Futuristic I Wore the Wrong Shoes for This (Closed)

[Ersa93]

Allison’s hands shook as pulled the handle to disengage the crash harness. Even though the escape pod was completely still, her body still retained the feeling of careening down the ground. At least it didn’t crash upside down. She pushed herself out of the chair and gave the world a moment to stop spinning before she got to her feet.


Meanwhile, the emergency instructions repeated ad nauseam: if able, activate the beacon; if able, get the emergency pack from under the chair; if able, investigate the area to see if there were any pods close by. She pulled the emergency pack out and found a more detailed instruction booklet. A problem soon presented itself. The panel that activated the beacon was a sparking mess and she didn’t have enough mechanical know-how to do it manually, even if she had somehow been able to climb up to the roof.


So, Allison gathered the pack, her own carry-on bag, the only piece of luggage she had left from the ship, and opened the door. Fortunately, the atmospheric conditions were suitable for humans to be in without any sort of specialized equipment. There was nothing left for her to do besides start walking and searching for anyone else who might have crashed.


“I should’ve worn the tennis shoes today,” she muttered as she looked at her worn canvas shoes.

 

[Axty]

Xavier slowly gained conscience. He didn't have a great grasp of his surroundings but there was one thing he could tell, he had crashed. As feeling returned to his body he was able to realize that he was upside down. He heard a faint dripping and felt the blood from his forehead hitting the glass of the escape pod he was it.

Xavier saw a piece of the borken glass on the floor just out of reach. He reached out, hoping in someway he was able to reach it. By some miracle he was able to grab it and cut the seatbelt that was keeping him upside down. He suddenly fell down as another piece of the broken glass on the floor stabbed into his bicep.

"Damn it" he cursed to himself as he pulled it out and crudely wrapped his bicep with a piece of his shirt that he pulled off.

He looked out of the escape pod trying to see where he was. The pod was stuck on top of a tree canopy. The only way he could get down was to fall from the top of the tree. He gathered the courage and opened the pods door. He fell out the pod and landed oh his ribs.

"Crap! first it was the arm now the ribs"

Xavier didn't have the luxury of a survival pack as his escape was last moment. He just had access with the tools he had on him.

"I should have worn those new shoes I bought" he said as he looked at his worn out tennis shoes.

 

[Ersa93]

Allison had been walking for a bit when she heard a loud noise followed by cursing and yelling. Yep, that was definitely another human being. Hopefully they were friendly.


Everything on the transportation ship happened so fast she hadn’t had time to process it yet. One minute, she had been taking a nap, the next, the alarms were going off and an evacuation was ordered. She’d followed the crowd to the escape pods and a security guard had stuffed her in one before sending it on its way. She wasn’t sure how she ended up in one by herself, they were made to hold multiple people, but that was hardly a concern now.


“Hello there!” she called out, hoping they could hear her. “Yell a bit more so I can find you! I have medical supplies if you’re injured!”

 

[Axty]

Xavier heard a faint yelling coming from the woods around him. He vaguely heard the words "medicine" and "Yell out." He didn't know whether to trust this mysterious voice or not but he didn't have many options.

"Here in this direction!" he yelled.

He stood still and continued to yell for a while hoping this person would come and find him.

 

[Ersa93]

This time, Allison was able to have a better sense of where exactly the voice came from. It wasn't too far now and other then a log she had to climb over, there wasn't anything in her way. She nearly slipped on her way off the log, but managed to re-catch her footing and climb the rest of the way down.

Then she saw who she assumed was the person who she'd heard. He didn't look to be in that great of shape; his landing must've been pretty rough. She looked up in the tree to see the pod. Hopefully, it would stay there and not crash down on them without any warning.

"Um, hi. I'll admit that I know nothing about first aid, but the pack probably has instructions." She placed the emergency pack on the ground and opened it, rooting around for the first aid kit. "I don't suppose you know if your emergency beacon works."

 

[Axty]

He grunts as he sits on a rock next to them. He rummages through the medical supplies trying to find certain items.

“I vaguely do, it mostly depends on which model you have. Let me see it.”

His voice seemed a bit impatient and rude. As he found a stitching gun, he stitched up the cut on his arm closing the wound.

“On the subject of models, what ship do you have? Or did you get here on an escape pod”

Xavier was in a rush to get off the planet. He had other plans and only took on this mercenary job to get a little extra money before going through with those plans.

“God damn it, of course I had to pick this job” he said as he continued to curse at himself.

 

[Ersa93]

"Model, model..." Allision muttered as she found the emergency guide. "Ah, here it is. Or at least I think that's it."

