Quick Note: I really love Subnautica and wrote a little bit of this story just for fun. However, if anyone actually wants to read more of this fic just let me know. If there's a demand I will happily supply. I know that when I looked into the tag it was sparse to say the least. But I don't know how many people actually want to read Subnautica fanfic. So, let me know! Either way enjoy!
The sound of water gently lapping against the hull of her escape pod was the first sound the woman heard. She groaned softly eyelids fluttering what she heard in her head was something completely different. Alarms blaring. Red light strobing across the oh so sterile walls of the ship. People screaming. Someone pushing her into a hatch. Her almost automatic movements as she strapped in. A scream when she felt herself detach. A piece of metal bouncing around the pod the horrible clanking arrhythmic against the alarm that was still blaring inside her tiny bubble. The metal flying for her face.
A soft gasp and her eyes flew open as she jerked back against the chair she had strapped herself in what felt like moments prior.
"Scans show that you have regained consciousness. Please affirm." A dull female voice rang out. The silence that followed felt heavy. The woman blinked looking to the empty pod. It was a single.
She took in a deeper breath feeling her head aching with her pulse. Suddenly and without preamble the restraints that had saved her life felt like they were suffocating her. There was no thought as she fumbled with shaking, hardly functioning hands.
"Scans show that you have regained consciousness. Please verbally affirm." The voice sounded again.
"Affirmed." She grunted just before she fell out of the seat the restraints finally giving way. There wasn't much room, but she somehow managed to sprawl out across the entirety of the floor.
"The Aurora suffered orbital hull failure. Cause: unknown. Zero human life signs detected." It played.
"What?" She asked pushing herself up hurriedly. "What do you mean by that?"
"You have suffered minor head trauma. This is considered an optimal outcome. This PDA has now rebooted in emergency mode with one directive: to keep you alive on an alien world. Please refer to the databank for detailed survival advice. Good luck."
"Good luck?" The woman hissed to the voice. "Really? That's what you have to say about this?" It was a quiet in the face of her anger. "You said alien world?"
"Lifepod secondary systems offline." The voice droned. "Unable to scan surrounding environment."
"Damn, what?" The woman sighed holding a hand to her head. She sighed and grabbed onto the ladder pulling herself up to the hatch in the ceiling of the lifepod. "Fine, I'll take a look myself." She grunted as she popped the top open. The pod hissed slightly before letting her into the open air.
The first thing that caught her attention was the huge mass of burning ship that she had previously been aboard. The second was that all she could see till the horizon was clouds and sea.
"Holy hell," she breathed.
The air was fresh carrying the taste of salt. The breeze felt nice, cooling her slightly overheated skin. She wondered briefly how long she had been knocked out, how long the fire had to spread. It was a wonder she hadn't died of some inhalation.
"Cheers for small miracles." She grumbled sliding back into the pod. She kept the door open, letting the air circulate and pull out the smell of smoke and burning cables. "Okay….what do I do first?"
"Primary objectives," The voice rattled off suddenly, "Find a source of food. Find a source of water. Restore lifepod secondary systems."
"Okay…" She glanced around the cabin. "Is there anything online that can help me?"
"The resources available to you in Lifepod 5. PDA: system status active."
"Yeah, knew that."
"Fabricator: system status active." It continued oblivious to the snarky comments she was directing toward it. "Lighting: system status active."
"Stop." She commanded and the voice fell silent. "The fabricator is online?" She wandered to the machine reaching out and letting her fingertips brush against the activation panel. It unfolded with only a few strained sounds before creating a holoscreen in front of her. "Well good. If I can find some materials….that are known…" She mumbled to herself. "…I can maybe make something to repair the pod."
She pulled herself up onto the top of the pod again. If the taste of salt was any indication this sea was much like Earth's seas. Salt based and undrinkable. "Food. Water. Materials." She paused. "What materials do I need to make a repair gun?"
"Repair tool." It almost felt like the PDA was correcting her. "Materials needed: silicone rubber, sulfur, titanium."
