The Kgo Multi didn't have a "hope" setting. But that day, it didn't need one.
It was a geothermal vent. Three hundred meters below the surface, a pocket of superheated gas was venting steam—and with it, trace elements of frozen water vapor.
Water. Oxygen.
The tool vibrated. A ghost signal, faint as a dying heartbeat, pulsed across its tiny screen. Not human. Not a ship.
When the rescue team finally pried open the makeshift shelter, they found a gaunt, wild-eyed man clutching a multi-tool with a dead battery. He kissed its scorched casing and handed it to the medic. Kgo Multi
He’d found the wreck of the Ishimura three cycles ago. Everyone else was gone—evacuated or dead. He’d been the maintenance grunt, the one who drew the short straw to stay behind and "secure the core." When the emergency thrusters fired unexpectedly, he was thrown clear. The Ishimura became a firework against the rings of the gas giant. Kaelen became a speck.
"What's that?" the medic asked.
He reprogrammed the tool’s coffee maker to distill the vapor into drinking water. He used the cauterizer to seal a tear in his suit’s knee. And for the next forty-seven days, until a salvage vessel picked up his jury-rigged signal, Kaelen talked to the Kgo Multi.
"Take care of it," he rasped. "It's got one more function left." The Kgo Multi didn't have a "hope" setting