Chapter Text
Tango tapped his PDA, silently praying that the emergency functions hadn't made audio recordings impossible. "This thing on? God, I hope so— Anyway, this is Tango Tek, engineer on the Spaceship Aurora, reporting to you live from a goddamn lifepod which us currently adrift on a fucking ocean planet. "
He sighed and sat back against the wall of the lifepod, staring up at the ceiling, "I woke up a few hours ago to find the fucking pod on fire, it still smells like smoke in here. The electrical system is fried, so the medkit fabricator is offline. I took a quick dip to figure out what the hell is around here and the answer is ocean. Far as the eye can see.
"...I guess it's not too bad. The main fabricator's still working, which means that I can make food and water at least."
He paused, and took a deep breath.
"Oh God, I'm stuck here. I'm fucking— Radio's busted, I can't even send a distress signal—" He gasped, curling up where he sat, "I don't know where the other lifepods landed, or if they even made it. For all I know, I could be the only one left— Oh fuck, okay…"
He ran his hand through his hair, "I was fine, you know. I was fucking fine up until now, and now I'm losing my goddamn mind, I just… I'm looking at the blueprints I have on this thing, and I guess the first order of business is gonna be taking a scanner to everything. See if I can synthesize some blueprints from some of the wreckage, at least."
His finger hovered over the button to stop recording, and his voice wavered, "Guess this is my life now. Tango, signing off."
He stopped the recording and set the PDA in his lap, cringing at the way his breath trembled. He was already losing it, of course. Why wouldn’t he be? This whole situation was a disaster of the highest degree. He was an engineer with crippling thalassophobia lost on a planet that seemed to be all ocean for miles upon miles, everyone who hadn’t escaped in a lifepod was dead, and even then he had no idea where the other lifepods were. Not to mention the fact that he was soaked to the bone, and all the saltwater was sure to be wreaking havoc on his hair.
He stood up, ignoring the way that his arms and legs felt numb, and stumbled to the fabricator. “Short term goals, Tango, short… short term goals.” He mumbled to himself. When had he gotten so out of breath? “Scanner first, then panic.”
He swallowed and tried to breathe as his shaking hands worked the fabricator, feeding it titanium and a battery and watching as the lasers meticulously built a scanner in a matter of seconds. He racked his brain for a plan of attack, examining all the options and attempting to parse the safe from the dangerous and the plausible from the outlandish. The best bet for finding useful blueprints and emergency supplies would be the wreckage of the Aurora. He hated to have to stray too far from his lifepod, especially without a seaglide to ease the strain on his body, but he desperately needed the technology he could salvage from that wreck.
He’d have to stomach the ocean. Just for a little while.
His stomach turned as he opened the bottom hatch of the lifepod and stared into the water below. Taking as deep a breath as he could muster, he slid his oxygen mask over his face and dived in. With a quick peek above the surface to determine which direction the Aurora was in, Tango began swimming towards his objective.
He’d only gotten a little over halfway there when his PDA began warning him of the radiation levels. He swam backwards until the screen stopped flashing and stared uselessly at the wreck. Of course there would be radiation leaking into the water around the crash site, the drive core had to have been badly damaged. Fuck.
So that plan was a bust. His only hope now would be to search for loose debris scattered outside of the irradiated zone. With a crash so utterly catastrophic, there had to be some. He decided to swim up close to the surface, giving the Aurora a wide berth as he scanned the seafloor for any signs of wreckage. There turned out to be a few small pieces of the Aurora scattered about the shallows (which was about as far as he was willing to go, thank you), but the only fragments he could really find were of grav traps and beacons. Useful, but not something he really needed just yet.
On the way back to the lifepod, Tango decided to do a bit more resource gathering. He dipped in between rock formations and coral tubes, picking up acid mushrooms and breaking outcroppings to find titanium and copper ores. For once, things felt normal and not terrifying.
Until he strayed a little too close to a cave. He heard what sounded like something opening, and then a god-awful mix between a growl and a trill. His heart skipped a beat and he flailed a little, trying to identify the source of the noise as it only seemed to grow louder and higher in pitch. By the time he realized it was coming from a small, round fish that was rapidly swimming towards him, it was already too late. The damn thing exploded and Tango cried out in pain before booking it for the surface as quickly as he could.
He gasped as he surfaced, taking a moment to steady himself. “Fucking— God dammit, what was that?!” He cried out to no one.
He cried out to no one, and no one answered but the ocean. “Fuck this.” He mumbled, feeling wholly and completely livid. “Fuck this planet, fuck the ocean, and fuck whatever bullshit cosmic force went and put me here.”
He swam back to the lifepod, heart still pounding in his chest. Clambering up through the hatch and onto the lifepod floor, he all but tore the oxygen mask from his face and ran a hand through his hair. “I am going to die. This place is going to kill me.”
He must have spent five entire minutes kneeling pathetically on the floor and muttering to himself. It felt like the only thing he could do, the only part of this situation that he had control over. The only way that he could keep from losing his mind to fear and loneliness. It was painful, to be so aware of the fact that he was stuck here, and so unable to do anything about it.
He slowly rose from the floor and checked the blueprints for some of the simpler tools. “Knife and a flashlight couldn’t hurt…” He said to himself, digging some quartz from storage.
