Stellar Survival Quest

by Jalf Whitemage

  Issuing the commands to the robot to come and fetch him took a little longer than Nathan had expected. Mostly due to the robot not understanding a grab me and place me on the floor command. Eventually he settled on a simple organize the area command, centered in the area where he was floating.

  As soon as Nathan sent the command the robot began its task. Nathan sat there for a full 5 minutes as the robot moved around gathering up garbage. Sometimes Nathan thought the trash must be imaginary and the thing was just making him wait. Finally though it moved over to him and with long pincher arms grabbed him out of the air. With what Nathan thought of as too much force it plopped him down in Bay B with all the other garbage…

  “Okay now to see what the fuck is going on with the transport’s lights.” Nathan muttered.

  Entering the transport Nathan discovered the issue pretty quick. The ships batteries were empty… No power, no lights.

  “Well fuck okay… why you not have power? “

  Another couple minutes later Nathan discovered the cause. The way he had arranged the power, had the Solar Arrays delivering power straight to the transport, then to the habitat, and then to the low grade cells, and finally plugged into the stations power systems. It was set as a one way system that shuttered power to the next link as an overflow.

  Since the transport used the most power, between being their recharging plugs and the lights he wanted to keep it charged up. Now though something had stopped the flow to the transport and it had quickly drained the on board batteries.

  The issue turned out to be a cut power line. The hatch door was now fully closed. The line had been cut cleanly right at the point where it had entered in from the landing pads. Nathan looked at the robot sitting there in the dim light.

  “This is your fault isn’t it? Which order was it? The one to ensure structural integrity of the bay? I do not think telling you to work on the electrical systems in the hall. Or to replace the damaged panels in bays A and C would be it. That would only leave the command to review the working order of the modules systems. … Eh, it doesn’t matter. I was meaning to fix this anyway.”

  Nathan went to the manual hatch release and levered the hatch open.

  Outside the cut cable was whipping around wildly. With the loose power from the arrays creating arcs of lightening and clouds of ionized particles.

  “Well that isn’t good.”

  Nathan watched as the cable shifted and snaked around in front of the open hatch, making it nearly impossible to exit safely.

  Biting his lip Nathan considered his options. If he stepped out from here it was likely he would be electrocuted and there was no way he could survive that much raw power. Same for the robot, its systems would be fried. But it was for sure more expendable than he was…

  He looked at his tablet and set about giving the bot its suicide orders, but paused. He had the combat drone he did not really have a need for. It never really seemed useful until now. The drone was a sleek black tear drop in shape.

  He had connected it to the systems and flew it around the bay just to play with it. He was a man after all. What guy didn’t want to play with a killer drone! But, firing lasers into space wasn’t any fun and he didn’t want to shoot at anything in the station, for fear of damaging things. So after just a few short minutes he had put it aside.

  Now though the grapefruit sized drone was perfect! With a few clicks on the tablet he was logging into the pilot program. With a click it powered the drone on.

  The controls for the drone on the tablet were clunky and crude. As it gained altitude Nathan fought with it the whole time. He had seen there was piloting stations for sell that would allow a pilot to command swarms of the small grapefruit sized machines with joy sticks. But, for just his one his touch screen commands would have to work.

  Nathan took a couple minutes to re-familiarize himself with the controls zooming the little bot around the bay. Its military grade sensors had no trouble seeing in the pitch black of space. So, the dim light of the bay was easily illuminated on his screen.

  Nathan moved toward the hatch and waited. While he watched the snapping cable his fingers moved the drone in tight circles around his head. If someone was watching they would almost think he had a metallic halo with how quickly the drone spun in its tight orbit.

  The second Nathan saw the opening he pinched flicked and twisted, sending the drone shooting out the hatch and into the void. Even with the machines insanely fast speed it barely made it through. As it sped past a weak jolt of electricity arced toward the metal drone. Fortunately the drone had some shielding and was moving fast enough that the power never had enough time to create a full connection.

  Once outside Nathan sent the drone halfway between the arrays and the station. There he struggled to use the drone to push the cable off the walkway. Eventually though he succeeded and the cable shifted then snapped as it spun off the walkway now shooting arcs of energy into the side of the station.

  Having a clear path Nathan shimmy shuffled his way to the arrays. One by one he shut them down. When the last one was off the cable floated slowly away from the station; moved by the dregs of kinetic energy that remained affecting it.

  Nathan issued a command to the robot to repair the cut cable. His orders stated to repair it by adding plug-like connectors to both of the cut ends.

  Then he set to work installing a plug in the wall next to the hatch. The plug was little more than a connector allowing him to attach the cable on the outside and another on the inside of the stations hull. The hardest part and the part he considered the longest on was wiring the plug into the stations power network.

  After a little consideration, he built in a transistor switch between the interior connection port and the exterior one. The switch’s primary function was to convert power to the station if there was nothing drawing the power out the inside connection plug.

  It took him several hours to install the simple system, but when he plugged the high voltage cables in and turned on the first array he saw a dim light appear in the station, where the transports lights began to illuminate once again.

