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RimWorld Legends

Crash Landing: Crypto & Wattson

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Tae Joon Park, now better known as Crypto, was a shivering mess of limbs when he stumbled out of the hissing cryo pod and into the slightly larger space of the chamber beyond. Barely able to stay upright, he nearly toppled over as he scrabbled for the sides of the chamber for support.

Blinking away the last of the haziness in his vision, he cast his eyes about.

"Jenjang… what the hell happened?" he grumbled, out of breath.

He recognized the chamber as the interior of an escape pod well enough. Logically, that meant something catastrophic had occurred to the ship that was supposed to transport them to the site of the next Apex Games. An undisclosed location that was supposed to have been set up only recently.

Was it an accident that caused the ship to activate escape pods? Or sabotage? The latter possibility troubled him. The Syndicate had yet to give up on actually trying to find him, and confident as he was in his abilities and his thoroughness with which he had covered his tracks, he knew that there was always a chance to be discovered. That there might have been something he missed.

When he felt well enough to move around, he accessed the storage compartment beneath the cryo pod and retrieved two of the most important pieces of equipment he possessed. His handheld collapsible computer with holo screen, which he had put together himself, and Hack, his flying drone that he had also designed and built himself. Thankfully, they both appeared to be in working order.

Also in the compartment was an emergency survival pack, with food and water that should last him for a little while.

Deeper in the compartment was a black Hammond P2020, a semi-automatic single-action small caliber pistol. Small and light, it was easy enough to carry and use. Not a lot of stopping power, especially against armored targets, but it was definitely better than nothing. Next to it sat three large magazines for his pistol, each one holding 18 bullets. Two magazines were loaded with regular ammunition while the third one held Hammerpoint rounds.

He regretted not bringing something with a bit more firepower, but the Hammerpoint rounds should at least do well against any unarmored targets. Now that he was officially in the system, he had not expected to need a weapon before the Games began, though he was of course not stupid enough to not have a weapon on him. The Syndicate was still out looking for him, after all, and he could never be too careful. He just thought the P2020 would be less suspicious to keep around.

Securing the pistol to a shoulder holster beneath his jet-black jacket, he activated his handheld computer, his face suddenly awash in the glow from the holoscreen as it came to life between his hands. After a few taps and flicks, he was able to wirelessly hack into the escape pod's barebones computer system.

"Interesting," he mumbled as his eyes scanned the information that he was able to retrieve.

Apparently, the transport ship had encountered a space anomaly and was subsequently damaged beyond repair, forcing all its passengers to be jettisoned via the escape pods like the one he currently found himself in. It was not an act of sabotage after all. He breathed a sigh of relief. The Syndicate had not found him out yet, as he had initially feared.

Although the question now was: where was he?

The navigational data he was able to recover seemed to be corrupted, since it made no sense and supposedly matched no known charts in the database. At the very least, he figured that he was on a planet or perhaps even a moon, given the presence of gravity. As a bonus, according to the limited data from the pod's external sensors, there was also a stable atmosphere with breathable air outside.

How incredibly fortunate. It would have been very problematic if he had crash-landed onto an inhospitable planet or been stuck in space. He tried to connect to the Extranet but found that there was no signal. Not surprised, though still a little disappointed, he collapsed his computer and pocketed it.

He was about to go open the hatch when he heard the unmistakable thudding of boots on the exterior of the escape pod. There was someone else out there. But were they friend or foe?

Tensing, he quickly pressed as far back from the hatch as he could and drew his pistol, flicking off the safety as he held it by his waist. His breathing was steady as he focused his attention solely on the metal hatch.

The noise outside ceased for a moment. Then there was a tapping sound not unlike the rapping of knuckles on metal that echoed through the chamber. Whoever it was out there, they were knocking.

"Hello? Is anyone alive in there?" called an accented and unmistakably feminine voice from the other side. He thought it sounded familiar.

Before he could respond, the hatch abruptly slid open with a hiss, revealing a peculiarly dressed young woman with blonde hair and crystal blue eyes peering into the compartment.

"Oh! You have a gun!" she exclaimed with eyes widening at the sight of him sighting his pistol at her. One of her hands had come up to cover her mouth, while the other was resting on the outside frame of the hatch. She did not seem the slightest bit scared despite the situation, strangely enough.

