LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 4: Landing.
I opened my eyes to see the red signals blaring again; it was the same shit when I woke up earlier, and I thought that I was reliving my memories.
" You are finally awake. I really thought you were dead." I heard Ariella's loud voice inside my space pod.
" Did we survive?" I thought and tried to exit the pod, but my whole body was drenched. It was then that I realized the mask tightly covering my face. I pulled my hand closer to my face to see it was covered in blood.
I removed the mask and abruptly jumped out of the chamber to see blood everywhere. The whole compartment was filled with blood oozing out from the pod.
" What the hell happened here?" I was shocked.
"It was an emergency. You were badly injured because all of our engines exploded as soon as we hit the singularity." Ariella informed.
" How am I alive then? Shouldn't everything disintegrate into pieces?"
" I don't know what happened. For the scale of destruction, I would say we were very lucky. I had to eject everything that was burning, but somehow, we were able to get out of it with most of the facilities and rations. Other than engines, of course."
" How bad was it that you had to put me in the infamous blood pool?" I pieced together a few things.
In case of fatal injuries, there was a last-chance option. It was to use the highly corrosive blood pool, which had to completely cover the impact area; it would eat away the scarred tissues, after which another set of fresh healing liquid is released to directly heal the injuries.
Even with our advanced technology, the chances that someone could survive such an ordeal was less than seven percent. There were a dozen recorded individuals who were able to pull through it, and I guess I became one on the list.
" Both your arms were cut off cleanly, a large shrapnel was embedded in your gut, while both your legs were impaled by a large rebar. It was fortunate that your head was protected due to dense material surrounding the top of the pod, or else you would be dead on impact." She gave a detailed report with a monotonous voice.
" Hold on! Doesn't that mean that the pod got destroyed? That means you-"
" I can control the onboard medical robot, nothing else! Don't doubt me; I already told you I can't do anything without your permission." She immediately knew what I was trying to imply.
She specifically stated she needed my command to do anything, but now she was healing me freely. I still had my suspicions, but this time, I let it slide because she saved my life. I will get to the bottom of it later; how much authority she actually had over everything was still a mystery to me.
It would not be strange if HQ had modified a fail-safe in case I didn't agree to go inside the black hole. Wait a minute, it's really not a black hole? I rushed toward the deck to see where we were, but to my disappointment, everything was black outside.
" Where are we? Did our shields fail, or are we still inside the phenomena?" Seeing pitch black strongly suggested that we were still inside of it, but I could clearly feel that the craft was not in motion anymore.
" That's why I have been screaming at the top of my lungs, but you were unresponsive for a week. We crash-landed, but I can't seem to pinpoint our location. Every sensory device that was on the ship had failed. I had to decrease our shield to prioritize whatever was left."
" What do you mean prioritize?"
" I had no choice; if our power cores exploded, everything would have blown up. Basically, what's left of RedWing is a small part of its tail and core body; both wings and engines had been lost."
" What about the tertiary engine on the top?" I asked. Even if we got stuck here, I need something to jumpstart our escape.
" It's badly damaged. I don't know the exact situation, but we are buried in soil, and I can't detect if the environment outside is hospitable or not."
" So basically, we are stuck here. Can't I put on a spacesuit and go look outside?"
" You can't; the escape hatch is also buried. You have to cut a hole to the top if you want to escape, but it will take a lot of time because the material of the ship is made of-"
" Riverbeterium, I know. I have to do something, or else the air would run out sooner or later."
" that's not a problem. With the core still functional, it will refine the nearby atmosphere to make it breathable inside. I already checked it's functioning perfectly." She added.
" Finally, good news." At least I will not suffocate to death. I need to figure out a plan if I need to survive. There is ample food that will last a decade, and with energy core running, it will not go out even after millions of years.
The sun technologies were able to make a breakthrough, basically harnessing a small sun for power, effectively ending the energy crisis in an instant. It was highly effective and contrary to what others expected, which was a major explosion a million times stronger than nuclear didn't happen.
Once started, it would constantly provide energy, more than a fraction of what real stars were capable of; it was so much that the Earth needed only one of them to power everything across the globe, which was why they started arming the spacecraft with this technology to make voyages last longer.
" I should look around to sort everything out. Even the Bay Area is a mess, with everything falling off the shelf. Maybe I can find a hole to crawl outside." I chuckled.
" A breach is not a laughing matter; put on a suit in case that happens. I can't guide you because most of my sensors are down."
" Fine, maybe we could be lucky and get a place identical to Earth's atmosphere instead of landing on a fucking asteroid." There was a lot that I didn't know, and with endless possibilities, the asteroid landing was much more plausible.
" Don't say nonsensical things; it's nearly impossible for such a miracle to happen. I will convert to a fucking monk if we really land on a habitual planet!" Ariella's human side shone as she placed a bet. It would be hilarious to have an AI become a devoted Christian, but I was ready to bet on it! I didn't have any other choice.
Against all odds, she was going to lose the bet spectacularly!