Hours before the sun could rise beyond the horizon, Bo was already awake. He could see long in the uncomfortable drop pod and longer than 4 hours.
He turned on his thermals and ventured into the forest after some preparation. He needed to hunt.
He rounded a tree looking at a strange small silhouette by a tree, sleeping. He aimed and at subsonic speed threw it with deadly accuracy cracking the creature's skull.
He picked it up by a leg, gutting the animal roughly avoiding the digestive tract he found out the hard way.
He threw the hollowed out animal into his bag at his hips completing his set of five just when sunlight shone behind the tree chasing the night away.
Has has five of three species he though were edible, all roughly the same size of a rabbit or smaller. He left the other ten at the camp for space in his bag.
[You know you could eat the rations at the pod.] LIRA chimed in.
"Yeah but that's for emergencies, I may be here longer than you think." Bo stumbled on the forest floor looking up at the towering trees, he looked back eye trailing on a dot of a pinged location.
Finding himself ducking and hopping over tree roots as he got closer.
Bo thought to himself, "You know, we haven't named this planet yet. I'm thinking Cleo, named after my dog."
[Noted.]
As he got closer he could hear it, running water. He got to open air to see a path where a river would be, inspecting further he found that the tree root had threaded above the river itself in a arc. Like a natural bridge.
Bo looked for a way in squeezing between the thread getting to the source. The water a crystal clear torrent of turbulent water.
Carefully, he took off his water filtration drum from his back, and he dipped it in the water cautiously, once done he climbed back out dragging the drum behind him. The drum hummed as it processed the water.
He let out an exhale, "What's the verdict?"
There was a moment of silence before the LIRA stated.
[Safe. I think. Water borne diseases is still a factor. Boil it just to be 100% sure.]
With nothing more to do, Bo slung the drum over his shoulder. And walked back to camp when he heard a noise coming from... somewhere.
The sound echoed through the trees with no sort of direction.
He couldn't tell and his sensors didn't indicate to anything to him.
"You hear that?" He asked aloud.
[Yes, I assume it's nothing to be concerned about.]
Bo nodded, "I guess." he would return to camp and eating something hopefully.
When the forest cleared and his eyes are greeted by the familiar sea of purple grass and the view of his pod amidst it all. He had set up a fireplace and layed his kill he looked forward to eating.
Except. They were gone. All ten of then with the only evidence of their existence being their bones and fur. Something came through here and something big.
"What?" Bo kicked a bone aside as if he will find his food underneath it, "What the hell. Are you kidding me."
He dropped his bag and drum and paced back and forth, hand on his hips.
[Well if you leave you food out in the open it's basically advertisement for predator locals.] LIRA reasoned.
"I could have sworn I had my motion sensor on around the pod though. I could have know there was predator following me. But there were none only herbivore are in the area."
[That is correct.]
LIRA toned.
[Unless someone interfered with it.]
Bo pause mid-step to slowly turn to the fickering avatar of LIRA beside him.
"You... what?" Bo asked gritting his teeth.
[I muted your proximity alerts.] She said proudly.
Bo could almost squeeze her facd if he could, "You did what!?"
[I said: I muted your proximity alerts. The creature from last night never.]
"And you didn't tell me why? Turned off my proximity sensors on it why?" His spine stiffened.
[ You mute my voice, I mute your proximity alerts. This will teach you to be more cooperative when ensuring our survival]
Her avatar blinked away sat primly by the disturbed campfire, simulating a fire in it roasting a marshmallow.
[I had already set saftey parameters in place that ensured our continued survival, it didn't trigger any danger thresholds. It seemed non-threatening from my observation.]
Her avatar pulled back a well roast marshmallow and took a bite.
"That's not a metric, you basically gave that thing a vibe check and let it eat my food! You're so petty."
[Oh please, as an advanced proto-artificial general intelligence I am to think more logically. You touched an unknown alien but you don't bat an eye. When I let it the same furry cryptid drift in your general vicinity you lose your mind.]
"Well it ate our food!" He gesture to the remains, "Are we feeding crytids now?" Bo's hands waved wildly.
LIRA stated matter of factly.
[We are.]
"Turn on my damn sensors."
