《Engineering in Nature》
Prologue
The planet itself didn¡¯t have a name.
It had a designation for sure but one can¡¯t really consider X3-C4O20 to be a proper name. Covered in green and blue, the planet was planted firmly in the goldilocks zone and as a result sported a very life friendly climate. If it went out in public more, it could have passed for Earth¡¯s younger brother but alas this particular planet was a bit of a recluse and lived on the far edges of habitable space. It currently had a few visitors though.
Two species in particular had an interest in the place, the wolf-like xythalaxns and the ape-like humans. The system sat a little outside human territory and was habitable to begin with, which in the human¡¯s minds made it quite an ideal place to try and set up shop. They¡¯d lived on planets with worse climates so one where they could walk around and breathe the fresh air was alluring. A competent team was put together and launched on a colony ship. For the xythalaxns, it was a bit farther from home and a little heavier on the gravity side than they were used to but appealing nevertheless for many of the same reasons. The system also had quite a few resources the xythalaxns had trouble procuring in their local galactic neighborhood but to get at those they needed to establish a foothold. Another competent team was put together and launched on another colony ship.
The first twist of fate occurred when both colony ships arrived at roughly the same time. Diplomacy wasn¡¯t the most common thing in the galaxy as it was rare for multiple alien species to evolve with similar planetary conditions and ethics. As a result, most alliances were surface level with barely any real interaction between two species in any significant number. Luckily for both parties, this was one of those rare instances where everything more or less lined up and both species had interacted with each other in the past. Communication channels were opened and arguing immediately started.
The xythalaxns argued they had arrived first and as such had claim to the system and the humans argued they had arrived close enough and the system was closer to their territory anyways. The arguing continued back and forth until an agreement was reached that both sides were unhappy with. They would land relatively close and spread out from there. More arguments broke out over exactly how close to the other, where, and who got which side until once again both groups were unhappy but in agreement. The landing process began for both parties and they began to set up. Both parties kept an eye on the other but for the most part they minded their own business.
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About half a year after both parties had landed, the humans had detected some disturbances in the atmosphere that were indicative of a heavy storm. Command decided to take advantage of the opportunity by setting up some weather spikes to keep an eye as things progressed. Designs were drawn up, printed, and assembled before being attached to three teams to be assembled in the fields.
Each team consisted of an engineer, who would activate the device itself and generally verify that it was reporting back to base properly, and a small military detachment. The detachment was there to act both as a bit of extra muscle in getting things set up and protection from the local wildlife. The creatures of the planet came in all shapes and sizes with a select few being particularly big, angry, and willing to act on it. A few attacks had been reported by the xythalaxns and high command wasn¡¯t particularly interested in losing their engineers.
After marching through about 5 hours of alien forest, the group had settled down and stopped for a break. Aside from the engineer, they only had a general idea about where they had to go but were frankly glad to be out of the base. The engineer for his part was beginning to feel annoyed. The weather spike he had dutifully tested and dragged all the way out into the middle of nowhere was having trouble connecting back to the base. It had connected just fine at every stop prior and diagnostics said that it was still working. Currently he was praying that he had the tools required to fix it because if he had to drag it all the way back in order to fix it, there was no way he was getting this set up before the storm hit.
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It was at this point that the second twist of fate struck in full force. The storm that had been brewing for some time was in fact rather more dangerous than anyone had anticipated. It was an ion storm, notable for the large amounts of energy and magnetic fields that it could toss around and the fact it ran hell on the human¡¯s tech. Well insulated technology generally didn¡¯t have anything to fear but smaller pieces of tech, like the handheld railguns the soldiers carried, did. A few discharged with great force and without discretion.
The xythalaxns had lost one of their farmers to the unknown beast in the last week. The large claw marks found in the victim¡¯s body had prompted a rather rapid response and visceral response. After sending out a quick warning to the humans, a hunting party was dispatched to deal with the threat.
