by R. A. Mejia
“Oh, what’s that?”
“We don’t have oxygen or the iron resources to produce all of the things listed. You’ll need to let the ship’s batteries charge enough to fabricate the components and gather the resources to make the suit or the upgrades.”
“That’s an awful lot of work. But that’s all it is. If there’s something or someone down there that can help me, it’s worth the effort.”
“John, it is highly unlikely that there are sentient creatures on this planet. I have not detected a single technological signal anywhere. I would also like to remind you that you only have seven days of oxygen left. While I’m excited to study a new species of alien life, we should focus on finding needed resources on the planet first. That there is some oxygen in the sand around the ship is a good indicator that it will be in other places, likely as a mineral deposit.”
“SAI, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. Even if whatever is down there isn’t someone that can help me, it’s likely alive. Which means it has some way to survive.”
After a pause, SAI says, “Even though my calculations indicate that we’d be better off focusing on more scouting, I understand your interest. I’ll start to calculate the resources that we are going to need to collect and organize the tasks for you.”
Chapter 6
The next two days are spent gathering resources for the fabricator. I consider trying to fabricate more solar cells to speed up fabrication, but when I ask SAI about it, she informs me that we can’t.
“I’m sorry, John. It’s just not possible right now. While we have an abundance of hydrogen and carbon, and even enough copper for it, we’re already going to need to gather an additional 5 kg of iron and 12 kg of oxygen since you’re planning to upgrade your suit. If you want to add more solar panels, we’ll need even more of those resources. You’ll also have to more silicon too. Additionally, we don’t need the extra electricity. The solar cells we currently have provide enough to keep the ship running, and we have an excess daily that is being stored in the ship’s batteries. Currently, we have 10,847 Amp hours reserved to use for fabrication and exploration.”
While I’m glad we don’t need to make more solar panels, I scratch my head at the resource problem. “We seem to keep coming up against the same bottlenecks for everything. I need oxygen to breathe, but I also need those elements to fabricate anything that might extend my exploration reach.”
“That’s correct, John. We currently have 4.72 kg of oxygen.”
“Uh, how many days of breathing does that amount to?”
“If you were a Nyxtian, one of the smallest sentient cellular beings, it would last decades. But as a human, if you used it all in the ship’s life support system, it would amount to seven days’ worth of oxygen.”
I consider the options: Stay here, play it safe, and live for seven days or take the risk of upgrading the suit to explore farther and hope to find better resources. Well, I’d rather die trying to get off this planet.
“Ok, SAI, I’m going outside to see if I can find more of those green rocks. You said they had iron in them, right?”
“That’s correct. The green rocks, as you call them, are an unnamed geological formation composed of 40% iron, 30% nitrogen, 20% magnesium, and 10% calcium. If you can find at least 12.5 kg of the rocks, they would take care of the iron resources needed for the suit upgrades.”
I suit up with that goal in mind, and I smile when my helmet display starts up, and I see that SAI has already sent me a new quest.
Quest: Find 5 kg of iron and 12 kg of oxygen.
Reward: Suit upgrade
I grab an empty tool bag from engineering and take the elevator down to the surface. SAI noted where I found the green rocks on the map she made, and my implant provides the directions as I walk around the ship and head to the south. After four hours of searching and digging in the sand, I’ve only found what I estimate to be about four kilograms of the green rocks. My back starts to hurt after another half hour of not finding another green rock, and I decide to head back to the ship to deconstruct what I have. The ship isn’t far, but the walk back gives me time to worry. Am I really doing the right thing, using resources to explore and get a look at the creature I saw? Those resources could be used other places like: ship repairs, food, or more solar panels. Thoughts of my wife and daughter come to mind, and I grit my teeth. Yes, I am doing the right thing. Staying still and doing nothing might help me live a few more days, but it won’t get me back to my family.
My eyes roam over the jagged parts of the hull where the cargo and navigations sections were torn off. It’s lucky that we even landed upright. We could have just as easily landed upside down or crashed into a mountain. Instead, we lost parts of the ship and have some hull and system damage from the crash. As I look at the hull, a thought arcs through my weary mind like lightning and I can’t help but laugh.
SAI, listening on the suit’s comms, asks, “John, are you okay? You can’t have succumbed to space madness yet. You’ve only been on this planet for five days.”
“No, SAI, I haven’t gone crazy. I’m just laughing at my stupidity. I’ve been out here all-day collecting rocks for their iron content when I’ve ignored a resource closer to home.”
“What resource is that?”
“The ship’s hull. I may have stripped what I could from inside the ship, but I never thought to do the same for the outside. There are plenty of sections that were torn off, and those areas have lots to salvage.”
There’s a pause, and the SAI says, “You are correct, John. I did not consider cannibalizing those destroyed areas because my external sensors are still not working, and I can’t sense them. But, seeing the ship through the suit’s sensors, I agree with your assessment. If you hurry back, you should still have enough daylight to salvage some material today.”
