Outpost: Bisexual Version

What he needed were some of those damned MREs, the matches and flammable gel packets would be invaluable right about now, but he doubted that he would find any such equipment here. There must be a storeroom somewhere on-site, this kitchen couldn't possibly hold enough food to supply the base staff for more than a week. With any luck, there would be crates full of supplies and useful equipment. He should try to locate it.

But he was getting sidetracked, his tired mind wandering. Find the door combination first, that was the most pressing issue. Perhaps he could even call for help somehow if he were to gain access to the computer. The base was a massive transmitter, after all, its only purpose was to send data into space.

He left the kitchen and wandered the installation, it was fairly small as far as outposts went, yet its design was odd. A circular corridor ringed the whole facility, and it all seemed to be constructed around the central computer room. There must be a large transmitter dish protruding from the roof. He had barely been able to see anything outside, the glare of the snow was so blinding. There was just enough illumination to see by, the glass on the small windows packed with ice and grime. Wherever he went, glistening frost coated every surface and motes of dust hung in the shafts of light that penetrated the dirty portholes.

He circled the central room and found himself on the opposite side of the building, looking up at an office door. There was a name on it, though he couldn't read the text, the plaque was obscured beneath a layer of opaque ice. This must be some kind of administrative room, had to be. He tugged at the doorknob. Another locked room, God damn it. Why all the security? The base was in a wasteland, there were no natives here to go snooping through UNN secrets. This door was made of wood, however, not metal like the one protecting the computer room. He might be able to break it down.

He geared up to slam the door, taking a couple of steps back on aching legs. He made himself a promise that if he broke through this door, he might finally be able to sleep. He lunged forward, bringing up his boot to impact it near the brass knob. No effect. He tried again, slamming his foot against where he assumed the lock would be. This was draining his energy faster than he had anticipated, he was already beyond exhausted. He tried a third time, and then a fourth. On the fifth attempt, the wood around the knob splintered, and with one last kick the lock gave out. The door swung loose on its hinges, and he stumbled inside the room, gasping. There was a computer terminal on a desk in the middle of the space and what looked like filing cabinets lining the walls. He doubted that they would be full of paper documents, perhaps data storage devices or printed readouts of some kind.

He made a beeline for the computer terminal, remarking that it was not a self-contained unit, its cabling left the back of the screen's blocky shroud and disappeared into the floor. Hopefully, it would be hooked up to the main computer. He pushed away a chair and leaned down to tap the keyboard. Nothing. He searched the shroud for a power button and found one, thumbing the switch. He heard the whir of electronic motors as the cooling fans come to life. He feared that ice or moisture might have penetrated the circuits and caused shorts, but breathed a sigh of relief as a BIOS screen displayed, its white text illuminated against a black background. The station definitely had power, that was encouraging.

It cycled through a short diagnostic phase, then finding no apparent problems, displayed a login screen. Schaffer's heart sank. God damn it, was everything in this fucking base locked? He pulled open one of the desk drawers, rummaging through paperwork. These passwords were usually generated by a security algorithm, and if the owner of this terminal was anything like the people that Schaffer had worked alongside on the Pinwheel, then more often than not they would just write them down rather than attempt to commit the ever-changing codes to memory.

The cursor on the login screen blinked expectantly as he scattered paper and folders. There was a ballpoint pen, the ink frozen inside it. Bulldog clips, a data chip, what looked like a coffee filter. What on Earth was that doing in there? As he dug into the pile, a yellow slip caught his eye. It was a sticky memo with numbers and characters scrawled on it in fading ink. That had to be the password.

He had trouble typing in the code through his thick gloves, but he managed it eventually. The computer accepted the password, admitting him to the desktop. He pumped his fist in triumph, then gripped the mouse in his hand. There were only four icons. Documents, system, settings, and user. He clicked on settings and a window popped up showing innumerable values and sliders. He squinted, trying to understand what he was seeing through his fog of fatigue.

