I remained s.p.a.ced out inside the escape pod which was now in the middle of its descent planet-side. I haven"t been able to completely accept the mysterious attack and the death of all my comrades as reality just yet.
On the ship, I mostly just acted as Iris instructed. It all just began to sink in when I became all alone inside the pod and finally had the opportunity to calm down a bit.
The faces of everyone from my platoon and my commander flashed through my mind. Before I knew it, I was shedding tears.
“Dammit!”
At this moment, the pod began shaking violently.
“What happened?”
The AI of the escape pod currently entering the atmosphere of the planet responded.
“Are there any problems?”
[No problems detected. Everything is within expected parameters.]
The shaking became more intense.
“Hey! Is everything really okay!?”
[No problems detected. Everything is within expected parameters.]
The shaking further intensified.
“Hee~y!”
[No problems detected. Everything is within expected parameters.]
Something"s definitely off. Even if it"s installed on a disposable one-time use escape pod, this isn"t the way an AI should respond. It might have taken some damage or something.
Are things really gonna be fine? Come to think of it, I"ve never heard of an escape pod being used to directly land on a planet before. Let me check it out with my nanoms.
(Nanom, how many instances of escape pods descending on a planet have been recorded thus far?)
[12 times in the past thousand years. The last recorded incident was 320 years ago.]
There"s only a few instances, just as I thought. Well, guess that"s natural since battles don"t usually occur this close to a planet.
I wonder just how much time had pa.s.sed? When I"d finally lost my sense of time, the shaking suddenly subsided.
The thrusters fired up and the rotation stopped. After a few moments, an impact came along with a snapping sound.
Next, I heard a gushing sound. Was something leaking out?
“What"s wrong this time!?”
[The parachute has been successfully deployed, but it seems there was a crack which opened up somewhere due to the initial shock.]
The heck! Where"d they buy this thing anyway!? It"s my first time encountering a machine with such poor specs.
A crack opened up just because of the parachute getting deployed? I"m absolutely positive this thing isn"t up to regular Empire standards.
“Is there any problem with the parachute itself?”
[No problems detected. 25 minutes until we reach the surface.]
Whew. Guess we"ll make it somehow.
“Hey pod. What"s the name of your manufacturer by the way?”
[Orlando Heavy Industries Ltd.]
Ah. So that"s it. Orlando Heavy Industries was a long-standing company, but two years ago a critical defect was discovered on one of their products, followed by the discovery of more critical defects on most of their other merchandise. Presently, they"re a company burdened with lots of issues. I"m sure this escape pod"s also one of those defective items of theirs.
“There would be no problems with the landing right?”
[No problems detected. There is enough oxygen remaining.]
“Wait, are we actually leaking air!?”
[No problems detected. There is enough oxygen remaining.]
d.a.m.n, this is hopeless. …Wait, that"s it!
“Is the air outside breathable?”
[It is breathable. It has managed to clear the regular safety standards.]
Phew. That"s a relief. I tried to check out the scenery outside through the external monitor but couldn"t see much because the monitor was too small.
……
[We will land on the water in 1 minute.]
Finally… Hm? Wait, we"re landing where!?
“What do you mean we"re landing on water!?”
[The apparent landing point is above a lake.]
“Change course immediately!”
Or rather, tell that to me sooner dammit!
The thrusters activated once more.
[It"s currently impossible. The main thrusters are only calibrated for use in a Zero-G environment.]
I"m really starting to get p.i.s.sed off at this d.a.m.n AI.
“Will this pod be able to float on water?”
[There is a crack located somewhere in the structure. There"s a high risk of being flooded.]
I just knew you"d say that.
[We will be landing now.]
We impacted the surface quite heavily. I hurriedly snapped my seatbelt off and began to prepare for getting out of the pod.
I would be bringing with me a backpack, pulse rifle, laser gun, electromagnetic bladeknife, the pouch containing the processor module, uniform, cleanroom work overalls and two blankets. It"s a considerable amount of luggage.
I wasn"t able to bring the pet bottles containing water with me. I had no choice but to bet on the lake water being potable. If it wasn"t, bringing the pet bottles would only prolong my eventual death by just a little bit anyway.
I shoved the laser gun, processor module, uniform and cleanroom overalls into the backpack and hoisted it onto my back. I also slipped the rifle"s sling over my head and onto my shoulder.
The blankets also had slings attached to them, so I brought them over my head as well and carried them under each arm.
I checked the outside with the external monitor. The heck! This thing"s really starting to sink!
“Okay, open the hatch.”