Crypto exhaled, relaxing a little. She did not look like much of a threat, and did not appear to be armed, so he lowered his pistol. However, he did not holster it yet in case she tried anything. He preferred to avoid fighting since he was pretty much trapped in here without any cover if she tried anything, but if that happened, he would not go down without a fight.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am Natalie Paquette," answered the woman easily enough in an adorable French accent, "But for the Apex Games, they call me Wattson. You are a competitor too, no?"

"Yeah," he replied coolly. "Crypto."

"Crypto? Very cool." She smiled.

He snorted, looking away momentarily. "Anyone else out there with you?"

She shook her head. "No. It is only me and Nikola."

So, there was someone else then. Why did she say no? "Nikola? Is he a competitor too?" he asked. The name did not sound familiar.

Her giggle echoed in the chamber like the chiming of bells. "No, silly! Nikola is my cat."

Crypto blinked, unsure of he had heard her correctly. "You brought a cat?"

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"C'est magnifique!" Wattson cooed, clapping her hands together as she watched Crypto's drone whizzing overhead.

She sat atop Crypto's escape pod, feet dangling over the edge. In her lap lay the still sleeping form of Nikola, her fluffy snow-white cat. Thawing from cryo-sleep had been hard on the feline, apparently.

He still could not believe that she had brought a cat along with her.

"And you have named the little robot droid… Hack?" she asked curiously.

He grunted affirmatively.

"Ah! Super!"

Crouching in the dirt next to the pod, Crypto did his best to ignore her ooh-ing and aah-ing as the holo-projectors around his left eye came to life, materializing a holographic heads-up display a few inches in front of his face. With it, he was able to see all sorts of information transmitted by his drone while also being able to look through the drone's high-tech camera.

In his hands he held his computer, which was currently acting like a controller for his drone as he manually took it over.

The reliable range of the drone was limited to approximately 250 meters, or about 820 feet, and though he could technically go as far as 400 meters, or about a quarter mile, the drone's communication hardware was not good enough to transmit data cleanly and promptly at that distance. He had designed it more for close and mid-range surveillance and support, with its special on-board EMP system and its flight system taking up the vast bulk of the extremely limited space available.

It would have to do.

Once he had gotten used to seeing through the drone's camera, and gotten a feel for its movement, which even after all this time using it still took a few seconds, he began to scout their surroundings.

Their pods had crash landed in what looked to be a boreal forest that sprawled for dozens of miles around, with towering evergreen trees massing together like some wooden army assembled for a great battle.

The two survivors were currently in the middle of the crater formed by his escape pod crash landing into the earth, a gaping pockmark in the otherwise untouched forest. Immediately around the crater, the ground was mostly flat, but there were hills rising up from the forest floor a few miles to the north and west. Further west the hills turned into mountains, with some of them wreathed in white snow and cloaked in swirling white clouds.

To the south, the forest stretched for some distance before giving way to a wide plain of grass, bushes, and dirt. He could see a herd of some unknown animal moving across it en masse.

Looking east, he could see another pillar of smoke and steam, similar to the one that drifted up above them currently. Some of the broken and shattered trees nearby were still burning, and the air smelled of fresh earth and burnt wood.

From what he could see, there were no signs of civilization anywhere nearby. No ships or other vehicles to be seen and, perhaps more importantly, no signals of any kind in the airwaves, which meant one of two things: either the planet was uninhabited, or they were far enough from any locals that the drone was unable to pick any signals up.

Switching to thermal sensors, he noted that there were no living creatures nearby. Apparently, none of them had stuck around when two flaming pods descended from the heavens in what he presumed was a mighty crash.

He kept searching for anything else of note, but there did not seem to be much more to see.

So engrossed was he in his scouting that he failed to realize that Wattson had suddenly appeared in front of him, her knees pressing against the dirt as she peered at him curiously. Or perhaps she was looking at the holo-screen, it was impossible to know for sure.

