New Planet, New Problems Jill's Interstellar Travels chapter 2 by TinyLesbo

A ladder slowly rattled down to the floor, granting Jill access to solid ground for the first time in about a week. In her tight and stuffy spacesuit, she clammed up at the sound of her own breathing from within the helmet.

 

It was all a necessary evil of course; she couldn't just assume the air was breathable on an alien planet. That would be stupid.

 

At least until the sensors in her helmet could read the contents of the air here, she had to wear the stupid thing and get on with her work. Slick with sweat in moments, it pooled in awkward places and had her feeling supremely uncomfortable. But that was the price she paid for not watching as her ship's fin cracked. 

 

What cracked it? Who knew? But it was her job to fix it now, she supposed, because who else was here on this desolate rock to do it for her?

 

With lime green skies, at least two suns, bluish grass, orange seas and a damp red soil below, it was mostly just a colour swap of back home. Sadly, that didn't translate into liveability, so she was just going to have to wait for her visor sensor to hopefully save the day;

 

'Reading...' it muttered repeatedly into Jill's ear, a flutter of colourful lights blurring past her left eye as she surveyed the damage to her ship's fin. As best her insulated fingers could tell, it was just a hairline fracture, and nothing more complicated. Nothing that couldn't be blowtorched back into working condition. Sourcing the right metal for that was less simple, but the job was as good as done once she'd found some. And thankfully, she at least had a helper for that;

 

With the push of a button on a remote control, there was a robotic whistling as a little drone flew out of the ship's hatch, its antenna fluttering excitedly. 

 

"Evenin' squirt," Her sister's recorded voice called out, all metallic and flattened. "Need a hand?"

 

"Mhmm," Jill muttered. "Two hands, actually; first, I need you to-"

 

"Whoa, ease up." The drone whirred. "Can't hear you with that stupid helmet on."

 

"Well I need the stupid helmet to not die out here." Jill huffed. 

 

"Whaat?" The drone hovered in closer.

 

"I. Need. The."

 

"Whaaaat?!" 

 

"Dammit Hannah, quit playing around!" Jill raged. "I'm already stressed, and I don't need your-"

 

A series of beeps interrupted her tirade. 'Atmospheric content analysed. Air contains include 38% Oxygen, 59% Hydrogen, 3% others. Should be breathable.'

 

"Should be?" Jill groaned. She knew better than to gamble with her life, but losing an argument with a machine was really starting to tick her off. "Fuck it, whatever."

 

Pushing a button under her neck, and a twisting hinge, the helmet was released with a hiss of gas, and Jill shook her hair loose, shaking a wealth of sweat outwards. "...that's better. Can you hear me now, Hannah?"

"Could in the first place, squirt." The drone's LCD screen poked out a tongue. 

 

"Ungh. Stupid fucking machines." Jill kicked the ship's ladder, immediately regretting it. "Alright, once this job's over, I'm remodelling you into a toaster."

 

"Relax, Jill. Just havin' a bit of fun." Hannah snickered.

 

"You're not supposed to have fun, you're supposed to 'help'." 

 

"Well you shoulda thought of that before you used your darling sister as the AI model." Hannah poked her tongue out. 

 

"...yeah." Jill deadpanned. "Anyway. Two jobs for you. First things first, I want you to scan for life on this bit of dirt. I know the odds are slim," she put up a hand to forestall the drone's taunts. "But it never hurts to be sure. Second, I want you to scan for tin. I gotta weld some shit and I'm short on supplies."

 

"You're short in general," Hannah's LCD screen winked. Smoothly dodging a thrown wrench, the little drone just flew out of her reach. "Alright, I'll do it, squirt. Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to my wittle baby sis."

 

"If you'd spent less time talking and more time doing I could be off this rock already!" Jill seethed

 

"If you'd spent more time flying your ship properly you wouldn't've had to stop here in the first place." Hannah cackled. "Anyway..." it dodged another thrown wrench. "You're in luck; there's plenty of tin on this planet. Nearest deposit... about three miles that way." Hannah's antenna pointed to the right. "As for life... nothing of note. Not picking up any body heat anyway, so no intelligent life. Probably."

 

"Probably? That's not very reassuring," Jill groaned. Hopping out of her spacesuit, she just let the thing deflate, fluttering out her tank top for some air flow. The Oxygen heavy atmosphere felt a lot 'thicker' to breathe, but it sure reinvigorated her quickly.

 

"Whooa, when did you grow curves?" Hannah floated back down, whirring inquisitively at her chest. "Last I saw you, you were just limbs and mosquito bites."

 

"Well no one asked you," Jill crossed her arms across her chest. "Just... go show Clive where to start digging, okay? I'll be fine here without you!"

 

"That's what she said...!" Hannah floated off, its sing songy voice drifting away with it. As it disappeared, beyond the canopy of a small forest, another drone followed after, this one with a mechanised drill attached.

 

And just like that, Jill was alone again. Back in her natural tomboy environment, she took another moment to air out, and just sighed deeply. It was going to take a while before Hannah came back, and quite a bit longer before Clive had any tin for her to use, so she had some time to kill until then, she supp-

 

Suddenly, a high pitched whistling noise whooshed straight past Jill. Had it not gone right by her ear, she probably wouldn't have even heard it. But something tiny and sharp shot by, hitting the ship with a shallow thud. 

 

"...huh?" Jill knelt down, searching for the source of the noise. Whatever it was, it was moving at speed, but was too small to- 

 

"Agh!"

 

Another whistling noise, and something sharp pierced her thigh. Reaching behind, Jill winced as she plucked out what looked like a tiny, thin spear.

Just a few inches long, and needle thin, whatever threw this must've been just as tiny. But whatever it was, she wasn't alone.

 

"Dammit Hannah...!" Jill spread herself out defensively. Whatever happened to 'no intelligent life' on this planet? 

Another spear whistled past, and this one looped around her bicep. Jill tried to pull it away, but a near invisible, impossibly tough string was attached. She couldn't even see where it led, it was that thin, and yet she didn't have the strength to break it either, despite her size.

 

Jill wasn't exactly built for power, having been a skinny waif all her fourteen years, but surely she could've broken free of something this pathetic?

 

That was a problem for another time though, as more and more spears were launched from all directions. Snaking around her body, digging into sensitive flesh and trapping it, every searing whistle had her increasingly trapped, and whatever was doing this sure knew how to coordinate an attack. She'd gone over this at the academy, but there was only so much that assault training could do when she couldn't even see her attackers.

 

It had to be plural, because unless it had a billion arms, there was no way it could attack from this many angles at once. 

 

"F-fuck!" Jill swore, as a spear hit her in the nipple, dredging her back to reality. At this point, her limbs were more or less secured, and unfortunately there was no place to go but down. 

 

Ropes creaked and ground crunched below as Jill crashed down, her butt taking the brunt of the impact. Ropes were tightened, and limbs were spread, as the tethered teen was taken hostage.