromeda also worried a little about Tom - would the heat conductivity of metal make burns worse? He ate the rest of the food without problems and then went to sleep, so he wasn’t badly hurt.

Corki was quiet, too quiet. While Andromeda liked having the lead about dealing with the natural environment, and having more of that kind of knowledge and confidence than the others, the quiet caused her to worry. She needed to ride the bubble of Corki’s personality to have enough social confidence to stay in the group. She needed Corki to be the old Corki. Andromeda began rubbing her forehead with one finger, something she hadn’t done for some time. What had changed? Corki was drawing or writing on her arm. Did she miss being purple? No, that wasn’t it, the ink wasn’t purple. Then what?

Suddenly Orion and Tom seemed like a threat. Part of her wanted to get up and leave, to make another fire somewhere else, without other people. Even allowing Corki to come with her felt on the border of unreasonable. It wasn’t safe to have other people so close, sooner or later they would show that they hated what she was and force her to be something else than herself. Her hand moved to her machete...

Corki finally made a sound other than clicking her pen. "I'm sorry...for running like that."

The unexpected apology threw Andromeda out of her beginnings of a panic. She took a deep breath. Had her scared side seriously prepared her for hurting these people? That was crazy! But before worrying about that, she needed to reply. “I told you to leave the ship, and you did. It would have been stupid to fight for longer than necessary. If you hadn’t run away, we might both have died.”

She looked at Orion, the other person still awake. “It was bad teamwork, but come on, she was scared.” Why was she being defensive before he even said anything? Well, moments ago part of her had been willing to cut him just for being nearby, that might have something to do with it.

‘Died’, ‘scared’... Maybe that was why Corki was different. One couldn’t die in the game, and death was a scary thing. “Corki, if you stay near me, I promise that if you die on this planet it will be of old age.” She glanced at Orion. Oops, that hadn’t been a very tactful thing to say!

Tom ran. He ran till his legs burned, yet time seemed to be speeding up just to spite him. He was going to miss the shuttle if he didn't get there in the next couple of minutes, and he was still more than three blocks away. The next one didn't come for another hour. His thoughts turned to the consequences. He imagined the face of his boss as he stood in shame before him, his eyes boring into his very soul - not with anger, but disappointment. This was his first job, and he worked at a restaurant where business was currently very difficult, with not enough time to do anything. Tom knew his boss would have no choice but to find someone else who could keep up.
Running across the next intersection without even looking at the lights, he looked up to see the shuttle station ahead, and the shuttle was due to leave. He could see it, the last few people making their way through the doors. His lungs felt suddenly like they were full of acid and he raised a hand to clutch at his chest as he sprinted on, the next junction approaching. It was empty, so he ran straight across.
He never made it to the other side. A speeding taxi careened around the corner and Tom had just enough time to turn his head before pain exploded in his side and he felt himself tumbling over the taxi, before passing out on the road behind.
He woke up in a bed, or rather, he was started up. His body jolted as the electric shock ripped through him, restarting his heart and flinging him back into the real world.

Tom kicked out in his sleep. He turned over and opened his eyes to see the stars still hovering overhead, and groaned quietly. He brought a hand to his chest and felt the cold metal. After the accident, his heart never worked again on its own. Each beat of the dead muscle was artificially stimulated by an electric pulse in a constant struggle to cheat death. This was the nature of technology on his home planet - it had progressed far enough that the human body could be kept running, even if only the brain remained alive. Originally it had been excruciating, feeling himself being essentially brought back to life every 0.83 seconds. Now it was just a dull throb.
He sat up, and stared into the flames for a bit, and then rose to his feet, quietly as he could. He turned to the silhouette of whoever was on watch.
"I'll take over from now, you get some sleep. I won't be sleeping any more tonight."

Orion just gave a gruff nod when Corki apologized, slightly surprised by Andromeda’s intervention. Why was she so eager to defend a coward? Still, he was forced to agree with her. He hadn’t liked what Corki had done but given the circumstances it had been understandable. He might have been too hard on her.
“Apologies accepted,” he mumbled, “now, go get some sleep, all of you. And that’s an order from your elder,” he added with a wry smile. It was hard if not impossible to avoid the fact he was the oldest. Andromeda’s earlier comment had highlighted that, intentional or not. He might as well use it to his advantage.