He watched the fabricator work, but that wasn’t enough to calm his racing mind, so he took to the list of blueprints again. A habitat builder could serve him well, he thought, especially if he was going to be here for a long time. And at this point, he considered the repair tool a necessity, so he sighed and mentally prepared for another trip out into the ocean. This time he would be forced to venture beyond the safe shallows, as the wiring kit needed for the habitat builder required metals he couldn’t find there.
This resulted in him spending a little longer than he’d like to admit floating at the edge of the shallows, staring into the kelp forest. All he had to do was break a couple of outcroppings and grab some metal. That was it. But still, his chest tightened at the idea of going much deeper than the level he was at. And besides that there were… very grim looking fish swimming about. He couldn’t quite make out what they looked like, not from this distance, but it looked like they had a nasty set of teeth on them.
Perfect.
With a quick trip to the surface for air, Tango pulled the trigger and dived down into the deep. He mostly hugged the cliffs at the edge of the kelp forest, eyes scanning for the right type of rock. It was difficult, the sun was setting, and he had a difficult time orienting himself in the water. The sandstone outcroppings were also a little bit more sparse than the limestone, and he quickly found himself making multiple trips to the surface and back down again.
His search had whittled down to one last piece of silver ore, and he was desperate to find it. Both because he was tired of flailing about in the darkness, but also because he was having to stray into increasingly sketchy areas in order to find sandstone in the first place. Eventually he found an outcropping, but a little too close for comfort was one of those long, teethy fish, seemingly playing with a piece of metal salvage.
For whatever reason, he convinced himself that it was too distracted to notice him and began creeping closer. He readied his knife, just in case, as he came within arm’s length of the sandstone outcropping. With a deep breath, and his eye on the nearby creature, he brought his arm down as hard as he could onto the stone. It shattered with the force, and inside was a piece of silver ore.
He didn’t have time for relief though. Because as soon as it heard the sound of breaking rock, the creature whipped around to fix its beady little eyes right on Tango and snarled. Before Tango’s brain could fire up again and swim for it, the creature was already nearly in front of his face.
It was then that Tango did the first smart thing since leaving his lifepod to come here, he swung a knife right at the damn thing's face. Despite his expectations, the knife made contact, and sickly yellow blood blossomed in the water between them. Tango took the opportunity to flee, making sure to kick it on his way up to the surface for good measure.
He hated the ocean, but at least he had what he needed and could head back to the safety of his lifepod.
When he got back, the light on his radio was flashing. Which was odd, he thought, since it was busted. Maybe it could receive messages but not send them? He’d seen weirder in his days as an engineer. He pressed the button to play the message, and to his surprise, it worked, “Playing pre-recorded distress distress call:” It said in its usual robotic voice, before the recording kicked in, “This is Lifepod 6, I have a passenger on board. Coordinates attached. We've landed a kilometer from the crash site, but there's radiation in between us and the rendezvous. Request immediate assistance. 6 out.”
Tango’s breath was punched out of his lungs, and his heart began pounding. People were still alive out there. He wasn’t alone! With barely another minute to process, Tango punched the coordinates into his PDA and wrenched open the hatch. His fear was forgotten and the aching in his muscles ignored as he swam toward the location of lifepod 6. Someone else was alive out there. He fought the urge to laugh. His chest felt so light, like his heart was soaring high above him and up into the stars, where he belonged.
The radiation warning flashed once again on his PDA, and his stomach turned to lead. Radiation in between the lifepod and the rendezvous. Of course. Of course, it landed a kilometer from the crash site! He swam up to the surface, scanning the area around the crash. No sign of a lifepod. He took off his oxygen mask, praying that it was just messing with his vision. No lifepod. He gasped, heavy and ragged. If the radiation could leak through the lifepod hatches—
His heart twisted in his chest, and a sob tore its way out of his throat. Those people were dying out there, if they weren’t already dead. They were dying and Tango couldn’t go and save them. He kept bobbing uselessly on the surface, chest heaving as he cried, choking on tears and his own uneven breath. They were dying…
Slowly, and oh so painfully, he turned away and swam back.
Once again he found himself on the floor of his lifepod, body numb and mind silent as he stared at the wall across from him. None of it felt real. It felt like a nightmare, he just… couldn’t wake up. What if none of the other lifepods had made it? What if… what if he was the only one left?
…What if the distress call was delayed? Would he be getting more from the other lifepods? Would he continue to be haunted by dead men’s cries for help? His eyes were heavy, and a dull ache had settled into his very bones, so he laid on the floor, curled up on his side. And he prayed he wouldn’t have any dreams.
“...quantum detonation has occurred in the Aurora's drive core. The reactor will reach a super critical state in T- 10, 9—”
Tango shot up into a sitting position, even as his sluggish muscles screamed in protest. A quantum detonation? Was the damage to the drive core that bad?
“8, 7, 6—”
As fast as he could he scrambled up the ladder, tucking his head down and all but bashing the top hatch of the lifepod open with his shoulders.
“5, 4—”
The PDA voice grew more and more glitchy as the countdown came to a close, and Tango finally locked eyes on the Aurora.
“3— 3, 2…”
There was a horrible rumbling, a great flash of light as the drive core exploded, and then Tango was clinging to the top of the lifepod as it tossed on the resulting waves.
Fuck.