It wasn't until the next morning that Jake had woken up, however he still needed to stay in his bed, which he had been transferred to, and recover for another few days. Just because he was given antibiotics and injections to speed up the healing process didn't mean that he would be recovered within the hour.
So that's exactly what he did, Jake sat in his bed for a few days and contemplated on what he should do next. It wasn't like in the game where you could speed run it and just retry over and over again. If you were to die there is no checkpoint.
Deciding on what should be done, Jake is going to partially take back his words and try to progress through the previous storyline as fast as possible, with the help of his new acquaintances/friends. Hopefully he will be able to stop the sunbeam from getting shot down, therefore he will need to build or acquire some kind of communication equipment strong enough to contact the sunbeam.
With the help of William and Greyson they could probably get it pumped out within a day, however that is the task for those two. Jake, on the other hand, is going to recover enough in order to head over and investigate the Quarantine Enforcement Platform located on the Mountain Island.
He had roughly 4 more days before the sunbeam would pick up the distress signal sent by the Aurora plus another 2-4 days before it would actually arrive close enough to get shot down. It would be up to William and Greyson to make an adequate communications system.
Moving himself out of bed, Jake went to the newly constructed restroom and observed his injuries in the mirror before anything else. Examining the scabs and bruises he still had all over his body even after being injected, he gently massaged the worst areas and inhaled a sharp breath of air due to the pain.
Exiting the restroom, he headed up to grab a bite to eat before returning to his room and stretching. Even though it caused an excruciating amount of pain, he still had to stretch and massage in order to not feel even worse later.
It wasn't until later that night that he finally felt good enough and was in the proper state of mind to start thinking of a proper game plan since it had finally set in that he was no longer on earth and this wasn't a dream.
Walking up all the stairs to the top level of the base, Jake went out the door and sat atop the roof in between the solar panels looking at the stars and two moons. Admiring the beauty of space, he laid back and wondered what his parents were doing now and if he would ever be able to see them again.
If there was some kind of technology that could peek into his brain and make an exact painting or image of his parents so he could print out a photo of them that would be great, but he doesn't know if something like that is possible.
While thinking about his parents he rolled onto his side and curled up slightly before silent tears started to stream across his face and his shoulders began to shake. Staying there for around an hour in silence, Jake ended up falling asleep gazing at the stars, and he was only awoken by the presence of something touching his face.
Opening his eyes, he saw the sight of a group of Skyray, which can be quite the shocker when you had just fallen asleep thinking about the previous world you lived in. A moment of shock and surprise had passed through Jake's body before he tentatively reached his hand out.
Starting with just his index finger, he gently started to pet the head of the Skyray that was closest to him that hadn't flown away just yet. After a few minutes of just gently petting it with one finger, Jake carefully began to pet it with his whole hand, and then moved to using both hands.
Acting like it had never received such treatment before, the Skyray just kind of came closer to Jake and laid down by his leg while a few others seemed to be interested in getting the same type of attention.
Stroking the wings of the Skyray, Jake began gently petting another Skyray that had down the same as the first one after a few minutes. There were two other Skyray in the group for a total of four.
The last two deemed that Jake was not a threat and decided to fly/hop onto his shoulders and try to perch there, which wasn't as easy as it might have seemed because of their physical structure that was meant for perching on other things.
Enjoying the time petting the Skyray, Jake looked at the waves of the ocean and at the general location that the Aurora used be. Getting lost in his thoughts, he was then startled out of them when he heard loud thudding footsteps below him.
Next thing he heard was the sound of the base door being opened and the group of four Skyray flying off in a frenzy. Mary was then heard shouting out Jake's name in slight anxiousness.
"Jake! Jake! Where are you Jake!" It changed from anxiousness to panic when she wasn't able to see a glimpse of him anywhere in the nearby waters. Pacing around on the small platform that had been built in front of the door, she was frenziedly mumbling to herself.
However, before she could devolve into further hysterics, she caught a glimpse of Jake looking down at her from on top of the roof of the base with an apologetic look on his face.
"Sorry for worrying you, I just needed some fresh air." Apologizing to Mary, Jake hopped off of the base roof before heading back inside to have some breakfast. Thinking that it was best not to tease Mary after scaring her like that since he was almost everyone's lifeline at this point, Jake just ate some dried fish in silence.
Mary had been left standing there in stupefaction for a moment when she had seen Jake on top of the roof. Although it was faint she could tell that there had been a change in the mental state of the man named Jake through that interaction that lasted less than a few seconds.
Just based on the look on his face and the tear streaks that had yet to be cleaned off of his face, she could tell that something had changed, but she didn't know what exactly caused it.
Everyone else had also been looking for him in many of the other rooms in the base, unsuccessful in their search, but then they saw him casually eating dried peeper in the room that had been designated as the mess hall.
Taking a look at the faces of all the people he had worried, Jake felt even more guilty for giving them that kind of scare. Imagine how it'd look if the guy who had saved you and your friends/coworkers suddenly couldn't be found and his diving gear was still here. They'd think he had up and left or offed himself.