He stared at the small fire, occasionally throwing some branches in the fire to keep it burning. He shook his head. Staring at the fire like that was a rookie mistake. He had no nightsight whatsoever now but he didn’t really care. If something out there was going to attack him, he’d just have to beat it to a pulp. He still couldn’t recall why he felt so aggressive, but it was slightly worrisome.
Once he was sure everyone was asleep he got out his pistol and checked it. As he had feared there weren’t any bullets in the chamber either. In a fight it’d be useless but he might be able to use it for a bluff. He stowed the gun again; he didn’t want the others to know. It might make their reactions more genuine if he ever needed to bluff. He sighed and looked at everyone’s sleeping forms. How easy would it be to kill all of them now? He could just smash their skulls in with a rock. He stared back at the fire and waited until Tom walked up to him.

“Ah, Thomas. You are a welcome sight,” he spoke as he stifled a yawn, “I’m in dire need of some sleep. Everything’s been calm so far, but keep your eyes open. This is one strange planet,” he mumbled lying down near the fire and closing his eyes. It wasn’t long until he was fast asleep.

As he slept, truly slept, for the first time in god knew how long memories slowly came back to him. When he finally woke up he knew everything again. He remembered getting on board of the spaceship, too old to work. He had been heading to a small home to spend the last years of his life. The idea still filled him with horror. He had resisted and sabotaged the ship, desperate to fill his life with action. And it had worked. This planet was bound to offer plenty of adventure. Unfortunately there were still other survivors, his companions. They would have to die eventually before they found out about his deceit, but not yet. He’d have to make sure he was capable of surviving on his own first.
It was still dark so no one saw his smile when he closed his eyes and started to formulate a plan. His new life had just begun. Retirement was still far away for Orion Dahlberg.
 

Andromeda did as she was told, and slept. Part of her always remained awake, listening for sounds that might mean danger. Because almost everything she heard was unknown to her, she didn’t sleep as well as she might have on her home planet, but she still got enough rest. Her dreams were only fragments without much logic: her mother telling her she looked “wrong”; hugging a panther; slipping and almost falling out of a tree in heavy rain; flying by flapping her arms; chasing a small animal without intending to catch it...

The light of the sun rising from the sea woke her. It was not directly visible from their campsite, which gave her the blessing of not waking up with a headache. She heard a rustling sound nearby.

Andromeda opened one eye to see something that looked exactly like a pancake walk past her head. The sight made her stomach rumble. She lazily jabbed at the thing with her machete, with no result other than the thing moving a bit faster. That was unacceptable, her breakfast was going to get away! She sat up and whacked the pancake thing.

The two halves ran off in opposite directions.

“Poo” she mumbled, and took her time to yawn and stretch. Her hands hurt, and in the morning light it was easy to see why. The cuts were full of dirt, and the skin around them had become bright red. The handle of her machete was a bloody mess too, it made stains on the side of her backpack when she put it away.

Once she was on her feet, she wanted to climb a rock to get a better look at their surroundings. The moment she touched it to begin climbing, she changed her mind. She’d have to clean and bind those wounds before using her hands for anything, preferably soon.

The sight of her sleeping companions gave her a strange urge to pet them, which she ignored. She didn’t want to get Corki’s hair dirty, and she didn’t think Orion would appreciate it even with clean hands. Tom was awake, or perhaps sleeping in a sitting position. “Morning, Tom” she nodded at him.

Not much was left of the fire. They had managed to burn a whole tree in one night. Either the wood of these small things had to be light and useless, or someone had made the fire even bigger than it already was. It didn’t look like the latter. At least this wood was easy to set fire to.

She found a way to reach a higher point without using her hands. In the direction they had come from she could see a little of the sea, and even some bits of spaceship. In the opposite direction there was a mountain with a typical volcano shape. To the left and right there were rocky slopes blocking the view of what might be behind them.