She showed him the model number as he fixed his wounds. He seemed to know what he was doing. Maybe he was a security guard. No, he didn't have the proper uniform. Maybe he was an off-duty soldier or veteran of some kind. But his next question struck her as odd.

"An escape pod. The only reason I would've come on a ship is if I were with the ones who attacked the transport..."

Allison steppted back some and waryily eyed him a bit more.

"Who are you?"

 

[Axty]

“Who do you think, I’m a mercenary”

Xavier said this in full confidence. He knew that if push came to shove, he would win a fight. On top of that, it was obvious that she didn’t know what she was doing. She seemed to have no knowledge on even her own equipment, so she needed him alive in order to survive.

“As for your ship, it was more trouble than what it was worth. You guys didn’t have any loot and had oddly good defense systems”

 

[Ersa93]

"Sounds more like a pirate to me, but I won't argue semantics right now. And that was just a transport ship. Of course it's not going to have "loot" on it besides people's valuables."

Part of Allison wondered if she should try to strike out on her own. She had supplies and and a guide, but even she knew that it wouldn't be a match for someone with actual experience.

"Obviously something went wrong because it went down. But that's not important right now. I can take you back to my pod, but all I can tell you is that the control panel's busted and I'm not sure if we have to tools to activate the beacon manually if it survived the crash."

She took in his condition.

"Are you sure you're well enough to go anywhere?"

 

[Axty]

"I'm fine these wounds aren't the worst I've had"

He puts everything back into the first aid kit. He put the first aid kit and looked at the beacon she had brought. He started to inspect the beacon, studying the manual to see if it was a beacon he had experience with.

"For a modern ship, you sure didn't have good back up plans. This is a shitty old model. At most I'd guess the signal would go only as far as the farthest planet in the solar system."

He pressed some buttons as lights from the beacon turned on.

"I doubt there is anyone who will get the signal. At the very least as long as the beacon has a power source, the signal will be continuously sent out."

 

[Ersa93]

"You're talking to the wrong person if you want to complain about back up plans and things like that. I was just a passenger." Now she was starting to see why the fare had been so cheap. But despite it being cheap, she hadn't found the accommodations that shabby.

"I mean, there's a good chance that other people landed here too. They might've just landed in a different location." She looked up at the pod still stuck in the tree. "It's too bad your pod isn't accessible. I might be hopeless when it comes to mechanical things, but I'm good when it comes to software. If I had something to hook the beacon up to, I could find a way to boost the signal."

 

[Axty]

"I'll complain to whoever I want to, this mission was destined to fail. What the hell was Jake thinking giving me this god damn mission!" Jake continued to curse at himself for a while before calming down.

"I'm sorry I lost my cool." He said this with full sincerity. Once he composed himself he tried to think of a plan. After a minute he seemed to have a vague idea of what to do.

"You're good with software right? So if you have parts from other pods and such, could you reprogram them for your pod?"

 

[Ersa93]

In Allison's opinion, this Jake didn't sound very smart, thinking a transport was worth doing a job on. But now wasn't the time to dwell on things like that, especially since her newfound acquaintance seemed a bit irritated at the events that had unfolded.

"If you can help me piece them together, maybe. But I also don't know the extent of the damage to my pod. I think it's in better shape than yours, but if all the electrics are shot, then we'd have to either find another one or jury-rig a signal booster. It will be more powerful if we can plug it into a pod, but I'll take a small signal boost over none at all."

 

[Axty]

Jake thought about it for a little bit. There may be some electronics in his pod that remained unharmed. To be honest, he was clueless about electrons and programming so he was honestly just talking on a whim.

"Okay then. I can try to get the pod down from the tree, that way we can see what we have to work with. Did your pod pack any tools? Maybe something like an axe or a swiss knife?"

 

[Ersa93]

"I know there's a utility blade in the emergency pack. I don't know if it's sturdy enough for what you need." Allison moved some things aside and handed him the blade. "I think it's basically a large pocket knife. I can go back to the pod and see if I can locate some more tools. Surely they have some in case the pods need to be worked on. Or if you don't trust me not to come back, you can come with me or I can stay here until you get the pod down."

She had no plans to ditch him at the moment, but it could change if they found someone else. "What's your name? I don't think I got it. I'm Allison."

 

[Axty]

"The name is Jake." As he said this he started to think what to do. Although he wanted to get his pod down as soon as possible, there were other things to get worried about. They needed to secure food and some sort of shelter.

"I don't think I need to doubt you yet, but I'll come back with you if your crash site has a less dense forest. I'll set up a basic shelter and hunt some sort of animal. Oh and I'll take that blade." He opens his hand so she could give him the blade..

