If you're wondering, I was waiting for the new update.


Sol 49

40593 Ti

I'm not dead. I almost was, though.

The first thing I heard when I put my suit on was an integrity warning. Chalk it up to Sentinel's shitty design again, that it took me shutting down its systems and turning it back on again to get it to work. Eleven hundred years of computer science and we're still on that. Great. Top notch. I could have had my suit breach and not even known until I was suddenly unable to breathe.

So I did my best to try and walk out towards the wreck however I thought would do the least damage to my suit, which ended up being like those ancient film files when cowboys walk like they've chapped their thighs to hell and back. I had to keep up the pace, though. The leak was getting worse, and it had effectively reduced my total time out and about with my suit. I had an oxygen refill, but that could only do so much with a slow pressure leak.

Getting into the ship was uncomfortable. I have to climb over the frame of a blown-out cockpit window to get in, and when I did it broke the seam even further. The existing resin was doing its job as best it could, but without a fresh replacement it could only do so much. So I limped my way into the ship, and managed to make my way into the crew quarters. I rifled around with the boxes and lockers for a bit, and at last I found a tiny tube of spare resin. It's enough to fix what I need to, but still. I'd been hoping for a lot more.

So I started to make my way back, and then I fucked up. Like an idiot, I just climbed over the frame instead of crawling under it like I should have, and it cracked the seam even more. I was left with about two hours of pressure when I normally need about two and a half, so I had to keep up a kind of loose jog to get there fast enough.

And I almost made it.

I was 15 meters from Beta Base when my suit began screeching at me. "Pressure breach imminent." I just froze. If I moved I might crack the seam. If I didn't move I'd run out of air. The last thing that I remember thinking was that I just had to do something, even if it killed me. So I just pointed myself at Beta Base's airlock door, closed my eyes tight, took a few deep breaths, and exhaled fully.

Then the sprint began.

I think I got about two steps before the seam cracked apart. All the pressure left my suit in about half a second, and I just kept running.

I know that I've hyped up how bad a suit breach is, but in truth the human body can survive in a vacuum for a short time, a very short time. I only needed a few seconds. The last thing that I fully remember before blacking out was the feeling of my tongue getting really, really hot. It was the moisture on it starting to boil when the pressure disappeared.

When I woke up I was inside the airlock. I felt like I had gone on a neurite bender and woken up from it after three days. Don't ask me how I know what that feels like. My saving grace was the automated doors on the airlock. It opened for me to stumble in, then immediately closed behind me and repressurized. I was blacked out for all of half a minute. When I woke back up I saw that my foot had been only a few centimeters from the outer door. If I had fallen just a bit further back, it would have detected my body in the doorway and not closed. And I'd be dead.

Based on my exosuit's biomonitors, I was exposed to the near-vacuum for about eleven seconds. I managed to haul myself back up and into Beta Base, with everything humming along like it should be. I peeled my suit off and saw a nasty set of bruises. The human body is good at maintaining itself in a vacuum, your blood vessels won't just burst and your body won't instantly freeze. But there were a few places where some of my capillaries ruptured enough to make big blotches under my skin.

Besides being super disoriented for a while, the only worse thing is the fact that I can't seem to taste anything right now. I chalk it up to my tongue flash-boiling for a second, but I'm sure it'll repair itself in time. As established, the human body is resilient.

I'm alive. I shouldn't be, but I'm alive.

Man, this is gonna make for a great book if I get out of here.

In case you're wondering "But what about the suit?" after I spent all that time detailing how I was almost another victim of Planet Steve, it's fine. The resin worked like a treat and sealed itself back up just as strong as before. I even got the chance to seal in a few other points of concern. I'm out of resin now but I'll be able to go dumpster-diving for longer now that my suit is fixed and hopefully find some more, just in case this happens again.

Despite the fact that I still have a bit of a headache and my tongue is still numb, I'm fine otherwise. I still find myself taking an especially deep breath every minute or so. Feeling my lungs completely collapse was a horrifying experience, but I'm still breathing and from what I know of vacuum exposure I should be fine. Lungs are just squishy bags anyways, not like there's bones to break in them. Heck, all my actual bones are fine. I don't know how I'd manage if I did break one, but I'm sure I'll find something.

For the sake of my health I've allotted myself the next two Sols for recovery. If there's anything to be said about the packs of space slop that I call "food", it's the fact that they're nutritious enough to survive on and should give my body everything it needs to repair whatever other damage there is. Everything is fine on Planet Steve, for the time being anyways.

There's also one more thing of note. When I was outside before the seam breached, I did look up a bit. When the dust cleared a little more, I saw a hint of blue directly overhead, where it would be the most intense. Not a lot, and only for a moment. But for the first time in more than a month I saw just a glimpse of blue sky. And that, I think, has done more to give me motivation to keep going than anything else so far.

When I was doing my coursework for my geoengineering degree, we ran simulations of how we'd go about altering a planet. And I saw planets turn from desolate wastelands into verdant paradises a number of times, plants grow from the sand and trees sprout from the desert. Turning the sky blue was always the first milestone, then as now. And...it doesn't compare to actually seeing it. Actually seeing that this planet is starting to change, because of me.

It was...a lot.