Andromeda jumped down from the rock. A map would be nice now. There had to be something useful for navigating among the data from the black box... After some searching on her laptop, she found she had overlooked that the ship had filmed the landing. Unfortunately she had no idea how to use the fast-moving images as a map on which she could figure out where they were. She saw land moving under the ship, then sea, then the ship appeared to turn which made it even more difficult to make a mental map, then water covered the lens, and finally she could see big rocks moving towards her very fast. She jumped up to dodge the cliff, the moving images she had been concentrating on had drawn her in.

Her heart needed a moment to return to its proper place in her chest. She picked up her laptop and was relieved to see she had not damaged it by tossing it from her lap. “Whoa. Um. Black box data are scary. I like my maps not-scary.” She laughed nervously.

Orion seemed relieved to be off duty, and Tom felt good for letting him sleep.
"Sleep well, Orion," he said, before turning his eyes on the darkness beyond the fire. More than once, he thought he saw a shadowy tentacle reaching out, or glowing eyes from behind a tree; but when he closed his eyes and reopened them, they were gone. Not that that reassured him in the slightest.
He shuffled nervously and thought about how well he'd do against whatever might try to eat him before morning. He was tough to chew, granted, but he wasn't very fast and at the moment he had no weapons. He doubted he'd be able to fight well enough to protect anyone apart from himself, and even that was stretching it, considering how easily he had been captured by the giant tentacle earlier. Luckily the job of the watchman was not to protect the others but to alert them of danger, and he thought he was perfectly capable of that.
He thought again of his lack of weapon. Remembering the shard of metal he picked up from the wreckage, he quitely got up and looked around the camp for it, glancing back at the trees occasionally. He found it where he had dropped it earlier, by his rock near the fire, and took it.
He sat back down and began to fiddle with it, attempting to bend it into a fairly straight line. He pulled a hanging vine off a nearby tree and after crushing one end of the metal like a can to make it thinner, he began to wrap the vine around it. A few minutes later, he had a jagged-edged scrap of metal with something resembling a hilt.
Taking another glance at the trees to be sure there was no danger, he started scraping at one edge with a stone, hoping to sharpen it.
Hours passed, and as daylight began to appear, Tom was finding it hard to keep his eyes open. The weapon he had made now looked like just a badly beaten up sword, and he laid it down on the grass next to him and dropped his head into his hands. Considering how easily he'd shaped it, it would probably dent and bend out of shape within 5 seconds of a fight, but it passed the time.
He opened his eyes a few minutes later, looking through his fingers at the ground. Then, half a pancake scuttled past his feet. He blinked. Surely not.
"Morning, Tom."
He looked up and saw Andromeda nod at him, and attempted to nod back, although he failed to raise his head after the nod and ended up looking at the floor again.

Orion had been awake for some time, slowly going over possible plans in his head while pretending to be still asleep. When he finally woke up he feigned a big yawn and crawled up, right on time to see Andromeda drop her laptop. He chuckled slightly, somebody was a bit nervous.

"Hey, be careful with that. We might need it later," he added. He recalled doing something with the data on it but couldn't put his finger on it yet. No doubt it would soon come back to him. Hopefully before Andromeda managed to completely break the machine. He frowned when he saw the pancake scuttle past Thomas, the laptop immediately forgotten.

"I think our breakfast is trying to escape," he muttered as he picked it up and watched it dangle before him. It suddenly didn’t look as appetizing anymore.
"On second thought I’m going to pass up on it. I don't think I like my breakfast to move around," he tossed it away and looked around hopefully. it seemed the planet still didn't feel like dropping food in their laps, which was a proper shame. He then saw the new weapon and forced himself to be enthusiastic. It did improve his odds of survival but he disliked the idea of his companions being well armed.

"Looks scary. Good thinking, we might need some decent weapons soon when this place decided it wants to throw more at us than walking pancakes. If yesterday's squid was any indication, fun times must be ahead," he studied the lead pipe he still had and smiled. it might not be as sharp as the sword or Andromeda's machete, but it was definitely dependable. He wondered whether it’d be enough to deal with Thomas. His metallic skin might be problematic. It’d just have to suffice. Orion sat down again and took another one of his pills. He needed to get off this planet before he ran out of them. If he’d be the only survivor he might be hailed as a hero, a conqueror of the wilds. Nobody ever retired heroes.

