Chapter Text
The ship was going down.
Four years of preparation and one major crime were ending in a crash on a planet his brother may have never even laid eyes on.
“Sixty seconds to impact,” the system announced.
Regulus pulls on the controls to no avail as more and more of the planet’s ocean surface comes into view. He looks around at every last button and light in the cockpit before looking back out at the water that is hurtling toward him.
Something told him he was going to die here.
But it won’t be now. He unbuckles his restraint and springs out of the chair, wobbling a bit as turbulence wracks the ship. He hobbles out of the cockpit and lookes around.
The ship he had stolen from the Volterra spaceport was a small orbital ship, meant for transport or at most a work crew. But transport means evacuation requirements.
Regulus sprints to the back of the ship to the lifepod station.
Thank Merlin, there is already a pod printed.
He flings the front of the personal pod open, trying not to think about how much it looks like a coffin, and gets inside the padded interior, securing the pod tightly.
“Welcome aboard. Pull the lever to release the life pod.”
Regulus thought it was stupid to design such a tight pod and then make it a lever to release, but he manages to grab the lever below his left hand and pull it up.
Ca-chunk, poosh! And the pod is ejected from the ship into the open sky.
“Calculating altitude. Velocity terminal. Below standard deceleration range. Deploying emergency parachutes. Brace for surface impact.”
Regulus collapses as much as the space allows with the pod’s suddenly changing momentum. He only realizes now that his breathing is getting out of control– too shallow breaths fogging up the tiny porthole window.
“Impact in 10…9…8…”
The vessel he was in only moments before crashes into the turquoise waves, turning them white and jagged. He can’t hear the sound of it over the system alerts and the ringing in his ears.
“7…6…5…”
This isn’t going to work. I took too long. Why do I always take too long?!
“4…3…2…”
I shouldn’t have backed away. I should have just gone with him.
Regulus squeezes his eyes shut.
“1. Impact.”
And the last thing Regulus feels is solid glass against his face.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regulus wakes up underwater.
He tries to take a breath and realizes he can’t. He’s had this dream before. He claws at his throat, but he knows it will do nothing.
A red flashing light catches his eye. This is new. And he is in a tight space, like a personal life pod.
This is the lifepod. I need to get out!
The light illuminates the cracks in the porthole glass in intervals, showing nothing but dark water outside. Regulus sticks his hand out, raking his hand down the door until it finds purchase on the exit lever. He manages to wrench it counterclockwise and the mechanism releases.
Pushing himself out of the pod he launches into the open ocean, vision darkening even as he tries to determine which way is up. He pushes what little air is left in his lungs out.
They go up. I go.. Up .. too.
He kicks and paddles, getting more and more uncoordinated by a second.
Everything is black.
Just.. a bit… further…
Then his hand soars through nothing and splashes back down on the top of the water. A second later, Regulus is gasping above the water as color returns to his vision.
The sky is orange and purple as the sun gives way to the stars. It is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Regulus didn’t know which stars were which from this perspective yet, but he hoped one was Sirius.
Ok. I survived for now, but I’m getting tired. For humans to survive, they need food, water, and shelter. Given current conditions, I will add air to that list. Can I even digest food on this planet? Keep in mind for later, but most important now is shelter. Lifepod should have an emergency survival kit.
Reg’s heart dropped at the idea of going back down there. But he knew he would be going down again one way or another, so he takes a deep breath, chokes it back out from nerves, takes a couple more deep breaths while getting annoyed at himself, and finally dives back under the water.
Unlike his journey upwards, going back down was easy. He thought the waning light would hinder him a bit, but the rocky shallows were filled with bioluminescent life– schools of small fish weaving around coral outcroppings, anemones decorating the rock, and other strange plants waving in the currents.
It was also notably a lot shallower than his harrowing scrabble for the surface suggested.
I guess almost dying can change one’s perspective.
Locating the flashing red light, Regulus continues with his mission of survival. Upon reaching the damaged pod, he has to rack his brain for the safety briefings from the academy about this, honestly quite outdated, pod. He fumbles around the inside padding until he triggers a hatch release, opening up an inner compartment.