He blinked, frozen in place for a moment with his eyes refocusing to look beyond the holo-screen over his face and straight into the far-too close face of the girl he had just met. Her sharp blue eyes were alight with what seemed like wonder as she stared at him, and he was close enough to make out the faint tendrils of faded scars that branched like a tree across her left cheek.

"Salut!" she said cheerily, smiling and tilting her head slightly.

Stumbling back with a jolt as if struck by lightning, Crypto landed on his butt and immediately narrowed his eyes at her.

"Wh-What are you doing?" he stammered, his normally cool demeanor shaken for a moment.

Wattson leaned back and sat on her heels, arms cradling Nikola as the kitty purred and shifted around a little. She did not seem to mind that she was kneeling in the dirt, but then Crypto realized that she was wearing knee pads.

"Don't look so shocked!" she giggled as if she had said something funny, "You were so focused I just had to take a look at what you were doing." She absently began stroking Nikola with one hand, eliciting some more purring from the feline.

Crypto opened his mouth to tell her off, but then thought better of it as he saw how innocently she was looking at him. Somehow the thought of upsetting her didn't sit well with him. "Did you have to look so close?" he muttered, feeling the need to at least say something.

"How else was I supposed to see the holo-screen clearly?"

"So that's what you were looking at?"

She tilted her head again, looking puzzled. "What did you think I was looking at?"

"Nothing," he answered a little too quickly. "Nevermind. Just… forget about it."

She eyed him then shrugged, glancing at Nikola as she continued to gently stroke his fur. Some of the strands began to stand up from a slight buildup of static. The cat didn't seem to mind.

Heartrate elevated, breathing erratic, and a warmth spreading across his cheeks, Crypto frowned and looked away. He needed to get a hold of himself. Shaking his head, he called back his drone and collapsed his computer, putting it away.

He remembered her now. Seeing her face up close had jolted his memory. He had read her personnel file in the Apex Games database when he had hacked into it some time ago, before he inserted himself among them.

Natalie Paquette, daughter of the chief engineer of the Games, Luc Paquette. She was some kind of engineering prodigy who had grown up at the heart of the Apex Games thanks to her father. If Crypto was remembering correctly, she was actually the one responsible for creating the Modified Containment Ring they used in all of the matches. A feat as impressive as it was terrifying.

Hard to believe that such a seemingly innocent girl could hold such a brilliant mind. Her background did explain why she was unafraid of him earlier when he had aimed his pistol at her. She was probably used to seeing death and destruction on a daily basis.

Looking at her with renewed interest and some newfound respect, he got to his feet and wiped away some of the dirt from his pants.

"Come on. I think we should head west and get to higher ground," he said.

"Why? What did you see?" she asked, again with that almost childlike curiosity.

Trying to ignore how endearing she was acting, he briefly told her about the surrounding area, and then reiterated that they should get moving since it would be better to find some shelter before sunset. This being an unknown planet, they had no idea how long daylight would last, and they therefore had to take advantage of as much of it as they could.

"Mmm… Okay, your plan makes sense I think," she agreed after a few seconds of thought, "And we must be sure to find someplace where we can draw fresh water too. Our supplies will only last so long, and Nikola can get super grumpy if not fed enough or given enough water."

Crypto gave her a nod and then eyed the cat, who yawned, baring his small fangs and extending his tongue into the air a bit. Even the cat seemed surprisingly calm given the circumstances, likely because its owner was exceedingly calm.

"I'll lead the way," he said.

She beamed at him and shot to her feet. "Allons-y!"

With a snort, Crypto shouldered his pack and watched as she went over to grab hers from the other side of the pod, where she had taken it off earlier before climbing up onto it. There was a giant contraption of some sort attached to the pack, with a bulky cylinder up top that had thick electric coils on either end.

He tried to remember what it was and what it did, but his mind was still not quite recovered from the cryosleep and was currently being uncooperative. He knew that he had seen the specs for it before, but he could not recall it exactly. It had something to do with electricity. Frowning, he decided to leave it for later, as he felt the beginnings of a headache coming on from the effort.

The thrumming sound of his drone filled the silence, growing louder as it neared. Almost unconsciously, after having done it countless times, he extended his hand up and Hack flew into his waiting palm with a light but satisfying smack. The drone immediately folded up and powered down as he reached behind him and holstered it in one smooth motion.

