Baker looked over the H.U.D. of his ship [i]The Firefly[/i] and frowned, this was not the place. He noticed the slight sliver of ocean in the northwest quadrant of the display and directed his autopilot there. He thought over his mission again while the ship propelled itself toward the coast. He was here on this uncharted planet for reconnaissance. The superpowers in the human empire wanted to find a suitable place for a refueling station, but being the eco-friendly deity the government of this sector was, you couldn’t construct anything in areas of high life density, and what a candidate for that this planet was. High oxygen levels, dense forests, warm temperatures, plenty of fresh and salt water. ‘Just like earth before we ruined it…’ A sudden explosion shattered this train of thought. He looked up and was greeted with smoke billowing out of the front end of his jet. He didn’t panic too much, the ship’s A.I. would put out the fire in the engine and even land the craft safely if needed. Any existing fears he had were quenched with the fire as the computer directed flame retardant foam all over the source of the explosion. Baker felt the ship slowing down for a landing; the engine had been damaged too severely for the ship to continue. As they neared the ground, the hood of the ship started smoking again. This was accompanied by several warning sirens. Apparently the ship’s sensors had been damaged in the first blast and had failed to pick up the part of the fire, which had spread in the high oxygen atmosphere to the area surrounding the fuel cell. Baker quickly grabbed a parachute and his survival kit and bailed. He pulled the cord to activate his ‘chute at once, the ground being so close. This turned out to be a very horrible idea seeing as [i]the Firefly[/i] exploded in a fiery ball of flame getting just close enough to catch the now open parachute on fire. Not only this, but the explosion spun him through the air, one of the Para cords wrapped around his neck, then nothing… [center]~[/center] Baker awoke to the sounds of voices. Opening his eyes, he saw several reptilian creatures that seemed quite mammalian in nature. He could tell this very clearly, none of the creatures wore any clothing. He wondered how strange he must seem to them, with cloth covering his entire body, coming to their planet in a fiery explosion, his starship completely destroyed. This made him sit bolt upright, which he instantly regretted. Doubling over in pain, he quickly deduced that he had broken several ribs. This didn’t worry him as much as it pained him, the nanites in his bloodstream would aid the healing process. The reptilian creatures [i]somehow[/i] noticed him crying out loudly in pain, and rushed over to him, saying… something. He couldn’t understand. Why couldn’t he understand? He reached up to his ear, the one he had designated with the translator, but nothing was there. This caused Baker to panic for half a second, half of the people he came in contact with daily were alien and most of the humans he met didn’t speak English. Brushing off the reptilians, he gingerly stood up and looked around for the shiny jet black device. He might as well do that now anyway, he wouldn’t be able to understand any of the reptilians without it. The aliens gave him a little berth as he worked his way in a spiral around his landing site looking for the translator. To his relief he found it around twenty yards from where he landed, right next to the waveless ocean. He was thankful that the planet had no satellite; else the device might have been swallowed by the tides. With the advice inserted in his ear, the babble became suddenly clear. “What was that thing he picked up?” “I don’t know, but it was what he was looking for, I guess…” “I wonder if we could communicate with him.” This caught Baker’s attention. He pointed toward the one that said this and nodded with exaggerated motions. This stopped all of the chatter. One of the females that seemed in charge asked haltingly, “Can… can you understand us?” Baker nodded again. The female mulled this over for a few seconds before asking; “Can you speak?” Baker thought a moment before responding; “Yes, but you wouldn’t understand it.” This obviously got the point across, ironically. “How is it you understand?” she asked, and then realizing her mistake she added “can you answer that?” Baker nodded, indicating he could before taking the translator out of his ear and showing it to her before replacing it. She looked slightly confused, but for the most part, he thought she got the picture. “Do you have… other technology that would allow us to understand you?” This question made Baker stop in his tracks; he did have a communicator on his ship, but his ship… There was a chance it could have survived, it was small and light, that combined with the fact that he needed to survey the wreckage for anything salvageable. He decided to use a charade type tactic, acting out his shuttle crashing into the planet and indicating the point of impact to be the place where the communicator would be. “So, it is at the place where the explosion happened?” Baker nodded. The female spoke with another of the reptilians, then returned her attention to Baker. “I can take you to the place you speak of. Come this way.” She started off down the beach, Baker following her, along with the rest of the group of the reptilians. Ground zero was around half a mile down the beach, but the debris was visible after only a minute of walking. Baker ran his eyes over the scraps, looking for anything that could prove useful to him. He stopped and picked things up several times, putting them in the backpack that formerly held his parachute. Repeatedly, he was asked if he had found the object that allowed him to communicate while storing these items away. By the time he actually got to the place of impact, he had amassed a small pile of random things, the most important of which was a slightly damaged portable super-computer. This he ranked in the top five things that he wanted to find in the wreckage the most. Unfortunately for him, it wouldn’t turn on. Among the other things that he had found were rations, and a laser pistol, which had around ten shots on it before it ran out of ammo. The crash site was basically just a twisted heap of charred black metal and some unrecognizably mangled objects. His object interest now was a small cardboard box. He had never taken the communicator out of the packaging, he had never needed too; everyone away from their home planet had translators. He thought that if it were to have survived, it would be in the storage closet. He climbed onto the mass of blackened metal and slid inside the hatch he had opened to jump out. The interior of the jet was not nearly as destroyed as the outside, well at least the back half wasn’t. The floor was bulging inward, making it hard for Baker to get a good footing, but he persevered, eventually