[Affirmative.]
Bo's HUD pinged a creature in green, it was in the big thing had been in the trees bordering the camp the entire time.
[What are you thinking?] LIRA asked curiously.
"I'm going th train it." Bo decided.
[Bold of you.] She stated dryly.
"If it's going to eat my food it's going to listen to my rules." Bo commands, grabbing the dead animal carcass from his bag.
[Or maul you.]
He ignored her and moved forward. LIRA's avatar's face harddened before it flickered away.
Bo tried hard and LIRA watched carefully as it took them the better part of 6 hours to have the creature be near Bo.
Using the age old method of lurring it with gradually enough to close the distance until the animal can out of you hand. The time to achieve this was surprising to LIRA and blew away her prediction model.
The creature was too trusting. Or did it see Bo as an alpha of sorts.
Now it wandered 2 meters from Bo, it's head always low and seemingly apologetic eye scan her surrounding. Bo had to resort to rations after giving up all his meat to the beast.
Bo knelt, tossed the last of the rodent meat onto the grass, and waited.
The beast crept forward, sniffed… then picked it up delicately in its jaws. Its ears flicked, eyes locked on him.
Bo raised an open hand. "Sit."
Confused ember eyes met his, flinching as it debated to drop the food.
He tried again gentler this time. "Sit. Down."
It flopped. Not precisely in understanding but more along the lines of. It got tire carrying its heavy frame and gulped down the flesh between its teeth.
"There we go." Bo said proudly.
LIRA's voice chimed, smug.
Her avatar was by the resting beast as she pretended to pet it.
[Well, well. Who's a good genetically incompatible apex predator? Yes you are.]
She cooed at the creature.
[Now I see why you had to risk your life for this abomination. It's so fluffy.]
She said, her voice laced with sarcasm.
Bo decide to take off his armour after a long debate with LIRA but it was overridden with the fact that he still needed to do human functions like pissing and sleeping comfortably for the night.
It was a hybrid child of medieval armour and mech suit made to tank hits like Rhino Mech and move like a Phalanx exo suit, well that is how it was marketed.
Only problem is that speed part was dependent on Bo's synergy which sat at a disappointing 50%. Which is simply Bo's normal agility.
Another thing that hit him like a truck was the unfiltered planet air. It was a bit thick, like he was in breathing in water vapour from boiled water, and the sound was strange. It felt like the volume of everything increased by 10-20 up.
And the gravity.
It's wasn't like how it was on the Shooting Star with only 40% of earth's, or mars with even less.
It's thanks to LIRA pulling from his latent strength to compensate.
Now in his standard Gian space jumpsuit he was skin and flesh packed around bone.
He also realised how dirty he was smelling, like salty ozone, to LIRA's dismay and the beast's delight. It couldn't get enough smelling him.
Bo decided to spend the rest of his afternoon gathering fire wood but ran into the problem of the wood being far wetter than he anticipated. As the night drew exhausting gripped him.
He rested on the floor wrapped in a thermal blanket buy it didn't stop the chilly wind from slipping in the gaps and stealing his heat. He opened his eyes seeing LIRA curled around the simulated campfire with a regal expression of a sleeping beauty which meant she wasn't really asleep.
To the pod personally debating wether be propped up like a mannequin, then to the creature. A balled up mound of fur, steam and as stated in LIRA's ever growing data chart on it. It had a temperature of blistering 52.8°C.
Bo thought about it more, then a second more and committing when a particular gust of frosty wind robbed more of his heat. That was the last straw.
He got up, threw the blanket on it patting the blanket down. The beast woke up but did nothing, Bo rolled himself on the creature and sighed in relief. As he drifted to sleep in comfortable silence.
He decided to himself to name it, Heaterin.
[Bo, that xeno is not safe to enough to be committing such actions. It is currently 49.8°C at surface temperature, you could face health risk, or it could just eat you.]
"It's fine, it likes me. I trained it even." Bo mumbled.
[Your behaviour needs to be studied Commander.]
LIRA commented.
"It's warm." Bo replied deep and gentle.
The creature purring in response.
[So is hell.]
He didn't reply.
[Goodnight, Avian-42.]