John stared at his bloody hand, his eyes doing their best to focus. "I need to get free, if I don't get this rod out soon I'm done for." He lifted both of his hands and gripped the 2-inch thick rod that stuck out about 3 feet from his torso. He closed his eyes and took a deep, long breath. 'I can feel my consciousness slipping. I need to get this damn stick out.' Tightening his grip and clenching his jaw, he began to push.
His screams filled the cabin as he pushed with his remaining strength.
…One
…Two
…Three feet
At that point, his scream had turned into a savage roar as to that of a wild beast unwilling to die. He kept pushing even after his hands were covered in gashes from the edges of the rod and the blood from his hands made it even harder to push.
…Four
…Five
…Six feet
"DAMMIT, GET OUT!"
With one final effort, he managed to get the seventh, and last, foot of metal out of his abdomen.
'Get up, I need to get up.' John tried standing up, but stumbled face-first onto the floor, for the first time since he woke up he realized that he couldn't feel the bottom half of his body. When he looked down at his legs he saw that his left leg was bent inwards and his femur was almost protruding through his skin. 'Something heavy must have hit it during the crash. "Good thing I can't feel it."
Now that he couldn't stand up, this already nightmare scenario became even worse. The MEDCAP unit was about 20 feet away and he was losing blood fast. He had freed himself from the metal rod, but now there was a two-inch hole through his torso, he didn't have long. 'I refuse to die like this. I'm gonna make it out of this damn rock and make those bastards pay!"
His vision was beginning to go fade. He smashed his hands in front of him and began crawling his way to the MEDCAP unit. His hands were slippery from the blood but he kept pushing forward. His rage and will refused to give in. His hands shook and he struggled to keep his head up, but he kept crawling.
Right hand, pull.
Left hand, pull.
Right hand, pull.
Left hand, pull.
It felt like a second and an eternity all at once. His hand finally touched the MEDCAP unit. 'I can't catch a break here can I?' When John looked up, he saw the MEDCAP had flipped to its side, meaning that he would have to lift himself up into it. He slowly worked his way up, his arms shook, ready to give out any second. His body was cold, and the tingling sensation all across his body was the only thing he could feel besides the hellish pain.
He lay on the unit and tapped a button on the side of the machine. A warm glow came from the bed under him. "Alright, now time to-"
His vision went black.
…
'Where am I?…'
'I'm sure my eyes are open so why can't I see? Let's see, can I move?…seems not. Feels like I'm floating but also buried in a thick sludge.' As he questioned his surroundings, the sludge began to vibrate. "Hello? Anyone there?" The hum began to grow clearer, 'words?'
"($-k% u¥"
'What?' He could've sworn that he heard a voice. He listened closely, concentrating. At first, it sounded like loud humming and static, but the longer he concentrated the clearer it began to sound. 'Voices? What are they saying?' "Hello?"
As if someone has placed a rocket engine beside him, he felt his entire body shake as two words rang out so loud that he felt like his eardrums would explode:
"WAKE UP!"
As soon as those words came into being John's eyes shot open and he gasped for air, but choked up halfway through and began to cough up blood. He was back on his ship.
"I'm… alive." John found himself still on the MEDCAP. He lay there for a while looking at the ceiling without moving. Finally, he tried moving his legs, and they moved. "Good." He then reached for where the rod had been embedded. He could feel a weird tingling coming from that area, but the hole seemed to be closed, it would probably take some time before it fully healed, but at least the hole was gone.
He slowly nudged himself off the MEDCAP and stood up. He was still getting his bearings. He first looked at the trail of blood that led back to the corner where the pilot's seat had landed after breaking off from its place during the crash. The metal rod that had stapled him to it was not far from it. He looked around at his ship, or at least what was left of it. 'Seems like the front cabin broke off." He then looked back at the MEDCAP's bloody bed that he was just laying on, most of the blood was dry. He reached down and took a look at the display board beside the bed.
[PATIENT SUMMARY:
17 broken bones
22 fractures
48 lacerations
1 high-level puncture wound
•treatment complete•
Service time:
8 days, 13.8 hrs]
'9 days? I was out for over a week?' He was not sure what to think of that. That was the longest he had ever taken to recover, even after his battles during the war. Though, compared to then, these were definitely the worst injuries he had ever suffered. 'By all means, I should be dead. I guess Malroy and his friends' work wasn't all for show. I owe them thank- wait, I'm in this situation because of them.'