The creature itself proved to be elusive as the hunting party tracked it back to its lair only to find it gone. Following the traces north, the xythalaxns found their prey to be particularly annoying. This particular creature seemed to enjoy some manner of natural protection from their thermal imaging tech and evaded them thus far. It would be an understatement to say the entire party was on edge when the misfired railgun rounds tore through the woods and blew off an arm. After a brief moment of shocked betrayal, they decided on a more measured and reasonable response. They decided to fire back.
The humans, for their part, were caught flatfooted when the forest started blowing up around them. To their credit, they managed to recover quickly and began returning fire but the damage was done. One of the opening rounds from the xythalaxns exploded particularly close to the engineer. He¡¯d been struggling to hold up the weather spike and pull his pistol at the same time when it detonated lethally close. Fortunately for him, his work lugging the spike around for over 5 hours was rewarded as it shielded him. As a result, he was simply rendered unconscious and thrown out of sight into the forest, a fact which was missed by the combat personnel. Several people on both sides began dropping.
It was at this point, the cooler heads in both groups decided their bosses should probably know what was going on. Both attempted to call back to the base only for both to find their communications interrupted. Down a few men and armed with faulty tech, the humans beat a hasty retreat home. The xythalaxns likewise disengaged to lick their wounds only to find the few survivors under threat from the original prey.
Upon receiving the frantic warning, human command decided to play it safe and raised some of the energy barriers around the base. Confident in their strength, they wanted to wait things out and see if diplomacy still wasn¡¯t an option. The human¡¯s shields were not prepared for the havock the storm would play on them and were quickly overloaded feeding back into the base¡¯s generator. Alarm bells sounded across the base as the generator threatened to go. With the remaining two engineers out of the base and unable to be communicated with, human command raced quickly collected them and escaped into the atmosphere.
Bloodied and wounded, only one xythalaxn made it home to communicate the incident before. The xythalaxns decided to wait reading a few of their own defenses until an unauthorized warning shot was sent after the humans. It was sent using one of the xythalaxn orbital launchers, only intended for resupply. It didn¡¯t have much effect beyond the message sent.
Activating their Ender Drives, the human colony ship left a scathing message in the form of a satellite and slipped out of the system.
Down on the planet, an engineer woke up in the woods. Shifting just a bit, he could tell he was covered in innumerous small bruises and cuts, his ears were still ringing a bit, and worst of all his mouth was dry. Checking his dataslate without getting up, he groaned seeing the lack of connection. Struggling between being happy to be alive and annoyed at the very same, he uttered the first recorded statement of many.
---
¡°Dear Diary, I hate everything.¡±
Chapter 1 - Up and At Em
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 1.1
Dear Diary, I hate everything.
My legs hurt, my back hurts, and my head hurts in multiple places. I¡¯m not quite sure where I am and if my still spinning vision is anything to go by I may be slightly concussed. Ugh¡ God, my mouth hasn¡¯t been this dry waking up since college.
¡
I should probably record this properly so that if my corpse is found in 5 to 10 business days, they¡¯ll know what happened. That means I¡¯ll have to get up. Alright ughhhh¡
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 1.2
This is Henry Mason and you¡¯ve tuned into 104.3 THE CRUNCH where I deal and you reel!
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 1.3
WELCOME TO THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 1.4
Ok, actually starting this properlike. I¡¯ve taken the opportunity to drink some water, cry over everything hurting, and check the general area. It¡¯s¡ grim but I think I can pretty safely say I¡¯m the only one still living around here at the moment. Honestly, for the life of me I cannot figure out the why¡¯s of them attacking us. They clearly had something on our tech given all our stuff was going haywire but like last time I checked we were on relatively good standing so what gives?
*Sigh*
Shame I can¡¯t just ask. I¡¯ve only found one xythalaxn and he didn¡¯t seem particularly keen on answering my questions on account of the massive hole in his chest. Serves him right though the bastard. Blow me up will you?
For the time being, I¡¯ve decided it¡¯s probably for the best I stay put and wait for backup so I¡¯m talkin¡¯ and hoping it¡¯ll calm my nerves if nothing else. I¡¯ll probably delete this later as I¡¯ve some things to say but here we go. I¡¯ll start off on the mission and work my way up to current time.
