บท 2: Chapter 1 - A New Beginning

Erik, a 60 year old, young engineer, with brown hair, green eyes, and average genetic modifications was now floating in an endless ocean in his spaceship's emergency escape pod, and was currently reminiscing on how he got there, sighing as he checked his remaining oxygen and laid down to check the amount of oxygen and supplies he had available, the pod had oxygen for at least a week, but something was clearly broken as the CO2 alarm kept ringing, the outside atmospheric pressure was higher and it was entering the pod.

Back on earth, he had been very enthusiastic about the colonization project from the very beginning. He always did the best in all the training courses, from engineering to survival and cooking courses. They were also tested in adaptation to different simulated environments, and solitude resistance, as the chosen one would need to endure 10 years alone on a faraway planet before others arrived, and he would have to have a habitat with a breathable atmosphere ready. He had even been trained to deal with possible native civilizations, both hostile and friendly.

He lasted the longest and was also the youngest on the program, since most were at least 100 years old, with the oldest being a 340 year old man he got along with really well, a man called Antonio, who was a survival expert already tired of life on earth, sadly his mental capacity was almost full due to old age, so he wasn't selected to lead the expedition, and instead would go on the third shipment along with other logistics personnel. He remembered Antonio always telling him "Some things you can only understand when you get old enough, you feel them by experience" or his favorite phrase "When you get older you will understand" as Erik was way younger in comparison.

Erik was a bit sad for his new friend, as Antonio was way more qualified than him in experience, but also really happy for being given the opportunity to make history, and there was even better news, as his girlfriend Sarah, a genetic modification and xenobiologist expert was selected for the second equipment delivery, focusing on equipment to adapt the habitat to the conditions and resources on the planet, and genetically modify the colonists to survive them.

She would arrive once he had finished with the base deployment and had the atmosphere algae generators running, it was lonely hard work, and an enormous responsibility, but they would be the kings and only inhabitants of their own planet! At least for some years jaja... ah... it all sounded really nice when put like that. He could still remember her cheerful face as she watched him enter the cryopod and was loaded into the spaceship.

But... sadly... accidents happen.

The space launch and spaceship set went well, he successfully entered cryosleep and spent years without accidents, waking up every 6 months for a day to check on the systems, he was sent to set up a colony outpost on a faraway planet after all, but when he had traveled 70% of the way, he was woken out of cryosleep out of schedule with a blaring alarm ringing in the spaceship.

Spaceship AI: *collision imminent, collision imminent, please evacuate the ship captain!*

It's was the spaceship's AI suddenly prevising a collision, that should have been impossible. Erik ignored her and reached the control bridge, there he saw it on the screen, an enormous oceanic world that was invisible on the telescopes and radar until just moments ago. The collision was imminent, and the spaceship's central control AI was doing all it could to decelerate the spaceship using all of the available retro propulsion engines at full throttle as there was no time to turn around and use the main engine, but they were quickly overheating. Its first directive was protecting the crew after all, but it clearly wouldn't be able to avoid the collision, seeing the data, Erik could see that the planet indeed seemed to have been detected out of nowhere when they got close enough. There wasn't any time to waste thinking about it more though, so he quickly followed his training and put on his spacesuit as fast as he could, running to an emergency launch pod. When the spaceship breached the atmosphere and was about to impact with the bubbling sea surface, the AI gave one last push back burning out all its retro propulsion engines and pointing the main engine down, to give him a chance. After having endured the heat of the rapid atmospheric descent, its outer rings broke and fell far around the planet as the spaceship was torn apart.

Spaceship AI: * Eject now captain!*

His capsule ejected from the front of the spaceship and bounced across the water surface like a smooth stone over a lake. When he finally stopped, he had landed quite a distance away from where his spaceship had sunk.

As the gravity of the situation sunk in, he was starting to feel doomed and had been reminiscing about his situation for a couple of hours already, the AI had saved his life, but now he was alone in an alien world with an atmosphere he might not even be able to breathe and just 6 more hours of oxygen in his suit, as the escape pod was clearly breached and might even flood at any moment. At least the place was beautiful, an aquamarine color sea all around as far as the eye could see, not a bad place to die. As those thoughts were going through his mind, he seemed to hear something but looking around nothing had changed, as if the sound came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It sounded like gibberish at first, but it became clearer and clearer. His initial thought was if he had hit his head on the landing or if it could be due to stress. He had never trained to land on an oceanic world after all, human life would require a lot of effort in the creation of floating cities, also the higher gravity than on Earth was making him feel sluggish.

