Chapter Text
Losing the Seamoth turned out to be more difficult to deal with than I first anticipated. Sure, I swam from my ship's wreckage to that lifepod but that was before that PDA alerted me to an undersea base. I knew the Seamoth wasn't destroyed so there was a chance I could find it again.... No, that'd be stupid. I have no means of out-swimming anything at my current state, much less an eel on steroids. If I truly desire to find and fix the Seamoth again, I at least needed something to give me an edge over that thing.
I sat down on the side of my bed and reached for my PDA.
"Surely this thing has a blueprint or two that could help me."
After scrolling through an assortment of random items, I found something called a Sea Glide.
"Sounds promising. What does this require?"
According to the blueprint given by the PDA, a Seaglide required a piece of titanium, copper wire, a battery, and lubricant. After my last struggle with making batteries, I made sure to stockpile as many as I could in the event I needed them. To make matters better, the lockers inside the base had several rolls of copper wire and lubricant. The only thing I was missing was titanium.
I decided to swim out into the Grassy Plateaus in search of outcroppings. As I swam over a patch of red grass, I noticed a rock-shaped object laying in the sand. Upon further inspection, it indeed was a limestone outcropping! i quickly broke it open with the backside of my survival knife to unveil.... copper ore.
"Eh, it's useful, just not what I need."
After several encounters similar to this, I was becoming tired, not just because of the strain of breaking rocks, but also of repeatedly going to the surface for air.
I started reaching the edge of the Grassy Plateaus when I noticed something odd. There was metal salvage scattered across another desert-like area.
"Wait, I know this place! This is where my ship landed!"
I had returned to the Sparse Reef. However, the patterns on these scraps did not match my spacecraft. Something else had fallen apart here.
"Perhaps this belonged to the Aurora. After all, this piece does have the Alterra logo on it. Although, these logos are a bit too small to be plastered on the side of a giant star frigate."
I followed the trail of metal, picking up as much as I could carry as I passed by. I could probably convert the salvage into titanium chunks if I tried to. As I rounded a corner I saw something strange. Laying on its side was the remains of a Cyclops submarine! Sadly, this thing was too far gone to repair. There was a large hole in the back of the vehicle. Half the sub was missing, to be exact.
"Something big came through here. I hope I do not find out what did this anytime soon..."
I entered the wreckage fully expecting to be eaten alive by whatever destroyed this thing. As I ventured deeper into the sub, it appeared as if something had punched large holes through several parts of the hull. To make matters worse, several bleeders swam around me inside the wreckage. Reaching for my knife, one grappled onto me. I quickly grabbed a broken terminal screen and bashed the bleeder until it died.
"Attention, 30 seconds of oxygen remaining!"
My PDA was going through the roof commanding me to surface for more air. I had to surface and quick. As I left the sub, something made a noise nearby.
"Wait, I thought the Sparse Reef was devoid of large lifeforms. Well, considering the Cyclops wreck here, I doubt that's the case anymore."
I heard something stomping through the sand nearby. As I turned to face the source of the noise, I was face-to-face with a large, lobster-like creature complete with large claws that looked similar to fists.
It veered back ready to strike, making an obscure chittering sound.
"Not this again..."