Weather¡¯s been acting up for the last little while and Command had the bright idea to try and watch it. Wow! Now we can check our screens instead of sticking our heads out the window. Outstanding!
Honestly, the idea isn¡¯t bad in and of itself since our botanists kinda do need to be in the know so they can prevent our baby crops from getting demolished and frankly if they were the ones calling for it, I¡¯d be all in on the idea. Hoooowever, the whole idea is kinda undercut by the funny timing where Command allegedly lost a bet and would be having to sleep outside for the foreseeable future¡
Actually, I can¡¯t blame them for that. I totally would have abused my power like that too. Regardless on the why¡¯s of being out here, we were asked to put together some weather spikes to monitor everything. Easy peasy, we had the schematics and it was mostly a matter of adjusting the plans to work appropriately with what we had in mind. Me and the other two shield guys, Danny and Steve, ¡¯ve not had a lot to do since we¡¯d finished the base¡¯s defenses a few weeks so it was nice to actually dig into things again. Frankly, I¡¯d rate it better than even odds we were asked to tackle the issue to make sure we didn¡¯t start building new problems. We didn¡¯t run into any big issues in the design and assembly stages and were able to make pretty good time on the project.
Originally, me and the guys were all just gonna go together and space the planting of all three spikes out over a few days. Make a proper hiking trip out of it, drag along some nice blankets and sandwiches for picnics. You know the works. Command had other ideas though and slapped us in three separate combat units so we could deliver them all at once. They said something about us needing, and I quote, ¡°protection¡± and ¡°oversight¡±. I got assigned to a dude by the name of Johnson. Bit of a stick in the mud about procedure and general sightseeing but nice enough that I didn''t have any real complaints. My heart absolutely goes out to Danny though because he got stuck with the officer whose name I¡¯m forgetting but is in charge of running PT. Poor bastard probably had to do lunges to his site.
Anyways, we grabbed some rations, slapped on our hiking boots, and then set out into the wondrous unknown. A very ¡°nice¡± 5 hours of intermittent hiking later and we got to where we currently are. The trip was kinda boring honestly, consisting of us hiking past the same 50 trees copy pasted along our trail and me calling for breaks to double check the weather spike to make sure it didn¡¯t decide to break on us. Fun fact, anything you built will gladly stop working the second you take your eyes off it. Vigilance is key for projects like this or¡ was anyways. Spike¡¯s broken now. Suppose in a round about way of thinking, I did take my eyes off it and it is broken now. Hmm¡
Well, I guess the only thing left in the trip to talk about is the fight. I think the first sign things were wrong was the fact that all my stuff stopped being able to talk to home base. My datapad has a 50 some odd mile connection range and should be good about staying connected. While I was trying to figure out the whys of that, our guns started misfiring. I¡¯ve a sneaking suspicion the two are related but I¡¯d need to get home before I could test anything properly. Regardless, the fire fight broke out pretty quickly after and I got ragdolled by a blast. Frankly, it''s no small miracle I escaped with as few injuries as I did. I think the weather spike may have taken the brunt of the blow.
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All that brings us to the now with me standing in the middle of the forest at¡ 9:46 in the morning if my datapad isn¡¯t lying. Date time tells me I was out for about a day and a half so someone should be coming by to get me soon. Now, you might be saying to yourself, ¡°Hey Henry, didn¡¯t you plan out this trip? How come you can¡¯t get back on your own¡± and to that I¡¯d respond that you¡¯re right and I probably should but still can¡¯t. The original plan was for us engineers to use our datapads to keep track of our location but mine isn¡¯t telling me anything helpful right now. The exactities of where I am are an enigma known only to the people back at the base, the dead xythalaxn with the glossy eyes over the hill from me, and the birds that keep screaming their songs and unfortunately none of them are talkin¡¯ right now. Well, the birds are talking but they aren¡¯t saying anything actually helpful. All this to say, here I shall stay until someone comes to take me away!
