I spent the coming months working as to create a centralized structure of government in the nation.
Well, admittedly, the times I did not spend with my family. I hadn’t really expected to become a father after crashing on this world, and I took a great deal of enjoyment from spending time with my mate and child. We had been gifted a palace that the natives had been working on pretty much behind my back.
Seeing as it was already pretty much completed by the time I found out about it, I didn’t see much point in refusing the gift.
My daughter, Faith, as I had chosen to name her, had already been with us for a year by the time the palace had stood finished, and was nearly ready to move out of the crib that I had made for her.
It was hard to believe that I had crashed on this world nearly four years ago, and now I was sitting here, in the grass, playing with my daughter and Crusoe.
My daughter had learned how to walk early, at no lack of fatherly pride from me, and she was now holding on to Crusoe’s tail as he walks around the garden. I hold the ball we had seconds prior been using to play fetch with Crusoe.
He merely gives me a look before he continues his walking around with no particular goal in mind, much to Faith’s delight.
I merely sat there, smiling.
Suddenly I could hear a roar from above, which was foreign yet familiar. It was a sound I hadn’t heard in years.
It was the sound of a spaceship entering the atmosphere.
I saw streaks of fire passing above us in the sky. I stand up and trace the spaceship with my eyes.
It is landing. And it’s going towards my old beacon.
“River! Take care of Faith.”
I pick up my daughter, and make quick pace towards where River had been resting, and as she steps through the door into the early evening light, I place Faith in her arms.
She looks at me confusedly.
I point towards the sky, and she looks up.
Her face turns awestruck.
“Wait here! I need to take care of this.”
She merely nods, cradling Faith towards her chest. She doesn’t understand what is going on, but she trusts me.
I turn, and run out of the town in the direction of the beacon.
Crusoe follows in my heels.
We didn’t sleep that night, and by the time we reach the hill where I had left my beacon, we were both beyond exhaustion.
I feel every muscle in my body ache and burn, and Crusoe is shaking from the exhaustion, but we had made good time on our journey.
That which we had done in two full days in the past, we had done in less than a full solar rotation.
Though the fear that whatever it was that landed was an enemy had me scared, the fact was still that someone or something had responded.
After more than four years, someone had found me. And they had to be somewhere around here.
But where?
Well, if they had tracked the beacon this far, I had no doubt that they’d come the rest of the way.
I seat myself in my old hammock.
I found out quickly that being exposed to the environment for this long had left its’ construction insufficient, and I found myself on the ground with an aching tailbone.
Crusoe seems to find this very amusing, and is already up in my lap, licking my face.
“urgh, yeah, yeah, Crusoe, enough…”
I push him off my lap, and pat him on the head.
He barks once, and sits down.
I sit up properly, and set about waiting.
When I see them reach the top of the hill, I can’t help but smile.
Their power armor is different from what I recognize, but the people marching onto the hill carry the insignia of Sol alliance marines.
I stand to greet them, and some sight I must have been. My beard was long by now, and just barely kept in check with the help of a pair of scissors I had made, and my dress was a pair of stitched leather pants, and nothing more.
The commanding officer of the marines steps forwards.
“Good afternoon, sir. We picked up your beacon while on patrol. How long have you been stuck here?”
I laugh to myself.
“Four years now, I think.”
The sergeant removes the helmet of his power armor.
“I’m Sergeant Yin Zi, and you are?”
I smile slightly.
“You know, no one’s asked for my name before now.
My name is Franklin Ross, geologist on the Giovanni science vessel.”
The sergeant places his hand on my shoulder.
“Well then, Franklin, ready to go home?”
It was in that very moment I realized it.
After all this time secretly hoping for rescue, I didn’t want to leave.
“You know what?
I’m already home.”
I stood there, watching the frigate take off, a bottle of Vodka in one hand and a set of razors in the other.
I wasn’t Franklin any longer.
Franklin had died back with the others on the Giovanni.
My name is master of beasts.
And it’s about time I return to my people,
and my family.