Salvage — Part two of Landed

Before this story starts I would like to thank everyone on Worldbuilding SE for helping this story come alive. This is part two of a series with a currently undetermined amount of parts. The first part is here. Any similarities to existing pieces, people or real life events are entirely coincidental (except in scientific cases; for example, Newton’s laws are still called Newton’s laws)

“We’re glad we arrived too” said Sam with relief “What day is it even?”

“The crash was yesterday” said the man “And oh, I forgot to introduce myself, im Jim, who are you all?”

“I’m Sam and” Sam said pointing “these are my friends Allyssa and Jack”

“It's nice to meet you, I’ll show you around” Jim said. “Over here is homebase¹” He said pointing to a collection of tents, crates, and more. “To your west that way is the bay” he said pointing west at where some boats were on a bay “That’s all right now, you should start unpacking at homebase”

¹The base was mainly just supplies piled up, nicknamed homebase like all of the first settlements until a better name can be found

They went to homebase and unpacked and set up a tent. as they stepped outside they heard a bang. It was an escape pod that had launched and was quickly destabilizing. It was pulling up but not in time. A loud crash sounded as it smashed into the shore, then skidded around before rolling down the slope… and into the water. Fortunately for whoever was inside the flotation activated and kept it from sinking.

“Everyone, lets get them out of there” someone said “we have no time to waste, get them to the medic tent” everyone obeyed and started getting to work.

“Lets go” said Sam. They headed over, ready with tools on their belts. When they reached it the 3 people inside were already out and headed to the medic, they were ok aside from some cuts. People were salvaging parts from the pod, so they joined in. When they came back with some salvage Jim came up to them.

“I see your already working” he said inspecting the parts “those go over there” he said as he pointed to a pile of similar looking parts.

It was the next day, the sun was coming up and the alien birds were chirping. they saw an opportunity. “Why don’t we cross the lake?” said Sam. The lake wasn’t that far in one direction so they headed over to the bay with their boat and some supplies.

“Where you going?” asked Jim

“Across the lake” said Jack “We’re gonna scout the area out”

“Alright but don't be too long” said Jim

“We won't” said Jack

Eventually they arrived at the shoreline. A small cave was nearby with a stream flowing to it. Trees were nearby and it looked like a normal beach, it was far from that. In fact this might just be the least normal beach.

“Wow” said Allyssa “theres alot of stuff to discover” She looked around and started writing about the first thing she saw on her holopad. The pad scanned and gave it the temporary species name FMC-465b sp28² “looks like someone else beat us to #1”

²Because only a few species are known they cannot be classified yet

Meanwhile on the island another teen was scanning and discovering other species. Her name was Katelen.

“Huh, it skipped 28” said Katelen puzzled “Allyssa, huh thats who got it” Unsurprisingly the lake was filled with species, and Katelen had only just started scanning.

“Guess we were not fast enough” Jack said

“We wont always be first” said Sam, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

“No need to be rude..” replied Allyssa. She realized there was no connection to the ship, or to the satellites orbiting the planet that were released before they crashed. The only connection was local to the other holopads. “That's weird, there's no satellite connection”

“Can you try the hyper coms³?” Jack suggested

³The hyper coms are a communication that uses gamma rays to go transmit ftl communications because the speed of light is frequency based in this universe.

“I wish, that’s only capable in a vacuum due to radiation blockage” said Allyssa “and since we cant connect via radio to the satellites, we are out of luck”

“Look at this cave!” said Sam, having moved on “Its full of stuff.” Indeed it was full of stuff, deadly dangerous killer stuff. “And look at this weird green stuff” Allyssa scanned the fungus, adding to to the catalogue.

“Don't touch random stuff” Jack warned

“It’s fine, see look” Sam stated as he touched the mottled surface, bulb like structures stood out from the mycelium. Unbeknownst to the group these vere full of nitrogen triiodide ready to explode and send spores flying into the victims wounds. “Nothings gonna happen, its just some gre-” and it was at that moment that it exploded, Sam was thrown back as the explosion propelled shard like spores into him. Screams erupted soon after.