Ha, that rhymes.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 1.5
It¡¯s now a bit past noon and nobody has shown up yet. My datapad still won¡¯t connect, I¡¯m currently maybe mmmh¡ maybe 90% of the way through my water, and have a grand total of 1 protein bar for food. If they don¡¯t show up by this evening, my best bet is probably to scavenge my escort for supplies and try making my way back home best I can. I¡¯ve not gone through the dead folk¡¯s pockets yet as it kinda felt disrespectful and a little bit icky but I¡¯m not particularly keen on dying out in the forest.
In the time since my last recording, I¡¯ve gotten a bit more familiar with my surroundings. Fortunately, it was pretty easy considering the land around me is all fucking foresty hills. Seeing miles of the same over and over really has given me helpful information that I can surely itemize.
Surely.
I really hope someone shows up soon because I¡¯m not particularly keen on trying my hand at putting the wilderness survival training course I took into practice. I would have paid much closer attention during training if I¡¯d realized it would become relevant so soon.
First things first, I should probably start putting a plan together for shelter tonight. If nobody shows up I¡¯m gonna be sleeping under the stars again before heading out tomorrow. I¡¯m a bit concerned about rain given the ominous clouds from when we were marching out but right now they seem to have cleared up. Can¡¯t hurt to try and set up shelter regardless but I reckon I¡¯m probably fine so long as I have something thrown together by tonight. Fortunately, the weather is pretty mild in this area. From my understanding, that¡¯s why we actually chose the area when we were deciding where to land and set up shop. Nice weather tends to give you a bit more leeway with getting the crop situation started.
I¡¯m getting sidetracked but shelter should be something I can manage pretty easily in the short term. Worst case, I can use our rifles to blow some branches off the trees and use any scavenged materials to add a covering to it. Actually, I may be able to use the xythalaxn¡¯s stuff to start a fire. The stuff they fired at us earlier had plenty of ¡°zest¡± aka explosive power to say the very least. All this may sound a bit excessive for starting a simple campfire but to quote my esteemed colleagues of the engineering school, ¡°There is no kill like overkill!¡± and if I use a thermo detonator to start my fire who¡¯s really around to stop me.
That should take care of tonight but the next issue, water, is going to be a bit harder to deal with. The route we took didn¡¯t have us crossing any streams or rivers but to be fair, we did specifically aim to avoid them for obvious weather spike related reasons. I think we veered east a bit to avoid a river? Maybe? I¡¯m not super sure and I¡¯m not very keen on betting my life on it.
Putting aside the water issue for now, food isn¡¯t an immediate issue but a very permanent one. The wildlife on the planet isn¡¯t edible and I¡¯ll have to get back to base if I want to be able to eat. I know this because way back when we landed one of the security guys tried to cook up one of the local rabbit equivalents. Poor man ended up bedridden for a few days after that stunt leaking unmentionables out of both ends. Command called us all in for a formal meeting the next day to issue a formal warning about eating the wildlife as if any of us had missed the sounds of violent sickness. The bio team said it was something to do with the protein composition of the local critters. Regardless, food will be a hard deadline for me getting back to base.
I guess the plan is that I scavenge what I can, head a bit more west than south, and hope I find a river if I can¡¯t find the base?
Yeah, that sounds workable.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 1.6
A quick little recording since I ended the last one but the compass on my datapad is dancing like it can hear a mariachi band. I managed to scavenge a decent bit of water and a few more protein bars so I may try and wait an extra day for help and or my datapad to sort itself out since it seems like I have the time.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 1.7
It¡¯s now late evening and I have some good news and bad news. Bad news, I¡¯m not the only thing alive in the area. My fellow inhabitant is a very big, scary, and quiet predator that looks like a witch mixed a pillbug with a panther and then proceeded to hit it with the ugly stick until it stopped moving. Just thinking about it gives me all sorts of goosebumps.
