Keith woke up with saltwater splashing his muzzle. He sputtered and flailed at the surface of the ocean before remembering how to swim, with his webbed hands and thick tail. How had he gotten here? His head throbbed and shattered wood and junk floated around him. Never a good sign.
"Hello? Anyone?" No answer. Keith splashed toward the nearest large plank and used it to help him float while he salvaged. Sunlight glittered on a plastic water bottle, sealed and full. That was something, anyway. Keith set it carefully on a stable-looking chunk of flotsam and dived to see what was below. Bare sand strewn with rocks. He wriggled down about fifteen meters to where the light grew dim and blue. Not much was here; maybe the ship he'd been on had been smashed far from here. Still, he found a ruined paper notebook on the seabed. He took one more look around and surfaced.
He smacked the book onto the driftwood and shook off most of the water, but when he opened it the pages stuck together, useless. Keith grimaced at the gummy feel of the paper. The last page had a note saying something about "following the current back". Back from where?
He wasn't going to get back anywhere at this rate. The sun beat down. Tough to think. Keith grabbed the larger fragments and managed to lash a few together with soggy rope, making some kind of raft with a little overhang for shade. Pretty easy once you saw where the force of the little waves would hit hardest, and thought about hydrodynamics for speed.
Calm seas today and little wind, but there was a current. Following it was as good an idea as any, so Keith helped the raft along with a chunk of wood for a paddle.
Maybe an hour later, he dozed in the shade, or tried to. As tired as he was, he couldn't sleep with the sun prying into his eyes from any angle. He yawned and lifted his head to find the current had gone unsteady, turning the raft at random. His left arm itched, too.
Keith looked at it and finally noticed the tattoo of blue-green lines that veered and connected crazily from nearly to his elbow, to his fingers. It'd been there when he woke up, but it hadn't been glowing. He stuck his arm under the shade to be sure; it produced its own watery light. What was this? Slowly, the glow faded. All he could do was move on, looking for answers. He paddled to keep the sun at a constant angle and found before long that he was back into a current, with seagulls visible on the horizon. Land!
It took over an hour to spot the shore as more than a line in the distance. Keith paddled as well as his exhausted muscles could stand. A big wooden ship was beached there with a gaping hole in one side. A few people worked on it loudly enough for the hammer noise to reach him. Keith waved and called out.
A sharp-eared rabbitman turned and alerted the rest. They seemed to be arguing, until a big bearman with a straw hat shut them up. He cupped his hands around his muzzle and bellowed, "You there! Where are you from?"
"I don't know!" said Keith.
The ship-fixers conferred, and kept a lookout until Keith's raft finally reached shore. Keith staggered into the shallow water and flopped forward to kiss the beach. A shadow loomed over him and he looked up at the bear, who eyed him suspiciously. Keith said, "I'm glad to see anyone out here. My ship got wrecked and I don't know what happened."
"Really?"
"I don't remember anything."
"He's lucky to be alive," said the rabbit. "Leave it at that. This here's the Simplicity and we've had a bad run, too. Know anything about fixing engines?"
"Yes, of course," said Keith, and stifled a yawn. He didn't know how he knew, but... yes, he recalled some equations, tools and books.
The bear grunted. "Maybe you can help Avery, then. We've got to get off of this rock. No one else here but a useless junk dealer."
Keith said, "I'd love to, but I've spent the day trying to survive. Can I take a nap first, maybe with some water?" His stomach grumbled. "And fish?"
The bear said, "Yeah. Fine."
#
He woke up when his old nemesis, the sun, sneakily reached the horizon and jabbed him from where it could dodge the shade of the tree above him. Keith stretched, feeling worn out but improved.
His arm glowed again. Keith stared at it, then noticed it was brightest when it was pointing toward the damaged Simplicity. He staggered to his feet and walked around a little to confirm the direction. What was it leading him toward? He walked up the gangplank and down into the tilted ship's hold.
A machine like a giant dog with its four spiked legs folded under it, was lashed to the wooden floor. A catgirl dozed nearby with a plate of crumbs. Keith saw the lights of his arm flash... and a single glowing eye on each of the machine's four sides came to life. A robot! It reared up until it stood taller than him, whirring angrily. Keith backed away. The girl didn't even wake when he yelled. He yanked her by the arm just in time to avoid a wild swing of the metal creature's foreleg.