Wattson gasped. "Super cool," she said excitedly. "How long can it go on one charge? Does it charge in the holster? Or is it perhaps self-charging while in-flight?"

Crypto sighed. "It charges itself."

"I'm sorry. I always get ec-static about technology and gadgets," she said, giggling again.

Shaking his head, he spoke in a flat voice. "Let's go." He headed west and began walking up to the edge of the crater, expecting her to follow.

She did, her footsteps quick as she caught up to him. "Crypto?"

He didn't answer right away as they reached the edge of the crater and stepped up onto the forest floor.

"Yeah?" he finally said as they cleared the crater and plunged into the forest.

"Do you think," she paused for only a moment, "Do you think I can play around with Hack sometime? Please?" she asked hopefully.

"No." He briefly gave her an odd look.

She looked down at her feet, dejected. "Oh. Okay."

He tried to ignore the disappointment in her voice as he stepped over a six-foot-long piece of fallen pine, a casualty of his sudden and destructive arrival here. His drone was not a toy for her to play with. Surely, she understood that, but if she did not, well… tough luck.

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The low rumbling noise coming from above had Crypto immediately running for cover, with Wattson only a second behind him. He reached behind him and activated Hack, pulling the drone out of its holster and throwing it high into the air, where it swiftly unfolded and did a quick automated sweep of the immediate vicinity. It beeped an all-clear, indicating no hostile activity detected.

At the same time, his other hand had already reached into his jacket pocket to pull out his computer and the drone's HUD appeared on the holo-screen that flickered to life in front of his face.

"What is it?" Wattson asked, hugging Nikola close to her chest as they both leaned into the bottom of a particularly large tree. The cat meowed, sensing the tension in them both.

"Not sure." He concentrated on flying Hack above the treeline, zooming around the leaves and branches on the way up into the sky for a better view.

Angling the drone to look straight up into the sky, Crypto saw them. Several dark streaks were cutting across the sky and between the clouds. If he had to guess, these were other pods from the ship only now entering the atmosphere. Why the delay?

"What's making that noise? What do you see, Crypto?" whispered Natalie, who was now leaning over his shoulder.

He could feel her warm breath tickling his cheek, and her body pressing lightly into his back.

"Don't get so close!" he whispered harshly, and she recoiled as if struck.

Nikola hissed unhappily. Whether it was at being jostled or from his tone of voice, it was hard to say.

"Pardon! Sorry," Wattson said, apologetic. She half-turned away and kept a respectable distance.

He spared a quick glare at her, his heart racing, as he refocused on the video feed from the drone. He needed to concentrate.

"Sorry," Wattson whispered again. Then she proceeded to calm down her cat as quietly as she could, which was still noisy enough to be distracting given their close proximity, but Crypto did his best to ignore them.

The pods appeared to all be landing west and southwest of their current position. At least they were already going in the right direction.

"There are other pods streaking through the sky," he finally said, feeling a little guilty at how he had snapped at her earlier. Though she should have known better than to invade his personal space like that, especially after he had already told her earlier not to do that.

Wattson glanced at him. "Do you think they're—"

"Part of our ship? Yeah. Most likely."

"How many pods do you see?" She looked up, as if she could see the sky past the trees.

"Seven."

"Maybe it's the other competitors?" she speculated, but before he could reply she continued, "No, no. That cannot be. Of course not. The ship would not have waited so long to launch the other escape pods. It's more likely that we were all launched together, which means—"

"Which means the other competitors are probably already on the ground, like us," he finished the thought. That was exactly what he was thinking too. As far as he knew, there were twelve competitors on board the ship, so in terms of numbers alone it didn't add up.

But if the pods up there were not the other competitors, then who or what was in them? And where were the other competitors?

"Let's keep moving," he said, getting back to his feet and pocketing his computer as his holo-screen disappeared. "All the pods were landing either to the west or southwest of our current position. We're bound to come across them if we keep going that way, and we can find out for ourselves."

Judging from the angle and direction that they were falling, the landing sites for those pods were far enough away that he doubted they would be able to get to them before nightfall. At best, they might come across one of the pods tomorrow.