With a bit of pep in my step now, I head back to the ship, go through decontamination, and drop off the green rocks that I collected to be deconstructed. I enjoy not having the suit's helmet on for few minutes while I collect the tools from engineering that I’ll need. Then, suited up again, I follow SAI’s directions and access the hatchways that lead to the top of the ship. Activating the magnetic boots, I walk around to survey what I can salvage. SAI highlights the areas in red that she doesn’t have a connection to anymore and won’t impact the integrity of the living areas. I use the laser cutters to slowly slice through the hull and pull out wires, pipes, insulation, and the metallic hull itself. My suit’s sensors tell me I’m running out of oxygen after only an hour, so I head back inside with my salvage.
After deconstructing the rocks and the salvage, we have:
H (Hydrogen): 4.7 kg, C (Carbon): 4.15 kg, N (Nitrogen): 1.48 kg, Cu (Copper): 2.97 kg, Fe (iron): 4.71 kg, O (Oxygen): 1.66 kg, Si (Silicon): 0.84 kg, Mg (Magnesium): 0.8 kg, Ca (Calcium) 0.4 kg
Looking over the information on the display outside of the fabricator, I see that we almost have enough iron to upgrade my suit but not enough to fill in the 12 kg of oxygen needed.
Two full days of work on salvage, and I have more than enough iron but still less than enough oxygen. Sitting inside the ship that night and feeling stuck on the project, I ask for help. “SAI, how are our totals going?”
“So far, John, you’ve collected everything necessary except the oxygen. You need a total of 14 kg of oxygen, and you’ve gathered 8 kg.”
“Wait, I thought we only needed 12 kg of oxygen?”
“That was two days ago. You’ve used up an additional 1.96 kg of oxygen with your suit since then.”
“Where am I supposed to get the extra 6 kg of oxygen?” I ask, resting my weary head against the wall near the fabricator.
“I hate to suggest this, but you could deconstruct some of the solar panels. Each one is composed of oxygen-bound compounds that are used to convert sunlight into electricity.”
My head pops up off the wall, and I see hope from SAI’s statement. “Wait, why didn’t you tell me about this option before?”<
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“Because it wasn’t a useful option before. The number of panels you’d have had to recycle to get the entire amount of oxygen needed for fabrication would have shut down the life support system and decreased the power that keeps the ship running. But now, since you’ve gotten most of the resources, we can afford to sacrifice a few sections. I estimate that we’ll have just enough oxygen to fabricate the upgrades to your suit if we recycle three square meters of the system.”
I leap to my feet and do a little happy dance. “This is it. Good job, SAI!”
“There is a caveat, John. Reducing the solar array system by three square meters will reduce the amount of electricity produced. We’ll still have enough to run the ship's systems, but we’ll only have an excess of 720 Amps a day to put towards fabrication or exploration instead of the current amount of 2400 Amps a day. Additionally, your oxygen supplies will drop to only one day’s worth of breathable atmosphere. Are you sure you want to do this?”
SAI’s question is not one that I can shrug off. With the new supply of oxygen, I can likely live on the ship for weeks. Someone might come looking for the ship, but it’s unlikely. It was supposed to take us three months to get to Luna, and even supposing that we’d already traveled for part of that, no one will be expecting us for a long time. So, I can sit here and wait, or I can roll the dice and risk it all on improving my suit to explore. After only a moment’s thought, I decide.
“I’d rather die on my feet,” I mutter.
“What was that, John?”
“Nothing. Just talking to myself, SAI. I’ve decided to go ahead with the upgrades to the suit. After I recharge the suit, I’ll head out to get the panels. The suit has lights, right?”
“Yes, it does. Please be careful.”
I get back in my spacesuit, put on the helmet with the cracked display, and head out into the darkness to disassemble three of the solar panels from the array. Except for the areas lit up by the lights on my helmet, the entire world seems pitch black. Then I come out from the underside of the ship and look up to see an expanse of black and dark-blue packed with pinpricks of light. The majestic sea of stars above me makes me wish that I’d come out at night sooner.
For the last four months, I’d been stuck on Terra Epsilon, one of Earth’s colonies, and I had to live in a city where tall buildings and light pollution blotted out the view of the sky at night. I’d left my wife Annie and our just-turned one-year-old Marie to finish a deal my boss was supposed to make. He got sick, and it was too good an opportunity to prove myself to the company. All I had to do was take this small trip, secure a new outpost for our company, and obtain contracts for our newest android worker model. Unfortunately, it turned into a longer trip than expected, and while I ended up getting the job done, it wasn’t easy negotiating with the local unions to allow our androids on planet. Still, we got the contracts we needed, and my company even offered me a new position upon my return to Luna. Even with the added three-month cryo-sleep travel time, I’d expected to get back home to Luna just in time for Marie’s second birthday party. So much for that plan.
