I was out for justice. Not blood. Not revenge. Justice. It's what the poor souls aboard the Aurora deserved foor being lied to and manipulated into a literal suicide run. The Alterra Science Company new that we'd probably crash and die on the planet Subnautica, but they didn't count on my will to live. My ingenuity. My determination. I vowed to survive against all odds and return to civilization with proof of Alterra's treachery. They had already sent people to this planet before, in 2099, and it was now 2107, and they still were sending people there, trying to gather data on the mysterious energy blast that brought down every ship that ventured into the planet's exosphere. And they didn't care how many people got hurt. Or perhaps they wanted to observe and see how well humans could adapt to living on an ocean planet. That would explain why my life pod was the only one that was recorded successfully launching. Did I get "lucky"? Did I survive because I picked the one life pod that wasn't rigged to fail? It was time for some goddamn answers, and I was going to go straight to the source: the Aurora itself. I had a feeling that the ship's black box was intact somewhere, and I was going to find it no matter what the risk.
Determined, I hopped into the USS Explorer, my trusty Seamoth, and headed towards the aft section of the Aurora, noticing that part of it had collapsed into a ramp-like pile of debris. As I approached it, I heard the unearthly roars of the "Reaper Leviathan", the large creature I had almost gotten eaten by a while back. I thought I could steer clear of it, but it seemed to be guarding the aft section quite carefully. Karen, my onboard AI companion, had a suggestion. "Perhaps the it's attracted to the odd energy signature emanating from the Aurora's drive core. That would explain its odd head crest's function. Perhaps it senses energy signatures." I obviously wasn't going to make it past him with the Seamoth. I was going to need a bigger boat. I had already scanned the required fragments for both the Cyclops engine and bridge. Now was the easy fragment: the hull. I casually patrolled around the Grassy Plateaus, watching for Cyclops hull fragments, a task that took all of a bout 10 minutes. The Cyclops blueprint was complete! Now all I needed to do was gather the required resources. This was quite a monumental task, all the materials required being 50 titanium chunks, 5 lithium chunks, 2 silver chunks, 1 quartz crystal, 2 table coral chunks, 2 gold, 4 Creepvine seed clusters, 5 Stalker teeth, and an additional 15 quartz crystals. Yeah. No easy task. I had 3 panes of glass and a spare quartz crystal already, and I had enough lithium and titanium to make 3 plasteel ingots, but I still needed 20 more titanium chunks. I set out to the shallows, collected 6 quartz crystals, 5 metal salvage scraps, and broke off some table coral. That took care of the plasteel ingots and enameled glass I needed.
After returning to base and depositing the materials in a locker, I simply swam outside and grabbed 4 Creepvine seed clusters, fabricating them into 2 bottles of lubricant. The oil secreted by the seed pods made for effective lubricant. I had plenty of gold and silver, now all I had to do was combine it all. I made a computer chip, using it to make an advanced wiring kit, fabricated 5 enameled glass, 5 plasteel ingots, and reported to the Mobile Vehicle Bay. I brought up the menu and selected the Cyclops under the Submarine category, and a huge, 180-foot long hologram appeared in front of me, an outline of the Cyclops, and the 4 constructor bots got to work filling it in with all the required materials. It took a lot longer to build than the Seamoth, and during the construction, I thought of what I'd name it. Then it hit me: the USS Mayflower, after the first ship to arrive in America. The first submarine to traverse the oceans of Subnautica would be named after the first vessel to arrive in the New World. How fitting. Now it was time for its maiden voyage.
As I entered the airlock hatch on the Mayflower, I entered into the lower deck area, which had built-in lockers and a ladder up to the bridge. I moved toward the back of the sub, looked up, and saw what seemed to be a Seamoth docking area, and the floor beneath me had a seal down the middle, as if it opened up to allow entry to a docking Seamoth. I moved to the very back of the Mayflower and climbed up into the engine room, which had six brand-new power cells hooked up to it, 3 on each side, which powered the main drive shaft. I worked my way to the middle of the upper deck, noticing a Cyclops upgrade station next to the power cells on the port side of the engine, with 4 empty slots for upgrade modules.
The middle of the ship had a hatch for entry into whatever was docked in the hangar, confirming my suspicions of being able to dock the Explorer inside the USS USS Mayflower had some room for furnishings in the middle of the upper deck, and the vestibule between the bridge and middle section was perfect for lockers to be added. The bridge of the ship was by far the most impressive, boasting large, high-definition displays for all the submarine's system data and readouts, and customization consoles for naming the ship. I went over and typed in "USS Mayflower", and was perplexed when it came to choosing colors. I decided to go the a different color scheme than the Explorer's, and made it a dark shade of blue, with red secondary colors and white as the tertiary color. It was one hell of a patriotic vehicle, and it fit the Mayflower's name perfectly.
What better to color a vessel named after the first ship to come to America than red, white, and blue? It also fit my French heritage, and resonated with many other countries back on Earth, including Russia, the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, Korea, Norway, and more. The USS Explorer was the same color as the Swedish flag and a few other countries' flags as well, but it was mostly my hometown that led me to make it navy blue and yellow, the hometown colors of Spencerport, New York. I was one patriotic explorer, and I was determined to make the best of being stranded on this god forsaken planet, claiming new territories for my country on an unexplored world. But first, I wanted some answers.