He was starting to run out of air, though, so he needs to make a trip up to the surface before he could safely inspect the contents, grabbing only what he recognised to be a pda before he took off.
Back up at the surface, Reg looks around the pda, recognizing the model as the Nimbus 2000, a model Sirius had taught him how to hack at 15. Right before he left.
Moving quickly on from that thought, he connects the pda to his personal wrist terminal, booting that first before the pda. After bypassing the Volterra security and account association, he opens the pda to the emergency survival guide.
“Upon being stranded on an unfamiliar planet, take a deep breath. Panicking will only waste your, possibly limited, air.”
“I can’t even begin to describe how thoroughly late you are with that advice.”
The screen had a couple options for what type of planet or environment he landed in. Picking water-world, he was met with advice to seek land and not drink the water.
“There is no land. How do I make shelter? I know I need a habitat builder, but I need a fabricator for that, and I don’t have access to one,” Regulus tries to reason with the system.
“To build a fabricator, find or fabricate a habitat builder. With a habitat builder, one can craft a habitat to call home, providing a place to sleep, store items, and craft further quality of life upgrades.”
“No shit,” Reg seethes. “I literally told you I do not have a fabricator.”
“To build a fabricator,--”
Regulus hurls it through the air.
Sighing, he rubs his face with one hand, using the other to keep treading water.
“Ok. No fabricator. I need to rest. Pod is long gone. The ship is who knows where and also probably done for. Where do I find solid ground and oxygen on a water planet?”
All of his ocean knowledge runs through his head– pressure levels per kilometer under, what minerals may be present, and the trashy mermaid romance novels he indulged in in private. Surprisingly enough, that is where the revelation came from. One he read had the mer rescuing the human man by dragging him to an underwater cave. An underwater cave may have limited oxygen, but the air was at least mostly breathable and would give him time to think.
Plan decided, he dives back down, eyeing the rock and coral for caves. There were many openings all over, leading into dark abysses that may yield rest or death.
I am brave. For him. I have to be brave.
Choosing one pretty close, Reg swims over and peeks inside. There are outcroppings of some kind of metal and some plant life, but, instead of a cave, he finds it to be a tunnel, connecting straight through to the other side of the rock. Frowning, Reg picks another cave a couple meters away.
It doesn’t have another entrance, but it also doesn’t yield an air pocket.
It takes many more trips up for air and down for exploration for Regulus to finally find what he needed. Its a deeper cave, one he had avoided exploring due to drowning concerns, and seemed to be on the border of a new biome, one with purple grass and orb-like kelp.
The inside of this cave is brightly lit by green and pink flowers spiraling around the walls. Regulus finds himself skeptical of touching the blooms, unsure of what toxins they may contain, so, doing his best to swim in the middle of the tunnel, he takes a look around. The first sign of promise is a blue, jugular plant belching out air bubbles.
While I can't just catch one of the bubbles and breathe it it, it could feed a breathable air into a cave.
He swims a bit faster with that thought, eyes catching on anything remotely blue. He passes one, writing it off quickly due to the solid ceiling above it but spots two more. Torn between hope and fear that he has overcommitted, he rushes over to the closer of the two, desperately pressing his hand to the ceiling. While his hand did leave the water, it wasn't nearly enough space to breathe.
Feeling the tell-tale strain on his lungs, he lunges for the last plant, head feeling cloudier by the second. Cursing himself, Reg does the same test on the reflective water above the last plant and--
Open air. No rocks in head hitting range.
He pushes himself to the surface and takes a breath. It tastes like perfect air. Regulus let out a relieved, and slightly hysterical, laugh. His muscles are screaming at him and so is his inner monologue, so Reg thinks he can afford some hysteria. As a treat. But with a breath of fresh air and renewed hope, he sets out deeper into the cave.
Passing plant, metal, and crystal, he pokes through an opening over an air plant to find a dry shelf with a rocky dome of air about the size of a king sized bed-- which is exactly how it looks to Regulus, right now. He hauls himself out of the water and rolls onto his back, letting every muscle in his body relax.
I made it. At least this far. And at this rate, I may even make it to twenty.
With that encouraging thought, Regulus drifts to sleep, trusting in the vigil of the faux stars twinkling in the stone.