Frostborne Dilemmas
Prologue
Even in the "future" as today's age was once called, people have bad luck, and things go wrong. If you were particularly unfortunate, you got both short ends of the stick at the same time. Things like an unexpected gravity well, or a complete engine failure, or both at the same time.
"Boy, isn't life just swell." A voice came in over the radio unexpectedly. The voice was male, sounding a little gruff, if not also absent minded, as if he were thinking aloud.
The voice belonged to one of six people on board the light carrier vessel Unbound Singularity, which was one of the particularly unfortunate ships, and had suffered what some might have called the smoothed unplanned re-entry crash landing in history.
"What's that? Talking to yourself over comms again, Sakamoto?" Another male voice, sounding a lot less gruff and much more playful.
Sakamoto was the ship's engineer, he loved what he did but he was the only person among the crew capable of keeping the ship running in peak condition, so it was understood among the crew that he was grumpy quite often.
"Well, not everyone has the luxurious life of a pilot. Why don't you focus on doing your job in getting the external communications back online from your end, Winston, and less my leaving the comlink thumbed in the 'transmit' position yeah? Does that sound good to you?" Grouchy at being interrupted yet again, Sakamoto made sure his microphone - which he wore over one of his ears - was switched off this time.
"Yeah, I hear ya, Sakamoto, over and out." Winston's response could have been taken sarcastically, he knew very well how grumpy Sakamoto could get, the entire crew did, but Winston was still taken aback.
Sakamoto did know that Winston was only jesting, however, perhaps it was in an attempt to keep spirits high among the crew, who no doubt had been listening in on the small exchange. He made a mental note to apologise later, in their downtime, although without a full crew to cover each watch, downtime had become something of a luxury in itself.
With their slight interaction concluded, both men returned to their tasks of repairing the long range communication system, which had been damaged during the crash. Even though the landing had been relatively smooth by most normal standards, many of the Unbound Singularity's systems had been severely damaged, rendering the ship un-flyable.
"She may be crippled," Sakamoto mumbled to himself again, although this time he double checked to make sure that his headset wasn't transmitting, "but at least the fuel stores didn't rupture."
Sakamoto was right, it had been another stroke of luck for the Unbound Singularity, during the recent series of unfortunate events that had plagued the ship and her crew.
During the crash landing, many cargo crates and canisters had been strewn throughout the various holds they were stored in. Many of those crates and canisters had been used to stored fuel, weapons or ammunition, to be used on the ship or in its defence. Luckily most of those volatile materials had been left intact, or with minimal spills, and had only taken two days to clean up.
The most precious cargo of all, however, and the entire purpose of the ship's voyage, was the MSN-06S Sinanju Stein - a bipedal combat machine that seats a single pilot called a Mobile Suit – had been thrown free of its storage frame, and have been heavily damaged.
The Sinanju Stein had been a highly advanced prototype, although the overall design had been a combination of at least two previous models, mixed from two warring factions. Even though those two factions may no longer be in an all-out war, the need for weapons and combat machines to use them, has never really died out completely. MSN 06S's design had been improve upon to add much greater speed, mobility, weapon accuracy and firing stability, although mostly speculation in its current stage of development, it was also rumoured to have so much of an increase in fuel efficiency and thruster output so that, with the thruster pack equipped, the Sinanju Stein would have triple the maximum speed and acceleration compared to most current combat Mobile Suit models, and at least double the operating time before needing to be refuelled, it also has the ability to equip a pair of external fuel tanks to the thruster pack to allow for additional operating time in space. On the ground the thruster pack is less effective however, and some pilots even prefer to sortie without the added weight if they have no need to engage in aerial combat.
Along with the overall damage to the Unbound Singularity, the Sinanju Stein had been damaged to the point of rendering it unusable, fortunately for the crew however, their combat escort's Mobile Suit was still intact, sustaining only moderate damage.
After restoring the main power generator to the Unbound Singularity, Sakamoto's next task had been repairing the combat escort Mobile Suit, with some assistance, as it was each pilot's job to maintain their machines to the best of their ability. It was a slightly older model Suit, but given sufficient piloting skill a Nemo was still an adequate combat machine. The main point of using the Nemo as their escort however, was that it would draw less attention than one of the newer military models.
The role of the Unbound Singularity was to discretely deliver the MSN-06S Sinanju Stein to the next stage of its development and testing, but the ship had encountered some kind of gravitational anomaly, which had landed them trapped inside the gravitational pull of a nearby planet. It could have been a trap set by pirates, who may be waiting for the supposedly injured crew to die off while they pillage elsewhere. Or the equally likely option, it could have just been some kind of random cosmic anomaly which they had unfortunately stumbled into, while the crew had been resting during the night watch. It was impossible to tell which scenario was the most likely at this stage, as the outcome wouldn't have ended up any different, if at all, and both were highly likely options.