  With a cheer he nearly launched himself from the landing pad with an ill-timed fist in the air. Only quickly grabbing ahold of the array save him from the humiliating death.

  Looking around to ensure no one saw him he frowned.

  “Of course you fucking arrived to see that…” Nathan growled at the black spot above him that quickly solidified into the delivery ship.

  As the delivery ship arrived Nathan began the task of rerouting his electrical systems. It took Nathan an hour to turn the arrays back on after redoing his power lines. Finally he set about packing up the transport.

  When he was satisfied, he had unloaded everything he was going to keep, had everything sorted that was going, and in general said goodbye, one of the multi limbed delivery robots held out a screen for Nathan to accept his sell of the transport.

  He briefly considered what they would do if he refused to sign. He had after all already spent a fair bit of the money from the sell. So what would happen if he refused to sell now? But that thought passed quickly and Nathan accepted the deal. The robot moved to the transport’s entrance, tossed a circular beach ball sized peach orb inside and began clacking its way back to the awaiting delivery ship.

  Nathan watched the interior of the transport as the ball uncurled a dozen long, thin robotic arms. The arms quickly snaked out and began tapping commands into the transports terminal. As the hatch closed and the Transport began to lift Nathan felt an odd sense of remorse. Was it really a good idea for him to sell the ship? It was his first memory after all.

  With a heavy sigh he watched the Transport fly out of the station, to land on a flat pad that had extended from the back of the delivery ship.

  As robots swarmed over the transport securing it others began to unload the items Nathan had ordered.

  Nathans frown never left his face though. These items were the ones he wasn’t really looking fo
rward too. He had found out that although the stores could make many items at its station in system some were either too complex, or not licensed to be made by the company. Those had to be shipped in system by ship and would require a much longer delivery time.

  Turning his attention to the next item on his list Nathan’s frown deepened. It was time he finally did something with the pods and the creatures inside. Only a little over an hour remained until the life inside would die. So he could just do nothing and then …

  ”No!” He thought, before turning to stomp toward the pods.

  Moving over to the first he tapped the small panel next to the hatch only to receive a green light flashing inside a yellow box. Pulling out his tablet He plugged the two machines together and read the display, quickly discovering the flashing lights meaning.

  The pod’s inhabitants were not in any kind of environmental suits. The pod did not detect a compatible atmosphere and was seeking confirmation before opening the hatch.

  ‘Well shit… guess I grab you out and then quickly take you into the habitat…”

  Plan set he hit the release mechanism on the first pod. A jet of air pushed him back as the pod decompressed and opened.

  Nathan got his first view of the Wipynie.

  “It’s a fucking velociraptor!” Nathan squealed. His inner fan boy finally getting the Christmas present it had wanted for untold years.

  Indeed inside the crate was a creature roughly 1.71 GMU’s tall. It had an oval lizard like head. A massive mouth full of needle sharp teeth. Slits on the end of its muzzle for a nose. The things red glaring eyes stared at him unblinking.

  Burnt orange triangular shaped scales covered most of its body, with slightly more tanned scales over the creature’s chest and belly. It stood as a hunched biped and had two odd looking arms coming from its lower chest. The hand on each arm had only two fingers and a thumb, but they were capped with talon like nails that looked sharp enough that they could cut light. Finally a thick strong looking tale came from the creature’s backside.

  The creature wore only a thick combat vest with a few items attached and a dark silver collar around its thick neck.

  Nathan spent a second just staring at the creature as it stared back. Only as it began to shiver did Nathan realized that if he didn’t do something quick it was going to die.

  Grabbing the beast he pushed off and delivered the beast into the open air lock to the habitat. Once he stopped himself inside he hit the button to close the external port. Air began to enter the chamber with a loud ear-numbing hiss. Seconds later Nathan heard the beast take in a huge breath of air. Then it turned its dark red eyes to Nathan.

  His heart froze in his chest. Images of the classic Jurassic Park’s movies flashed through his head. But as seconds ticked by the only thing that happened is the inner airlock chimed and the hatch opened in to the main room.

  After a full minute of Nathan staring at the creature and it staring back Nathan stammered, “Ugh. Uh… step inside and I’ll… uh… I’ll go get the others.”

  He made a gesture with his hands when the creature did not respond. With a waving gesture he indicated to enter. With a slow blink of a nearly translucent eyelid the creature stepped inside.

  Not waiting Nathan slammed his hand on the pad to close the airlock and begin decompression again.

  He watched through the clear door as the beast moved to the right side of the main area and stood there staring at him.

  “Oh this is not going to turn out good is it?”

  Nathan repeated pretty much the same process for the next four pods. The only real difference was Nathan did not freeze up after seeing the occupants, as he was no longer being surprised. In the last pod held a Velociraptor that was slightly different from the others. Its scales had a slight silver edge to them. So it almost looked like someone had taken each and every dark orange scale applied a thin gleaming silver border and then placed them back on the creature.

  It was also the only one that stepped out of the pod toward Nathan.

