A crash landing is difficult to describe with accuracy. When in the middle of it, I did not think the tumbling would end. It was more like an assault than an event to my mind. Surrounded by noise and violence, papers, paneling and even my own clothing blurred past my face. I remember the weird details in times of crisis that come for no apparent reason; I saw a metal tool tumble by, I looked at my own hand and considered my own anatomy in slow motion. I do not know why these are the things I remember.
When it was finally over, we climbed from the wreckage, with few injuries. Meva's arm was broken. I was bleeding from a gash in my forehead. P's crib had landed on top of her, but instead of harming her it kept objects from crushing her. At the time I thought it probably saved her life.
Behind us was a jagged line scratched into the planet’s surface that documented the trajectory of our landing. Pieces of our ship was ripped from the hull by trees and rocks and scattered to either side of that line. The air was thicker than our home planet, but gravity was comparable and a yellow haze protected us from direct sunlight.
Meva knew enough of the healing arts to talk me through resetting her arm … a difficult ordeal. She and P took shelter under low hanging branches while I went in search of anything that could be salvaged from the wreckage.
Over the course of that day I dragged chunks of the ship’s carcass back to Meva, where she, using her one good arm, assembled a makeshift shelter. P seemed oblivious to the peril of our situation. I would put bushes on my head and dance around for her which consistently made her giggle. P’s happiness was a comfort to Meva.
The first night we huddled together in our shelter and listened to strange animal noises that put a chill in our bones. This planet sounded all the more threatening and I knew it would be a matter of time before a beast broke into our temporary housing.
Most days I worked on the water generator. The few stores of water we had were nearly exhausted, and a survey of the area revealed no water though there were plants growing on the hillside that I assumed used water to survive. The water generator wouldn’t power on and I considered leaving Meva and P to go on a more exhaustive search for water. Another howl, deep and brooding came from the forest as if to threaten me if I ventured too far from camp.
Our love for P motivated us to keep trying and it kept us from falling into despair.
I fused three wires on the water generator and it came on for a few seconds, then made a popping sound and seized up in a cloud of smoke. I feared I might have damaged it beyond repair so in desperation I used the soul transfer device to put myself into that infernal machine! Once inside, I could clearly see what must be done. I also discovered that the water generator was actually a matter generator. It could pull water from anywhere because it changed the array of any molecule into water. With a little work, the water generator became a matter generator. I was able to make simple objects with it. I started with bricks, then made hammers, screws, bolts and basic levers.
I repaired the power grid! Using the green engine room as a power generator, we fed Ptonium into the grid it offered more than enough power for anything we needed.