While each of the crew had hoped it was just an unfortunate accident, either outcome would mean that any rescue attempt could be met with a similar outcome, leaving only more crashed ships, and more people in need of a rescue. The crew of the Unbound Singularity would just have to make do, for the time being.
"Just think of it like a long distance voyage, only we're not moving. The living conditions would be the same either way" Doing her best to remain an optimist and positive force for the crew, Hitomi Heart always had a smile on her face, and was constantly trying to keep the crew happy, despite it being a normal part of her job as the ship's doctor, she was just a naturally cheerful person.
Hitomi was kind of right too, the ship may as well have been in space, they couldn't feel movement when there were flying through space anyway. At least this way they could tell if it was day or night without looking at a clock somewhere, there was also the benefit of having real gravity and the ability to step outside the ship without having to put on a space suit, – commonly referred to as a 'normal suit' – thankfully the planet had a safe to breathe atmosphere, which was one of the crew's first concerns before they had the main power generators up and running again.
Even with Winston and Hitomi's efforts, each of the crew was well aware that they could be stuck on this planet for a very long time, which was not a prospect anyone enjoyed thinking about. Although as much as everyone hated the idea of being stuck on an planet that was out of any normal shipping routes, each of the crew was settling in for an extended stay on this planet just in case.
With the possibility that rescue wasn't coming soon, none of the crew were slacking off, diligently going about the necessary task of repairing the Unbound Singularity, while also preparing for a possible pirate attack.
It would be an arduous task. While they would be repairing and reinforcing the Unbound Singularity against possible attack, Sakamoto would also be doing long shifts to try and repair the combat escort Mobile Suit as well, and if he had any time to spare, he would also be repairing the MSN-06S Sinanju Stein. Needless to say, Sakamoto was definitely cranky about his workload.
Sakamoto was often caught complaining over the recent days, saying things like "I am the only person on this damned wreck of a ship who is qualified to fix the bloody thing, just in the hopes of getting off the ground again, let alone space worth!" He wasn't wrong either.
Of cause being a crashed ship, supplies were limited as well, which was a serious concern. Things like medicine, food and water primarily, although water could be recycled, and food could be regrown in the small on-board nursery, but medicine was not infinite, and it was in very limited supply. Once the medicine was gone, there was no restock or resupply coming, nothing until they were either rescued or all dead.
With this being the case, the doctor Hitomi Heart was being lenient in Sakamoto's case. She gave him a few stimulants so he could keep working to finish important tasks, like for the power generator, but she never gave him more than what was absolutely necessary, and kept a close eye on him at all times. She couldn't have him missing too much sleep after all. Hitomi was doing her very best to keep all of the Unbound Singularity's crew in tip-top shape, both mentally and physically, but she was a little overwhelmed and feeling the strain of everyone's stress. After all, at the end of the day, who could counsel the person doing the counselling?
Everyone on board was concerned about the situation, for a few reasons. The first being the possibility of a pirate attack, along with the obvious fact of being in a crashed and crippled ship. They crew was concerned because they only had one combat-trained person with them, who's Mobile Suit had been repaired – much to their relief, – but the pilot himself had been wounded in the crash while trying to help Sakamoto strap down some loose equipment. Though his wounds were not serious enough to keep him from working under wartime, it was enough to warrant an extended stay in the infirmary – often called 'sick bay'. Hitomi had also demanded he come in for check-ups three times daily, especially while he was helping repair his Nemo. The pilot Gene's prognosis wasn't terrible; a slight concussion, some cuts and scrapes, and a bit of bruising along his ribcage from being thrown across the cargo-hold. Things could certainly have been much worse for him if any of the loose equipment he was strapping down had landed on him, he would have been crushed instantly.
Gene would be back to full health again in no time at all, nothing a few more days in the sick bay couldn't fix, he had been assured of this by Hitomi quite thoroughly with a warm smile on her face.
The crew of the Unbound Singularity weren't in the best situation they had ever been in, but everyone was well aware that things could have been much worse, and with little to do besides any of the regular duties that were still relevant since the crash, everyone had settled in for the long stay. When Hitomi had free time, which was often, she tried to make the dining and living areas as comfortable as possible for everyone. She found she had quite a lot of free time, and as Gene had told her shortly after the crash: "You can only do so much doctoring before everyone's in well enough shape."
With such a small crew, even the little repair jobs could take a great deal of time, and Sakamoto was reluctant to ask for help unless he really needed it, as he found he spent more time teaching everyone what to do than he did on fixing the problem. Even if the ship had a full crew of experienced mechanics and unlimited resources, their unplanned planet fall caused enough damage so that even in the best conditions, a repair would still take a lengthy time.