"How do I find any of those?" She grumbled looking at the waters below. She could just make out what looked to be colorful reefs and a few shadowy things moving around.
"Recommended equipment for identifying materials: Scanner." The woman sighed already beginning to hate the monotone voice.
She dangled her legs off the side and after a small moment of hesitation she pushed herself off into the water. She felt the slight buzz as the nanothread of her suit wrapped up around her eyes creating a barrier against the saltwater. It happened in an instant so she could immediately see underneath the water.
"Wow," She automatically burst out bubbles following her watery voice. It was all cream colored sand interrupted by spurs of color. A few fish darted around her looking curiously at her. They were all shapes and sizes. A curved one that seemed to have a knack for speed darted out to bump against her side. She jerked back expecting some sort of attack, but it merely bumped against her and floated nearby stunned by the impact. The main part of its body was a deep blue that faded into a much brighter cyan at the tips of its fins. To be honest it looked like a boomerang with yellow decaling….and teeth. She propelled herself slightly away from it, but it didn't seem dangerous. In fact as soon as it gained its senses again it darted away from her moving to join an entire school of them.
There were suddenly two rapid beeps in succession. "Thirty seconds." The voice warned ominously. The tightness in her chest confirmed that she was running out of air. However she felt vaguely unsettled that her suit knew before she did.
It wasn't hard to push her way back to the surface taking a deep breath and trying not to spit at the pervading salty taste. Everyone who applied to settle on the new planet knew that the suit they assigned you was special. She didn't realize just how smart it was.
"PDA, bring up my biological readings." She ordered quietly. Instantly a heads up display overlaid her vision. Scrolling everything from her temperature to the glucose levels of her blood. It was cluttered and disorienting and she shut her eyes immediately. The display didn't go away. It must have accessed the entertainment chip in her eyes.
"Ugh, that's a lot of information."
"User friendly display mode available."
"Oh, do that." The display instantly vanished, replaced by four round bubbles in the lower right of her vision. The largest one displayed at the moment was teal and green colored showing O2 in the greyed out middle with a 45 underneath. Underneath that was a small red bubble, with a bit of the red leached out. In the middle was a heart.
"Oh...right." She spluttered treading water. "Minor head trauma."
Next to the heath bubble was a yellow bubble that was only halfway filled showing an apple. Beside that was a blue bubble with a drop of water that was about the same.
"And that explains the food and water warning earlier."
"Your medical history shows that you do not consume enough nutrients to properly sustain your body. This is a liability in a hostile environment."
"Listen," She said with a flare of anger, "I don't need to be lectured to by a damn PDA of all things." She took a deep breath and pushed herself under the water coming face to face with a large yellow eye. For a moment she almost screamed, but she immediately realized that it was a rather small fish and that its body was dominated by the yellow eye.
That could be a source of food, she thought reaching out and snagging ahold of the fish with a movement quick as lightning. It struggled fiercely but she swallowed her guilt and pushed it into the little bag on her back. Usually people kept personal items in the bag, but she hadn't really felt the need when she had her room. Now she wished that she had if only to have something of her own with her. Comfort would be nice right about now.
She swam about catching more fish, one of them looking like a pair of pink lungs attached to a thin slice of goofy looking fish. She caught some of the boomerang fish too, they were much easier to catch than the creepy eye fish. Her muscles were screaming by the time she pulled herself back to the pod. Too tired to climb up the side she swung open the bottom hatch, shakily depositing herself inside and carefully closing the door. It had started to look like night and she didn't want to know what roamed the sands after dark. Not to mention she didn't have a flashlight.
For a minute she simply lay on the floor, panting and tired.
"Calorie intake recommended." She jerked at the sudden voice. She hadn't really heard from the voice in a while. After she got the hang of how long she could hold her breath it had stopped hounding her.
"Right." She mumbled moving to the fabricator. "This can cook fish, right?." It didn't take long for her to load the machine up with what she had caught. The display lit up with the options she could make, and she froze as she saw a water option. She clicked it and saw a small picture of the lung-like fish. Not lungs then...bladders. Water bladders. There was no name for the species.