Right now, what was most important was to secure a place to hunker down for the night. There was no point in traveling at night through a new landscape on an unknown planet, especially with the other competitors out there somewhere. Some of them might not be too friendly.

He glanced at Wattson, who was looking intently at him.

"I'm right behind you," she said firmly.

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The air was dry and cool beneath the forest of evergreens, with the occasional breeze blowing between the tree trunks, rustling leaves, and swaying branches. The sounds of insects began to fill the air, growing louder the farther they got from the crash site.

Crypto, wary of encountering the other competitors, decided for the time being to keep Hack out and following them, keeping a lookout from high up in the air as it weaved in and out between the trees.

Wattson did not appear to have any guns on her, but that did not mean the others were the same. A few of them surely brought weapons along for the journey, and now that they were stranded here, who knew what they would decide to do?

He spied the girl and her cat from the corner of his eye. Now that he thought about it, he never really confirmed whether or not she had a weapon on her. Though his gut instinct told him that she meant him no harm, at least for now, he figured it would be better if he found out for sure.

"Did you build it yourself?" Wattson asked, interrupting his thoughts as they continued to walk.

"What?"

"Hack," she clarified, "Did you build the drone yourself?"

"Yeah."

"I thought so! The design is quite unique, though I see some similarities with the drone cameras that were always buzzing around during the Games." Wattson eyed the drone that flitted between branches over their heads.

He said nothing. The reason for the similarities was because he had designed those very same drone cameras that she spoke of. They were all derivatives of Hack, designed and built in a time when he was not Crypto. In a time when he was still only Tae Joon Park. He sighed. That felt like a lifetime ago.

The drone cameras were far less sophisticated than Hack, naturally, since those other drones only served one purpose: to stream and record everything happening in the Games. He remembered working on them with Mila… he frowned, shaking his head and taking a deep breath of the crisp afternoon air. He didn't want to think of her here. Not now.

"I'm an engineer too, you know," said Wattson with a hint of pride. He could tell that she was bursting to talk, to fill the silences that seemed to cling and wrap around Crypto like a cape. "I've always liked solving puzzles and learning new things, but most of all I love designing things. And then building them, of course! It really is electrifying to see your creations come to life, no?"

He grunted. One of the few times he bothered with some form of a response.

She smiled, eyes alight with excitement. "To learn the secrets and uncover the circuits that run the universe and then apply all that knowledge to add something new to that same universe, something that had not existed before… it is a feeling like no other. It almost feels like you can do anything, anything at all. Such things get me positively excited!" With Nikola now resting in the pouch formed by the hood of her jacket, leaving her hands free, Wattson clapped her hands together energetically.

Crypto kept silent as she continued to talk, for once not minding the lack of silence. Perhaps it was because he wanted to distract himself from his normal brooding over darker thoughts, or perhaps it was because he was reminded of his old self, the one that used to have that same sense of innocent wonder and exuberance about the universe. Maybe it was even a little bit of both.

They reached the foothills to the west a few hours later, the rocky dirt mounds covered in trees and brush as the forest engulfed them completely. The ground sloped upward gradually, and they followed a more-or-less straight line to the top of the first hill, with Crypto's drone continuing its vigilant watch above them.

Hack detected the first signs of animal life moving about the forest once they were halfway up the hill. Apparently, this was far enough away from the undoubtedly serious disturbance the arrival of the pods caused to the forest denizens.

They were small critters, rabbits and squirrels scurrying about the forest floor or scampering up trees. Birds also flitted through the air, some chirping and others squawking. Surprisingly, they very much resembled the animals that they had seen before on other worlds.

The trees too looked mighty familiar, as if someone from the colonized worlds had come here and seeded the planet a long time ago. It was to be expected that unknown habitable planets such as this one would have their own distinct flora and fauna, and yet here was evidence to the contrary.

Granted, there were instances of planets with similar atmospheres having similar lifeforms across the universe. Plus, they had only seen a tiny fraction of this world. Perhaps there were other parts of the planet that were home to more unique species of plants and animals.

Despite that, Crypto's instincts told him that there was a high likelihood that there were locals inhabiting this planet. But the only way to know for sure was to gather more data. Until then, it was a waste of time to speculate any more than he already had, so he pushed such thoughts aside and concentrated on the task at hand.

