With a wonderfully sassy AI now jacked into my ears. I went over to the Fabricator and as I pressed it's central button. Displayed on my glass mask was the interface for the fabricator.
[Hmm... This is very, very intresting. Human tech back in my birth universe certainly wasn't advanced enough to make automatic fabricators that can shift molecules, as well as strip and add electrons to materials to elevate them into other base materials to boot!]
I nodded before I replied thoughtfully. "The civilization that made that ship that crash landed onto this world is advanced indeed. And VERY thankfully I am happy you are here and can possibly hack this damned thing so we can make actual weapons."
Because you know what... Fuck going after a Reaper Leviathan with just a diving knife. Fuck that, and fuck everyone else who decided that trying to kill a predatory Sperm Whale with spike-ending limbs to grab you with. With just a little dinky diving knife.
I scrolled past the material options, the food/drink options, until I reached the personal gear section, where I saw alot of good things. Like the other suits for the other three girls. As well as things like swimming equipment and other things.
And after a moment of looking, Cortana spoke out with some annoyance. "Just as I said, this technology is rather advanced Jake. Their security isn't any joke, and it's very apparent that should I mess up in the slightest, this fabricator is set to brick itself, especially when it comes to making weapons."
I then remembered a throw away line back when I did play the game Subnautica, about why the corporation had banned these fabricators from making weapons. Was that on a colony, they used the fabricators to make weapons for some revolt against the company?
So after a moment, I scrolled down further and found out that Fabricators weren't too expensive in material costs, actually.
"Alright, don't touch it for now. When we make an extra fabricator, you can try to crack open it's security." I said.
Then Cortana said more firmly. "Also, Jake, I highly recommend you make that scanner as soon as possible as well. Anything you scan, I can likewise pull up information on and, in some cases, help control for you."
I nodded before I said. "Alright, I will do what I can." Though I wondered if Cortana could even tell I was nodding.
Either way, I crawled up atop the large circular drop pod and pushed open the top of the pod with a hiss of compressed air escaping, with Laura's voice reaching my ears.
"There seems to be another lifepod in that direction to the... South of the Aurora from what it looks like?"
I then asked curiously. "Why are you so unsure of the direction of the Aurora?"
With Laura shrugging and saying helplessly. "I have zero idea if the sun sets to the east or west. Hell, I can't even be sure if those giant moons that are so close are also messing with this planet's magnetic field to boot!"
That... Was an all too damned good point, actually.
I then took in the three girls as the top of the lifepod's top exit closed. Angela Ziegler and Akira Toudou were both looking rather nervous about the water surrounding us. And as for Laura...
She had already casually had stripped off her top and bottoms. Leaving only her panties on, as well as the full pantyhose that she had clearly taken from Angela.
And her hair was still very much wet, which clearly showed how she had gotten into the water already, so I asked. "Find anything in the water, Laura?"
To which Laura gave a sharp huff before she said helplessly. "I found plenty! But I came up real quick as the water is very salty and full of minerals, so trying to keep your eyes open in this water is just pure pain, I tell ya."
I then focused on looking towards the other life pod as Cortana noted. [That life pod is almost at the viewing horizon, and with this mostly flat surface, combined with our slightly elevated position. That other life pod is more than five miles away. I do not recommend trying to swim there by hand right now.]
"Yeah, I should try to get some flippers and maybe a sea glide... Well, so long as a Reaper Leviathan doesn't try to tear into the life pod anyway." I said to myself.
Then Akira said softly. "Uhmm Jake, who are you talking to?"
And then Cortana said quickly and dryly. "Jake your little suit doesn't have outfacing speakers. They can't hear me at all."
I then coughed at that before I said quickly. "There is an Ai inside of this suit. And she was telling me the distance to that life pod."
I took a breath before adding. "The life pod shoudn't be in any major danger right now... It's not out in the void or the ecological dead zone, which has the giant kaiju life forms. And each life pod has enough food for four to live off of for a few days as well."
I shook my head before I said firmly. "Alright! You all stay here, I need to go get some materials for the fabricator. I am going to try to get a diving suit like mine for Laura as soon as I can."
"Are you sure you want to go alone Jake?" Akira asked quietly even though she looked nervous at the thought of getting into the water after probably some scary words from Laura about everything that was alien in there.
To which I helplessly nodded as I said frankly. "The water is still like ten to twenty meters deep down here, girls. Only Laura seems to have any real diving training, and none of you can hold your breath long enough to find the right materials."
I then tapped my head before I finished off. "As for me, with this suit I can at least breathe my helmet full of fresh air for a good minute before it needs to discharge the CO2."
With that I took a final softer breath before I stepped down the stairs leading down off the life pod and I fell into the water's of Subnautica with a sort of internal finality for myself.
And as I fully submerged myself. My vision was filled with an explosion of alien life with Cortana humming in my ears as she said. [Even compared with my previous records, this reef has a very strong bio-diversity already.]
The lifepod itself actually did have an anchor that had tethered itself to the ground so it woudn't float away thankfully.
But besides that I took in the surrounding area of countless smaller fish and typical reef life like corals and such.
I remained there for a good moment just taking in the beauty before I surfaced to refresh my air for a moment. Then I said. "Cortana, try to direct me to rock outcroppings that has high mineral content if you can."
[I will try. The suit's onboard camera is very much near sighted for close up observations though. It's why I asked you to hurry up to make a scanner so we can intergrate it with your suit.]
I dove back down and in the distance I saw a gastropod, those Manatee similar like creatures. But they had glowing orbs embedded in their mace like bottoms that I knew were highly toxic.
'Nope gotta avoid those things, and caves. Those are the two major danger's here in the shallow reefs as far as I remember. But who knows what doesn't follow game logic.' I mused as I dove down deeper towards the rough rocky side of a crevice that was covered in coral's.
And after looking around, I found a few larger rocks that were broken apart from the crevice with Cortana noting the rocks did have some mineral content from the red like rust/iron content coming from it.
But as I pulled the large rock off.. I had a fucking powerful realization. 'Wait, I don't live off of fucking game logic and this suit doesn't have some kind of innate spatial pocket of any kind!' I mentally screamed.
As that meant that I would literally need to drag each and every piece of material back to be processed by hand.
I wanted to cry as doing a survival game without an inventory was just utterly unfair!
Fuck my Alchemy as trying to do it underwater was going to be hard enough. I would be happier with just inventory space or something!
But with my internal bitching kept inside and not for Cortana to hear I said helplessly. "Hopefully this is enough for me to fabricate a knife or something. As I don't want to tear at my gloves to pull these rocks out of crevices and such."
[A mini, mostly hollow pickaxe would be better. But a knife would be good in general I suppose.] Cortana answered thoughtfully before I resurfaced with the good sized rock tucked under my arm.
As for why I was a bit iffy on using my alchemy underwater... It was literally Full Metal Achemist style alchemy, and you know what. Creating a fuck load of tiny bolts of lightning underwater sounded like a terrible idea.