Some of these were coordinates, they must be for aiming the satellite dish, but those were greyed out. Did he not have full access to all of the systems from here? Others appeared to show locked doors. He unchecked all of those options. In theory, every lock in the facility should now be disabled. Next was perhaps water pressure, he didn't want to mess with that without knowing more about the system. As he scrolled down, he came across lighting options, it seemed as if this one terminal could remotely control at least some of the base's functions. There might not even be an interface inside the central computer room itself. He dragged one of the sliders experimentally. No reaction, perhaps this light was in a different room of the outpost. He decided to just turn on every light until something happened, and about halfway down the list, the bulb over his head turned on. It was fading and dull, but now he could see better. He switched on the rest of them, noting that the hall beyond the door was now illuminated too. Excellent.

Now if he could only find the central heating. There, a temperature gauge. He dragged his mouse cursor over the value, raising it to forty degrees centigrade. He heard a rumbling echo through the building. He wasn't sure what method they had used, but any pipes would be frozen, and ducts might be clogged. It might take a little while for the effects to be noticeable, if the heating system was operating at all...

It was as much as he could do right now, he would investigate any problems tomorrow when he had rested. Feeling vindicated, he made his way back towards the crew quarters, the outpost now illuminated by its light fixtures. A few had succumbed to the elements and were not functioning, but the majority were operational, casting a warm glow that reflected off the frozen walls. He collapsed onto one of the beds, sinking into the mattress, and within seconds he was asleep.

CHAPTER 2: TERMINAL

He awoke to frigid cold. His fingers were stiff, and his breath hung in the air, forming crystals that glittered in the waning light of the dirty bulbs. He wasn't sure how long he had slept, but the heating still had not come on. There was some kind of problem.

He tried to rise to a sitting position, noting with discomfort that his chapped lips were welded together, but the gravity gripped him like an angry fist and chained him to the bed. It felt as though an elephant was sitting on his chest. He groaned, electing instead to roll out of the bed sideways, his muscles still aching as if he had run a marathon. He rose to his feet unsteadily, still shivering. His coat was covered in frozen moisture, and the fur that lined the inside of his hood was matted with ice. It was a miracle that he had woken up at all. He had activated the heating system, why wasn't it working? Surely the pipes would have thawed by now, and any ice or snow that had clogged the ducts would have melted. He needed to get to the bottom of it, and quickly, he didn't know how long he could endure in these conditions.

His stomach rumbled, gurgling audibly under his layers of clothing. He had exerted himself so much, burned so many calories keeping warm, he needed to eat. He remembered the cans that he had found and piled on the dining table, making his way back to the kitchen. Frost still coated every surface, it hadn't thawed at all, no heat was getting through to the base.

He rifled through the cans, sending a couple of them rolling, his gut cramping uncomfortably as he searched for something with a legible label. Most were either so faded or so damaged by the moisture and ice that he couldn't read them. Ah, here was one that he could just about make out. He lifted the can, examining it under the dim lights. Kidney beans, perfect. He couldn't make out an expiration date, but he had no choice. He set the can to one side and walked over to the kitchen drawers, pulling them out and searching for cutlery or a can opener. Most of what was there was rusted beyond use, the blades of the knives and the prongs of the forks decaying into orange dust because of the pervasive damp. Eventually, he found a manual can opener that looked intact enough to use and brought it eagerly to the can of beans. He had never felt so hungry in all his life.

As he pierced the lid of the can, a fowl, nauseating smell spewed forth and he had to cover his nose with his sleeve to save from gagging. He moved away, batting at the air with his other hand. They were beyond rancid, not even recognizable as ever having been edible.

A twinge of panic shot through him, and he grabbed another can. He couldn't read the label, but he broke it open anyway. A fresh stench made him dry-heave, and he dropped the can onto the table. It was full of a gelatinous, black sludge. It was impossible to say what it had once been. No, fate could not be so cruel, were all of the food stores spoiled? How long had they been here?