  Taking the hint Nathan turned and led the creature to the habitat. In the airlock he hit the button and began to cycle the lock once again. The silver edged creature watched him closely the entire time. It never showed any signs of discomfort or distress. The only way Nathan could even tell the beast was in void was the thin nostril slits were tightly closed.

  As the inner lock opened they both stepped inside. The four other beasts looked at the silver Raptor as it moved in front of the others to turn toward Nathan.

  Then the silver creature spoke.

  “We are Norrik Light Marine Squad 705339670114621190942130276768. We await our new master’s orders as good slaves.”

  Nathan froze as he considered what was just said. His mind was racing as neurons fired and thoughts jumbled.

  He had expected many things to occur when he got the creatures inside. But for them to simply announce themselves his slaves in low guttural growls and hisses. Noises that somehow Nathan fully understood was not one of them. In no way shape or form did he expect to suddenly know how to speak dinosaur. Then the second bit of info hit his cranium. They were slaves! His slaves!

  Sure Boov called him master and said silly things like him being able to destroy her for a failure; but that was something he just took as an oddity in her personality. However, here were these creatures outright saying he was their slave master.

  “In no fucking way will I own slaves! If I am your master, then I set you free!”

  A bell chimed on the collars the Raptors wore and suddenly all five clicked open then fell on the floor.

  Somehow Nathan knew the look the Raptors had on their faces as they watched the collars fall thumping on the ground was shock. Then the leader looked up at him meeting his eyes.

  “You should not have done that, soft skinned thing. For you are weak. The collars were the only thing keeping us from killing you and eating your Tirrrikkzzz.”

  Nathan barely register the understanding before the leading Raptor lunged at him with sharp teeth aimed for his throat.

  With a scream Nathan ducked, but the beast’s short arms caught the back of his suit near the air tank. With a Jerk Nathan pulled ripping his suit as he tore free.

  Snarling the Raptor threw the tank aside and lunged at him again. This time Nathan spun to the side barely avoiding another claw swipe. But as hot pain raced across his left hip he glanced down.

  The claw swipe cut a thin line in his spacesuit pants and into the flesh right under his hipbone. A small line of blood filled the wound and began to trickle down his now ruined pants.

  The Raptor snarled. You are faster than you look, but that only means I will enjoy the taste of your meat that much more. I smell your blood and it makes me hunger.”

  Blood fled from Nathans face as he turned white as a sheet. Still though as the creature leapt at him he managed to duck under its leap. With a roll Nathan began to stand as the Raptor landed, but a quick slap of the long stiff tail sent him falling flat on his face and shredding even more of his clothing.

  Rolling quickly Nathan dodged another pounce. As he lay on the floor looking at the Raptor who turned slowly to face him a mere few feet away his eyes were locked on the remains of his spacesuit under the creatures feet.

  He had been worried about saving this things life. He had not wanted to own it like some evil overlord. So he freed them. And now he was running for his life as it tried to kill him.

  It sprung and Nathan rolled under it. As the tail came to slam him again he used his forearms to block. The sound of scale hitting skin echoed through the habitat.

  Nathan growled with pain. This thing was trying to eat him in his house. His home. First it was some creepy grey hand. Then some fucked up tree with razor leaves and thorns for teeth. Now this dinosaur!

  He had just wanted to be a pilot. To fly through the vast majesty of galactic space and see the stars. Instead he was here encountering one species after another. Each one more terrifying than the las
t. And now this fucking dinosaur was wanting to eat him for freeing it!

  As it turned and leapt at him again dagger like claws aiming for his throat, something snapped in Nathan. When he was young he had spent nearly 10 years learning martial arts. He had competed in tournaments and although never won he always did well. Then as he hit high school he stopped. Over the interim years he had forgotten a lot. But his body remembered. It knew how to fight, and Nathan was done being the universes bitch!

  As the Raptor arched toward him. Nathan pulled his legs up and snapped them out. When the beast landed right where Nathans head and chest had been a split second before, Nathans feet hit the hardened plastic flooring.

  As the raptor turned to face the agile Human its blazing red eyes widened. Using his momentum, the moment Nathan snapped onto his feet he continued to fall forward. At least his torso did. One leg remained in place as the other spun in a massive rear kick that caught the surprised raptor firmly in the chest.

  The Creature had its wind knocked out of it in a burst of air that whistled through its teeth. But The Norrik were warriors and did not let something like that stop the fight. No, it used its small arms to grab the offending leg intending to pull its dinner over. It in no way expected the Human’s other foot to leave the ground as it spun horizontally.

  The Humans’ second foot caught the Raptor upside its head and the spin tore the first foot from its grasp. As both combatants hit the ground, they reacted differently. The Raptor was stunned. It had not trained to fight anything that could move like this. How was it supposed to fight a creature that would willingly throw itself onto the ground to land a blow? No, it needed to take charge and win. It might not be as clean of victory but its short arms reached for the weapons at its belt. Pulling the short Taser looking pistol from its belt holster the Raptor began to roll on to its back so it could stand and kill the troublesome Human.