At First Light

## Stranded - Season 1 - Episode 02

### Synopsis

Sofi examines Tamsin and discovers that she is not injured, but ill. Her injuries from being ejected upon impact are moderate, but no head trauma that could have rendered her unconscious. She is running a fever, perspiring, and showing symptoms of a food-borne illness. There are questions about the survivability of the environment, but Sofi says that Daven and others were exposed and are showing no symptoms at all. Something is not right.

Sofi confides in Theo confidentially and asks him if it's possible that Tamsin might have been poisoned. He says it's not likely. She says she asked if it's possible, and Theo says yes, it's possible. But the crew was in cryo-sleep until just a few days prior, and Tamsin ate the same food rations as everyone else. No one else is showing symptoms. Sofi wants to examine the food storage area, but that section of the ship was damaged in the crash and most of their rations scattered outside. It is impossible to study the rations to see who ate what. Stumped and dissatisfied, Sofi watches over Tamsin, monitoring her condition. She knows something is wrong.

Daven monitors the exterior of the ship from inside as best as he can, but with few windows, he cannot do a proper assessment of what remains of the ship. He believes they should wait a few hours until dawn to go out and survey the true extent of the ship’s damage to know how to proceed. Doing so in the dark is too dangerous with predators lurking about. Everyone agrees. They have all been through a traumatic and violent event, and should rest for a while to regain their strength and mental faculties.

Everyone gets some rest except Daven, who patrols the ship in case the predators return, and Vonn and Theo, working on getting the computer working. Daven suggests they sleep in shifts, and Theo takes the first, knowing that Vonn is the expert and that she will not take a break until the job is done or she passes out. Their lives depend on getting the ship’s computer working and back online to communicate with Satellite Artemis.

At dawn, Daven and Jasia go out with guns as Lance and Hagen assess the ship’s damage. Their worst fear is realized - NOMAD-1 will never fly again, certainly not in the vacuum of space. They don’t need the design engineer to confirm it, it’s obvious. They are stuck on Tellus Prime, and without communication with anyone. Hagen begins repairs on the APC since it is useless to work on the ship itself except for scrap and parts.

Wald takes it upon himself to gather the dead, but the task is too much for one person, both mentally and physically. He sees the worst fates imaginable - heads crushed, limbs missing, oceans of blood. It causes him to pause and regain his composure. Nevertheless, he continues. Roberta finds him and wants to help, but he tells her that is not a good idea. This is not something anyone should witness, not even himself. But it has to be done. They can’t just leave 34 of their crew members to rot. She tries to help anyway and turns over a large piece of heavy debris. Only after she moves it does she realize it is a half of a charred corpse, mutilated beyond any resemblance of the human form. Keri finds her and takes her from the scene for Wald to work in solitude.

Ellis determines they have crashed 21 miles from their designated landing zone, where an encampment has already been built by autonomous robots. It has food, shelter, and more weapons, and they need all three. After a debate on how to proceed, a crew is assembled to go to the landing zone, survey the area, and start setting up their permanent base of operations - Ellis, Daven, and robotics engineer Jasia. The trio treks the 21 miles in the APC after Hagen repairs the damage caused by the crash. Episode ends with the APC driving away from the crash site.

### Notes and Trivia

* Next episode: 1.03 - Far Away From Home
* Previous episode: 1.01 - Crash Down