I had been trying to see if I could get one of the datapads I scavenged to start working when the thought struck me to check and see if the xythalaxn had any tools. I¡¯d already stolen his gun but had initially ignored his backpack. His pack had been ribbons given the nature of his wound and I¡¯d ignored it on my first round. I wasn¡¯t expecting anything useful but boredom and frustration have the ability to make a person want to double check things.
When I returned though, his body was gone. I¡¯d like to say I realized something was wrong immediately but I figured I had just gone to the wrong area. It wasn¡¯t until I heard some crunching coming from one of the nearby trees that I saw the horrendous creature. I made the decision any sane man would. I mag dump the xythalaxn weapon into the tree haphazardly and legged it in the opposite direction.
So the good news is that I¡¯m now hopefully much closer to the base and have found a river.
Chapter 2 - Homeward Bound
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 2.1
To be 100% honest, I thought waking up after being blown up was the worst I was going to experience. Today, nature conspired to prove me wrong when I woke up with the sun beaming directly into my eyes, a crick in my back from a particularly tenacious rock that I can¡¯t seem to stretch out, and this planet¡¯s version of mosquitoes mugging for all my blood. Of all the things for convergent evolution to create, why did it have to be these bastards again? Make some tasty crabs instead or something!
The only nice thing I can say about last night was that the stream makes a nice blurbling sound but I don¡¯t know if I¡¯d trade that for the ability to sleep in my bed. Speaking of, the water here is pretty decent. The stream is clear with just a lil bit of moss on the sides to let me know that it''s safe to drink. Nice, cool and convenient!
After my assertive jog here yesterday evening, I¡¯d resolved to get a fire set up, stay up through the night, and move out in the morning when I can actually see where to put my feet. After everything was said and done, I can easily say that I¡¯ve failed all three of these objectives.
As it would turn out, I used up all of my ¡°fire starter¡± yesterday. It might be argued I could have been a bit more moderate when I was coating the tree in a very appropriate amount of fire and explosives but I need you to understand something. The bug panther made both man and monkey brain scared and frankly who am I to argue with a unanimous vote like that.
On the sleep angle¡ well¡. I¡¯d intended to stay up all night originally given I didn¡¯t want to get bug panthered in my sleep but my inability to rub sticks together until they caught fire left me without any light. The starry darkness mixed with a very pleasant breeze meant the fear of death didn¡¯t quite stick around as long as I would have hoped and once my adrenaline faded I was out like a light.
So that brings us to my last objective of moving out. Technically speaking this goal isn¡¯t an abject failure since I am moving again but I¡¯m moving back towards where I came from yesterday. I¡¯d love to head straight home but my compass is still on the fritz so I¡¯d be wandering generally south at best. Fortunately, I have tossed together something of a plan.
My destruction caused quite a mess yesterday and a bit of smoke is still visible even from all the way out here. Smoke can be seen for quite a distance and my hope right now is that someone will visit looking for survivors. Human or xythalaxn, it doesn¡¯t really matter to me. In the event it''s my people, I can hitch a ride back with them and I¡¯m out of here, easy peasy. If it''s the xythalaxns, things are a bit more complicated.
In theory, the plan is simple. I hide and let them pass by me, make note of the direction they came from, and then follow it back once my compass is working properly again. The crux of the issue though is in the execution of the first task, hiding. I need to hide from them and I know for a fact they have more than a few tools, natural and crafted both, that¡¯ll let them find me a lot easier. The two I¡¯m most concerned about are their noses and thermal vision though.
If all I needed to avoid was some thermal imaging, I could probably just hang far enough back, avoid their detection, then follow them home after they gave up. No problem there. I¡¯m a lot more concerned about their ability to sniff me out. If the info packet we got from Command when we first landed wasn¡¯t all propaganda, xythalaxns actually have pretty powerful noses. From what I read, the strength of their sniffers varies from xythalaxn to xythalaxn but those on the higher end are able to track their prey down by scent alone. My concern is that if they bring one of their bloodhound fellas, they¡¯ll track me to my general location and then just scout me out with their thermal sights. I don¡¯t foresee myself outrunning them if they get a lock on my position so what that means is I¡¯m going to have to be a lot more proactive in my plans.