When the hatch opened, water started flooding in! I somehow managed to grab onto the edge of the hatch and pulled myself out of the pod.
The air… definitely has no problems.
From what I can see, the sh.o.r.e seems to be about 70 meters ahead. Looks like I came pretty far out.
I wasn"t exactly good at swimming but it"s not like I can"t reach it. The rolled up blankets I held on both sides seem to be made of non-absorbent material and helped me to stay afloat. The rifle was obviously quite heavy.
I swam and reached the sh.o.r.e in about three to four minutes. Phew. I"m saved! I"m glad it"s daytime. If I landed during the night, I"m sure I would"ve had a harder time.
I scanned the surroundings. The local flora seems to be fairly similar with the ones I"ve seen on the other planets I"ve been to. They were mainly green in color and had shapes resembling those of the plants I"m familiar with. You can even say they somehow remind me of those from my home planet.
But what should I do now? When I thought about this, I noticed something important.
In the first place, the reason why I was forced to evacuate to this planet was because of the ship lacking oxygen and Iris needing some time in order to repair it.
Without the communication equipment on the escape pod, I won"t be able to contact Iris. The communication function of the nanoms can"t reach her after all. The effective range is only about a few kilometers.
“Escape pod, respond!… Please respond!”
It"s no use. I tried hailing it several times more but there was no response. Was that pod water resistant in the first place. I should have confirmed that.
I was busy being frustrated by the AI"s stupidity earlier so it never occurred to me.
It was able to withstand a vacuum environment so it it should be able to function underwater too, but I can"t really bring myself to expect something of the sort from that piece of junk.
At worst, I"ll have to find a way to salvage it out of the water. But that would be totally impossible on my own. Should I get in contact with the local lifeforms and ask them for help? That"s the only thing I can think of for now. Wait, hold up.
It was then that I finally realized something. Why the heck am I letting my guard down in a place like this!? This place is the same as a battlefield. Wild creatures often have habitats in large bodies of water. I quickly brought my pulse rifle up in a fl.u.s.ter.
This place really resembles what I"m usually accustomed to, so I lost any sense of caution before I knew it.
For now, I"ll just get out of here and find a spot with a good vantage point.
I saw something resembling a hill nearby so I"ll head over there.
The hill was a large, rocky formation with a diameter of more than 10 meters and a height of about 5 meters. There were a lot of footholds so I could climb up quite easily.
Well now, that"s quite the nice, wide view. Potential a.s.sailants would be able to spot me easily as well, but I got myself a rifle. That means I have the general advantage.
I scanned the area and noticed something falling from the sky to the east.
I recognized what it was almost immediately. I"ve watched scenes like this on the holobit lots of times already.
Dang. They"re burning up… A lot of smoldering objects were falling not only from the east but the northern and western skyline as well.
Ah… Those are definitely wreckage debris from the ship.
“Ugh… Was it no use after all?”
Iris stated that the odds of successfully reconstructing the ship was 54%.
Though the odds were barely more than half the ideal numbers, I really believed it would work out somehow.
Even if the odds were 50/50 at best, I just couldn"t imagine that Iris would fail.
Was there any other possible explanations for this happening other than failure? No, ejecting foreign materials on a planet was a serious violation of military regulations.
Furthermore, Iris wouldn"t drop these things on purpose because she knows I"m still stuck here.
“Ugh…”
No other words could leave my mouth.
The ship debris continued to rain down, seemingly without end.
I spent an unknown amount of time just blankly gazing up at the sky. I was brought back to my senses by hunger. Let"s just eat something for now.
d.a.m.n, I let my guard down again! Well, this time it was due to being shocked silly. It truly feels like being struck by a finishing blow and getting absolutely wrecked as a result. Now, I guess I"ll just have to resolve myself to live on this planet till my eventual death.
No, was this really the case? There"s no way that Iris would just crash and burn after failing without doing anything else. There should have been enough time for her to launch an emergency beacon containing an SOS communique or something.
A Galaxy-Cla.s.s battleship had suddenly gone missing. A search team would probably be dispatched at the very least. But the probability of them finding this planet and even this particular star system was quite low.
High Command was familiar with the navigation schedules. The search would probably center around the coordinates where we were actually supposed to warp out from. It"ll be hard to count on them finding this place since we were forced to warp out here mid-route due to the attack.
Against my expectations, the rations were actually quite juicy and delicious. I"m parched as well, so I guess I"ll try drinking the lake water. I"m still b.u.mmed by the fact that I was unable to bring those pet bottles filled with drinking water.
Judging from the sun"s position, I guess it"s about 4 o"clock in the afternoon right now. A gentle breeze blew by, and it felt quite nice.