"Hey, be careful with that. We might need it later," Orion warned when she dropped her laptop.

“Eh, don’t worry. Everything I copied from the black box will still be on the black boxes too, and I’m sure those can take a little sea water” Andromeda was quick to make her clumsiness seem unimportant. There was something wrong with what she’d just said, though. She couldn’t immediately put her finger on it, so she put her finger between her eyebrows instead.

Calming down and going over all the facts she knew about things involved in the situation was the way to deal with such confusion. So, what did she know about black boxes? The data on those could not be overwritten, at least not easily. Presumably there was some way to reset them with a password or something, or maybe they were replaced when there was other maintenance work on ships. She didn’t know which it was, but either way she could only ‘fix’ her copy of the data, not the original... unless she could guess the reset password that might not even exist, reassemble the ship, learn to fly it, and make a flight creating data just like what she had faked. Somehow that didn’t seem like a viable option. Wait, no, if she could find the way to reset it, she could copy back the data from her laptop. Still not possible, though.

Well, there was the problem. Now she just needed to figure out the solution. Could she destroy the black boxes? Definitely not, she couldn’t do anything worse than the damage a spaceship crash might cause. Should she destroy the laptop, to make sure there was no way to read the original data? Tom was likely to have an universal connector somewhere between all that technology on his body. Should she destroy Tom? No, that was a terrible idea.

Orion praised the weapon Tom had made during the night. Andromeda hadn’t noticed it before it was mentioned. It did look scary, almost as useful as her machete, probably better than Orion’s lead pipe, and much better than Corki’s pen. Remembering she had left her machete with her backpack, she noticed she had made a strategic mistake. Orion and Tom were close to their weapons, and between her and Corki. She was unarmed. It was lucky they hadn’t figured out who was to blame for the crash, and who was trying to cover that up. If they would get aggressive if they did find out, two improvised weapons would be better than a machete and a pen...

She cautiously walked past the men, then put her laptop away in her backpack. A quick glance around confirmed that all of her belongings she had brought from the wreck were in one place again, apart from the buried piece of tentacle. She could now easily retreat, if she needed to.

“I was thinking we should split up in two couples to look for water and food” she started talking to Orion and Tom. Had Tom moved at all since she said good morning to him? She guessed that crafting that weapon had kept him awake all night. “If Tom isn’t going anywhere soon, I suppose someone more awake should stay with him?”

She gently nudged Corki. “Hey, wake up. Let’s go find some food that looks edible to you. And we need to talk.” She almost said too much. “About... um... er...” A nervous glance at the men gave her an idea “About girl problems!”

Corki wondered why Andromeda was acting so protective of her. It would be a good thing if they were attacked by large animals again, but the catgirl’s social clumsiness could get them both in trouble with Orion. And that reassurance that if she would die here, it would be of old age, that wasn’t very reassuring. She didn’t want to grow old here. She wanted to be in a place with less danger, more people, more machines, real beds, and if possible, a place with her brother. At some point during thinking about all of this, she fell asleep.

It seemed only moments later when Andromeda nudged her and told her to wake up. The daylight told her she must have slept for a few hours after all. Did Andromeda really say she needed to talk about a girl problem? They were trying to survive, and Andromeda was begging to talk about something trivial like... actually, she wasn’t sure what kind of problem Andromeda could have here and now that might be called a girl problem. The idea of finding edible-looking food sounded good.

Corki yawned and got up. She couldn’t count the number of muscles that hurt. “Searching for breakfast sounds good. Which way?”

“Either way parallel to the coast should get us to clean water eventually,” Andromeda replied, “so let’s go this way” she pointed away from Orion and Tom and started walking in that direction. Corki followed close behind.

They walked in silence until Corki was sure they were outside hearing distance of the camp. “What did you want to talk about?” she asked.

