Paul Torgal's Log #1 - Marooned

Chief's log, five weeks since the crash. The only other survivors are my son, Bart, and Maida, the cut-price mercenary I commissioned for the journey.

After days drifting in the lifepod, rain hammering the roof, the weather cleared and we washed up here. I had Maida salvage the Degasi wreck, set Bart to finding us a stable source of food. His education is paying off sooner than I'd anticipated.

Our only problem is Maida. She says the weather's going to turn. I say she's finding excuses to risk our lives. I imagine she's not gone a week in her life without a physical altercation, and she's itching for a fight. In every judgment she makes things go from bad to worse.

If she had my experience she'd have more faith. Humans have spent millennia specializing in how to shackle nature to our will. This planet won't cause us any new problems.

My one task now is to keep us alive, as comfortably as possible, until the insurance company arranges rescue. In this part of space that could be months, or even years.