Drained was a good word for how Dae felt waking up on the floor of Henry once again. Her body was in knots.

"Ow," she breathed simply laying there for a moment. The events of the past day rolled over her bringing with it hazy green tinged memories of the strange device. The flashing symbols pulsing like brands in her mind.

"Caloric levels low." Dae nearly screamed at the unfamiliar male voice before she remembered that Karen had changed her voice. "Hydration levels low."

"I know." She mumbled not bothering to move. How was she going to do this? Why did it have to be her? Dae wasn't very adept at surviving even here in her safe shallows. How was she supposed to face down Reapers and the other vicious creatures that were in the way of her getting to Officer Keen. The Sunbeam was coming to rescue them.

She could always just wait here till they got here. Dae immediately shook the thought out of her head. She couldn't just sit pretty while others were in danger. Yet when she tried to push herself up off of the uneven metal floor her body felt heavier than it had in a long time.

She managed to get herself into the water, but the fish were fast. They darted around her. Mocking her with flashes of color and the slight bump of fins against her body.

Eventually she managed to catch a peeper. The small success helped drive her and when she saw a blur of yellow to her right she shot out a hand, surprised at her own speed against the water's resistance. She glanced at the creature in her hands and nearly let go. It was cartoonish at best, with stalk-like eyes and a plump nearly overfilled body. It had lips, very much bigger than she had seen on other creatures here, and its red fins jutted out to the side like little oars currently wiggling frantically trying to escape her tight grip.

Dae bit back a laugh trying not to be too grossed out and swam back to Henry. The buzz of the lazers was the only sound in the little cabin for a minute or two. When she saw the cooked cartoon-like fish she bit her lip contemplating how much she really needed to eat it.

"It is common for those accustomed to synthetic foods to be repulsed by eating an animal carcass. Remember that humans survived this way for millennia. You can too." Karen rattled off helpfully.

"I was going to eat it." She muttered reaching out and touching its slightly slimy texture. Dae simply closed her eyes and took a bite. It was mild tasting at best but, it was rather large and filling despite the lackluster taste and abysmal texture. However, Dae couldn't bring herself to gnaw on the fins or eat those dopey looking eyes, so she instead dropped them out of the hatch, watching as a few smaller fish picked at the remains.

"Karen, I don't know what to do." She sighed before taking a sip of her water bottle. "There could be survivors, but…. I'm just me."

"Transmission origin coordinates are available."

"Ugh, I can't keep calling you Karen if your voice is going to be like that. Any way you can revert back to your original voice print?"

"Negative."

"Well, then you need a new system name."

"System ready."

Dae thought for a moment biting her lip. "It should be an interesting name." She muttered to herself.

"System ready." Dae nodded absentmindedly and frowned to herself. "Names can be pulled from databank if needed."

"Oh," Dae blinked looking up. "You want to name yourself?"

"Drawing appropriate names from databank." It was silent for a moment. "Thane, Xander, John, Edward, Dante, Felix, Mark, Sean, Appsro, Phil, Chris." Dae giggled at the sudden outpouring of names.

"Which do you like?" She asked cheekily.

"Xander." Dae felt herself still slightly. The PDA shouldn't have a preference, or at least she supposed it shouldn't. She had talked to Karen like a real person for a while now and she had never given anything but bland responses.

"Okay," Dae said cautiously, "your new name is Xander."

"System name accepted." Xander's response was the same as before when she had named it Karen, and that eased some strange knot of tension in her chest.

"Right, so…. what we need to do is get to the coordinates. Figure out where Keen is meeting up with other survivors, and then we can all wait for the sunbeam together!" She clapped her hands together trying to force some exuberance back into her voice. The gesture felt empty, who was she performing for? She was alone still.

"I need to find other people." She muttered to herself slipping out of Henry's bottom hatch to slide into the waters below. She watched as her oxygen counter slowly started ticking down. Dae grimly wondered what would kill her first, the lack of oxygen, the deadly creatures, or her going insane.

She grimaced chasing after the alien fish, her body protesting heavily. Dae eventually gather enough supplies for another trip, but something deep within her stomach curdled at the thought of skirting over the ocean again. The thought of the Reaper, it's red maw opening wide. Crushing her ship, and in turn, crushing her. She let herself hang above the beige carpet of sand, interrupted with spurs of color, watching the flourishing life around her.

"I'm scared." She admitted to the uncaring landscape. "I'm really scared."

It offered no response. She sighed tilted her face up toward the surface, watching the light break upon the waves above filtering down to her in dancing streams.

"I can't let this stop me." She tried to give herself a pep talk but the words felt flat. "This is stupid." She growled. "What's the point of any of this? I'm scared and probably going to die alone on this miserable planet where no one will mourn my death. Anyone who would have cared must be dead by now." She let her gaze shift toward the burning wreckage of the Aurora, warped through the water's surface. Still burning. "I can't even remember…. what I was doing aboard that ship. Everything is hazy." She admitted quietly. "I remember Alterra though. They won't mourn me, that's for sure."

Credits were all that mattered to Alterra. And she wasn't making them by swimming around on an ocean planet.

"I could always show them that weird black box." She muttered darkly. "They might care then."

She shook her head focusing herself back on the task at hand. She gathered enough to last her at least a little while away from Henry.

"Warning. Local radiation readings suggest the Aurora's drive core has reached critical state." Dae jerked at the sudden voice, a small gasp breaking from her. "Quantum detonation will occur within 2 hours."

"W-what do you mean?" Dae gasped immediately breaking surface to stare at the wreckage. "Karen...I mean Xander, fuck." She spluttered. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Taking into account the time restraints and our lack of knowledge, no there is nothing we can do." Xander's voice was cool, restrained. Dae felt dread sink it's claws into her stomach.

"What will happen to us?"

"Predictive models show you are out of detonation range. It is recommended to stay close to lifepod 5."

"Right." She breathed, tasting salt. "What am I going to do now?" She asked, feeling the telltale sting of tears. "What if there are still people inside?"

"It is recommended to stay close to-"

"Shut up." She snapped feeling the first tears beginning to fall. "There has to be something I can do. What if someone's alive in there? What if someone's near there?"

"There is no viable option-"

"I said shut up!" Dae nearly screamed, a sob ripping out of her throat a moment later. "You don't get it! You're just a machine!" Anger felt good. "You don't care about lives. You're just data, you don't get it. I'm all alone. What if there's people there? What if they can't get out in time. What if I'm the only one left? You don't care about saving people! They could have been saved if I hadn't…. if I hadn't…." She had ignored Karen's warnings before. Too focused on her own survival to think about the ramifications of a detonation.

"There are likely no survivors." Xander's voice was quieter somehow. Subdued. She was going insane. The thought was a sobering one.

"That's what I'm afraid of."