As John continued to discuss the situation in his head he heard a loud thud in the distance. He instantly looked in the direction where it came from. Seemed to have come from within the forest in the distance. It was -from what he could tell- early in the morning. He walked up to the pilot's control panel and started dismantling a part of it, he then grabbed a thumb drive from within and grasped it firmly in his hand. 'Let's hope this still works.' He looked intently at the disk and his eyes turned green.
After a couple of seconds a female voice came to his head, *System control for vehicle R3L1C activated, running systems diagnostics, please wait*
"It worked, good." John then walked out of the broken cockpit of the ship. He climbed atop the ship's wreckage and scanned his surroundings. The rear part of the ship that had broken off was about 2-300 feet away from where he currently was, though it wasn't fully intact so some parts were probably scattered around the field. The clearing that he had landed in was about a mile wide, but the thick forest that surrounded it didn't allow him to see anything beyond. The clearing had some small shrubbery and grass-like plants but was mostly flat besides that.
A small ring sounded in John's head, *System diagnostics complete. Due to high levels of damage to the ship, I was unable to properly inspect most components. Here's what I could come up with: MEDCAP unit's reserve battery will run out within 72 hours. Food refrigeration stopped working 3 days ago. Ship armaments have sustained heavy damage, but show signs that indicate that repairs are possible. The emergency safe is 99.5% intact. Everything else is inconclusive or offline.*
John listened to the system's voice and meditated on the information. "Things look pretty grim," he thought, "at the very least the emergency safe was intact which means that some of the weapons and food rations should be in there, but the rations are only enough for about a week and who knows how long I'm going to take to get out of here and how I'm even going to do that."
He then jumped down from where he was on the ship, he couldn't see anything over the trees around him. That's when he remembered that during his descent, he noticed a mountain in the distance. "It should be about 30 miles that way. First things first, I need to survey my surroundings. I should be able to get a good view of what the area looks like from up there." He then looked back toward where he had seen the other part of the ship and began walking toward it.
As he walked, he found multiple pieces of metal that had broken off from the ship as the ship's cockpit slid across the field. He even found one of the bottles he had bought at the bar, "Really? My ship breaks apart, but the booze is fine. This has to be some sort of sick joke from the gods." He kept walking whilst inspecting the bottle with an expression of both relief and confusion.
After reaching the rest of the ship, he went inside and headed towards the safe. His ship was rather large, about 100 feet long, 30 feet wide, and had two floors. The military was definitely harsh, but if anything, they sure did pay well.
The safe was on the lower floor near the center of the ship, John had some trouble getting through a couple of metal panels that had bent inwards from the impact of the crash, but he was able to pry them back and get through after going back to the front part of the ship and using the rod that had impaled him as a makeshift crowbar. After about 10 minutes, he finally pushed back all of the panels blocking the way and made it to the safe's door. If anything survived the landing without a scratch, it was this.
"It cost me a small fortune to get this installed, I guess it was worth it after all." John grabbed the handle and pushed it. The handle moved forward, creating a circular indent. The hole then lit up yellow while the disk around it spun. After a second or two of this, the light turned green, and a loud thud could be heard from the locking mechanism being undone. John then pulled back and the safe's door opened up.
Inside the safe was a large rack with different weapons on it, a metal suitcase in the back corner with a small box on top of it, and a large backpack beside it. He grabbed the backpack and looked inside, "These should be enough rations for about a week comfortably, I can use the landing site as a base so that takes care of my shelter needs for now, but I need to find a source of water if I'm going to survive for more than a month in this place." Approaching the weapons rack, John scanned through the handful of weapons and ended up grabbing a rifle-like gun, as well as a large knife. After grabbing these items, he grabbed the suitcase and hooked it to a strap on the backpack.
"Alright, this should be everything I need to make my way to that mountain."
John made his way out of the broken ship, and back into the field. He looked toward the front section of the ship and focused on it.
*Coordinates saved,* John heard as his eyes once again turned green for a second.
With that done, he proceeded west in the direction of the mountain he had spotted before. As he got closer to the wall of trees, he noticed something. Small noises could be heard every so often, the crunching of dry leaves, the rustle of things moving around the forest. He had been so focused on the fact that you couldn't see much through the trees that he had failed to notice the sounds, this forest was alive and it wasn't just the plants. The thought had crossed his mind before which is why he had grabbed the rifle, "it was just in case" he thought. After all, he spent a week unconscious, something should have found him in that time, right? "I figured that the forest might've been just that, a forest, seems like I'll have to be more careful than I thought."
