CHAPTER 1
LOG: DAY 3
Test.
LOG: DAY 3 (2)
Okay, the logbook still works. Glad at least something here still works.
I’m gonna cut it short for you; I’m in deep shit. I’m fucked, is what I’m
saying. How the hell does one end up as the only one still alive on an emergency
escape pod after being struck by a meteor? Ok ok, I gotta stop doing this. Maybe
some context will help.
A while back NASA started this new program to ‘colonize’ moons and planets like
Mars and the moon (if you count putting up a few inflatable bases as ‘colonizing
a celestial body’). It was called the Aeolus Program. It basically works like
this; Send a rocket to a huge earth-orbiting space station with thrusters on the
back capable of going very large distances called Cronos, then go those very
large distances and boom. Colonize a planet or whatever. Either way that’s
basically how it goes, and I was lucky enough to get selected to go on Aeolus V,
the fifth mission in the program. Me and my crew were selected to go to the moon
to establish yet another base (as if we didn’t have enough, there’s already
around six bases up there, and they’re not small either!) so we could “pave the
way for future exploration of celestial bodies” blah blah blah. All a bunch of
bullshit, we’re basically just glorified construction workers with tacky
spacesuits. Anyway, we went up the rocket to the station and then came the
boring part: the wait. Which I guess technically isn’t that boring cause I’m in
this situation now…
Either way let’s cut to the chase;
After around three days of traversing through space, we got struck by a meteor.
Basically a massive space rock hit us and, as you can imagine, that’s not very
good. Almost half the ship was immediately destroyed and I was lucky enough to
be on the other side with the corridors still spinning at 1 G, so I had enough
time to hurry to one of the escape pods. The escape pods look almost like
erasers, with a sliding double door on the front and painted red. The interior
is not that big, it can probably only house around one or two people. The pods
themselves were lined up probably around five or so in one corridor, so I
snatched one and hurried the fuck out of there. The pods are surprisingly quick
at pressurizing the interior, so I was off in no-time. Push the big red button
labeled “ESCAPE” and you’ll feel around three or four G’s as the pod activates
its only thruster to take you out of the danger zone as quickly as it can.
So that’s what I did. I am now aimlessly drifting in space, alone in a massive
toolbox at night (earth-time). I can see the Cronos through the window… let’s
just say the damage is not very good. I’m screwed.
LOG: DAY 4
Maybe I’m not screwed just yet. I was searching around the escape pod in sheer
panic looking for something… just something that could help me. And guess what I
found? Spare water and food packets! Shit, there’s even a crudely made EVA suit!
Looks like I’m not dying just yet.
I don’t know how long they’ll last though, probably only a couple of days since
it doesn’t look like much. Aside from food I also managed to get the flight
computer up and running. It shows me some data like my orbit and other tacky
shit like how many pods have launched… oh. I’m the only escape pod that
launched. That’s… I can’t be the only one who survived. Maybe someone was doing
an EVA and survived…? Who am I kidding, of course I’m the only one who survived.
The Cronos is ripped to shreds, I can see it from here! Sigh, this is gonna be
harder than I thought.
Since I’m only an engineer on this mission and not the commander, I’m obligated
not to take the Master’s escape pod in case of an emergency. The reason why
that’s important is because that’s the only pod with the proper equipment to
contact Houston. There’s only a shitty radio transceiver/receiver on this pod
that only works half the time (I would know since I’ve already tried it). And it
definitely can’t contact Houston so… fuck. I’m gonna try and figure out how the
computer works, eat something and then sleep.
I gotta survive this.
LOG: DAY 5
Okay, I figured it out, but it’s one hell of a plan that might not even work in
the first place.
According to the guidance computer it shows I’m going towards an orbit around
the sun (figured that much since I burned straight up when I escaped from
Cronos), but I can abuse that and change it to a head-on trajectory towards the
moon. I don’t have enough fuel to go for Earth though, unfortunately. The pods
don’t carry that much fuel, they were only designed to be used in low-earth
orbit (no one anticipated things would go wrong this late in the mission). If I
angle the pod just correctly I can execute a burn that uses up almost all of my
fuel and puts me on a course for the moon! Okay, so far so good, but how would I
go about landing on the moon, I hear you ask. It’s very simple. Burn everything.
