Collins Does Solo RPG 'The Wretched'

Music (Between the Stars – Chris Bassett)

Day 3, salvage ship The Wretched, Flight Engineer Collins Reporting.

Another restless night… I wasn’t plagued by nightmares but I couldn’t get to sleep. I could hear the creature on the hull. It’s still doing its best to get into the ship, looking for weaknesses. The only one I know of is the airlock I blasted it out a few days ago. Whatever it did on the way out damaged the outer door and I can’t get it to shut properly. The inner door is fine and now thanks to the computer failsafes permanently locked shut. That hasn’t stopped the bastard thing hammering and scratching at it trying to break the seal. It gives up after a while and goes crawling over the hull to another spot. It’s odd, the creature seems to know when I move around the inside of the ship and tries to follow me, it’s becoming super unnerving.

I need to come up with a plan for if the worst should happen… well the worst has already happened but worse than worse. There are several things I’ll need in abundance to survive long term. Food, water, air, medical stuff, security, safe disposal of waste, heat, comfort, entertainment.

Food and water are relatively easy, the mess facility has food in abundance and it can be eaten cold or hot. I can move it around the ship into little stockpiles should that area not be accessible. Water is piped throughout the ship so I don’t need to move that around, so long as the recyclers work I have an unlimited supply.

Air, so long as the integrity of the hull holds out and the atmospheric regulators play ball I have an unlimited supply of that too. If there is a breach the bulkheads seal off the affected compartments and keep the rest of the ship safe. If I happen to be in the compartment that breaches I’m just fucking dead ok, there’s nothing I do about that. Well I could wear an EVA suit all the time but they’re awkward, bulky, have limited life in the CO2 filters and just fucking no ok… I’m not doing it.

Medical supplies are all in the med bay with the exception of IFAKs and area specific first aid kits, you know, burns kit in the kitchen, general ones at random corridors, tourniquets and haemostatic gauzes in the engine room. Maybe I could move the med kits and bulk them up when I figure out where the best chances of survival are.

Security. Well normally that means keeping doors locked right? Well, can do! Quite easily too. I know the creature can’t use the door release mechanisms or it would have found a way in by now and besides when it was in the ship it mostly skulked around and used non-human paths of travel, air vents, maintenance access points, floor and ceiling voids etc. so really I’m talking about personal security of the reach out and touch you variety. I don’t know if you’re well versed on how much weaponry is carried on a mere salvage ship. It’s not a military vessel and so there aren’t any formal repositories of weapon systems like armouries or guard stations etc. I’m pretty sure Captain Coates kept a pistol in the top drawer of his desk along with a fine bottle of scotch. I’m hoping he didn’t have a chance to move it before he was killed as I never saw him with it. Mind you, if I was him I would have had it on me when that monster was picking us off so the chances are that it is beyond my reach now. Still, I had better check his drawers… He wouldn’t want the scotch going to waste.

The final items, heat, comfort, entertainment and waste disposal will all fall in line once the others are determined.

So which rooms suit these needs? Medbay, bridge, my quarters, the computer mainframe, the captain’s quarters, maybe a few other places. I think the bridge is the best bet. The captain’s ready room is right next to it and it has a bed, refresher and basic cooking facilities there. Most of the other stuff can be moved to the bridge and the bridge is where all the systems of the ship can be monitored from, be they working or otherwise. I’m pretty sure I can also seal off the bridge too in an emergency.

Cool, so that’s the plan then. Start moving stuff around the ship that’ll be useful, starting with making the bridge area the best it can be. I wonder whether I should rotate randomly around my hidey holes when they’re all up and running or whether it’s best to stay in once place. I think I’ll stay in one place for the mean time. It is easier and I can spot when things go wrong a lot faster.

I’ll start tomorrow, I can’t be arsed right now and I’m still super tired. I’ll have dinner and hit the hay. Chorizo pasta tonight, I know… pasta two nights in a row, I just can’t be bothered to make a full-blown 3 course roast dinner for one you know… I will however eat that whole bar of chocolate for dessert… because nobody can stop me.