Red Dragon Spaceship Awakening: I Gain Alien Abilities on Mars-Chapter 214: Successful

Tatehan tested it.

He slipped the helmet back on, feeling the segments click into place around his head, the visor sealing shut with that soft hiss he had grown accustomed to.

The internal systems came online immediately, the heads-up display flickering to life in front of his eyes.

And then he reached up and tapped the side of the helmet where Torvan had installed the new interface.

A small holographic menu materialized in the corner of his vision, displaying a list of playlists synced from his phone. Tatehan selected one at random, and a second later, music began to play.

It was not loud and overwhelming. Just a steady, rhythmic beat that filled the background of his awareness, present enough to feel but not so intrusive that it blocked out other sounds. He could increase it though.

The quality was perfect, the audio crisp and clear, integrated seamlessly into the helmet’s existing systems.

Tatehan grinned behind the visor.

It worked.

He dismissed the helmet with a thought, the segments retracting smoothly back into dusts. Then he looked at Torvan, who was watching him with a faint, satisfied smile.

"It works," Tatehan said, his voice filled with appreciation. "Perfectly."

Torvan nodded, wiping his hands on a rag. "Good. Told you it would."

Tatehan extended his hand, and Torvan took it, the two of them shaking firmly. It was a simple gesture, but it felt significant somehow, like they had crossed some invisible line from being strangers who happened to occupy the same base to something closer to colleagues. Maybe even friends...certainly that.

"Thanks, Torvan," Tatehan said. "I really appreciate it."

"No problem," Torvan replied, releasing his hand and stepping back. "If you need any more upgrades for the armor, just let me know. I’d be happy to take a look at it."

Tatehan’s grin widened. "I’ll keep that in mind."

He turned to leave, glancing back over his shoulder. Torvan was already turning back to his workbench and the gauntlet he had been working on before Tatehan arrived.

Tatehan stepped out into the hallway, the door sliding shut behind him, and headed back toward his quarters.

Tatehan spent the night with his phone device, delaying sleep far longer than he probably should have.

He lay on his bed, the lights in his room dimmed to a soft glow, the phone resting on his chest as he scrolled through various apps and feeds.

When he had first arrived on this planet, sort of trapped in the battered spaceship in the wastelands with nothing but the Spaceship’s AI and the old radio device for company, he had genuinely thought he was cooked.

Back on Earth, he had been the kind of person who spent hours scrolling on his phone, checking the internet, watching videos, reading random articles about topics he did not care about but found mildly interesting in the moment.

His phone had been his constant companion... his window into the world... his way of staying connected and entertained.

And when he had suddenly found himself on Mars, alone in the wreckage of a crashed ship with no phone, no internet and no connection to anything, he had thought his life was going to be unbearably boring. He had not even had books to read back then, just the endless silence of the Martian wasteland and the cold, clinical voice of the AI telling him about systems and protocols and survival procedures and sending him on missions and him fighting brutenecks.

He had thought that was it. That this was what his life was going to be now. Isolation, boredom and fighting weird monsters.

Nothing to do but exist and try not to die.

But then he had made it to Waython Hollow, and he had discovered that Mars was not some barren, uncivilized wasteland. It was developed and advanced. They had phones here, really cool malls, flying cars and technology that was even more impressive than what he had known back on Earth.

It had been a relief so profound that he had almost laughed out loud the first time he had seen someone walking down the street, casually scrolling through a holographic display projected from their wrist device.

Tatehan scrolled through the internet now, checking for the latest posts, seeing what people were talking about. There were updates about the reconstruction efforts in Waython Hollow and speculation about the Obscuron’s next move. A few people were still posting about the Knight, sharing clips of his fights and debating his identity.

But nothing too interesting caught his attention.

After a while, he dropped the phone onto the bed beside him and reached into his inventory, summoning one of the novels he had been reading. The book materialized in his hands. He opened it to the page he had marked and continued reading from where he had left off.

It was a fantasy novel, something about a hero’s journey and ancient magic and battles against impossible odds. The kind of thing he would have dismissed as cliché back on Earth, but now, after everything he had been through, it felt oddly relatable.

He read for about an hour, letting the words take over his imagination, his mind drifting between the story and his own thoughts.

And then, finally, he unsummoned the book, letting it disappear back into his inventory, and set his phone on the nightstand beside his bed.

He lay there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling, his mind turning over everything that had happened today and everything that still needed to happen tomorrow.

He needed to make more progress with the leaders. The alliance was in place, but it was still fragile and new, no real progress had been made.

They needed to start coordinating, sharing information and figuring out how to actually take the fight to the Obscuron instead of just reacting to his attacks.

Maybe tomorrow he would reach out on the group chat. Ask what they had discovered or learned about the Obscuron. Start making real progress instead of just waiting for the next crisis to hit.

With that thought settled in his mind, Tatehan finally let himself relax, his eyes drifting shut as sleep began to pull him under.