As soon as I start getting close to the surface, I’ll put the engine on max and
hopefully that gives me enough to slow down and not die. Hopefully.
If I decide to do this then I have to do it in exactly two hours, that’s when
the burn window starts. I’ll burn the engine for fifteen seconds and then shut
it off. That puts me on track to arrive on Day 7. After I’m on the moon, I’ll
try to contact one of the many bases with the receiver on top so I can be
rescued. Then I’ll be home, simple as that! Okay maybe not that simple, but it’s
a start.
My next log will be after I’ve completed the burn. If I die and someone finds
this, you know what happened.
LOG: DAY 5 (2)
I’m alive! And the burn was executed successfully! I am now on a direct course
for the moon.
I used about 80% of my fuel reserve (I’m not a lunatic, I need at least a little
margin for error when it comes to crash-landing). If I were to have used a
little more, I could have done a soft-landing, but then I wouldn’t have had
enough fuel to even land. So this is the best thing I could’ve done. I hope.
But there’s a problem I anticipated would occur. I don’t have enough fuel to
slow myself down enough to the point where I actually survive. Once I enter
lunar gravity there’s going to be too much weight onboard, so I need to shed
some off. The only thing I can think of right now that would save a ton of
weight (possibly literally) is the heat shield. Remember when I told you that
these pods were only designed to be used in low-earth orbit? If an emergency
escape was needed, they would fly away from the station and re-enter the earth
and, in order to not burn up, NASA gave us the luxury of a heat shield. Problem
is it’s going to weigh the craft down a lot upon arrival, so I need it off.
From what I’ve seen on earth when looking at these pods, the heat shield appears
to be a single piece of carbon-phenolic composite (basically shit that burns
very slowly) that can relatively easily be pried off with something like a
screwdriver. I’ll have to go around the entire pod prying off the heat shield
every couple of centimeters or so. It’ll be slow, but it’s the only option I
have (well, not really. I could throw everything in here out into space, but I’d
prefer not to). To do this I need the EVA suit. I checked it out earlier and it
looks to have a life support pack on the back (the big rectangular bulge
spacesuits have) and doesn’t look torn. I’m going to attempt to pressurize it
here in the pod before taking it out into space (I’m not a complete idiot) so I
can see if there are any leaks. Then, if there aren’t, I’ll tether myself to the
pod, grab a screwdriver and get to work. Sounds easy. Probably isn’t.
Taking the suit out now.
LOG: DAY 6
Okay. Things worked.
I went ahead and tested the suit before doing anything, and it showed no leaks.
The suit itself is surprisingly not that bulky. I’ve seen worse before. With
that knowledge in mind I went ahead and found a screwdriver and went out. I had
to depressurize the entire pod first before exiting (which it was very reluctant
to do, my ears are still ringing after the blaring depressurization alarm) and
then I could leave. Poking my head out the hatch felt weird. I’d never really
done an EVA like this on my own before… and now I’m all alone. My entire crew is
dead. Everyone on earth probably thinks I’m dead. Alright, enough “pondering
over my entire existence” time. I still had work to do. I made sure to tether
myself to the hatch hook before fully exiting. The heat shield covers the entire
back portion of the pod, so I had to go around. This made the tether become a
little tight (I’ll remember that if it someday snaps and I die) but it wasn’t a
problem. I then went ahead with the plan and started wedging the screwdriver in
between the heat shield and the body of the pod, lifting the screwdriver up and
down, prying the shield off its attachment point. I felt a little snap, and the
heat shield was loose! Okay, not the whole thing, I still had a lot left to do.
I did the second part, the third, the fourth, the fifth… you get it. I went
around the whole pod, prying the shield off its “hinges”. After about an hour
(felt like a decade), the heat shield was off. Hell yeah! I did something that
worked! Take that, space! Celebrations aside, I grabbed the heat shield and just
threw it as hard as I could in a random direction. Sayonara, heat shield. It was
then that I realized I’d let go of the screwdriver. Shit. I only had one but…
maybe I wouldn’t need it. I sure as fuck hoped I wouldn’t. If I did then… I’d
have to figure something out.