"Rename alien species." She ordered.
"System ready."
"Bladderfish." There was a small moment of hesitation and then the name shifted from unknown to bladderfish. She grinned at her new discovery. Maybe Alterra would pay her for her 'field research' later. Along with the other survivors they would be able to afford the best housing. There were no other entries for the other fish she caught yet. Maybe no one had thought of naming them. It had only been a day, might as well pick funny names for them.
She had the fabricator begin extracting water from the bladderfish and was pleased to hear the sound of water being poured into a bottle. She grabbed the bottle and took a sip. Tasted like clean water.
"Alien lifeforms may have unexpected applications. Utilizing alien resources is a proven survival strategy."
"Thanks Karen." She muttered reminded of her over talkative supervisor when she first applied to be a settler for Alterra.
"System name accepted."
She rolled her eyes at the reply and went back to naming the fish she had found. The large one with the eye was now a peeper, and the curved fish was now called a boomerang. Out of the two she decided to cook a peeper first.
"The fabricator cooks small organisms, while disposing of the skeletal structure, bodily fluids and internal organs, thus rendering them safe for human consumption."
"Well at least I don't have to do that myself." She said grabbing the cooked meat and taking a small bite. It tasted...what you expected it to taste like really. Fishy, tough, but warm and filling. She ate the rest of the small fish and quickly keyed in for a boomerang to be cooked. It didn't take long. She hesitated then bit into the fin and was surprised to find that the meat there was plump. It had the smallest bit of a sweet taste to it along with the fishy flavor. On its own it was good, but she was sure that if she cooked it properly in garlic and some butter it would be amazing.
She plowed her way through two more boomerangs and another peeper before she felt okay again. Sipping on her water she climbed back to the top of the pod looking out toward the Aurora, burning in the darkness.
"Karen, are there any survivors on the Aurora?"
"Survivor count unknown. Lifepod secondary systems offline. Repair to activate communications array."
"So they won't know I'm here till I get it repaired, huh?" Light shifted eerily beneath the pod and she shifted to get a better look. It looked like the colorful coral had begun to glow in the darkness. Nervously she tapped against the pod her nails making a staccato beat for a moment before she heaved herself back into the water.
It was glowing. A shifting array of reds, blues, and greens making it much easier to see than she had expected. A school of fish rushed past in the distance, but they were all flashing cyan lights. Boomerangs, she realized after a moment. Swimming out further she realized that most creatures here had some sort of light. The Peeper's eyes glowed a disturbing yellow. Bladderfish shed a soft pink light. There was so many others she wasn't sure where to start trying to catalogue it. In the distance big yellow pods glowed shifting along with tall dark swaying masses. She made a note to explore that once the sun rose, but for now she supposed she could explore the more lit areas.
It wasn't long before she found a few darkened caves, which she refused to go into, but along the outer walls of that cave were little rocky nodes that had slipped by her attention multiple times. Curious she swam over and pushed at one.
The rock easily crumbled and revealed a dark metallic clump. She reached out and picked it up running her fingers along the bumpy surface.
"Titanium: discovered. Titanium is a versatile and essential construction material." Karen rattled off.
"Yes!" She screamed and instantly regretted it as she let out the breath she had been holding.
"Oxygen."
She quickly surfaced realizing she was a decent distance from the pod, further than she had gone chasing the fish. Gasping for breath she stowed the titanium and made her way back to the pod, utterly exhausted. Once inside she sipped on her water knowing that keeping hydrated was essential for all the physical work she was doing.
"I should have worked out more." She sighed into the silence of the pod. The lapping of water was the only answer she got.
"Karen, do you have my music still?"
"This PDA was rebooted in emergency mode. All personal files are stored in the Aurora's memory drives. The files can be recovered by connecting to the Aurora."
"So my objective is still to fix the pod."
"Affirmative."
It took her awhile to get to sleep, but when she did her dreams were tinged with smoke.