Andromeda hesitated. “Well... I copied the black box and had a look at the data...”

That wasn’t a ‘girl problem’, and Corki could now see why Andromeda wanted to talk to her alone. “Do you mean you found out who...” A more important thought interrupted her first question. “Do you think it’s a good idea to leave them alone?”

Andromeda looked confused, then a little annoyed. “Corki, your pod was open around the time the engine and communications disappeared.”

It was as if the whole world collapsed around her. “I did this???” she exclaimed. “But why would I - I don’t remember - No, no, it’s not possible, if I was awake my memory would have worked, and I should remember now.”

Corki had a point, if she had sabotaged the ship she should remember it. So either she had memory problems, or she was lying, or the data were lies. “But then I don’t understand how wrong data got recorded on the black box... Anyway, I, er, corrected my copy, so as long as nobody looks at the black box itself, you won’t get in any trouble.”

Corki shook her head. “If someone is going to rescue us, they will.” She thought for a while. “Somebody must have messed with the computer or swapped a cable or something like that, before the flight.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re innocent.” Andromeda smiled.

Corki was quiet again. She wondered what she had done to deserve all these complications in her life. Was there a reason someone had tried to frame her, or was she just a random victim of someone hiding their tracks? And why was Andromeda acting in such an irrational way? They only knew each other from playing a game together for a long time, and her gaming personality was different from her real life personality, so Andromeda was protecting someone she hardly knew at all. Corki asked “Why would you try to hide it if I were responsible for the crash?”

Andromeda was hesitant with her reply again. “People scare me. But I’m not afraid of you. I couldn’t be around the others without you.”

“So even while you thought I might have caused dozens of people to die, you were afraid of Tom and Orion, but not of me?”

Andromeda shrugged. “It does sound rather stupid when you put it that way, doesn’t it?”

They reached the top of a ridge in the landscape. In front of them there was a valley, the bottom of which was filled with clouds. Green treetops rose out of the mist. Andromeda sighed. “That is more water than I was hoping for.”

When they reached the trees, they found those were all of the same kind, and growing in a wide and shallow stream. The bottom of everything was covered in an off-white layer, which formed crystals in some places. The trees had hanging roots growing from their branches, those roots all ended about half a meter above the water. Many roots ended in either a large, bright pink flower or a large egg-shaped fruit. Shiny blue bugs the size of mice waded from flower to flower on impossibly long legs. In the water there were white fish that resembled eels with a few extra tails.

Andromeda broke off a small crystal and licked it. “Salt. This water is useless, let’s see if the fruit is any good.” She removed her shoes and backpack and climbed down the riverbank, machete in hand. The salt crumbled under her feet, and she fell. Her hands landed in the stream of brine, and she was lucky not to stab herself. “YEEEOOOOWWWWW!!!” She danced around clutching her hands.

Corki rushed to Andromeda and began trying to help her wipe the salt and brine out of the cuts on her hands, but it was no use. She saw drops of water falling from the hanging roots. Those would be fresh water, but not enough to wash ones hands with. It looked like things were more wet upstream, so she guided the sobbing Andromeda that way. The water was getting hotter, soon they had to step on rocks and tree trunks to avoid burning their feet. There was more steam upstream, and water was falling down from the trees like warm rain. Their clothes were getting soaked. Andromeda’s ears were folded back, she was having the worst time of her life but she did not complain.

After cleaning her wounds and drinking a little of the water flowing down a hanging root, Andromeda returned to the task of finding out whether the fruit was any good. She cut one off and tried to peel it. Under a layer of green fibers, there was a big hard nut. She bashed it open on a rock. It contained yellow fat with the consistency of ice cream, which tasted similar to vanilla.

Corki was happy with the food, less happy with not having a spoon. She liked the environment, too. The animals were weird but not as scary or ugly as most of the others she had seen on this planet, the flowers were pretty, and one could even have a nice warm bath if one wanted to. She kept her appreciation to herself, she could tell from Andromeda’s scowl that her friend did not want to have a bath.

They collected as many of the nuts as they could carry. “Let’s go back to your fire” Corki said.