One by one he opened the cans, and one by one they were proven unfit for consumption. After a few minutes, he had a pile of open cans, their combined stink permeating the room. There was nothing, not one scrap of edible food. He threw the can opener across the room in frustration, shouting his anger and despair at the icy walls of the outpost. No food, no heat, this base would be his frozen tomb and Rawling would get exactly what he wanted.

Wait, there was still one option open to him. The storeroom. He had succeeded in unlocking the doors of the base, even if the more advanced functions such as control of the satellite dish were off limits to whoever had owned that terminal. There had to be a storeroom somewhere on the base, he had not yet explored it in its entirety.

He would try to secure food first, without anything to eat, whether he survived the cold or not was of little consequence. Repairing the heating system would have to wait.

Schaffer took a moment to compose himself, then set off towards the area of the base that he had not explored yet. He passed what appeared to have been labs at some point, they must have been doing research of some kind. Anything valuable or useful seemed to have been stripped, leaving mostly bare counters and tiled floors with a few beakers and glass vials scattered here and there.

There was a second bathroom and a small storage closet with janitorial supplies, nothing Schaffer could make use of. He finally found it, the main storage room, its door ajar after the electronic locks had been deactivated. He swung it open all the way, stepping inside.

Most of the lights in here were broken or non-functional, but enough were still working to illuminate the space well enough that he could navigate it. There were crates and boxes all over the room, what looked like a rack of jumpsuits or maybe space suits, shelves with cans of food. It was everything that he had hoped for. He went straight for one of the shelves, grabbing cans and examining them. His face fell, these were in no better condition than the ones in the kitchen, rusted metal peeking out from beneath decaying paper labels. He didn't hold out much hope, but he would take as many as he could carry back to the dining table and see if any were still good.

He opened one of the boxes that littered the floor, finding that it was full of tools. Hammers, screwdrivers, drills with bloated batteries that he didn't dare to handle. These were definitely useful to have, they might help him in his endeavor to repair the heating system. He opened a few more boxes, finding nothing of use to him, then made his way over to the suits. There were six of them on a rack, UNN blue in color. Schaffer recognized them as environment suits, fully contained units with a battery backpack for use in space and extreme conditions. The base staff must have used these for excursions into the snow to make repairs or to unload cargo from supply shuttles.

Did they still have power? He pulled one of the suits down to examine it. This one was obviously too small for him, and the battery readout on the backpack was dark, indicating that it was out of charge. The faceplate was obscured by a layer of frost. He discarded it on the ground, then checked the rest of them. They were all unpowered besides for one, the flickering readout on the backpack read thirty-two percent. It even looked big enough to fit him. This suit would keep him alive and warm for at least a few hours, should he need to use it. As cold as he was, his life was not in immediate danger right now, he should save it for an emergency.

There was something else on the bottom of the rack, too, resting in a recess. He pulled it out, feeling cold metal through his glove. It was a revolver, a rotary powder weapon of archaic design. The UNN had only recently introduced a standardized handgun for their troops, so it was not uncommon for Marines to carry personal sidearms that varied quite dramatically in their designs. Though they lacked the range and stopping power of railguns or plasma casters, traditional bullets would still put down most enemies in close quarters.

He flipped open the cylinder to check if it was loaded, and it was, there were six rounds chambered. The base was deserted, and there were no natives for hundreds of miles in any direction. There couldn't be, it was a tundra out there. The weight of it was reassuring, however, so he slipped the gun into his coat pocket.

Okay. He had tools, he had food, he had an emergency environment suit. Time to get to work.

***

Schaffer heaved the heavy box of food cans onto the dining table with a loud crash. He had somewhat overestimated their weight, he still wasn't used to this damned gravity. These were all of the cans that he had retrieved from the storeroom that weren't visibly damaged or beyond salvaging. If at least some of these proved to be edible, then he might be able to ration the food out for a few days...maybe. Theoretically, he could starve for a week or even two before he actually died, but that wasn't something he wanted to try for himself. Water was a more pressing issue, despite the rumbling in the pipes, none had come from the faucet. Perhaps the plumbing was breached somewhere.

