Sol 10

2174 Ti

Alright, home again. Time to give a report.

After a lovely night's sleep on the titanium floor, I got up and moving as soon as the sun came up. Getting most of the way there was fine, but actually getting up to the ship involved going up a hill that was way sandier than I'd expected it. I actually had to stop halfway up, and thankfully one of the engine struts had broken off to make a nice solid surface to sit on. I burned through two oxygen canisters getting there, but thankfully the cargo bay had broken open and I had a nice big entryway.

The ship was a standard Warrick-class freighter. All the crates I've seen so far must have spilled out of the cargo hold when it crashed. There were no outward signs of damage, not even signs of heat damage from entry to the atmosphere. Like I thought, the interior was pitch black, but thankfully the torch worked just fine.

The interior was almost untouched too, which I'm sure is a glowing review of the structural integrity of ships put out by the Farran Yards. In fact other than some dust the interior of the ship was practically brand-new. I guess I should expect that given that there's nothing to cause corrosion or decay here, but I also half expected to find...well, bodies. But there was no one. If this ship had anyone on it, provided it wasn't intentionally ditched after a rescue, they got out and went...somewhere, I guess

Eventually I managed to work my way down to an engineering deck, and that was where I found a log. I didn't bother looking at anything else, I just skipped right out to the last entry to see if there was anything about what had happened. Lemme see if I still have the data file I managed to pull...

Cargo Ship Cirella-IV

Machinery Log No 436

This morning, as we were in our 17th day of space travel to Stigmar, the ship inexplicably exited hyperspace velocity. The navigation tools went crazy and all of the ship's power went down, as if it was drained by something exterior...

We are going to try to make an emergency landing on this unreported planet. I'm not sure what we'll find there, there seems to be a huge storm on the surface.

I hope we'll make it...

That was it, and nothing else after that. Presumably they didn't make it. It was dated to the 18th of October 3021, so this wreck has been here for about 37 years. In all that time, no one bothered to show up or salvage it. I don't know if it's because no one knew the ship crashed, or if this planet is just that remote, or potentially even if someone did try to salvage this wreck and met the same fate. The galaxy is crawling with salvage runners, so in all that time someone must have known about this if they launched distress beacons.

Speaking of salvage, I found plenty of good stuff there. Whatever wasn't destroyed in the near-vacuum of the atmosphere was very well-preserved. Some raw ores, more packages of food, some seeds I still can't do anything with, but most importantly, iridium. Finally I can get to work on some heaters. There was even some stuff I couldn't take back right away, so I'll have to make another trip soon.

The most interesting thing I found was an intact blueprint microchip. When I brought it back to the base and decoded it, there was a schematic for a set of agility boots, which if I can slap some together I'll be able to move around faster without expending as much energy. Right now I have enough food for at least 80 Sols, and there were more food bags I didn't pick up today. For the short term at least, my food situation has improved. In celebration, I'm having a full ration for tonight's meal.

As a side note, I'm looking at this schematic again, and I'm seeing that it says I need fabric and aluminum to make them. And now, I'm kicking myself over it. There was aluminum and fabric at the ship, but I didn't think it was necessary to grab them while I was there. I'm running out of storage space, and I don't have the space for another storage chest in here as it is. So I'm going to have to spend time tomorrow putting together another living space. They're supposed to interlock, so that'll be good.

Sol 11

2589 Ti

I haven't had any chance to build a second unit today because I just realized something horrible. I'm supposed to be here until Steve resembles Earth, and that involves making large, stable bodies of water on the surface. I got up on the roof of the base today, and when I looked around at the valley I'm in it hit me. This place is going to flood. Not for another...well, at this rate probably not for a while, but everything is about planning ahead. So I've had to try and plan to move my entire base up out of the valley. Exactly how far, I don't know, but right now the higher the better.

I can hear you saying now, "But Asher, it's not going to be a problem for a good long while! Why bother wasting time and energy moving now?" To that I would say two things, the first being "Shut the fuck up, you're not the one on planet Steve right now and I'm the guy with the geoengineering degree." The second would be "Because, hypothetical viewer, I'm already going to need a second unit for this base. Think of how many units I'll have by the time I need to relocate, and how much is going to be in those units. The sooner I move now, the easier it'll be."

So yes, I'm relocating now. Or at least, tomorrow. Today was spent entirely around planning how to manage the move, and the easiest way is going to be building a brand-new unit up the hill and then relocating everything from Alpha (the unit I'm currently in) to Beta (the unit I need to move to), and then deconstructing Alpha to move up and link with Beta.

I have the resources I need, and the deconstruction chip that I of course had to make for myself because when they handed me this thing it was a glorified paperweight until I actually did something with it. I'm honestly surprised it could scan materials into storage at all. Once I get everything moved up the hill, then I'll head out for the Cirella-IV when I have a chance to. In the interim I may as well set up some more vegetubes. Plus, I can set some solar panels in place once I get Beta going. Hopefully by the end of it I'll have myself a nice double-wide house I can set up shop in, and after that who knows?