They take stock of what they have... And what they've found.

Two hours had passed with the crew scrounging what they could from the four pods. During that time Captain Tasha with her medical and engineering officers went over what was brought over by the crew and made a manifest of the findings. Counting off the last of the supplies taken from the pods, Tasha frowned, going over the math in her head to how long their supplies would last. “This doesn’t look good, we have about 9 days worth of food and water and it will take the Exploration League about 14 days or more to get here.” Wiping sweat out of her forehead and hair, the captain looked to her two subordinates on their input.

“We can probably ration the supplies, but that would give us another 2 or 3 days at most.” Sighed Jacobs, typing over his own findings on a data pad in his hands. Quickly going over the medical supplies he had on hand and frowning when he completed his findings. “Bad news is we have the basic supplies for first aid but nothing that would help us if any one of us got seriously injured… My advice is if you fall from a tree, try to fall on your feet.”

Looking over to Roberts who winced repositioning himself on the log he used as a bench while going over the equipment their crew salvaged, Jacobs smirked. “Then again I don’t expect our chief engineer to be doing any tree climbing.”

“Oh, fuck you!”

Getting a chuckle out of both the captain and medical chief, Roberts hoisted his splint wrapped leg for a better position before pointing towards the equipment at his feet. “Much of the emergency equipment such as our communication and data storage devices survived the crash, a couple got broken but I can salvage those for parts just in case others break.”

“Good, at the very least we can keep tabs with our crew HERE while trying to wait for pick up, now if only we can reach our crew OUTSIDE of this forest.”

Roberts leaned back on his seat, scratching his chin in thought before looking over the two data pads that had been smashed on impact. A plan coming to mind. “I could set up a satellite that can bridge communication between us and the other teams, all I would need is a means of getting one of these up above the tree line so that the forest doesn’t block our radio signal.”

“A satellite?! Are you expecting to make a bottle rocket that can send your little broken communicator up in space?”

“You know what I mean Jacobs! Maybe tie it to a hot air balloon and let it rise high enough to clear the trees, that’ll give us a link or at least TRY to give us a link.”

With a smile, Tasha liked the soundness of the plan. “Good idea, how much time do you need?”

“I just need a fire going to make the hot air and maybe some fabric for the balloon but patching up the equipment to act as a radio server will take the longest amount of time, a few hours at best.”

Nodding at the information, Captain Tasha’s attention was turned to a trio of her crew returning with a bundle of yellow fruit being held in a spare shirt like a make-shift basket. “Captain! We found something you might want to see.” Waving the trio over, the cadets rummaged through their findings and handed over a small pear-shaped fruit. “The local trees in the area seem to grow these all over the place, do you think they may work as a substitute for our food supply?”

Holding the small fruit in her hand, Captain Tasha noted its smooth yet soft texture, almost like that of a peach, yet in the shape of a pear. Looking up to her three crewmen, she handed the fruit to her medical officer Jacobs before answering. “I want to hold off on eating the local flora until we’re absolutely sure its safe to eat. Whatever fruit you find leave be for now until we run tests on them, is that understood?”

“Yes maam.” The three answered. “What do we do with the ones we have here?”

“We can store them for now, but make sure no one eats them until the tests are done.”

Nodding back to the captain, the trio made their way back to the rest of the crew salvaging what they can. Passing by one pod, they noticed the pod being made into a makeshift camping shelter; with its interior emptied out, the pod had panels that could fold out and be used as bedding cots or storage just in case of an emergency as per design. Making their way back to the crop of trees they found the fruit growing from, the trio found Samantha taking a bite out of the fruit they gathered together.

“So? What she say about these things?” Samantha asked, swallowing the bite she made.

“She said not to eat the fruit until they were tested to be safe, which means you should STOP EATING THAT!”

Rolling her eyes and taking another bite, Samantha looked back at the fruit in her hand and back to her co-workers. “Tastes safe to me Dean, geez I can’t believe you’re still following her.”

“Well why not?” Asked John, the olive-skinned man asked while delicately taking each fruit in their bundle out of the sack and placing them one at a time on the purple grass at his feet.

“Really?! She’s the one who crashed the ship!” Samantha sneered, taking another bite. “Like I’m gonna trust HER judgement after this fiasco.”

“Yeah well, I trust her judgement and even I know we should be careful…”

“Look… I’m not going blind, I’m not throwing up, I’m not going into anaphylactic shock, nothing! The fruit is safe.”

Looking to each other, the trio of cadets shrug their shoulders and go their own way back to the pods, leaving cadet Samantha alone to finish what she was eating. “Bitch thinks she can tell me what to do? After screwing us all over….” Taking another fruit from the bundle and taking another bite, the young woman never could have noticed her green eyes turning a light shade of yellow, the same colour as the fruit she took another bite of.