He could retrieve snow and melt it, but he would need a heat source for that. While he had electricity, most of the base's functions were not operational. He retrieved the can opener from where he had thrown it, cursing himself for his lack of composure, and started opening the tins.

A few minutes later the can opener was again discarded in anger. Not one of the cans was edible, there wasn't a morsel of food in this entire outpost that he could eat. His stomach gurgled in protest as he rested his hooded head in his hands, the reality of his desperate situation hitting him for the first time. He might really die here. Without food, the clock was ticking. His only hope now was to gain access to the central computer before he starved, and send a distress call.

He marched off to the central computer door that he had found the day before, it must be open now that he had disabled the locks. He found it, the yellow warning labels visible beneath the frost. He turned the handle, meeting resistance, and finding that was still locked. He slammed the door with his gloved fist as frustration overwhelmed him.

"Why!? Why the fuck are you still locked!?"

His voice echoed through the corridor, petering out into silence. As if in response, one of the lightbulbs over his head flickered and died, casting him into deeper gloom. The computer room must not be accessible from the terminal, it must need its own key code, and he had seen nothing of the sort while rifling through the desk.

Fuck it, he'd have to deal with this later, the heating was a more pressing issue. He knew the base had power, or the lights and the terminal wouldn't be on. He knew that the heating system had at least some functionality, he had heard noises coming from the walls when he had turned up the thermostat. He didn't know the first thing about repairing plumbing or AC systems, but he had tools, and he was out of other options.

But where to start? Any such systems would be embedded behind the walls or under the floor. The base was mostly made of metal, so it stood to reason that there must be access panels somewhere that would allow repairs and maintenance to be performed without disassembling the habitat. What would those look like? He rubbed his belly, the hunger pangs distracting him from his thoughts.

The design of the base was very functional and practical, so he doubted that they would be too heavily concealed. He started to wander, examining the walls and floor for keyholes or handholds. It was difficult, as every surface was obscured by a veneer of frozen moisture. He tapped his feet on the floor as he went, checking for the reverberation of a hollow cavity beneath the rubbery linoleum.

He circled the central hub of the base but did not find anything, and so proceeded outwards. After perhaps a half hour of searching, it was hard to tell time with only the waning light that entered through the narrow windows to guide him, he came across what must be some kind of furnace in the storage room. It was a large, boxy object of similar size and shape to a large refrigerator that went from the floor to the ceiling, with what looked like air ducts connecting it to the roof. He hadn't even noticed it the first time that he had entered the room because of the low light. This had to be the heating system. He inspected it more closely, prying loose a panel on the front of the device and revealing its inner workings. It was obvious at a glance how it operated. An air duct open to the cold winds outside would draw in air, then a fan powered by a small motor with a belt would feed it up and into a furnace. He swung the door open and could clearly see the heating elements. From there, it would pass the heated air up and into the base's ventilation system, thus heating the building. It looked to be electrically powered, so why wasn't it operating?

He reached inside and turned the furnace fan, which was not stuck or damaged. The belt connecting it to the motor was not too worn or frayed. He tapped the air filter that covered the intake. Ah, here was at least one contributing factor, the filter was frozen solid. No air could pass through. He gave it a tug, and it loosened, shedding shards of ice as he removed it. He hit the filter against the wall a couple of times, the frost that coated it falling to the floor, then he reinserted it and checked the furnace. He didn't really know enough about how it operated to make a judgment, but it looked fine, there was no visible damage. The only part left now was the motor. He examined the device, then disconnected it from the power grid, trying to pull it free. It was secured with screws, so he retrieved a screwdriver from the box of tools he had discovered earlier and removed it. He turned the little metal object over in his hands, it was blackened, obviously burned out.