Out of Space

Chapter 13: Numbers

Blake leans against the railing, watching the night sky from the window in the officer's mess. The planet's dual moons loomed over the horizon with a spectacular display of stars as the backdrop. It's pretty romantic, he thought, with the dim lighting of the officer's mess and that wonderful view.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Ford joined Blake at the viewing gallery. "How are you feeling?"

"Better, after the meds," Blake replied. "I was contemplating about how beautiful this planet is."

"Thank you, for saving us all," Ford said. "Your plan worked. You landed us all in one piece with only a few casualties."

"It was a gamble. Thank god this lady held. I thought that we are all gonna die when that cliff came up."

"Lady luck is smiling on you, on all of us," Ford said. "So what's next?"

"Let the crew rest for the night, we start from fresh tomorrow. Make sure that none of the crew leaves the ship, and all hatches are locked down later tonight." Blake said. "We have a HOD meeting tomorrow after breakfast." He turned back to view the night sky.

By 10 pm shipboard time, the crew members lock down the ship once more. As they have no idea what was out there, it was safer to just lock down the ship and the crew enjoyed some much-needed rest. As the crew slept into the night, a fair distance away, near the peak of a volcano, a deep roar rumble out.

As morning came, the overall high morale of the crew could be seen. Chorus of greetings and cheerful laughter could be heard in the mess and walkways.

Blake sat at the head of the conference table and waited for all the heads of departments to enter and started the meeting. "Alright, we landed safely but there are still many difficult times ahead. We need to ensure our survival here, as we do not know how long we will be stuck here. There are 3 possible scenarios; One, we are stuck here forever, so we need to build a permanent base here. Two, we build a base here and wait hopefully for a rescue. Third and last of all, we rebuild a warp drive and return to Earth."

Chief Matt spoke up, "Rebuilding the UNS Singapore with what we have is impossible! We don't even have the proper tools for it nor the knowledge base! Last option is out!" He declares.

Ford spoke next, "As for a rescue, it is also impossible. 1st of all we are in uncharted space and with the war with the Swarm, it will be years before a survey ship enters this system."

"So the only option is for us to build a base here. A colony of man." Blake said. "In this case, we need to inventory every item and salvage all usable systems from UNS Singapore."

Grayson raises his hand, "We need food, water, medical supplies, shelter, and security"

Dr. Sharon also raises her hand and added, "We need to send out surveying teams to gather samples from native plant life and soil to see if it is edible and also if it provides the vitamins we need. Our vitamins supplies are a little low. And also I need to use the labs here to test if there is any pathogen or viruses that are harmful to us in the air or soil."

"Eh, for security, I will set the Marines out to recon the perimeter, and also as escorts for the surveying teams if needed." Lt Frank. "But we are lacking severely in manpower. I have only so many marines left."

"Alright, you guys know what to do without me tell you," Blake said. "I want a detailed report on our current level of status, manpower, fuel, power, food, water, equipment, weapons and action plans," Blake tick his fingers off one by one. "For now we set up a perimeter first around the ship. We will convene again same time tomorrow morning. Thank you."

By noontime, the ship was a hive of activity. Crewmen using power tools were either flatting the ground to level the surface, while others, cut down trees and other foliage. Another team worked to clear the buried portion of the ship out. Pairs of Marines could be seen patrolling along the perimeter. In short, a perimeter radius of 100m is being cleared around the crash. This activity went on all day till nightfall where everyone retreated back into the ship to button up.

"All here? Good. Let's start." Blake leans back in his chair as he looks around the conference table. Other than the usual people, a few more new faces appeared. "Ok, who first?"

Ops officer Grayson cleared his throat as he volunteers to start first. "The ship doesn't look pretty. What remains of UNS Singapore is the forward and center crew quarters, the forward flight and cargo decks, the bridge and CIC, the forward reactor and the central magazines." He flips his notepad, "Also, the med bay, the old civilian research labs and Marine quarters are all that survived."

"How about weapons systems?" XO Ford raised.

"For weapons systems, the dorsal turret is currently half buried in the side of the hill, while the ventral turret is scattered in pieces from here to the sea. The missile launchers and point defense lasers on the port and starboard side are relatively protected in their armored casements. But we have to dig some out from the hill. For ammunition remaining in the magazines, we have a grand total of 80 Multi-Purpose AIM-32H Space Sparrows missiles and 20 more in the ready launchers and 236 155mm sabot penetrators for the rail guns. For the PD lasers, until the reactor is fixed, we do not have enough energy to fire them."

Graysontook a sip of water before continuing. "We got 3 machine shops, 1 in flight, 1 in cargo and a final 1 in the forward reactor. All are tooled for maintenance and simple parts fabrication. We could tweak around with the software to produce other things but don't expect to build a warp drive out of it."

"Total active manpower standing at, 424. While 34 are still in recovery. We have set up 5 Wind, Tidal and Solar (WTS) power generators taken from the 5 remaining lifeboats, it currently provides enough power for our basic needs. Also, the ship's water purifiers are still working, just that we need to find a proper water source, seawater works too but I don't really recommend it. We will need to build a water supply line or we have to transport water to be purified every day." Grayson looked up from his notes. "For inventory," He nods to the Asian male sitting on his left. "Quartermaster Chen will update us."

'Good morning sir," QM Chen greeted Blake. "We have a total of 22 days worth of food both perishables and preserved if running on full rations for 500 people. We have water enough for 16 days at current usage. 92 power tools, 5 forklifts, 19 heavy hand lifters. Zero fuel in the tanks. 2 space haulers and 4 buggies."

QM Chen looks toward Lt Frank, and continues, "On the Marines and Security section side, we have a total of 37 M7A1s, 2 M7 DMRs, 220 Glock G88Cs, 50 M8 shotguns, 4 PK-299 HMGs and 217 PDWs. 30,000 rounds of 6.5mm C type. 50,000 rounds of 6.5mm AP, 179,000 rounds of 5mm and 10,000 12 ga shotgun shells." He pauses and flips his notes. "The Marines armorer says that once the ammo is used up, we do not have the advanced materials to produce any more ammo, except for simpler ammunition like the 12 ga."

"Medical wise, I am almost all out of biomaterials to produce much vaccines or medicine." Dr. Sharon spoke next. "We used up almost all of it to produce the cyro shots. We need to see if there are any native plants here with medical properties that we can use if we want more medicine."

"Is there any signs of viruses or pathogen that we need to be worried about?" Blake asked.

"So far no. I tested the air and seawater samples. As we have not found any source of water, I cannot verify it yet." Dr. Shanon replied. "As for the wounded in the sick bay. Good news is all of them are stabilized and should be able to recover in time. The bad news is I am nearly out of medical supplies like bandages, sterilizers, and other critical supplies for medical operations."

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