Scratching his head, Jake was a little unsure of what to do at this moment, but he had someone else to dissolve the tension in the room. Mary, who had come down to the mess hall as well interjected at that moment.
"Don't just stand there, let's all take a moment and have breakfast together for once. Jake can then tell us what our plans are now that he seems to be in better condition than a few nights ago."
Sitting down at the table, Mary had grabbed some dried fish out of the food cabinet that had been constructed in the last few days. Many things had been constructed and accomplished in the last few days while Jake was resting.
It wasn't as much as could have been accomplished with Jake's help since everyone had been warned on multiple occasions by Jake to not go anywhere new without him.
A few Moonpools and a VUC had been constructed but no vehicles have been fabricated yet as all the cyclops part weren't found and the Prawn suit materials can't be obtained without Jake. No one was that confident in venturing out too far if Jake wasn't there.
All of the materials were gathered for a few seamoths and some of the upgrade blueprints had been saved to the respective PDAs of the Survivors. Jake also new by heart where all of the locations of the wrecks were to find the other upgrade modules.
Even if he couldn't obtain them, which he wasn't sure of the reason as to why he couldn't, William or Greyson might be able to configure new upgrades. Therefore he shouldn't have too much to worry about in that department.
Also if anyone started to show symptoms of any kind of sickness to inform him immediately. Fortunately no one had shown any symptoms of Kharaa just yet, however that was because Jake made sure that they were constantly eating peepers, whether they had some of the Enzyme 42 in them or not, he wasn't able to tell.
Breakfast consisted of mainly dried or cooked Peepers, dried creepvine as a light snack, and filtered water made using a Bladderfish or made using the water filtration system that had been designed by William.
It was quite a useful machine if you didn't want to drink water made from a Bladderfish, which didn't taste that much different other than a slight fishy taste occasionally. Other than that there wasn't much variety in food yet.
Jake made sure that the main fish that they ate was Peepers or maybe the occasional other fish, but it was all basically the same with some salt added. No diseased fish had been seen yet and no one had shown any signs of being infected yet.
Munching on and swallowing an entire Peeper, Jake started to speak while the others were still stuffing their faces with the delectable looking food. "William, Greyson, I will need you to design a new and stronger communication device or upgrade our existing one so we can respond if we receive any communication signals.
Owen and I will go to another island I had seen on the way down in the Lifepod and grab some samples of plants growing there, as well as check out the rest of the island. First however, we will go to the island me and him had met on and check out the structure that had been on that island.
Keeping an eye out for any wrecked parts of the Aurora that had broken off as well will be a good goal as we can always use the materials scrapped from the wrecks if we needed to.
They might also have some useful stuff inside of them, such as first aid supplies, extra power cells or batteries, or specific upgrade modules. Everyone else can just work on gathering materials as fast as possible while exploration can be done after we return from the island.
I know you have been collecting some since I have been resting, but I don't know if that'll be enough for 1-3 of the Cyclops, 5 P.R.A.W.N Suits, and 5 Seamoths. All the resources for any of the upgrade modules must also be gathered as well, some of which will be gathered sooner than others."
Still remembering all of the locations of the wrecks, Jake would be able to go and scavenge from them after the first cyclops is built and some kind of hauling attachment is designed by William or Greyson. Another thing that could be designed is a larger boat that can serve as a cargo boat for the transportation of larger materials.
Continuing to eat the food on the fabricated plates, everyone was mulling over Jake's plans. Some questions were then raised by Owen since he would be the one to actually be venturing out with Jake.
"Why not just redisgn the Kraken-Class Research Submarine and Vehicle Carrier? Otherwise known as the K.C.R.S.V.C or just the Kraken, it is roughly 180 metres long, which was just over three times the length compared to the Cyclops, while also being double the height and double the width.
The Mobile Vehicle Bay should be able to construct it without a problem. I think the only hitch would be maneuvering it through the shallow waters."
"Because the amount of time it would take to redesign it from scratch would not be cost effective in the short term. Plus we wouldn't have enough people to pilot it."
William had interjected at this moment while making a valid point. "If we were to design a boat, that would be much simpler since it most likely wouldn't be as complicated as a submarine.
Therefore I don't think it would be a good idea to redesign the Kraken. As for the upgrade to the communication systems, that can be accomplished much more easily."
Stretching his arms while the two were having a conversation, Jake proceeded to stand up before washing the plate he had used and then he headed for the upper most room of the base while Owen followed.
The diving gear had been moved around a bit so that everyone had one suit in the upper room while a general air tank and mask were put on each for in case of leakage in the base.
Jake put his diving gear on while Owen was putting his on before they said goodbye to the others and jumped into the water to head toward the floating island.
(Sorry for the long wait, I was just kinda sidetracked and didn't spend any time writing. Plus I'm in college classes right now and busy with studying. Anyway, as usual if you see any spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes just leave a comment on that paragraph/sentence and I will correct it. Peace out for now!)