Some of you who have seen some of my very lengthy posts on this forum may have rightly come to the conclusion that I enjoy writing and I do! I particularly love creative story writing. This post is going to be the first chapter of hopefully many chapters in a novilization of Subnautica's story line. Basically, I'll be taking the elements of Subnautica's story, and weave them all together into something like a book giving the character you play as his own personality. Now, because the character you play as in Subnautica doesn't have an official name, I will be giving him one myself. Let's see... his name will be... Jeff? Yes, Jeffery Masterson. Alright, let's begin!
Splash Down - A Subnautica Story
Chapter 1: Sit back and Relax
The Aurora was a sight to behold. It was the newest ship the Alterra Corporation had rolled out of the space dock. The space dock was a massive space station orbiting Earth designed to provide the space to build massive interplanetary vessels of all shapes and sizes. It also acted as a massive air-port with many commercial ships available for boarding. The Aurora, however, was off limits to commercial travelers. She was built for a special mission to the outer reaches of explored space. She wasn't the biggest ship docked today, but she was capable of carrying around 7,000 crew with a massive cargo space. Jeffery Masterson was sitting in the thousands of rows of blue chairs in the waiting area of the space dock's airport section. He sat reading on his PDA with nothing more than a backpack and a duffel bag at his side. He glanced up through the massive observation glass out at the Aurora. At that moment, a robotic voice echoed through the intercom system over the hustle and bustle of the airport.
"Alterra specialized craft Aurora now boarding. Please proceed to the Specialized Launch section and provide your Alterra IDs."
Jeff slid his personal PDA in his backpack, grabbed his duffel bag, and headed off on the long walk toward the corner of the boarding section dodging travelers that were walking to and fro. A hollow panel on the ceiling read, 'Specialized Launch'. Jeff approached the security check and was thankful to be one of the first few people in the line. After the person in front of him went through, Jeff came up to the scanner array.
"ID." A security officer said with a sigh. "Put your things in the luggage scanner and please step into the array."
Jeff handed him his ID. This ID identified him as an Alterra employee and authorized him for this special mission. Not your typical passport ID that most commercial travelers have. He deposited his luggage onto the hover belt that slowly moved his bags through a scanner. Then, he stepped into the large scanner array. The thing looked much like a door frame with a shiny black interior and white exterior. A blue light flashed on from the top and aimed a blue laser scanner down at Jeff. Instantly a green checkmark appeared on a monitor sticking out from the side of the frame.
"You're cleared. Next." The security officer barely let his words leave his mouth before saying 'next'.
Jeff grabbed his hovering luggage from the hover belt and continued on to to a door that lead to a horizontal elevator that would take him to the boarding tower that was attached to the Aurora and held it in place. Jeff stepped onto the massive platform that was the elevator and once enough people had gotten on, it automatically began zooming down a large glass corridor. Jeff got a really good view of the entire space dock. He had never really seen the immensity of the station since he hadn't traveled much except the few times he went with his family on vacations to Mars when he was too young to remember.
Jeff let out a low whistle as he observed the massive line of various ships all docked to the side of the station's exterior forward deck.
Before Jeff had fully taken in the view, a dark shadow came over the glass corridor. He turned around to see the Aurora in all its glory as the sun became blotted out by it. The ship was much bigger up close than he had initially imagined when viewing it from the waiting area. The elevator slowed to a stop and everyone began stepping off the elevator into the boarding tower's main room. Here, several corridors went directly from this room into the Aurora's boarding bay. Above each corridor was a label that identified a class. 'Engineer', 'Pilot', 'Administrative', 'Medical', 'Communications', etc. Jeff was a simple engineer who specialized in PRAWN suit maintenance. He had always wan'ted to pilot one of those things, but all he got to do was repair them which Jeff still enjoyed as much as a hovercar referbisher would enjoy fixing up old hovercars. He stepped into the corridor labeled 'Engineer' and walked down the long hallway until he came into what looked like a large cargo bay where there seemed to be crew members directing people to their assignments. As a group of people went off to the left, Jeff saw a crew member appear out from behind them.
"Engineer?" He said simply.
"Yeah, PRAWN maintenance and repair." Jeff replied.
"ID please."
Jeff used his free hand to retrieve his Alterra passport from his pocket and gave it to the man.
"Alright..." The man looked at the ID, glanced down at a PDA, and scrolled down a list. "Alright Jeffery Masterson, PRAWN personnel are to report to deck 5, Living Quarters branch 17. Head off to your left and follow the signs. Your room number is 119. Place your ID's bar-code up to the scanner to unlock the door. If you get lost, just find a computer terminal and pull up a map of the ship."
"Alright, thanks." Jeff said. The crewman simply looked past him to the next personnel coming in behind him.
Jeff headed off to the left where at the end of the cargo bay was a door that lead into a hallway. Once he reached the door, he saw an elevator at the end of the hall and quickly made his way toward the people piling into it. The doors shut behind him and a woman closest to the elevator's terminal began punching in numbers and asking people what deck they were going to.
"And you?" she asked Jeff.
"Deck five." he said.
After a bit more asking around, she finally entered all the decks everyone would be going to and the elevator starting going up. After several stops, Jeff finally came to deck five and exited the elevator into another set of hallways. A sign on the wall directed him to his left for Living Quarters. He made his way down several long hallways occasionally passing by a crew member that seemed quite enveloped in their work.
"Hey does anyone know why my Crew PDA is using the Vanilla 1.0 OS?" A crewmember called behind Jeff as he passed by him.
A reply came from some where down the hall behind him. "You musta been issued an older PDA, Thomas. Relax, its only one version older. I hear 1.1 isn't much different anyway."
Eventually Jeff came to the Living Quarters hallway and he started counting down the door numbers. "123, 122, 121, 120, Ah, here's 119."
Jeff took out his ID and placed it in front of the wall scanner and after a split second, the door unlocked and an automated voice chimed, "Welcome aboard."
The interior was very meager. A shelf, a bed, some wall lockers and a chair with a small shelf sticking out of the wall next to it that Jeff assumed was a table. He dropped his things and picked up a PDA that was sitting on his bed. As he turned it on, a loading screen appeared and an automated voice came over the tiny speaker in the handle of the PDA.
"Welcome to the Aurora personnel 119. This PDA will serve as your work PDA. DO NOT mistake it for your personal PDA. This device will only be used for work. According to launch schedule, you are not required of anything at this moment. Please standby for bridge orders. In the meantime, make yourself at home! Alterra Corp. hopes you enjoy your time here."
Jeff plopped down onto his bed and spoke to the PDA. "Work schedule and mission length?"
The AI replied. "2,941 hours of work time estimated to be in your schedule and flight is estimated to take a maximum of 2 to 3 years."
Jeff let out a long sigh. "I better relax while I have the chance."
End Chapter 1
I hope you guys enjoyed! Don't worry, things are going to get a whole lot more interesting!
