The first mate peered out at the wet world around him. His escape pod had landed in an ocean but luckily it survived the impact well enough to get him ashore - barely. It lay in disrepair behind him, now just a green husk of a ship.
Weil sighed. He had no idea where he was, where the crew was, and worse, where the captain was. He should have been there to keep everyone safe.
He turned away from the ocean and climbed the rocky mountains that lay just beyond the shore. It took him all day just to reach the top, only to find that an even larger mountain lay to his right. Weil couldn't see past it so he knew he would have to reach the top at some point to survey the land. More importantly, he had to get atop it for signal to reach the others.
With not a small bit of effort, Weil continued dragging his pod inland, headed for shelter and some way to climb the mountain top. The path he could see from the shore included climbing the sheer cliffs of the terraced landscape. Without scaling tools, there was no way he would make it to the top that way. As night fell, he tucked his pod and himself into the forest alongside the very wide, dusty road.
As dawn hit, Weil was shocked to find that everything was yet again wet. At first, he thought that he was back in the ocean and he struggled to get to the surface. He opened his eyes and realized that he was on land, but it wasn't dry anymore. The whole area was covered in dense white fog. Weil plucked a leaf from above his shelter and used it as a cover as he continued his journey inland. He came across a protected corner that none of the creatures roaming the area visited and tucked his broken pod into the corner.
At last, he saw the path he had been looking for. It led straight up to the top without any sharp cliffs in sight. He spent another night camping in the forest by the side of the road, hopefully his last night alone. It was still dark when he rose, and the fog was denser than ever. Weil made his way up the path, stopping frequently to sip the dew off the leaves and to try to see below. There was too much forest between him and the sea now to see anything though. He continued, trudging up the road along its edge, avoiding the sniffers that poked their way into his resting spots. At last, he made it to the peak, but there wasn't much he could see. Weil turned on his locator and watched for signs of his crew as it began its search. His eyes slowly drifted shut.
"...mate, on the scanner..."
"WEIL?! Weil, are you there?!"
Startled awake by the voices of his crew, Weil scrambled for his communicator. "I'm here! I'm alive!" he shouted. The speaker crackled and the voices came through again.
"Maybe he can't hear us. Where is he, Zana?"
Weil clung to the communicator. "I can hear you. I'm right here. I'm at the ocean!"
"Well it looks like he is near where you were, Captain. I think we should be able to get there tomorrow if we take the giant's transporters. One of them rolls past there."
Weil sighed. He couldn't communicate with his crew but they were coming for him at least. He had no idea what the giant's transporters were though, but since he hadn't seen any kind of transportation devices atop the mountain, he figured this was not the place he would be found. He tucked his locator and communicator back into his pouch and started down the hill towards his base camp.
Dawn, the next day
Weil was tucked inside his new home, the only dry spot in the morning fog, when a rap-tap-tap sounded on the front door. He rubbed his eyes and pinched his arm, making sure this was not a dream. He slid open the door and ended up face to face with the bluest bean this side of the universe.
"ROLF!" he cried, throwing his arms around the captain. "I'm so sorry, I couldn't keep the crew together once the ship was headed down."
Rolf patted his back. "Well, at least we are all safe. Zana is working with Brawzen and they are tracking down those that are still out there." The two beans he had mentioned waved from behind the captain. Weil went to hug them both.
"I thought I had lost everyone, when the system went down and the escape pods all jettisoned at once in all directions," Weil explained. They all told him their own stories of life after the crash.
A beeping filled the air after Brawzen told his tale. They all turned to him, expecting the cyborg to know why he was beeping but he pointed to Zana's pouch.
"There's another bean out there."
Weil left behind a code. Collect all the codes from the crew to find the ship.
Visit the other caches in the series!
#1-June 29th, 2014
#2-Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
#3-'Aliens'
#5-Ohana
#6-Cars Land
#7-Twintuition
Final-The Blue Box and the Bronze Ship