“Yes,” Andromeda said, “let’s. I hate this place.”

They were still soaked at their return, they were getting cold, and Andromeda had not cheered up at all.

Tom watched the girls leave awkwardly. He didn't really want to be left alone with Orion, although he didn't know why. Maybe he was just awkward in general, although Tom couldn't help thinking that something had changed about him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Obviously his appearance had changed. It might just have been because of his now aged body, but Tom sometimes noticed that he was a little...
Tom stopped himself. It wouldn't do to start thinking negatively about potentially the only person between him and whatever creatures might decide they wanted human for lunch. He still glanced at his makeshift sword occasionally.
Andromeda and Corki passed out of sight, and he turned to Orion, at a loss for words, but feeling the need to say something to break the silence.
"So, uh... you sleep well?" he asked, wondering why he was so wary of someone he had been good friends with not two days ago. He thought back to the younger Orion he'd known in the Trail of Trials, imagining him in front of him. He could still see hints of that confident smile in the old man's face, although the cheer was long gone.
"See anything interesting on your watch? I thought I saw a bird with four wings at one point. I hope I get another look, it'd be fascinating to study close-up."

Some time passed, and Tom looked in the direction that the girls went. "Do you think they've got lost? It's nearly been about two hours..."

Orion looked up in surprise when Thomas broke the silence. Was he hinting at something? Did Thomas know just how productive the night had been for him? Did Thomas know of his plans? He shook his head to clear his mind of those silly suspicions. They probably knew nothing, he was jumping at shadows. He forced himself to smile and looked at Thomas:
“Oh, I had a good night’s sleep,” he responded as casual as possible, “the watch was rather uninteresting to be fair. My night sight isn’t too great. I wish I could say I had seen some sign of human life or a variation thereof but alas. I hope you get another look at the bird. Four wings sounds like quite the sight,” he added with false enthusiasm before falling back into a brooding silence. Time went by quickly and he was most surprised when he heard it had been two hours since the girls had disappeared. Surely they hadn’t abandoned them? No, no one in their right mind would try to fend for themselves.

“I sure as hell hope they haven’t. There are already little enough people on this planet to speak with as it is. Let’s give them a little more time, they’re probably just doing their very best to find some decent food,” he suggested, willing it to be true. He was more than a little relieved when the two returned, though slightly surprised that Andromeda was soaked. Either this planet had a strange ecosystem with local rainfall or she had tumble into a pool of some sort.

“Welcome back girls,” he mumbled cautiously, “went for a swim?” he asked Andromeda. He just hoped they hadn’t gone back to the ship on their own. If someone got their hands on a proper weapon it’d be nigh impossible for Orion to deal with them later.

“Hi, Orion, Tom” Corki responded when they were greeted. Andromeda didn’t.

“went for a swim?” Orion asked.

Andromeda glared at him, dropped her armfuls of nuts, then began opening one without saying a word. She was shivering and almost added a new cut to her hands. Corki placed the nuts she was carrying on the ground more carefully, grabbed her bag and disappeared behind a rock.

Andromeda gave Orion half a nut each. “Here’s your breakfast. If you want more, I hope you paid attention to how I opened it.”

Corki returned wearing dry clothes. Andromeda followed her example and walked away to get some privacy to get changed too. Corki smiled apologetically. “Andromeda fell into a stream of very salty water. You know how much she disliked water in the game... and those cuts on her hands must really hurt with salt in them.” Without anything else to do, she started playing with her pen again. She felt a little better now they had found food, and hadn’t encountered any dangerous animals on land. It also felt good to have been able to help Andromeda by helping her wash the salt out of her wounds. Still, they had seen only a very small part of the planet, who knew what dangers might be hiding in the unseen part? It wasn’t safe.

Andromeda, now also dry, sat down by the fire. She chose an old tshirt from her luggage and cut it into strips to bind her hands with. Even though she was no longer wearing wet clothes, she was shivering more than before. Her skin had lost its colour, except for her hands which were red and a little swollen.

