Subnautica: James' Story
Red, the color was everywhere, on the walls, on the floor, even on the ceiling. It spiraled, around and around, leaving not a single inch of surface uncovered. That was just the beginning, even the red emitted one clear thought, danger. The alarms had been triggered, the computer over the intercom had told everyone that the Aurora was going down. Not in a peaceful descent, no this was an abrupt and deadly descent. The ship fell faster and faster. Everyone on board, was running for their lives. Red coated everything, the screeches and blares of the alarms were barely heard over the hull of the ship tearing and groaning entering the atmosphere of the planet 4546B.
1 hour earlier
James, was one of the many engineers of the ship, he worked on most of the repairs on the ship. He was used more as a janitor then a engineer. Any kind of leakage, or space nauseous crew members, he dealt with. He was sitting at the coffee table telling his co-workers about his long and tedious work that day. It mainly consisted of radiation leaks and getting some of the rats out of the mapping room. He had just finished up on how he caught the rats, when a tall and beautiful lady walked into the room. Her brunette hair was tied neatly into a bun, and she wore the standard white and orange jumpsuit all the crew were assigned.
"Hey, Kate! How's it going today?" James called to her, and beckoned her to sit with him
"You know the same old, map out the planet, try to observe some of the wildlife." Kate replied as she sat down. "A lot harder than it sounds, this whole planet is just water! You can't see 10 meters below the surface, the most interesting thing we saw were some tips of some huge kelp vine."
"Hey, at least you aren't stuck catching rats in the vents, but on the plus side. I get to see quite a bit of the ship." James said.
"Yeah, I wish we could just land on the bloody planet, and start the mission. Even I don't know what it is, and I'm the lead mapper of the operation." Kate whined.
"You said it, I just wish I could do something useful, not just catch dumb rats, and mop up hazardous waste." James complained.
The computer's female intercom voice sprang to life and said "All personal, your lunch breaks are now over. Please, return to your stations."
"Already, I barely got time to eat!" James exclaimed.
"Here eat this, quickly now!" Kate said, as she slipped James a nutrition block.
James quickly ate the block, and started to walk back to post. The Aurora was huge, space ship capable of housing thousands of people, but most of it was used for storage space. The Aurora was the state-of-the-art space ship built specifically for this mission, problem was that no one besides the captain and a hand full of his closest commanders knew the mission. James had finished his "mission" and reported back to his superior, Brock. James expected only one or two people to be lined up to wait for more "missions" as Brock liked to call the tasks. But instead of one or two, there was the entire engineering team. Brock was about to tell everyone something. Bad or good, who knows. James entered the wall of crew, and waited for Brock to begin.
Brock cleared his throat and began to tell everyone,"I know you all are wondering what the big mission is for everyone. This is actually a two part mission. The first part, is something that needs a little background information. I'll start with this, you all know the company we work for is Alterra. You all thought we were the first to be going to this planet, but we are not the first. There was another team, they were the the Degasi team. They crash landed on this planet, after their ship malfunctioned. We do not know if they are still alive, or if some of them are, or what exactly happened. But we do know that we have to save who ever is left on that island." Brock finished remorsefully, as if he expected all of them to be dead, and was paying his respects right now. Brock continued,"Our other mission, is this planet is all water, or as far as we can tell. We have to take some drastic measures for Alterra, if we succeed, then expect Alterra to be the best company." He grinned sharply,"Also, a large pay. Back on track though, the planet must be..."
Brock never finished, because right then the Aurora shook, and the computer voice kicked into action, repeatedly saying, "Failure imminent, all personal abandon ship." The alarms sounded, the lights went out, and red coated everything.
Brock yelled, "James! Check the computer!" James swiveled around, and ran to the wall mounted computer, activating it he checked the Aurora's damage. The screen displayed the Aurora's engines, hull, and controls were all offline.
"The Aurora is going down, nearly all systems are offline!" James screamed to Brock.
"Oh no, this is not good. Everyone follow me to the life pods, and run for it!" Brock ordered everyone.
James sat there for a moment trying to think everything through, then everything came into focus. He realized how far he had lagged behind. James ran for his life, because his life, in fact, depended on it.