True to form, Wattson was enthusiastic about the small animals, remarking that she found them all adorable. Much the same way as she had upon first seeing Hack, she ooh'd and ahh'd and chattered excitedly about them and the birds for a little while. She became focused on searching them out amidst the foliage, pointing to them whenever she found one.

Eventually though, even Wattson fell silent. Crypto supposed it was difficult to continue a mostly one-sided conversation, but he had nothing to say and was usually not exactly in a talkative mood to begin with. And he was definitely not the type of person to say something simply for the sake of filling silence.

Their trek through the forest-covered hills continued with nothing but the rustle of leaves, the sound of insects, and the occasional bird call to listen to.

With the sun beginning to near the horizon and the hills growing larger, the shadows beneath the forest canopy grew longer and darker as they journeyed on. Cresting the next hill, they sighted the mountains in the distance, still a ways off but looming closer now than they had been when they first started off.

Crypto slowed and turned Wattson. "Let's take a rest here. I'll scout around using Hack. Try and find us a place to hole up for the night."

"Okay," said Wattson. She sounded a bit tired, and even Crypto had to admit that he too was starting to feel fatigue creep into his legs.

He was impressed that she had not complained at all about their lack of rest thus far, but then again, she was a competitor in the Apex Games. The Games were no place for the weak.

Plopping down next to a wide tree trunk, he shrugged off his backpack and then leaned his back against the tree, spreading his legs out over the dirt to give them some rest. Seconds later and he was back to controlling his drone manually.

He did not know how long he was operating his drone for, it certainly did not feel that long, when he was abruptly shaken out of his concentration by Wattson. She was gripping his arm firmly when he returned to himself, a bit disconcerted. Turning off the holoscreen, he faced her with a most irritated expression.

He was about to berate her when she placed a finger to her lips and shook her head, eyeing him with a stern expression that instantly silenced the words that had been ready to go in the back of his throat. He noticed then that she was incredibly tense and alert, breathing slowly and quietly, and in one hand she held a two-stack of the circular contraptions that she had several of attached to the outside of her thighs.

Instinctively, his hand reached for the handle of his pistol as he focused his senses for the source of her concern. Was it one of the other competitors? Or was it the native people of this world? And then he heard it.

The loud growl of an animal close by. A very large animal, from the sound of it.

Crypto and Wattson shared a look, and then Crypto raised a finger up to his own lips to mimic what she had done earlier. He was trying to convey that they should remain quiet until the animal passed. Not every battle has to be fought. She stared at him for a few seconds before giving him a nod of understanding.

There was movement at the edge of his vision. Something large and covered in brown fur lumbered through the trees. It resembled something like a grizzly bear, but even larger than they should be, which was saying something.

Yes, he definitely did not want to deal with a giant bear if he didn't have to. He would rather save what little ammunition he had for later.

It appeared not to have noticed them, or perhaps it did but did not care, and was moving east. It snorted and growled as it continued. But just when they thought they would get out of it peacefully, Nikola decided to wake up. Maybe the cat heard the growling, or maybe it was something else that tipped it off to the passing predator, but the cat began to hiss and rustle around in Wattson's hood.

Wattson grimaced as Crypto stared at them in disbelief. She tried to quiet the kitty by making shushing sounds and reaching into her hood to try and pet it, but it was too late. The bear-like creature had stopped in its tracks and was now staring right at them.

Crypto cursed quietly in Korean.

Nikola, still hissing and clearly agitated, leaped from Wattson's hood to the top of her head, claws finding purchase on her thick synthetic cap. A look of surprise flashed across her face before the young woman made to grab him with her free hand, but the kitty jumped off a second before she could reach him. He landed on the forest floor and hissed again in the direction of the nearby bear.

"Nikola!" whispered Wattson fiercely.

The bear turned its massive body towards them and roared.

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AN: The legends are all pretty far away from each other at this point, but eventually they will meet up and interact. As for attire: Wattson is in her base skin (I don't find any of the non-themed/non-robot ones appealing and I don't want to make her a robot) while Crypto is in his "The Hired Gun" skin.