Currently, I¡¯m playing around with the idea that involves a distraction and a whole lot of mud.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 2.2
I might be a genius.
Check that, I definitely am a genius. Initially, I wasn¡¯t quite sure what I was going to do for a distraction but we¡¯ve figured it out. Original thought was a Rube Goldberg device with a whole bunch of swinging ropes, bowling balls, one of those wind up clapping monkeys but I ended up settling on just using my datapad and setting an alarm. I don¡¯t super love the idea of throwing it away but the sucker doesn¡¯t actually do anything to me right now and I can probably just get a new one issued when I get back to the base. I mean worst case scenario they make me walk back out here to get it and I kinda don¡¯t see them asking me that considering the circumstances.
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To further compound my genius, I¡¯m slathering myself in mud. This might not sound particularly intelligent but rest assured it¡¯s a very high IQ play on my part and a tried and true method tested by bodybuilders in the past. Thermal vision works by detecting infrared radiation aka heat and people tend to put out a lot of heat. Fortunately for me though, if you put some insulating matter between you and whoever may be watching you, they won¡¯t see anything. Technically speaking, this does mean if you have a nice enough christmas sweater with perfect insulation you can disappear from sight. Kinda. Not really but the thought is funny. I¡¯m hoping that the mud will also help block them from sniffing me out right away but I¡¯m not trying to bet on it. The mud only really needs to hide me until they¡¯re distracted and I¡¯ve made my grand escape.
Alright. I¡¯mma grab the memory chip from the datapad before I get too much more messy so I can bring my files back to the base with me. All that''s left now is to see if anyone shows up. Hopefully, this is my last recording and I meet up with everyone else peachy keen.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 2.3
It is not in fact peachy keen. It¡¯s durian deranged is what it is. The whole thing stinks and makes me feel crazy.
It ended up being the xythalaxns that showed up to try and collect me in the end. I heard them while they were still a bit out fortunately and was able to set the alarm and scuttle away from the scene of the crime without incident. Three of them prowled into the campsite and started looking around. I had a heart stopping moment where it looked like one of them might come my direction but fortunately my alarm went off and all three went to check that.
After giving them a minute or so, I made a break in more or less a straight line back the way they had come from. I had my second near heart attack for the day after about 15 minutes of running when one of their shuttles zoomed past overhead. If you haven¡¯t ever had to stress about whether or not you were spotted, I highly recommend it as it does absolute wonders at spiking your existential dread and anxiety. Lady Luck swooped in again though and I made it past undetected.
After about 3 more hours of jogging, I hit the edge of the xythalaxn¡¯s settlement. Up until now, I hadn¡¯t really taken a look at it but it was cool I guess. Some farming stuff around the outside of some gnarly looking walls but I wasn¡¯t exactly sticking around to see the details. I oriented myself and ran for my base.
What I arrived back too wasn¡¯t what I was hoping for at all. The walls were scorched at several intervals suspiciously where I had installed the shield generators, there was a hole in the wall, and the whole place was quiet. I slipped in through the hole and am currently hiding out in my workshop where the power seems to be off.
Nobody is here and frankly I¡¯m kind of at a loss as to what to do. I figured I¡¯d be safe if I managed to meet back up with everyone but they¡¯ve up and pulled a Roanoke and disappeared without leaving so much as a map. All the shuttles are just gone¡
I¡ I need a minute to collect my thoughts here.
I feel like I¡¯m going to have a panic attack.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 2.4
Took a bit of time to get a handle on the situation at the base and I gotta say, shit is fucked. Main generator seems to be completely fried with some of the pieces even fused into the wall. I¡¯ll give it a more thorough look through once I¡¯m in a bit of a better position to see what I can¡¯t salvage from it but I¡¯m not hopeful I¡¯ll get much out of that at the moment.
The circuit breakers, absolute champions they are, really pulled their weight today. They held the line against whatever happened and kept most of the damage localized at the cost of their lives. If I¡¯d lost the 3D printer, my computers, and all the food in storage I might as well have thrown myself to the literal wolves two blocks because I don¡¯t see a way forward for me without those three.
