A Human and other Deathworlders are hurt, that was a bumpy landing in that survival pod. The human gives the others in the pod all of the pain meds. They decide to "tough it out" until help arrives. But, they can handle it. -- Anon Guest
Good news - it was a hospitable world. Great news, the molecular printers and disassemblers had survived in workable condition. Terrible news... Human Ret had survived the crash with fractured ribs. Compared to the others, a relatively minor injury.
Fantastic news, the printers could also do pain meds. Terrible news - not enough of them.
On a world hospitable enough that food was relatively easy to procure, it wasn't that terrible. There were worse outcomes, like that one planet colonised by one guy alone. Sent by adherents of Ancient Alien Theory[1]. Poor soul only had himself as a resource. For both population and nutrition.
This place was a relative paradise.
They were all walking wounded. Well, hobbling wounded. They could each totter from the crash site and shelter, grab something, and feed it to the machines. It was enough to keep them fed, and keep most of them medicated enough to do it again the next day.
Life hurt, but they could deal.
It took the others a week to realise that Ret wasn't doing so great. Or that they weren't taking the medication that the others were.
"It's okay," Ret panted, clutching at their chest once more. "It's only a fracture. You get access on the rule of triage. We all need hands and feet on gather-hunting... I can deal. I can tough this out."
Another set of bad news - rescuers were wont to take their time when it was Deathworlders in the crash. The belief that they could 'tough things out' was nigh universal.
The belief would change, but not soon enough for Ret.
The storm nearly did them in. Broken bones and atmospheric pressure changes never mixed well. The survivors tried to share out their pain meds and... the results nearly killed them all.
They could all barely move to get supplies, and were focussed on getting more of the stuff that made their painkillers.
The CRC came to rescue them in the end, citing the case as a reason to rescue no matter what. The CRC were really good at fights like this.
A little bit too late for Ret and their crew, but not too late for the next guys.
[1] When you analyse this theory sufficiently, it turns out that aliens didn't like white people enough to help them with anything cool.
[Image by Mirhashim Bagaliyev on Unsplash]
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