Rain bore down on the thin material of the tent. Makeshift and hastily constructed, the poles wobbled, and the whole thing could have blown away at any minute, to join the leaves scattered by the ferocious storm.
The tent sat alone in a field, surrounded by nothing but grass that was perpetually swept to the left by harsh wind. A small light flickered inside, and a silhouette appeared. Inside the tent was a girl. Dressed in a green full body coat, seemingly made from the same material as the tent, she dripped over her belongings, all of which snugly fit into a small backpack in the corner of her makeshift home. Aged around nineteen, her name was Rosa Oscan, and she was alone.
She had set up the tent very quickly, knowing with a cool rationality that it would be the only thing saving her from freezing to death in the storm. She had wondered through the field for a while first, of course knowing enough to look for something to build the tent against, to attempt to protect herself from the powerful winds, but had only succeeded in almost being blown away herself. The air was thick with leaves, and insects, so she decided there must be a nearby forest, but she could find nothing, and so the tent was set up in the open. She could only hope that she would wake up in one piece.
She sat there for a short while, listening to the rain pour. Endlessly pouring, she could expect no respite at any point this night, or ever on this dreary world she had found herself in. She remembered her training, and went through the steps.
Firstly, she had to strip. Her coat was made from a watertight material, but was still dripping over the thin ground sheet of her tent. The coat was made of a moulding, like plaster, and fit perfectly to her body. She grabbed her collar and ripped the whole thing off her, folding it together. Instantly it began to mould to its new shape, the water slowly dripping out.
Rosa was left in her uniform, her standard clothes. She wore a simple blue blazer, buttoned to her neck, and black straight trousers, all of which to her relief were still dry. Her boots were next to be removed, left dripping in the corner.
She reached into her bag, and pulled out a short red device. She twisted one end and it began to radiate heat and light; an emergency heater. She hung it from the top of the tent and for a moment, as the warmth began to stop her numbness and shaking, even the rain seemed to stop.
But she knew she the heat would not last for long, and so she began to rummage through her bag once more. She pulled out three items: a small cube, a flat-packed bag, and a bottle of water. She ripped open the pack and ate feverishly. It was dry and disgusting food, but she knew it would keep her alive.
Next, Rosa turned to the cube. The cube was a military issue device, and worked much like an Old Earth smart phone, but was tuned into the Outranet, an internet that spanned a whole galaxy. She tapped each face of the cube and it sprang into life, each side lighting up. As she turned to look at different faces she saw the different screens she had been using, a game on one face, a book on the other, and even a social media page that students could use to communicate. She found the page she was looking for, and began a scan for signal.
Of course there was none. She knew that this planet was inhospitable, and she knew that only one family was in charge of looking after it. And that they were all dead.
Rosa Oscan was a military student of the United Kingdom Space Cadet Forces. Her parents were both officers in the Navy, and like all parents had their own planet to colonise, to make like Earth. While the parents changed the planet’s atmosphere, making it habitable to humans, the students had one job, to train to lead the planets.
But Rosa’s craft had gone terribly wrong. A malfunction in machinery had caused the ship to explode. Rosa had only time to hear the warning bell in the lower levels of the ship, and run to an escape pod. Her bag already inside, she could do nothing but watch as the craft orbiting her planet exploded, and her entire family, her way of life, evaporated before her eyes.
She threw the cube away, and felt her face. Feeling had returned to her fingers now, but her skin was tinged blue, and her whole body felt heavy. This planet was bigger than the Old Earth and the gravity weighed her down.
A sudden pain shot through her neck, and she realised that she had been badly burnt. She recalled her landing on the planet, bouncing and skidding through the grassy field. Her world was fire and smoke, and she grabbed her back, her only thought to escape from the coffin she was had fallen out of the sky in. In her haste she smacked into the side of the ship, severely burning her neck.
She had been lucky, she reflected as she rubbed in a paste from her bag. It was a moment of reckless stupidity. She checked her mouthpiece next, the only thing enabling her to breathe on this barren world. The craft above was slowly adding more oxygen to the atmosphere by adding forests and field such as the only Rosa’s solitary tent was pitched in, but she still knew it would be reckless to breathe the air without an oxygen mask.
As her light began to die, and coldness began to sweep back in, the rain poured harder. Small drops began to break through the tent material, and Rosa pulled out her sleeping bag. She lay inside as her light died, and the cold winds shook through the small tent. She reached into her pocket and picked up a small torch. The small pinprick of light, found its way onto the page of a textbook, tucked away into her emergency sleeping bag. Rosa began to read, and reread. Through the night she studied and studied, knowing that despite everything, the biggest worry for her was the test she had. She had to learn how to colonise the planet she currently lay dying in, or face deportation back to the Old Earth, where the only work there was would be a fate worse than death.
And so that is how it came to pass that a young girl was left alone on a large empty planet, in the eye of an unrelenting, uncaring storm, revising. And as she read words describing the effects of the large machines that were burning in the atmosphere above her, Rosa felt very little emotion. Her parents were dead, she reflected, but that was not important. She could die here, but that was not important. What was important was that the wind’s howling was putting her off.
The only anger that she felt was at herself. As the tears cascaded from her face, and as the water blew in from outside, the words on her page began to blur.
And that meant her work would be less productive.
