unstable expedition 6

start: https://pastebin.com/j81r9nCF
pt. 4: https://pastebin.com/JXgJ1Zqr
pt. 5 (interlude/flashback): https://pastebin.com/EM0fs07M

Silence was broken by Sara: "What... happened?"

"I... I have no idea," Carol said.

"It... it definitely crashed, right?" Sara said.

"That seems certain, yes," Marty said.

"I'm just looking at this log and trying to figure out what happened," Scott said.

Scott eventually decided that the rocket's sensors were damaged by reentry heat, and it thought it was closer to the ground than it was. When it didn't manage to land, it was already out of fuel--it had used a powered descent.

Another meeting was called.

"Well I have bad news and worse news," Scott said.

"Let's start with the bad news," Janet said. Scott obliged.

"After reviewing the telemetry I have figured out that the rocket was in fact travelling fast enough to be destroyed on impact with the ground. It's unlikely that there's anything left of the engine or reactor. We're stranded on Lyapunov," he said.

"Well we'll have to build a new launch vehicle," Marty said, "it will take a long time, but it should be doable when you get the matter printer working again."

"That's the worse news," Scott said.

"No," Janet said.

"Yep," Scott said. "The matter printer's nano-nozzles are destroyed. There's no way to rebuild it without... well basically without another matter printer."

"There were two, weren't there?" Janet said.

"The other one was smashed to pieces, nothing's salvageable except for scrap," Scott said.

"We're stranded?" Sara said.

"We're worse than stranded. Without a matter printer, repairing the rest of the habitat is going to be incredibly difficult. We can't fabricate any new electronics or advanced tools. No replacement parts. I might be able to hack together an old-style plastic and metal printer out of what's left of the matter printer, but that won't be enough to build a new rocket, that's for sure," Scott said.

"We should still mount an expedition to retrieve what we can from the rocket," Janet said, "there was some useful payload onboard, and if we can retrieve any of it, we might have a much better chance at surviving here."

"I suppose it would be worth it. I volunteer to come along," Scott said.

"Alright," Janet said, "We'll take everyone but Kevin and Marty." Marty looked longingly at Carol. Janet noticed. "There's no rush at this point, is there Bob?"

"If you're asking for a weather report, I would remind you that the glaciers have really boring and stable weather," Bob said.

"We'll leave in a week. We'll try to pick up our pants from that storm, contact the starship, and then we'll go find the wreckage of the rocket," Janet said.

"I'm really quite concerned about weather prediction without the weather satellites," Bob said, "hopefully we can move the starship into a somewhat useful orbit for observing the planet."

"As long as she doesn't deorbit. Then we'd REALLY be in trouble," Scott said.

"A roughly semisyncronous orbit should be safe," Carol said, "if the atmosphere ever climbs that high we'll have much bigger problems."

The next day, Sara woke up early. It was a big, BIG day for her. She got out of bed, ran down to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and woke up her mother (and Marty, who happened to be sleeping over)

"What time is it?" Carol asked.

"Too early," Marty said, stuffing a pillow over his ears.

"It's snowing!" Sara said, feeling like a kid in a christmas movie.

"Give us a few minute, sweetie," Carol said, rolling over.

Sara left to the kitchen to find something to eat. The matter printer may have been destroyed, but there was plenty of stockpiles of 'fresh' food in stasis. She started some eggs scrambling and looked at the TeleWindow display. "Huh?" she said, and stood up to look at it closer. "What the hell?" She saw something outside. It was definitely not one of the human crew. An animal of some sort? It was larger than any of the animals Kevin had talked about or brought back. It seemed that, whatever it was, it was walking around the base. She had to get a good look at it. She turned off the burner and headed for the airlock. She put on a suit--she'd practiced so many times it was second nature to her. She locked the helmet on, and cycled through the airlock.

It was immediately colder than she'd expected. In her entire life she'd never really been exposed to uncomfortable temperatures except a few times. She felt better when the suit recognized the temperature drop and turned on its heaters, though her feet were still chilled by the cold metal. She climbed down the makeshift ladder, and stood outside. She scanned the landscape through the falling snow, but couldn't see the intruder. She began walking around the base. 'Maybe I should have just told Mom instead. They probably wouldn't let me go out then, though, they would want to get a close look at it first,' she thought to herself, and as she rounded the corner she saw the figure.

"Hey!" She shouted at it. Before she knew it, she was lying on the floor in agonizing pain. She looked to the source of the pain. A crossbow bolt stuck out of her shoulder. She screamed, and as she was trying to stand she was picked up by the intruder, who she was now certain was not a mere animal.

pt. 7: https://pastebin.com/ujEEtj05