After that whole situation I went back to the hatch, re-pressurized the pod and
took off the suit. I checked the guidance computer to see if it worked, and
guess what? It did. No more heat shield weighing me down. I’ll now survive once
I get down to the surface (if my math checks out). You’ve probably been
wondering what the plan is once I do get down to the surface. The bases that
have been put up are always occupied by one crew or another, so if I can manage
to get to one of those bases (or even contact them for that matter), I can set
off in one of their super-duper-highley-advanced-launch-escape vehicles (small
rockets). Then I’ll be back on earth and live to tell the tale. Simple as that.
Right? Well, with my luck it probably won’t be as simple as that. From what I
know, the bases shouldn’t be too far apart from each other. Even if I crash far
away, I might still be able to walk there. But, as always, a lot of things could
go wrong on the way. The shoddy EVA suit could tear, or worse. Most likely I’ll
probably die, but not die trying.
Tomorrow I’ll be on the moon, either dead or alive.
LOG: DAY 7
I can see the moon. It’s massive. Only one more hour until I start descending.
I’m gonna do some last minute calculations.
When I first burned to escape from Cronos, I burned at full throttle for around
three seconds. That used up 20% of the fuel reserve. I traveled up about 100
meters. That means I have three seconds of burn time that can shed 100 m/s off
my velocity before I crash into the surface. Lunar gravitational acceleration is
around 1.625 m/s squared and I’ll most likely be coming in from 15 km altitude,
which means my velocity crashing into the surface will most likely be at around
220 m/s. That means I’ll have to fire up the engine at around 130 m/s to have
some margin once the engine stops. I’ll still be coming in very fast, but that’s
the lowest speed I can
get to. Man, I really wanna live.
Signing off for now. Either there’s a next log from me on the surface or I’m
dead.
CHAPTER 2
LOG: DAY 7 (2)
That was hard, but I’m alive. The safety straps in this pod really do a lot, I
tell ya that.
I did what I planned. Once the speed was around 120 m/s I full-throttled the
engine until it ran out of fuel and held my breath. The crash was so hard it
cracked the window on the door and made me fracture my rib, but somehow the pod
is still pressurized and I’m not dead. The pod is currently lying diagonally
facing upward in a small ditch that was created on impact, so I thought all was
good when I tried booting up the comms system and contacting the nearest base,
but once again; I was wrong. The entire system must have completely broken when
I landed, which means I am fully unable to use it. I’m gonna have to do an EVA
to see what’s wrong and if I can fix it, but it’ll take a while. I might just
die here after all.
LOG: DAY 8
Okay, my EVA revealed two things:
The comms system is entirely unfixable. All the wiring is severed, the antennas
are completely bust and everything is generally in ass-condition. No point in
trying to fix that, especially after the second thing my EVA revealed.
There’s a base! A base literally only a couple hundred meters away! But I
shouldn’t get too excited. It seems… off. There’s no lights on inside, the big
communications antenna on top isn’t spinning and it generally just looks “worn”.
Maybe they’re doing maintenance or something inside? I should have to face the
possibility that I’m not getting off this rock in a while if that’s what they’re
doing. Anyway, enough stalling, I’m gonna go and see what they’re up to.
LOG: DAY 8 (2)
…shit. Well, maybe it’s not so bad? No, it’s definitely very bad.
This base is abandoned. There’s no subtle way to put it. No occupants here, no
electricity, no nothing. Just a shell of what it once was. It appears to have
been evacuated at some point in time, most likely a long time ago considering
the state it’s been left in. Luckily it’s not too horrible, there appears to be
no leaks anywhere. The only reason I can think as to why they would evacuate is
either because of a meteorite threat or a failure somewhere in the base’s power
system that would cause something fatal. Since there’s no newly made craters
outside (except my pod crash-landing), I’m ruling out a meteorite threat. That
leaves the electrical threat. I’m gonna have to search the entire base for
something that might indicate something dangerous before I turn on the power.
Inside and out.
LOG: DAY 8 (3)
It seems like that wasn’t it either. I found no signs of anything dangerous.