When I moved my gaze toward the lake, I discovered something.
“Hey, that"s—!”
There were about five pet bottles floating around on the water surface and swaying along with the breeze. I think there were actually more than ten, but did they sink together with the pod? Oh, well. This was quite the unexpected find.
I"ll go retrieve them and try out the lake water while I"m at it. I scooped out some water from the lake with my hands, drank some of it and immediately spat it out. Well, it does taste like normal water at least.
(How is it?)
I had my nanoms check it out.
[It meets the safety standards for drinking water.]
Okay. With this, drinking water won"t be a problem for the time being.
At this time, I noticed that there were a lot of footprints resembling those made by humans on the ground along the water"s edge.
This made my alert level rise and I quickly brought my rifle up. I remained vigilant, but noticed no other abnormalities.
The footprints weren"t new and seemed to have been made about one or two days ago. When I scrutinized them further, I saw that even though they somewhat resembled human footprints, there were some definite differences. The number of toes seemed to be just four and were quite small, like those of a childs.
Anyway, let"s get out of this place first.
However, I carried too much baggage, and with the inclusion of five pet bottles which I had to hold with both hands, I ended up being unable to properly wield my rifle. Having no choice, I decided to hold three bottles with my left arm and wielded the rifle with my right.
Let"s hide the remaining two bottles somewhere inconspicuous.
I managed to make my way back to the rocky hill from before.
I placed my baggage down and caught my breath. Come to think of it, the summit of this rock was quite a good spot. If I pressed myself down, it would be quite difficult to catch sight of me if one"s looking from below. It was the perfect place to observe the lake.
It"s probably best if I watched over the lake from here.
I finally managed to calm myself down somewhat. I somehow panicked earlier, but when you think about it, the possibility of creatures such as those resembling monkeys existing on this planet was much higher than there being human-like lifeforms here. To date, members of the human race naturally sporting only four toes haven"t been discovered yet after all.
It"s already evening. I"m really drained from all that"s happened today. Since I can"t possibly go without any sleep, I"ll just put the nanoms on alert while I hit the hay.
Even though I said putting the nanoms on alert, it just means having my hearing enhanced several times through the use of the nanoms as a precautionary measure.
Even if my hearing gets enhanced, my surroundings won"t get suddenly flooded with noise but would get dead silent instead. That"s because all the sounds I"ll hear would be intercepted by the nanoms.
If the nanoms judge the situation to be unusual, they would instantly wake me up, making this a very convenient function.
I laid down one blanket and covered myself with the other. Only my ears were left sticking out.
(Alert Mode on. Wake me up at dawn)
After issuing the mental order, the sounds from my surroundings were completely silenced.
[Acknowledged]
I quickly drifted off, perhaps due to being too worn out.
[It is now dawn. Please wake up.]
The cry of a bird rang within my ears. It was right in the middle of sunrise. How can the nanoms tell if it"s dawn already if my eyes were closed shut the whole time? They"re a capable bunch, as always.
I don"t really feel like sleeping anymore. Just how many hours does this planet"s daytime last. I"ll get up at dawn again tomorrow to confirm.
I plan to observe the lake for most of the day today. I can"t do anything careless anymore. I ate my rations and gulped down some water.
I pressed myself down on my belly on top of the blanket and began monitoring the lake. Since the nanoms can also enhance my vision, zooming in about ten times would be a piece of cake.
I pa.s.sed the time like this until noon, which I estimated from the position of the sun in the sky. Oh yeah, gues it"s about time to retrieve those pet bottles. The moment I thought of this, ‘those" appeared.
The distance was about 300 meters away. At first glance the figures resembled humans. But they were quite short. I zoomed in a bit more. They"re about 120 cm tall huh? Altogether, there were five of them.
But I really can"t think of them as humans. Their complexion was green in color. But it wasn"t pure green. It was a strange, somewhat darkened hue resulting from mixing green and white.
I caught some voices crying out ‘gukyagukya" with my enhanced hearing.
They held blunt wooden sticks on their hands. Are those supposed to be clubs? Some of them held long, spear-like wooden sticks with pointed ends. They also seemed to be wearing really filthy loincloths.
Well, since they"re wielding weapons like clubs and spears and wearing loincloths, they seem to be some sort of intelligent lifeform.
When I zoomed in on them more, I found their mugs to be quite ugly. There was nothing good to point out about their appearance: extremely flattened faces, eyes which slanted upwards and pointed ears.
Perhaps the only intelligent lifeforms on this planet aside from me were these guys. Yeah, that"s actually quite possible. Let"s try to get rid of any initial prejudices.
