Tucked inside the confines of the escape pod, which was starting to feel all too claustrophobic, Tyler Kemp attempted to keep himself entertained by building a castle out of food-paste bars. He'd already used up the peanut butter and jelly bars to make the first floor, and now aimed to add a second with the beef stew bars.

It wasn't nearly as entertaining as he tried to convince himself that it was, but at the least, it was distracting. Even androids could succumb to boredom and, eventually, cabin fever. Or escape pod fever, as the case was. At 1632 hours the day (week? month?) before, things had been fine and dandy aboard the USM Carina, stationed in the similarly-named Carina asteroid belt. Then, at 1633, chaos had erupted.

Tyler had no idea what had happened, but sirens had gone off, the ship had started shaking, panel-covers had flung themselves off the walls as the pipes and circuitry beneath them exploded and burst into flame, and everywhere voices had been raised in notes of panic. It was like the ship had decided to suicide and take its crew with it. Sabotage? That was the only possibility he could think of, though he had no idea why someone would've wanted to blow up the Carina. But then again, he also didn't know just what had gone on behind those closed doors he didn't have the clearance to pass...

...but those were all questions whose answers didn't matter, now. The only thing Tyler knew was that the dying croak of the ship's computer had ordered emergency evacuation, and he'd been more than willing to obey. Wounded by an explosion he'd been caught too near, he'd limped for the escape pods, finding only a single comrade worth rescuing in all the corpses he'd passed-- corpses whose tattered injuries couldn't have possibly been caused by the flame-and-shrapnel blasts, unless explosions were now capable of punching gaping holes into a man's head...

Carrying his unconscious brother-in-arms, Tyler had somehow managed to reach an escape pod and get them both inside before its automatic launch. They had been the only two in the pod, and he had no idea if any of the other pods had held survivors when they had launched. For all he knew, they were the only survivors of the Carina's inexplicable destruction.

Tyler's house of food-bricks finally collapsed as his bandaged fingers fumbled and dropped a bit of Chef's Surprise, scattering the whole lot of emergency rations across the floor. With a bit of a disappointed sigh, he sagged against the wall he was leaning against, rubbing his bandaged hands... though they weren't so much "bandaged" as "covered in a film of something resembling mercury": a nanobot-rich solution that clung to his wounds like a second skin, augmenting his self-repair systems in the slow healing of the wounds the calamity had left him with. Almost a third of his body was coated with the solution, and he was still dripping white circulatory fluids onto the floor from time to time.

Sparing a glance for his self-imposed human charge (First Law of Synthetics, Clause Two: A synthetic may not, through inaction, allow a human being to be killed/die.), Tyler began gathering up the mess he'd made. "How's that bump, Chelsey? Need another painkiller yet?"

"No, no... I'm good," the man muttered dully.

Tyler nodded, watching as the human sunk back into his thoughts. The synthetic wasn't sure if he should be concerned or not, yet-- the devastation of the Carina was not something that could be easily forgotten, but too many moments spent in dark meditation could easily lead to depression or any number of mental afflictions. That was part of why he kept himself indulged in such silly things as building houses out of the food-bars, and attempting to play connect-the-dots with the stars seen through the cockpit window. It kept his own thoughts from lingering too long on the sounds of death-screams, and terrifying glimpses of fearful black phantoms lurking behind curtains of flame...

Jerking his head and physically shaking himself free from those thoughts, Tyler finished scooping up the little mess he'd made, returning the food-bars to the crate he'd gotten them from. Then, leaning on the crate for the support his bad leg couldn't offer, he worked himself to a standing position again, wavering unsteadily in the weak pull of the escape pod's artificial low gravity. He was feeling "hungry," but not in an organic sense. The nanobots were running out of raw material to speed his self-repair, and that meant it was time for another one of those metallic, android-only consumables that provided such materials for the microscopic robots to mend him with.

As he rummaged around in the single, small crate marked "Synthetic Repair," he heard Chelsey rasp out a query. "You think anyone will hear the beacon? Were there any other survivors?"

Glancing back over his shoulder, Tyler offered the human bit of a smile. "Well, sure! The Carina was sending out a mayday to every other ship and station within two thousand klicks. Someone heard that, and someone's gonna have to come investigate, so it's only a matter of time 'fore someone gets close enough to pick up our signal too."

Finding a metal flask of the substance he sought, Tyler turned around and leaned against the wall, weighing the container in his hand and pondering his answer to the second part of Chelsey's question. If not exactly friends, they were familiar with one another as Carinian natives-- even if one of them was womb-born and the other tube-born-- and they were both marines, though Tyler had been station-bound as the requisite synthetic of his squadron and Chelsey was a freelancer. As a comrade marine, that meant Tyler could be blunt and honest.

"When the evac order went out, I passed a lot of people on my way to the pod bay, but you were the only one still breathing." He turned the flask over, examining his dark reflection on its metal surface. "I did hear other voices and footsteps down other corridors, but I don't know if any of them made it to the other pods. Ours initiated its automatic launch before I could go look for anyone else." Breaking the air-seal and pulling the cap off the flask, Tyler, made a face as he lifted it to his mouth. "God, this stuff always tastes foul..."

And it was at that moment that something clamped onto the pod without warning, rattling the tiny ship and its occupants, and sending the emergency supplies shaking and clattering in their crates. Tyler choked on an overflowing mouthful of the flask's contents, and began coughing violently as he wiped an oily brown liquid off his chin. "Shit!"

When the vibration stopped and Tyler recognised the sound of air being pumped in to fill the vacuum of the airlock, he stared in surprise at the solid metal hulk of the inner door. He didn't even pause to feel any kind of relief at being found.

"Now who the hell latches onto a pod without radioing in a warning first?" he exclaimed, free hand dropping to the pistol strapped to his leg-- his good one, thankfully. He was still figuring the rapid death of the Carina for sabotage, and the saboteurs might've not cared to leave any survivors. A good marine always had a bit of paranoia trained into him for worst-case scenarios...