The two back up generators seemed to be in decent condition and with just a bit of finagling I was able to get power back to the rest of the base. After testing a few thing, I decided to turn them both back off for now since it''s getting late and I don¡¯t want to accidently announce my presence to my ornery neighbors with all the lights.
Tomorrow, I¡¯m gonna start working on getting my shield generators up and running again. Good fences make for good neighbors and I intend to be a very good neighbor by that metric. Recalibration is gonna be a massive pain in the ass but most of the legwork was completed from the first time I set ¡®em up. Since the walls weren¡¯t made for me to run a second set of cords through them, I¡¯ll probably just run them to the outside. It¡¯ll look really janky but I¡¯m the only one here and I can live with that.
I¡¯ll probably need to set some automated defenses to act as a deterrent since I don¡¯t exactly have the manpower to patrol the wall. Ugh¡ I really hope I have something saved for that and I won¡¯t need to program that from scratch.
Sigh
Welp, no use stressin¡¯ over things. I¡¯m gonna go see if I can¡¯t find and eat a streak ration, take a shower, and then crawl into bed.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 2.5
I should have taken a shower while the generators were still on. That shower had no right to be anywhere near as cold as it was.
Chapter 3 - No Place like the Base
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 3
Today¡¯s been a productive but quiet day. After waking up in my delightfully soft bed, I had myself a nice bowl of cereal and was able to have a peaceful stretch before limping off to the infirmary to deal with my many small cuts that I reopened while stretching. For the record, I¡¯m kidding about that last part. I¡¯ve already cleaned my wounds and am trying to avoid irritating them anymore.
I was able to make some good headway on the shield generators. Got 2 out of the 8 total I¡¯ll need built and in working shape. They¡¯re sittin¡¯ in the workshop right now waiting to be installed. Initially, I was a little concerned about how I¡¯d get them on top of the walls since these suckers are big enough to be unwieldy and heavy enough to need multiple people to move them. Originally, we just used manpower to build it and then hauled it up to the top of the walls with ropes. You know, the manly way our ancestors did. On my own, I think I can maybe tip them on their side and slowly waddle them along the ground but that doesn¡¯t really help me get them up 10 feet of wall. Kinda doable if I wanna make some 30 ft ramps I guess.
My initial thought had been that I just print the parts and move them up to the top of the walls before I assemble them but I don¡¯t quite care for that idea. If I weren¡¯t in any danger that¡¯s probably what I would sprung for personally but the situation just doesn¡¯t allow for that. Doing it that way would leave me up there waaaay too long and there¡¯s a very real chance I¡¯m spotted and shot at before I¡¯m done. Unfortunately, I¡¯m on a low lead diet and I just can¡¯t afford to take in any more.
Second thought was that I might be able to use the tractor we brought along for farming but that¡¯s probably the loudest thing in the base and likely to be pretty obvious so I kinda tossed that idea to the curb.
Plan I ended on was that I could raid the warehouse and snag one of the forklifts living there. Now, I wasn¡¯t technically certified to operate them so obviously I had to make do and, you know, make myself a certificate. After messing around in a photo editor for about 20 minutes, I can now say I am the proud owner of a definitely legit document stating skills my pro box moving skills. I¡¯ve hung it up near the workstation and it keeps making me chuckle every time I walk past.
On a more serious note, the forklifts fit the bill for what I¡¯m looking for pretty well since it is both significantly smaller and quieter. The one thing I¡¯m concerned about is that while I can get my stuff to the wall plenty fine, the grass and dirt might cause it to sink a bit and get shaky when I extend it up. Spent a bit of time working on designs for a stabilizing frame to keep things from falling over before I realized I¡¯m overthinking and can just throw a pallet down and spread the weight out like that.
