The unfortunate space marine

I awoke in the wreckage of my shuttle, checking for my limbs and inhaling the burning oil. Wait, burning oil? I scrambled up, grabbed my rifle and rolled out. I had no clue where I was besides an alien planet with possibly man-eating animals and aliens. Looking around to the dual-finned tail end of our shuttle, I saw a rock outcropping dropping into a dip in the ground. Getting my very jelly legs under me I tossed my rifle and myself into it. The shuttle finally burned back to its fuel source and both engines combusted flinging metal and burning fuel in a cluster about the forest. Thankfully it was wet enough that it would not ignite the greenery.

I laid in that dip for far too long trying to get my breathing steadied and my hearing to level out. It did not seem to want to, every crunch sounding as if in a fish bowl. I pulled myself up and sat the rifle on the rocks looking out into the misty and dank forest. Waiting. Then waiting some more. And some more. Look, I was piss scared and this was meant to be recon, not combat. Pulling myself out of the dip I checked my helmet on board GPS. Scrambled, of course, it was scrambled. I was meant to be dropped into a location to scout alien activity before the major attacks. Pulling myself up and out of the divot that I called home for maybe 5 hours and the burning wreck now finally being done smoking I looked up into the sky of this strange world. The planet had 4 moons clustered together and they were rising. I’d need to find water if I wanted to survive very long.

I clicked through what worked in my helmet and whistled, annoyed that everything was showing errors save the atmospheric scanner. Sure it’s good to know the air’s not poisonous to breathe but I had marked rivers on there in case this happened. The clearing was maybe 300 yards by 50 yards. The trees were akin to Earth's redwood forest but if you stacked 3 stacked atop each other. Okay, what was the first thing to find water? Look for tracks. I assumed anything that lived on a planet with a similar atmosphere to Earth must need to drink water. I spotted little paw prints, with a central pad and a print to the center of the cluster of tracks then in front of them two punctures. They looked like they walked on claws. I went to follow these for a bit until I heard the trickle of a stream. Walking towards the I looked around for anything vicious, seeing what looked closer to Earth deer rather than some weird aliens. Save the nasal antlers. Nasal…antlers? Shouldering the rifle, aiming where the heart is should it have the same anatomy.

A loud bang, a kick into the shoulder then a dead deer. Shot it…I shot it! Dashing forward I dropped next to its body and checked making sure it was dead. It was. Giddy chuckling escaped my mouth as I unsheathed my knife and went to work skinning it. Maybe I’ll survive on this rock yet.