Once he was about 10 feet from the forest he was able to get a better view of the forest. It was dark, the canopy blocked out almost all light from the sun. looking up, his awe was visible. 400 feet tall, that's about how tall the trees were, each one as thick as a small house. Besides the trees, he could see all kinds of different vegetation around the forest. He couldn't get a good view of the inner forest as the trees covered most lines of sight which meant that whatever lived in the forest shouldn't see him easily, but that fact worked both ways.
With one deep breath, John held his rifle near his chest and stepped into the forest. Holding the rifle in his left arm, and using his right one to clear some of the brush in the way, he made his way in the direction of the mountain.
"It should only be about 30 miles away, at this pace I should be there before nightfall."
Knowing that the forest had inhabitants, John would take breaks every so often to scout the area around him for anything that might be stalking him, although he was being as quiet as possible, this was still a completely unknown environment so he was staying alert. About 4 hours into the trek, a crashing sound caused John's body to twitch, instinctively hit the floor, and grab his rifle. The trees were so thick and numerous that it was hard pinpointing the origin of such a loud sound. He didn't move an inch, his eyes darting around looking for any sign of movement. After staying still for a couple of minutes, he decided that it was time to keep moving.
After traveling for a couple more hours, John finally began to see some light in the distance. The forest's dark interior made it seem like time was constantly in a state of early morning, even though it was now the middle of the day. After walking for another half mile or so he was finally at the edge of the forest. Once he stepped out into the clearing he could finally feel the sun's heat again, though the area was still humid. About 60 feet away from the forest he could see the terrain begin to rise gradually, he was at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was roughly seven thousand feet high, "This mountain range should give me a good view of the surrounding area." John looked behind him one last time into the forest for good measure, then began the hike up the mountain. On the way up, it was dry and devoid of any life, such a large forest yet not a single flower grew here. He had to free-climb some parts of the mountain as the terrain itself was very steep, and many parts only went straight up with no way to walk it. After a couple of close calls while climbing, in which rocks would give out under his weight, he finally managed to make it to the top of the mountain.
From the peak, he could finally get the best view of his surroundings since moments before the crash. Back then he was too focused on looking for a landing site to pay attention to many of the details of the terrain itself. Green as far as the eye could see, there were some other clearings off in the distance, though they were too far for him to study them in detail even with his superhuman eyesight. The mountain range that he was now standing on seemed to go on well into the horizon so he couldn't tell just how long it was, though it was all equally lacking in any vegetation. Because of all the giant trees, he couldn't see any rivers or lakes which was not great news since without a reliable source of water his chances of surviving were questionable at best.
"Best chance is to walk along the mountains and hopefully find some snowy peaks further north or running water on the mountainsides." John knew the situation wasn't looking good, he could do some elaborate things to acquire water but they would be too time-consuming if he was going to figure a way out of the planet, he had a filter that he could use to clean any foreign things from the water he drinks but that's if he finds a body of water. If he was forced to do things like collecting morning dew or draining plants he could still use the filter, but it would mean spending hours every day collecting just water. And this being an alien planet, that would mean that the water he collects will have gone through multiple plants which he wasn't even remotely familiar with. Rainwater wasn't a real option either since he didn't know the weather cycle here so it might be days, weeks, or even longer until any rain came. Since the mountains were lacking in plants, he figured that the best course of action would be to find a water source on or near the mountain to improve his chances of getting the cleanest water possible.
While he stood there on the mountain, he grabbed the suitcase that he had brought with him and took out a small device the size of his forearm. He turned the device on and let it sit as high as possible near him. For a couple of minutes, it just turned and made a slight humming sound. As he waited he took the time to relax and meditate on the situation. He broke away from his thoughts for a second as the device's ring went off. The device was an advanced transmitter that could send messages through space in places where no other FTL communication devices had a signal. He had only used it once before during a solo mission in the Vuul system, the mission required the neutralization of all communication devices and transport vessels in the local solar system so that no evidence of the invasion got out so it was given to him so he could communicate with mission control for pickup after the mission. If there was any way to contact anyone for help, this was probably his only option on this planet.
[Unable to acquire sufficient signal strength due to high levels of interference]
"Of course."