That begs the question; why would they evacuate? I don’t know at this time.
Maybe they left this base for good when the other ones were being built. The
only things of note were the cables outside connecting the giant solar panels to
the reactor, and the reactor itself. The connection outside was severed, meaning
the solar panels were completely useless. Their motors that rotate them were
still going, though. Most likely since they use part of the power they generate
to do just that.
The cables were an easy fix. I just had to find some spares in the electrical
room downstairs, then replace the connection with the new cables. The biggest
problem, however, is the reactor itself. The reactor basically looks like two
half-spheres stacked on top of each with a control panel display on the front
and is basically the center where power generated from outside goes. It then
gets distributed to different parts of the base, and it also manages the oxygen
from the oxygenators. So it’s basically the most vital part of the entire base,
and if I don’t have it… well it’s just not gonna work, now is it? The problem is
that it just won’t turn on. Classic. Why? I have no idea. I’ve never really
worked on this type of reactor before, so I’ll just have to open it up and see
what I think the problem is. It could be short circuited, or a simple problem
like a switch that wasn’t toggled. I’ll have to pray it’s the second one.
LOG: DAY 8 (4)
It was the second one. Inside the panel beneath the display was a toggle switch.
I flicked it, and what do you know? The bastard works. This makes me even less
suspicious that the base was evacuated. Nobody would actively come down here and
turn the reactor off if a dangerous threat was being presented, they would just
leave. Either way the reactor’s on, the solar panels are producing power and the
base is pressurized and stable. I was able to take my suit off without dying
(yay!), so I’d call that a win. I’m gonna find the bedrooms and sleep.
LOG: DAY 9
I’m writing to you from inside the base. Most of the systems are working fine,
but it’s the really important things like the comms and wireless speaker system
(especially the speaker system, I can’t play music here!). I’ve tried multiple
times starting up the giant antenna that communicates with Earth, but I just
can’t get it to work. Currently I have no way to talk to anyone. The only way to
communicate with anyone is with that antenna, so I’m pretty much screwed until I
figure out a way to boot it back up. I’m gonna try and figure that out
eventually, but there’s a bigger problem.
The escape pod came with a bunch of food packets and drinking water, but the
problem is I’ve expended almost all of it. You might think that the base has a
bunch of food, and you’d be right, but almost all of it has “rotted away”. Which
is strange because I don’t think the food NASA sends us is supposed to rot. I
think it’s because the base was de-pressurized when I came here, and probably a
while before that. When food packets get sent up, all the air is sucked out of
the pouches, and once they’re on the moon the crew takes those food packets,
rehydrates them and stores them. Since the pouches that were already here had a
bunch of water and air in them, once they got exposed to the vacuum of the moon
they most likely immediately became inedible. That would explain why all of the
food packets that survived were the ones that weren’t rehydrated.
So I don’t have a lot of food. Water is not a problem right now since the
hydrator machines are still working. They take basically all of the liquid and
waste inside the base and turn them into drinkable water (yes, that includes
urine) and dispense the water into different “hydration stations” around the
base (they’re basically just very fancy space sinks). So until those break,
water is not gonna be an issue. But, as we know with my luck, that’s bound to
happen eventually. But I’m not going to waste my time worrying about that while
my food runs out, I need to find a solution. I can rehydrate the food packets
already here and eat them, or I can take a page out of The Martian and replant
the seeds, potatoes and all the other stuff that is farmable. Luckily I checked
the maps earlier, and there looks to be a huge growth room in the center of the
base. I can use water from the hydration stations to soil the dirt and water the
crops, after which I can hopefully save a bit of the crop and replant it again.
If I can manage to do that, I’ll have a nice stash of food until I can find a
way out of here. Speaking of which, I thought this base would have a rover of
some sorts outside that I could use to go to another base, but nope. I found a
note in the drawer saying that the rover that was here was supposed to be
dismantled for parts, since it “stopped working”. That’s all it says. I don’t
know why it stopped working and I don’t know where it is. I’m gonna have to do
an EVA sometime to find it (or its parts), but for now I gotta focus on food and
the antenna.