reaching the door that held his interest. The door was crushed accordion style against the concave floor. Baker tried to pull the door open, but it was stuck. He cast a look around for anything that could help him. His gaze settled on a steel piece of I-beam that wasn’t too mangled. He used the beam as a makeshift crowbar, wedging it in the space between the door and the frame. The door started to move with an agonizing screeching sound as it scraped across the floor. With a little struggle, the got the steel door open enough so that he could slip inside. Luckily for him there was a hole in the wall from the crash that allowed light to flow into the room. Baker scanned the room for a second before spotting what he was looking for, a small brown box sticking out from under the pile of miscellaneous things. He scooped the box up and popped the top open. Foam noodles, He almost laughed with delight. Digging through the noodles he pulled out a roughly two inch by two inch chrome box. He flipped the on switch and the indicator light came on. He sighed in relief, ‘what a stroke of luck.’ He thought to himself, climbing back through the cindered remains of the craft. All of the reptilians were standing around next to the hatch that he dropped down from. He showed the device to the female who was at the front of the group. “I found it!” He smiled as surprise showed on her face as the words registered in her mind, thanks to the box. “Good…” she started, “I have some things I would like to ask you now.” “Shoot.” He encouraged her. “First I would like to know your name.” “My name is Singed Baker.” He responded frowning for the millionth time at the joke his parents had made out of his name. “But people just call me Baker.” “Well met, Baker. My name is Elnik.” Baker nodded. “What was it that you wanted to ask me?” “Well, Baker, first I would like to know what you are and how you came to be here.” This question didn’t surprise Baker, he had been expecting it. “I am what my race calls human; I hail from my home planet earth from the solar system.” He pointed up at the sky. “I came here in a vehicle designed for the moving of cargo and people from outer space, do you know what that is?” Elnik nodded. “Do you have technology, like telescopes?” he asked, astounded at her comprehension. “Yes. I considered our race to be very advanced until you came along. We have land vehicles and electricity, as well as other things like telescopes.” Baker tried not to show his surprise at how the seemingly savage people had developed the technologies of the industrial era of earth. All of the alien races he knew of wore clothes, but he guessed that the climate of this planet was so warm that this race hadn’t needed to invent them. “Did you want to know anything else?” he asked. “Well…” she began “I’m a scientist, so I was wondering if me and my team, could, you know, study you and your things.” She looked slightly abashed saying this, probably wondering if he would take it as an insult. “Sure.” Baker replied, “It’s not like I have anything else to do before I find a way of calling someone to find me.” He shrugged “I suppose you have other questions, then?” “Yes, but they can wait until we get back to town. Our vehicles are back where we found you.” She motioned for Baker to follow her. When they walked past the spot where Baker had landed, Baker decided to take the remains of his melted polyester parachute. He could make clothes out of it at the very least if he couldn’t find another use for it. After he was done stuffing the cloth into the backpack they walked to the tree line where the vehicles were parked. To Baker they looked like a cross between a tank and a car. Treads in place of wheels, but the chassis looked similar to that of a jeep. He couldn’t see a road anywhere, so he guessed the treads were for going over all terrain. The tank-car didn’t seem to have an engine, so he also assumed that it was fully electric. They drove for around ten minutes before Baker saw another reptilian. He didn’t see any houses, but there were tank-cars parked in seemingly random places. It took him a while to realize that the houses were underground, the reptilians were burrowers. He realized this when he saw one of the lizard-like people coming out of a hole in the ground. Aside from looking out the window, Baker dedicated the drive to trying to get his computer working, which he did with some success. He was able to get some of the basic functions of the computer up and running. He used this to send a distress signal out to anyone in the area, but out in space, it could take a long time for anyone to get the message, and after that they had to get clearance to fly out to an area with little to no colonization. The government was weird that way. The reptilians noticed what he was doing almost at once. “What is that device?” one asked him, a male with red markings on his face. “This is a computer, a Computational device. I’m trying to send a signal for someone to pick me up. Do you have computers?” “Yes, we do, but they take up a huge amount of space and don’t have a display, we have to print off codes to see the calculations.” The red marked lizard man responded, slightly nervously, as if he thought Baker would laugh at his inadequate technology. “Hmm.” Baker thought for a second before he remembered, “That sounds a lot like the first human computers as well.” The vehicle came to a stop just outside of a particular hole. The hole wasn’t what Baker was expecting, though. It had a trap door covering the entrance, and when Elnik opened the hatch, a wooden staircase was revealed. The reptilians led Baker down the stair case to a room that looked much like a living room or a common area in a human house. One of the reptilians left the underground building to see if there was a residence where Baker could stay temporarily. Elnik sat Baker down on one of the chairs that they had in the room, the others sitting down opposite him. The chair was comfortable except for the part where, if he had one, his tail would go so you would not be sitting on it. They sat in silence for a little while, the Lizans, as Baker took to calling them: a cross between lizard and man, which is what he thought they looked like, were studying his physical appearance until Baker broke the silence. “I must admit, I’m envious of all of your ability to keep calm. I must seem very strange to you, and just showing up on your planet in a giant explosion must have been quite a surprise.” Elnik took a while before responding. “We have Science-fiction works of literature that have scenarios very similar to the one that we are in right now… I have read quite a few of them, but still, I was quite nervous when you started to wake, I suppose you missed that.” She said smiling slightly. “Ah. We used to have science-fiction with similar topics, though I guess for us, it isn’t really fiction anymore is it?” “I suppose not…”