2175 C.E.

IX: Zakal-Faah

07/11/2175 Unknown Time: Transmission Sent Grushan Quarantine Buoy: O RN-06: 08/24/2175 1517 Grusheran Standard Time: Transmission Received Rizheran Deep Space Emergency Communication Network

Begin Transmission

My name is Lieutenant Michael J. Stevens, communications officer aboard the TSS Swordfish, registry LCM-1201. I was stranded on the third planet orbiting the star RN-06. My ship was destroyed in battle with an unidentified starship that seems to have originated from the planet's surface. We'd never seen anything like it; it just appeared from out of nowhere and ripped through our armor like it wasn't there with some kind of energy weapon. The captain ordered the crew to abandon ship in escape pods and make for the planet's surface. As far as I can tell, I'm the only one that made it. I'm on the planet's eastern continent, the one that wasn't destroyed in whatever cataclysm hit this place a thousand years ago. I only just managed to get my escape pod's transmitter online; I'm hoping I can patch through to the quarantine warning satellite that the Grushan left in orbit and send out a distress signal that way. There's not a good chance even if I can do it that I'll get a message out, and even if I do, there's no way anyone hears it for weeks or months. I may be dead by then. But, as I see it, my options are limited. So, I'm sending the transmission and hoping someone down the road gets it. I'm going to be recording daily logs of my experience down here and transmitting those as well; if I don't make it off, I want my stay to be useful to someone. I'll record more or less daily and if I have anything interesting to report in the meanwhile. I'll start with today being the 26th of June 2175. I have enough emergency rations to survive a week, maybe two. The vegetation on this continent is a bit sparse, but my hope is that some of its edible; I have one portable chem-kit to test it out, but I haven't used anything like it since my academy days; the consensus in fleet command was that it wasn't too likely that we would ever have the chance to need it. There doesn't seem to be too much animal life either, so I'll have to find something in the way of plant life to eat if a relief ship doesn't come within a week or so. I'm using my escape pod for shelter, since I had just enough fuel to land on the ground instead of water. That's another thing that worries me; I have only about a week's worth of clean water. I've seen a couple of lakes, but neither looks all that appetizing. One was green and filled with this organic slime; the other looked like an industrial dumping ground and was absolutely saturated with black sludge. That probably won't be drinkable for a few thousand years. I'm not hopeful about the other lake either. Still, it may rain; it looked like there was a stormfront inbound from the East; RN-06 3 has a reversed rotation from how it is on Earth, so it makes since that that's where the weather comes from. In fact, I had better get to expanding my shelter for the night; the pod's solid, but it's a bit cramped. I'll log in again tomorrow or some time tonight. End log.

06/27/2175

I took the liberty of collecting a fair amount of rainwater during the storm yesterday. A lot of it accumulated in puddles on the top of my escape pod. I took a sample of it and analyzed it with my chem-kit—just to be safe, since I didn't really expect a problem. It was a good thing I did though, because it had a pH of about 4.7, which for water is absurdly acidic. So it's definitely not safe to drink without some major treatment and probably not safe to even touch too much. At least it isn't highly basic, I suppose. That would eat skin really quickly. That puts me in something of a tough position; I have about a week's worth of water in emergency storage on my escape pod, but any more than that and I'll have to start getting creative. Groundwater scanners come as standard on the newer escape pods, so I'll run a search for that; in addition, I may just be able to filter and boil that industrial sludge depending on how the chemistry looks. Between those two things, I suspect I'll have my work cut out for me today. I'll check back in at sunset. End log.