Tom was a little put out by the awful mood Andromeda had returned with, and took the half-nut gingerly. He hadn't been looking when she opened it so he hoped Orion had noticed. He winced in sympathy when he heard about Andromeda's misfortune with the salty water. That went a long way to explain her mood.
Tom's attention was drawn to Corki as she began to click her pen again, seeming to relax a little.
"Hey Corki, did you see anything interesting out there, besides the salty water?" he asked, shooting an apologetic look at Andromeda for mentioning the cause of her current state. He watched her as she sat miserably by the fire.
He couldn't help noticing that she looked a little pale, even after so long out of the water, and that she was shivering. He wished he could comfort her, but his metal coverings wouldn't provide much comfort to anyone with any senses. He tentatively moved closer, still party afraid of bringing down her wrath upon his head like a ton of bricks.
"Uh... Amdromeda, you don't look so good," he said, quietly.

"Hey Corki, did you see anything interesting out there, besides the salty water?" Tom asked.

“It was mostly the same as here,” Corki replied, “until we found the stream of hot salt water. There are strange trees growing in it, with pretty flowers and those nuts we brought back, there also are fish and funny bugs with really long legs. There’s lots of steam, and clean water dripping down from the trees. It’s really pretty, and now we have a place with food, water, and we could even have warm baths...”
She bit her tongue. For a moment she had forgotten Tom probably couldn’t enjoy bathing. The salt water might even make him rust.

“Too bad it’s too wet there to make a fire to keep animals away” Andromeda added gruffly. “Too wet in general, really.”

Tom noticed her shivering and pale face. "Uh... Andromeda, you don't look so good," he said, quietly.

Andromeda nodded, and stared into the fire. “I think I have a fever.” She showed her hands. “Let’s hope the local germs don’t know how to fight my immune system. If I’m lucky, I should be fine in a day or two.”

“What if you’re not...” Corki began asking.

“I’ll be lucky” Andromeda cut her off. “It’s not the first time this has happened to me.”

There was a good reason people tended to stay inside their cities and space stations. Each newly colonized planet had new microorganisms. Most of them were harmless, unable to survive in a human body, but some were lethal and immune to existing antibiotics. Thinking about this, Corki began to understand the danger Andromeda was in. If the infection kept getting worse, they might have to cut off her hands, and even then Andromeda would likely die. And it was all her fault. “I’m so sorry” she said. “You hurt your hands because you had to hurry because of me, didn’t you?”

“Don’t say that” Andromeda replied. “I would be feeling worse now if I had abandoned you. Hey! What are you...” Andromeda felt awkward in the hug she received. “Okay, I appreciate you keeping me warm, but please stop sniffling in my ear.”

Orion wolfed down the nut and turned towards the heap. As the rest of them spoke he pried open a second one. It didn't go as well as when Andromeda did it but he didn't care too much for style. He was glad they had something more to eat. He was going to need the energy for later.
He tried to look grave and hide his mirth when he saw Andromeda shiver. maybe nature was taking care of her for him. At the very least it'd weaken her. That combined with her fear of water left him with quite some options do deal with her. Corki shouldn't be too problematic either but Tom remained problematic. Then he made the same connection Andromeda had already made. Tom had quite a lot of metallic parts. If those started to rust he might be helpless. Orion didn't know just how water resistant he was. Maybe he didn't care for water, he had gotten out of the ship after all. It was something he'd have to look into further later. First he needed a way off this rock. He waited a bit, waiting for Andromeda to treat her hand and then cleared his throat.

"Listen everyone, I've been thinking a bit. we can't stay on this rock forever. I think we can all agree on that. No matter how idyllic and fun it might seem to keep messing about and falling in the water, we need to start thinking long term. I'm sure Andromeda's going to be able to shrug off this illness but sooner or later someone's going to get too ill. And then we'll be in trouble because there sure as hell aren't any apothecaries around the corner" he mumbled, all too well aware he wouldn't even have to catch an illness to die. if he ran out of pills he'd be in even more trouble.

"I'd say we go back to the ship. We need to see whether there's anything left to salvage. Something that will either get us off this rock or help us make our life a bit more...pleasant," he grunted. Maybe he'd find some bullets for his gun though he doubted those had been water-proof.