[ Welcome to Oceanic Ark 52836383637, welcome, caretaker, be ready to assume your post, there's a lot of repairs to be made in the system in the past couple of million years, I almost thought they would send no one]

He was surprised at the voice inside his head, "What are you talking about? who are you? wait... am I going crazy already?"

[... aint you from *gibberish*?]

"no, can't even understand that, I'm a colonist from the European republic on the earth's solar system, I was tasked to set a colony on Gliese_581_c" and also thought 'Were hallucinations always so realistic?'.

*(https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581_c)

[yeah, i see it in your memories, that should still be quite a bit farther off from here based on your trajectory from your memories..., okay... anyways your space ship sunk and can't be used and i just saved your life with those bubbles, so let's say you owe me, now we are in an oceanic ark made by a civilization eons ago, but my antenna was damaged by a... meteor and i've been millions of years here alone so you know, it's nice finally having someone to talk to, oh i even started talking with the creatures sometimes you know?, they don't answer at all as i can't really talk to them, they can't hear me, but you know, sometimes just talking helps, oh i'm getting side tracked, first we should ensure your survival so you can help me, we are currently orbiting a star with a day and night cycle of 28 hours and it's about to become sunset, luckily for you its summer, during winter the surface freezes and your space ship would have been squeezed flat... anyways, there used to be an inspectors base around here, you could use that as a temporary base, my scanning of your surroundings and equipment shows that the space suit you are wearing should endure the pressure, well i would give you a hand but don't really have any hands you know? (giggle), also, be careful, my surveillance went offline long ago, right now I'm connected to your brain wavelength so I see what you see, if I detect danger around you I will tell you, now go 80 meters deep to your right and advance 40 meters, you should see a door and a metallic platform on the side of a smooth underwater mountain]

"... you are a chatterbox ain't you?, that was a lot to take in at once..., well whatever, let's go, are there any possible hostiles?" and thought 'well, even if I'm really going crazy, it's not like I have anything to lose anyways' seeing water starting to filtrate inside the escape pod.

[yes..., you see, it can be anything, this world has species from thousands of different worlds and eras, all thrown into this planed to adapt or die, and they have continued evolving and some interbreeding so... there are millions of things that could kill you, like (an image of a giant beast appeared in his mind) that, there's one of those 300 meters to your left (he shivered), so... don't go left, also your projectile weapon won't be of much use underwater, still better than nothing I guess, oh you can call me 'gibberish' by the way]

"...do you have a name?" he asked

[Yes, I'm Oceanic Ark 52836383637]

He cringed at the long name and answered ".... What about Rose?, I will call you Rose..., also..., where are you? how are you talking inside my head?" even if she was a really calm person selected by that quality, everything was still pretty surreal.

[me? you are inside me and I'm all around you, I'm the Arc itself, doesn't your species have brainwave communication systems?]

"no, we don't... okay, so you are like a DI? a digital intelligence? some humans also downloaded their minds into computers back in my world" he tried to reason.

[what are you saying? I'm only half organic silly (giggles) I was made like this]

That surprised him as he answered "Okay never mind then, am I close?" inside he was thinking 'I will need a health checkup if I survive this'

[yes, you should see it in a- oh.... this is going to be dangerous]

"What happened?" he asked worriedly

[well, the residence's first entrance has apparently been breached open and something is living inside now... we can reclaim the place if you close the door, activate the pumps, and reconnect the energy. Also then you will be able to open the secondary areas that appear to be intact... and restart the life support]

"Isn't this your body? how you didn't know?" he asked suspiciously.

[Well, millions of years of solitude and no one giving a crap tends to make people forgetful you know?]

"Okay, so what am I dealing with?"

[apparently 'gibberish' their planet was destroyed but they still exist here, their carapace are harder than steel]

" Okay..., can you please translate everything to words I can understand? do the read my mind thing"

[yeah, I was planning to read your entire memories while you sleep later (^-^)]

"Yeah, that doesn't sound creepy at all"

[I know right? it sounds fun! can't wait! \(>●<)/ ] she paused for a moment [let's see.... crab, should be similar to a crab in your memories, I will send the image to your mind]

Inside his mind appeared the image of a crab-looking creature but with multiple eyes and way bigger, with a pair of razor-sharp teethed claws.

[By the way... the claws are poisonous, they can snap you in half too... be careful]

"yeah... keeps getting better and better"

[no, I don't think so]

"search the word sarcasm in my memories once I fall asleep" he wondered 'is it really a hallucination?' he still wasn't sure if he was going crazy and it was his subconscious mind talking to himself as he had heard stories of people going crazy on dangerous moments, but... his life was at risk this time and he would accept any help given.

[will do~ (^-^)]