The cat hissed and scratched him in panic. Keith grimaced but dragged her upstairs to the deck so they could escape. "It's gone berserk!" he said.
The feline swatted him off of her. "You idiot! Why'd you wake it up?" They scurried down to the beach, but the robot crashed out through the broken hull.
"All I did was get close!" The robot chased them and got close enough to strike. One of its forelegs spun around, with spiral grooves etched into it. Keith hopped to one side, spun to avoid another blow, and dived out of the way of the third. "Whoa! Shut it off!" he said, lying prone.
The lady's ears lay flat back and her tail lashed. "Easier said than done." She tried to hop up onto the machine's back, caught a leg, and scrambled onto it. Keith rolled to avoid another spinning stab that nearly caught his tail and showered him with jagged pebbles. The robot's lunge threw the catgirl off.
She landed on her feet, saying, "Get it to hold still, will you?"
"Hold still?!" Instead, he tried to confuse it. Keith ran in circles to take advantage of its symmetrical eyes and limbs. The robot couldn't seem to decide which angle to attack from, and wobbled in a predictable way. Avery used the moment to hop onto its back again.
Keith's trick almost worked long enough. The machine finally caught him stumbling, and he got pinned against a dense stand of palm trees. "Now would be a good time!"
The catgirl yanked open a panel on the machine's back and jabbed some buttons. Its whirling arms ground to a stop perilously close to Keith, then retracted back into the same square mass he'd seen while it was sleeping.
"Is that good enough for you?" she said, standing up on the robot's back with her hands on her hips. "Now, what did you do to wake it up?"
"What is it?" said Keith, feeling himself over for wounds.
"I asked you first, otterboy, and I'm the one with a Dredgenought ready to shave your whiskers." She paused. "Which I wasn't supposed to say."
The other crewmen ran into view, with the bear shouting, "Avery! What happened?"
She said, "Rudderbutt here got it angry!"
Keith's markings had gone dark. "Not on purpose." There was a connection here between him, this crew and their robot, and the loss of his ship, but he didn't know what to make of it. "Where'd you get it?"
"That's none of your business," the bear said. His glare was nasty enough to make Keith back away.
"I don't know what's going on. If you want me to just leave you alone, I'll do that." He regretted the offer instantly, since it might mean giving up his only lead, but the crew's lashing tails and alert ears calmed a little.
The bear said, "Well. We need to haul this thing back into the hold. Stay away from it, understand? Make yourself useful and work on the engines."
Keith nodded and kept clear of the hold. The stern was mostly level, so he got a good look at the twin prop engines. The catgirl, Avery, had obviously made a good start on fixing them, but their tools and spare parts were no good. He frowned. This model was old Earless tech, and he'd had a tough time repairing one before when it took a nasty blow against a reef...
He'd left home to study this stuff, hoping to bring the tech home and fix up... some island, but there wasn't much there when he returned. Keith inspected the engine parts, lost in thought.
"You have a screw loose," said Avery behind him, and held it up.
Keith took it. "Thanks. I know."
"What's that on your arm?"
"I don't know. I think it led me here."
"Well, don't go waving it at the robot if that's how it reacts!"
Keith saw no guile in her, but guarded his words. "You saw it wake up before, then, if you know how to make it sleep."
"Captain March says I'm not supposed to talk about it."
Keith said, "Fine. Where are you going once the repairs are done?"
"Hurricane Reef, I hope. As much as I like seeing new versions of Earless machines, I'll be glad to get rid of that thing."
"Selling it then?"
"Maaaaybe." Avery's tail twitched. "Does your shiny arm do anything but point you toward trouble?"
"Haven't had much chance to try."
"Before we set sail, then I want to see. Let's go inland to the Junker's Mart and poke at things. If anything goes nuts in there it'll serve those guys right for being so stingy with us on spare parts."
Keith wasn't sure that was a great idea, but she was right that it might provide a clue.
------
This is a story segment written as an experiment by applying the "Fate Accelerated Edition" game system to a neat silly setting called "CATastrophe" on 1d4chan, which is "Waterworld+humor+catgirls". I played out a few scenes and wrote up my notes in story form.
