" Cucor Ium, now Beru Redmiles, wasn’t supposed to survive. "
"He was uneducated and a coward"
All his life he worked on a mining colony, stuck underground, he sometimes went to the surface to exchange supplies with the different visitors that came to trade ore or artifacts.
"He lived in constant fear, but happy"
His planet was a dangerous place where a small group of hired marines fought the alien fauna, while the unlucky ones were just a workforce for the constant fighting on the surface. One day the marines coulnd't contain the xenomorphs any longer and their whole base was destroyed, leaving the area to its demise.
The underground was filled with corpses of both miners and aliens.
"He was good at hiding"
After running away from the mines, he found a mining shuttle, "the perfect hiding spot" he thought.
Trembling in fear inside a crate after hearing noises approaching the shuttle, he saw a bleeding botanist who piloted the ship away from the chaos but collapsed mid-flight.
"He was good at smacking things"
Scared and unskilled, He tried to save him, only to witness a parasite burst from the botanist’s chest. He fought and killed the creature, but it was too late. Now stranded and alone in the void, he noticed a faint beeping from the dead botanist’s clothes , their PDA labeled “Beru Redmiles.”
"He was not alone"
The PDA contained a “personal AI friend" a PAI that only cared about the dead botanist thinking it was still alive somehow, This PAI guided him through survival, teaching him how to pilot the shuttle, grow crops, and sharing bittersweet stories of its previous owner.
"He had no choice and food was scarse"
Weeks or months passed as he drifted through space, The PAI's way of looking at things keept him alive.
"He found hope"
A faint glow in the vast of the space, a small station showing on the shuttle's console. He docked the shuttle and following the PAI's instructions he managed to get power running on a small room of this abandoned station.
The PAI instructed him on how to use hydroponics to grow food and medicine. The PAI was his only companion.
"He died that day"
After harvesting his first crop, the PAI went silent. not a single word coming out of the PDA, nothing. He was alone again, desperate after God knows how many days or weeks he tried something. He dressed up just like the old PAI owner, wore glasses and cut his hair in the same way. tried to talk to the PAI but nothing, it was silent. he keept on trying day after day, but nothing. He didn't mind it, the PAI was his friend.
"He heard something"
An unexpected announcement, a escape pod was ready to use but was about to leave.
Without thinking he went inside "I have nothing to lose anymore" he thought.
Station announcement:
Beru Redmiles (Botanist) has arrived to the station!