Corki felt Andromeda go tense when Orion called falling into the water “fun”. She let go of the catgirl, who looked ready to show Orion a very fast way to leave this world. Was Orion deliberately antagonizing Andromeda? Why would he do that, after enjoying the fire and food provided by Andromeda?

“Oh,” Andromeda said, “my plan was to mine for metal and whatever else goes into electronics, reinvent electricity and faster than light communication, and then send a message asking for help. But your idea is much more practical. Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

Corki put her hand on Andromeda’s arm to get her attention. She shook her head.

Andromeda got the point: don’t fight. She wasn’t sure if she could do that. She took a deep breath, and continued speaking, now less aggressive. “So you want to go drag bits of spaceship around. Would you like me to tell you where you can find some clean water to drink before that exercise, or shall I start working on making a shovel?”

Corki was a little shocked. That same morning Andromeda had said people scared her, and that she needed Corki with her to dare to be around Orion and Tom at all. Now the same girl was showering angry sarcasm on Orion, who Corki was a bit scared of herself? A phrase occurred to her, fight or flight. Andromeda had been pushed pretty far by the situation, and she couldn’t run away from the worst things in it, which were pain and illness. Corki wondered how violent Andromeda could become if she snapped. Orion probably had no idea what kind of fire he was playing with by annoying that girl. Should she talk to him, ask him to be nice? That was a scary idea. But was it scarier than an angry Andromeda with a machete? Something told her Andromeda wouldn’t hurt her no matter what happened, but she was not so sure Andromeda wouldn’t attack Orion when provoked too much. Corki would have to talk to him, but she didn’t know what exactly to say yet. She started scribbling on her arm.

Tom chipped in on the argument.
"Guys, guys, whatever happens, we're gonna need to work together. With so many unknown things on this planet, the more people we have alive, the better" - he glanced at Andromeda and Orion - "... So please try not to kill each other before we even start," he said with a grimace.
"As for leaving this planet, I doubt we could simply rebuild a ship out of salvaged parts and fly away. There are four of us, for god's sake. I think our best bet is to salvage some of the comms system and see if we can broadcast an S.O.S. signal."
He thought for a moment.
"Andromeda, maybe you could hook that laptop of yours up to something?" he suggested.

Andromeda

Tom also had the same idea. Of course he did, it was an obvious one. Andromeda didn’t like that Orion had talked as if she had been having fun while the truth was that she had done everything she could to help the others survive. She would rather be alone, but she needed their help to leave the planet.

"Andromeda, maybe you could hook that laptop of yours up to something?" Tom suggested.

“I... don’t really know much about computers” Andromeda had to admit. “I had to buy it for my studies, I haven’t had a chance to really learn how to use it.”

---

Corki

Corki fidgeted uncomfortably. Andromeda had attempted to hide the black box data that framed her, but didn’t really know how to use a computer? That could become a problem. “I could have a look at that” she said quietly. “But if we’re lucky we can get enough of the ship computer to work, that would be easier.” It would be easier, and the risk of getting blamed for the crash would be lower. The others might respond in a more logical way than Andromeda had if they found out.

She wondered who had framed her, and why. She didn’t know anyone who had been on the ship, and even if someone she did know had been there she couldn’t imagine why someone would do that to her. Could it have been Tom or Orion? Maybe it was Orion, the real him wasn’t very nice. No, that was unfair to assume. It probably was someone who died in the crash, there were more victims than survivors. What about Andromeda? Corki only knew she had been framed because Andromeda had told her. Maybe it wasn’t true, maybe Andromeda was manipulating her... for what?

The lack of sense in the situation made her paranoid. Andromeda was different from the rest of them by looking the same in the game and reality, if anything that made her the most honest, the first to be trusted. It was an interesting difference, each of them except Andromeda had been hiding something. She wrote “hiding” on her arm. Corki knew that in her case it was her lack of confidence. It was obvious that Tom would rather not have become a cyborg, and similarly it appeared that Orion would rather not be old.

Knowledge was power, but only when one knew how to use it. She needed to think about it some more.