 

[Ersa93]

"Well, at least my pod's on the ground. You just have to climb over a root to get to it. It shouldn't be a problem for you though. I can manage it, it just takes me a bit to climb over it."

Upon the request for the blade, she paused a bit. With him being part of the group that caused this whole mess, she wasn't sure she completely trusted him enough to hand him a weapon quite yet. He didn't seem hostile, but that could also change once he got what he wanted.

"How about we wait until we get to my pod's crash site? Unless you think you need it for something on the way there."

 

[Axty]

Jake sighed as he realized why she was hesistent. In her mind he was just some mercenary who was willing to kill her at any time.

"I'm a mercenary not a murderer, but if that is such a big issue to you then fine"

Jake stood up studying the environment around them. From the looks of it, it was a forest planet. He started to make a short list of advantages and disadvantages. As for advantages, there would defiantly be a wide spread of diverse organisms, and at least one of them had to edible. As for disadvantages, there would be a wide spread of predators that they would have to avoid. In his head they needed to get off as soon as possible.

 

[Ersa93]

"I don't think you're a murder. Someone can hurt someone else without killing them. I just don't know you well enough to trust you." She purposefully let off the "yet". "You must admit that a match up between you and me would be unfair. I will give it to you once we get there though."

There would be more room to navigate in the area where the pod crashed. Allison started to lead him in the proper direction. With him one the lookout for dangers, it made it easier for her to navigate.

"Can I ask why you don't have any weapons on you if your a mercenary? I won't claim to know much about the occupation, but I always figured being armed was a part of the job."

 

[Axty]

“Well generally speaking, yes, weapons are part of a mercenary’s tool kit. The issue is that during missions taking place in space, I don’t carry them on person. It’s a bad habit of mine but I don’t like the carry them around if all I am meant to do is pilot a fighter ship.”

He followed her lead closely. He suspicions of him, while grounded, just didn’t make sense to him. And him being the rude mercenary he was, he voiced his concerns.

“I admit that in an altercation I’d probably win, why would I ever fight you in the first place? You have a skill I don’t have, so harming you wouldn’t make sense for me”

 

[Ersa93]

"I think even pilots usually have a sidearm on them in the military."

She had just finished climbing over at tall root when he voiced his concerns. Allison waited for him to climb over. Fortunately, that was the last one in their way and the walk would be much easier from here.

"Having you ever heard of the concept of using someone and then getting rid of them when you're done? Besides, you of all people probably know the adage of not trusting strangers. Come on, it's not far now."

Her word held true and they arrived at the pod. She sighed some and sat down. Her feet ached and this was a lot more walking than she was used to.

"I'm going to have to rest for a bit. Go ahead and take a look around and see if you find anything useful. Once we take stock, we'll see about making a signal booster."

 

[Axty]

"You know I'm a jackass but I'm not a straight up dick. In all my years of mercenary work I haven't killed anyone. Sure I robbed them blind but that's there own fault."

He walked pasted her and entered the pod trying to find anything to use. There were some basic tool kits and other such knickknacks. He took whatever looked useable and dropped them in front of her.

"This is all I could find. A tool kit, some small flashlights and other bits of technology, and a survival set. If you don't mind I'll take the survival set and make a fire. Is there enough here to make a signal booster?"

 

[Ersa93]

Allison sighed a bit. She should've never pursued this conversation in the first place. It was probably better to let the whole subject drop and just deal with whatever fallout followed, whether good or ill. The opportunity presented itself as the question about the signal booster came into play, providing a much welcome distraction.

"Let me see." She took the pieces of tech from him and gave them a look over. She wasn't mechanically minded, but she at least knew what the things were and what they did. "I can, but I don't think it'll reach out too much further. The good news is that it will at least make the signal more stable, making it more likely to be picked up if someone happens to come by. How good are you at taking things apart and putting them together?"

 

[Axty]

"I'm okay with that, though you'd have to tell me how you would want certain pieces to fit together. Again, not to sound like a broken record, but food and water is also going to become an issue. I doubt that this planet would have freshwater seas for our convince so we also need to get a fire started. On top of all of that, there is almost certainly going to be predators here that we will need to take care of."

He stood up, properly investigating the area. "This area looks open enough for us to spot any animals close by. On top of that, there is a lot of dead leaves, which would make starting a fire ten times easier."

 

[Ersa93]

"The pack has some rations and I think there might be a something in the ship that's supposed to take the water out of the air to produce some," Allison replied as she started laying the pieces out to get a visually idea of what they needed. "If you think that gathering food and water first would be better, we could do that. In all honesty, I was planning on staying in the pod once the sun goes down."

She didn't see a reason not too. There wasn't any leakage as far as she could tell and it was made to take a beating.