Harper picked up a shiny green vegetable that looked like a cross between a carrot and a zucchini.
“Only one way to find out, I guess,” she said, then took a bite. “Hey, that’s actually not bad. A little sweet, kind of crispy. Honestly, it’s pretty good.”
“Seems like as good a start as any. Dig in. I’m going to see about getting the food system open. There’s no power, but if the metal is damaged enough, maybe there’s a way to get to whatever feed system they have built into these compartments.”
Harper continued munching on her snack. “You really think there will be food in there?” she asked, her mouth full of alien produce.
“It makes sense. I mean, every compartment was different from what we gathered, so it would only stand to reason that they’d have dedicated delivery systems for each of them, especially the way seeing as they were all designed to land and not crash in case of emergency. Seems to me they’d want to make sure they could keep their livestock alive, right?”
“I suppose so. But they didn’t expect us to get pulled into a planet’s gravity, I’d be willing to bet.”
“Though there was an emergency braking thing built in, so they clearly took that into consideration at some point.”
“True.”
“In any case, it can’t hurt to look.”
With that Olivia set to work, using stout pieces of debris to further pry open torn sections of the compartment. It was slow going and hard work, but after several hours of toil, she’d actually made progress.
For one, therewasa distribution reservoir of the relatively unpleasant Raxxian food balls. Unfortunately, they seemed to have an abundance of the least pleasant of the flavors, though none were what anyone would ever call tasty. Still, some were more palatable than others, and whatever the case, they had food, and by the looks of it, enough to last quite a while, especially with regular supplementation of local fare.
Another coup was the water system. Though power was out and the inner workings damaged, Olivia managed to trace back the lines that fed the prisoners’ water supply to its reservoir. It took some time to figure out how to access it, but after a lot of trial and error she found a cracked feed line. It was dripping slowly, but that was fine for their purposes. Better than fine, actually. They could collect the dripping water slowly in the multiple empty vessels now lined up against the hull. In this way they would catch every drop without having to pay constantattention to a spigot or hose, all while not wasting any of the precious resource.
Surviving like this, the women figured they could hold out comfortably for quite some time if they had to, though their definition of comfort had shifted quite drastically in the last twenty-four hours.
They spent the rest of the day taking stock of what supplies and makeshift resources they could scour from the wreckage. It wasn’t a lot, but given that this was a containment unit, that wasn’t terribly surprising. If they’d gone down in a crew section of the ship, it would have likely been a very different story.
But then there would have likely been Raxxians as well if that had been the case. Given that alternative, this was by far the better option.
The pair were exhausted by the time night came, both mentally as well as physically. Survival was tough on a person in more ways than one, and when the initial adrenaline wore off, every ache, pain, and frazzled nerve was readily apparent. Luckily, the day seemed somewhat close to a normal Earth cycle, though they didn’t have any time-keeping device at their disposal. Tired as they were, they didn’t need one.
When darkness set in, Olivia propped up some debris to mostly seal the opening to their shelter, then the two curled up together and fell fast asleep. Miraculously, both remained that way all the way until morning.
“You know we can’t just sit here and wait,” Olivia said as they ate a breakfast of an orange food ration ball along with some violet berries.
“I mean, sure, I get that. But what can we do? We’re on an alien world, Liv.”
“Yes, we are. And that means no one is coming to save us. My dad said the military drilled it into his head early on to always accept that self-rescue might be the only way out of a situation.”
“But we need a spaceship if we want to get home,” Harper noted.
“Well, sure. But you know what?”
“What?”
“This world, out of all the places we could have crashed, has a breathable atmosphere, drinkable water, and even edible plant life. What are the odds, Harper? I mean seriously. If ever there was a place likely to have alien life, this would probably be it.”
“I hate to rain on your parade, but the alien life we’ve already met was not exactly friendly, if you recall.”
“Sure, the Raxxians were terrible. But we have to do something, right? And if this world is habitable, maybe there’s civilization out there. And if there is, hopefully it’snotRaxxian.”
Harper shook her head, gently patting her splinted leg. “I appreciate your optimism, but I’m in no condition to trek.”
“I know. But I can do the hard part for now. You know, go on a bit of a hike to get the lay of the land. You’ve got plenty of food and water, and I’ve already gathered up a bunch of local stuff to eat as well.”
“You’re going to leave me here? Alone?”
“I promise, I’ll make it quick. Maybe a few days, tops.”