I stand there for a minute and stare in awe, feeling small and insignificant compared to the vastness above me. Annie would love this view. On our first date, she told me that she never got to see stars since she grew up in a mega city on Earth and that one of the reasons she moved to Luna was that she wanted to see the night time view, unobstructed by buildings or even Earth’s atmosphere. I distinctly remember, watching her look out the restaurant window at the sparkling night sky, her skin aglow, and an enchanting look of wonder in her beautiful eyes. That’s the moment I knew she was the one.
Then, with deliberate effort, I pull my attention from the sky above and back to the task at hand. I continue my night time trip to the solar panels. It’s a mere matter of twenty minute’s work, and I’m back in the ship laying the parts on the fabricator. A few minutes later, we have the rest of the oxygen that we’ll need to complete the suit upgrades.
Quest Complete: You’ve gathered 5 kg of iron and 12 kg of oxygen.
“Congratulations, John. Did you decide what you want to do? Upgrade the current suit or fabricate a new one?”
“Let’s go with the upgrades. I want all of them. Having those tools will be as valuable as the extra air or electricity.”
“Understood. I’ll need you to place the suit and the other materials that we’ll be using in the fabricator, and I’ll get it upgraded.”
SAI walks me through the procedures to remove the artificial gravity unit from under the ship. We won’t need it anymore now that we’ve crashed, and it will be made into the gravity beam by the fabricator. I also sacrifice a set of sonic tools and a laser cutter from engineering. Having them integrated into the suit will mean that I won’t have to carry them with me and that they’ll always be ready to use. Lastly, I strip out of the suit, fold it as best I can, and place it on the fabricator. There’s a beep when I close and seal the airtight door, and then code begins flowing across the display as SAI gets to work.
Chapter 7
According to SAI, it will take a full day for the fabricator to upgrade the engineering suit; and, while it is being upgraded, I’m stuck in the ship. I try to stay busy during the day, looking through the maps SAI has made of the area around the ship and exploring the medical lab and engineering room. SAI is happy to tell me what every single tool and machine does. We have machines that can create nanites, dissect and modify DNA, modify cybernetic implants, perform surgical procedures, and more. We don’t have enough power to run any of those machines, but it’s nice that we have them.
It’s relatively easy to stay busy during the daytime hours, but the nights are another matter. While SAI has a whole host of reading materials in the ship’s database, I have too much time to think: about my wife and daughter, about what they must be doing or thinking, about whether or not my wife, Annie, will think I abandoned her when I don’t show up, or about whether someone will knock on the door and tell her I’ve died. It breaks my heart to think of the talk she’ll have with our daughter about why daddy isn’t going to be coming home. Again and again, I force myself to think of my goals: fix our systems, get enough resources to survive, then find a way off this planet. It’s possible that the broken-off cargo hold has something that we can use or that maybe the communications system still works, but SAI says they’re days away, and we don’t know what’s between here and there. These upgrades are the first step in increasing my exploration range, and this first trip will test what I can do. If I can’t do this, how can I ever hope to travel for days or weeks to reach the other parts of the crashed ship?
The next day, SAI wakes me up and tells me that the suit upgrades are completed. I pop out of bed and rush to the fabrication unit to check it out.
Opening the door to the fabricator shows me a pile of neatly folded orange material with a white helmet sitting on top of it. As I pick up the suit, I notice right away that it feels a bit stiffer and heavier. I hold it up in front of me and see that there are now areas on the chest, arms, and legs with a flexible plastic shell. The bright orange material still stands out, and I regret I not asking SAI to change the color while it was getting remade. At least I can be thankful that the crack in the helmet has been repaired. I also note that there’s a thick bracer that covers the left forearm.
The display screen by the wall outside the fabricator lights up.
Engineering Space Suit Level 2
Oxygen: 280 liters
Energy: Battery 3 - 2,000 Amp Hours
Suit Integrity: 150/150
Life Support: LSS 1 - 100 Amp/hour
Motors: Enhanced Movement 1 - 25 Amps/hour
Enhanced Strength 1 - 25 Amps/hour; 25 Amp/sec Boost mode
Tools:Gravity Beam 1 - 50 Amps/sec
Sonic Power Tool - 5 Amps/sec
Laser Cutter 1 - 15 Amps/sec
Sensors: Scanners 1, Spectral Analysis
Upgrades: Magnetic Boots, Light Armor 1
The improvements are noticeable. There are increases in the amount of energy in the batteries and the amount of oxygen it can carry, both of which affect how long I can stay outside the ship. I’m more interested in the tools and those energy costs. I put on the suit and notice that it feels a bit heavier than before, but it isn’t nearly as bad as when I was holding it. I can only guess that the enhanced strength and movement help manage and distribute the extra weight. When I put on the helmet and secure the latches, the internal systems come online. The display lights blink a couple of times before turning on and displaying a welcome message.
Welcome, User, to your Augmented Engineering Suit 2. Do you wish to view the tutorial? Y/N