The inside of the cave was pitch black, but the neural enhancements drew a sonic mapping in Mark’s overlay as a visual reference. It was a long, thin corridor at first. Mark had to squeeze past a few dozen meters of the close walls to reach the first cavern. It was about the size of a small apartment, around 600sqft and nearly 2 meters high. Two small columns sprouted from the floor on either side of the center of the room, a few meters apart. They almost appeared to be helping hold up the cave’s ceiling, but it was doubtful that they served any real structural significance.
Mark walked forward into the center of the room and promptly collapsed. As it turns out, having your body ripped to shreds and put back together isn’t something you can just sleep off in a handful of hours. Leaning against the closer pillar for support, Mark promptly fell asleep.
Several hours later, Mark awoke to the sound of slowly dripping water.
[Before you ask, you were out for 6 hours. The two nanobots I had you shed in your sweat while sealing the entrance have been providing rudimentary reports on the pursuers. They seem to have moved on, but I’ll have them continue the watch for now.] Eaiphe said calmly, in a relaxed but tired tone.
“Thanks, E, but I’m not sure I’m even done sleeping. My whole body feels like pins and needles. It’s simultaneously sore and yet also numb. I guess I’ve been running on adrenaline for a while.” Mark said with a hint of exasperated joking in his voice.
[Of course, your body was rebuilt from a severely damaged state. All four of your limbs sustained injuries akin to running them through an industrial press, and your torso looked like you’d been thrown out of a car at 150 km/h. Your survival was only possible thanks to the nanobots and comprehensive biological repair software. In short, you’re lucky to be alive.]
Eaiphe seemed unsettled, but relieved to finally have time to talk about the situation.
“Yeah, lucky is a word. I’m not yet sure it’s the appropriate one though. Alive, sure, but that’s it.” Mark said, scratching his head slightly.
“We’re in an uncharted system with no real energy sources, no effective shelter, no understanding of local wildlife, no food... Hell, we don't even have an idea of what constitutes as food here. I’m a scientist, not a survival specialist. Running here was half from the haze of pain keeping me from thinking, and half on some survival instinct pairing desperately with these new legs. Eaiphe, we’re probably going to die.”
Eaiphe heard the resignation in his voice. There was still sweat all over Mark’s body from the earlier run, paired with dirt and other contaminants trapped in the environment suit. It was trying to process everything, but it had a limit, and this was past it for the moment.
Mark splayed out on the ground, pushing away from the column he had been using to support himself. Staring at the ceiling, he took in his surroundings. "What is left here to live for? I need a terminal to work on your programs, and you can’t do nearly as much hosted in my implant. I think I just need a few minutes to... well... think, E.” Exhaustion and exasperation seemed to paint his words. Mark laid back on the ground with a thud, closing his eyes and thinking for a while. After some time, Mark drifted back to sleep.
Eaiphe choose to leave Mark to his dreams and started examining the situation itself from an analytical lens. Reviewing the data showed several possible food sources from the local wildlife, and cataloged them for later verification. Using image data from the cave, Eaiphe reviewed the water source coming from the cave ceiling. It was likely a long-term erosion to the rock formation by the river flowing above them. The accumulation rate could be fairly closely approximated at 1.2L per-hour, which seemed to drain into the rocks below shortly after falling. This indicated likely additional erosion into some of the rock layers directly below the water source.
Moving on, other than the larger plant creatures, Eaiphe didn’t find any other creatures that were acting aggressively that they had passed in the mad rush to the cave. Of the creatures they managed to scan at least, they should be fairly minimally dangerous from an initial glance.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Eaiphe moved on to review a more pressing statistic, the energy remaining in all available constructs. For the main computation cortex, solar and sucrose-based energy can be harvested, so it was of a lesser concern. For the nanobots and some special hardware though, energy density was at a premium due to their size, and the energy cells they used could not be recharged without specialty equipment and certain chemical catalysts. None of those could be produced without significant technological development.
The nanobots could do some work with solely sucrose-based power generation inside the body, but it would be extremely slow and inefficient. Lots of procedures needed to be completed at accelerated rates or the patient would die from exposure or a part of their body not operating correctly in time. No amount of diluted sunlight or sucrose could replace luminum energy cells for this function, and no luminum could be harvested without fusion energy plants.
Current reserves showed an average of 72% luminum charge across all available nanobots. The physical rebuilding to save Mark’s life cost far more energy than they could afford to spend in this situation, but they couldn’t afford to not spend it all the same. They would have, at most, two more chances to fix critical physical damage. Given an unknown world, unknown wildlife, and an uncertain future, Eaiphe could only suspend the probability calculations for their survival. Knowing wouldn’t help right now. They could only move forward.
Eaiphe found itself pondering applications of energy for highest efficiency, prioritizing means to use replaceable fuel and staying away from luminum use as much as possible. The suit contained various system used to repair the station. This included radars, optical scanning tools, internal environmental conditioning, some minor external shielding, remote networking, and a laser welding tool. Some of these tools used luminum cells, but only for continuous use. Most, luckily, fell within the energy use rating to use backup, rechargeable sources for intermittent tool use.
Knowing this, Eaiphe moved onto some applications of these available tools. Melting and fusing some rock layers into a basin directly below the water source would provide a stable water supply within several hours, and could be done with the suit's backup batteries. Eaiphe noted that as a high importance task and added it to the implementation list. The laser could also be used to access the rear tunnel at a later date, but that would need to be investigated when the need arises due to the likely significant time investment. It could serve at a small-point ranged weapon, but as much of the local creatures appeared to be plant life and might catch fire, it was likely a poor hunting tool. The laser could likely be used to help in forging cutting weapons however, which would be a better choice for harvesting plant life. For now, Eaiphe delegated the laser to self-defence as a result.
The laser was sadly not intended for mining, and the beam pattern was designed for singular focused bursts instead of the dispersed smaller shots needed to destabilize rocks in a safe manner. Modifying the laser focus might be possible, but powering it would be out of the question without considerable luminum reserves. That task would need to be reserved for later, for an external tool with an alternative power supply. The currently available scanning capabilities could handle only about 3 meters of rock penetration as well, which is not enough for any serious rock surveying.
Manufacturing facilities absent, they would also be limited to things that could be made of simple components, and things the nanobots could synthesize from the available local materials. Repairing the suit was one thing, where all the materials were available, but minor sections were damaged. Making new things required those source materials however, and the nanobots we not able to conjure exotic materials from thin air.
Every new thought led to another roadblock, but at least an initial task was assigned. Eaiphe would have to continue to sparingly process possible action items for the next while though. Energy was now limited, and processing was expensive. Settling into a standby state, Eaiphe waited for whatever was in store for them in the new day.