Nothing would change if I continue hiding in this place. Let"s suck it up and try to say h.e.l.lo.
I won"t be in any danger from the weapons they were wielding. I hid all my other stuff inside a gap in the rocks and prepped my weapons. I brandished my pulse rifle and put the laser gun and electromagnetic bladeknife inside the pockets of my suit.
Those guys seem to be heading towards the lake.
I approached the place while remaining alert. There were times when I lost sight of them, but because they constantly cried out ‘gukyagukya" loudly, I easily tracked them once more.
They weren"t paying attention to their surroundings at all. Are these guys really intelligent lifeforms?
But well, if some random alien were to see human children going wild while messing around, perhaps he would liken the sight to these guys.
When they reached the lakeside, they made even more of a racket.
It might cause them to panic if I suddenly approached them and called out, so I decided to get their attention from some distance away.
“Hey!”
I shouted out in a voice loud enough not to lose to theirs.
The surroundings were instantly wrapped in silence. All five of them turned their attention my way.
I raised both hands to indicate I don"t have any intention to attack. But my rifle remained at the ready over my shoulder.
“h.e.l.lo. Good day to you all.”
I called out to them again. Of course, they couldn"t possibly understand me. I just wanted my meaning to come across using the tone of my voice.
Each of them made eye contact with the rest and started laughing hysterically. Some of them even started drooling. I approached them little by little.
Wait, those are—
Two pet bottles were pierced through by a wooden spear held by one of them. It looks like they found where I hid them and skewered the bottles for fun. After seeing that, I finally lost my patience and snapped.
These guys are definitely not intelligent lifeforms! Rather, they"re actually raring to attack for the sake of making me their meal.
I raised the rifle off my shoulder and took aim. When they saw my actions, they started running crazily towards me. The distance was less than ten meters, but that was enough.
I"ve already gotten a lock on all of them through the virtual target scope displayed by my nanoms. It doesn"t matter how wildly they move about.
I simply turned the rifle towards them and pulled the trigger.
The M151 pulse rifle was directly linked to my nanoms, enabling the remote-type lens attached to its body to automatically tracks enemies and bring them down with concentrated pulse laser bursts.
Firing off consecutive bursts five times didn"t even take 0.5 seconds. Then the rifle finally went silent. The Imperial Army Issue pulse rifle was actually really awesome.
My diminutive a.s.sailants toppled over helplessly.
“s.h.i.t! You f.u.c.ktards sure got full of yourselves huh!?”
I"ve managed to get enlightened about the greatness of pet bottles just yesterday. Humans can"t live without water. Perhaps this lake was the only water source in the immediate vicinity. Without these pet bottles, it was possible that I wouldn"t be able to go too far away from this lake at all.
And these guys ruined these precious pet bottles just for fun!
I ranted and raged for a while, and when I managed to calm down, the nanoms made an abrupt request.
[Please proceed with dissecting them if possible.]
I have a nature of not being able to turn the people counting on me down even though I don"t exactly like the things they want me to do. Well, whatever. Let"s get dissecting.
I don"t particularly hate seeing blood, but I really didn"t want to touch these guys if I could help it. As I didn"t want to touch them, I simply hacked them in two.
I cut them from the base of the head all the way to the crotch with the electromagnetic bladeknife. Gah! It smells! An extremely disgusting smell wafted out. After cutting them down, I used the spears they had on them to turn them over so the nanoms could a.n.a.lyze them.
[There is something below the ribs.]
When I prodded the spot indicated with the wooden spear, a b.l.o.o.d.y ball about 2 centimeters in size rolled out. I wonder what this is? It sported a cloudy white coloration.
The nanoms wanted data about their genetic code, so I picked up the ball with my fingers and hurriedly headed towards the lake to wash my hands and knife.
The pet bottles they stabbed now sported holes right in the middle, so I cut them with my knife and made two makeshift cups from the bottom portions.
These are great! For the current me, who has no access to daily necessities, these things are equivalent to treasures.
Basing on this planet"s...o...b..tal path, it should be roughly the start of midday right now. I really need to procure some food soon.
But will I be able to safely consume and gain nutrients from the things in this planet in the first place?
I managed to glean a lot from the encounter with those guys earlier. They totally didn"t have their guards up at all while living around this place and even made such a loud racket. This may indicate that there was nothing which they perceived as an immediate threat within the area.
But perhaps there really were threats present, but they just failed to detect them. It"s also possible that it simply slipped their not-so-bright minds right…?
All of them could be probable. I"ll have to stay vigilant.