At the moment, I¡¯m thinking that I¡¯ll make all my shields in the workshop before deploying them all on the same day. It¡¯ll leave things a bit crunched for space by the end of it all but I figure it¡¯ll help to minimize the time I¡¯m exposing myself to any watching eyes.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 4
About the same as yesterday, I don¡¯t have much to add on. I woke up, showered, and ate and then it was building generators from there. Not much to add.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 5
Did the same as the last two days so I¡¯ve been doing a bit of thinking. Let¡¯s say everything goes to plan and I manage to get all my toys installed before anyone notices I¡¯m here. Then what? They see I¡¯m here and they wanna take a chunk out of me so they pull out whatever crispied the older shield generators and just walk in? What do I do if they do it again? The thought I¡¯ve been kinda playing with is that I could set up some turrets. It¡¯s a bit more extreme than I¡¯d like but if it comes down to me or them, I¡¯m choosing me.
Concerning the design, I¡¯m at a bit of a deadend since while I do have some turret designs, they¡¯re of the railgun variety and those get screwed by whatever they did to us in the forest. It''s getting dark outside so I¡¯ll have to kill the power pretty soon here but tomorrow I¡¯m thinking I take a break from my crafting and see if I can¡¯t get into anyone else¡¯s computers. I know for a fact Steve brought an excessive number of blueprints so if I can get into his account I should be set.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 6.1
I am Hackerman and there¡¯s nobody around to tell me otherwise. What grand feat of hacking must I have done to earn such a name you may be asking yourself? Rest assured, it was truly an impressive feat and by that I mean I kicked down Command¡¯s door, stole a roster of all the names with their associated accounts, and then went through each trying out 5 variants of the word password until a few let me in.
The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Sadly, my high level tactics didn¡¯t get me into Steve¡¯s account which is a crying shame since it would mean it was a one and done. Fortunately, my failure there didn¡¯t mean I was out of options. If I could get into any of the IT¡¯s accounts, I could just elevate myself to a team leader and let myself into Steve¡¯s account. I ended up stonewalled in regard to hacking IT which is a bit of a shame since it would have saved me a few hours of annoyance but it is what it is. Really all I needed was someone higher up the chain of command from me and Steve and able to see our accounts.
To be honest, I didn¡¯t quite expect to get into nearly as many accounts as I did but I suppose you don¡¯t need that strong of a password when your only real threats are the people you¡¯re working with and relying on. Most accounts weren¡¯t super helpful in my quest to Build a Better Turret but I was able to get into a Dr. Andy Weir¡¯s account. This one in particular is relevant since he was in charge of one of the greenhouses and means he¡¯d worked with us a few times. This meant his account was set up to talk with my team¡¯s accounts.
Time for a happy dance.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 6.2
The happy dance was premature. It¡¯s been an hour and I¡¯ve still no blueprints to show. Weir¡¯s account did mean was able to jump over to see Steve¡¯s stuff but that¡¯s about where the good news ends. While I can see the files exist, I can¡¯t make heads or tails of them because apparently Steve is a paranoid bastard and encrypted his stuff. Fuck you Steve, you¡¯re making my life entirely too complicated. Who are you even protecting your stuff from?
Sigh
Luckily, even though I can''t read the names of the files, I was still able to copy them over. A quick test has the designs as still usable so small blessings I guess. I¡¯m unsure how useful this endeavor has actually been for me since Steve had several thousand files and I don¡¯t have a good way to sort through any of them.
I checked a handful of the bigger files in a vain hope of finding something useful but no dice.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 6.3
I¡¯ve poked around more and was able to start to get a feel for why these may have been encrypted because I¡¯ve some very pointed questions for Steve when I next see them. I feel like I¡¯d understand if it were for entertainment like board games and that sort of stuff but that¡¯s not the case. Who needs the blueprints for 43 washing machines? Sociopath behavior.
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 7
I spent today bouncing between assembling the shield generators and getting an alternative plan together. I can¡¯t exactly be patrolling the walls at all times but if I set up some motion cameras and hook ¡®em up to my datapad, it should be fine enough. Setting them up to notify me whenever anyone is getting too close isn¡¯t an egregious task and I should be able to knock it out by tomorrow evening even with my attention split as it is.
I¡¯m a little concerned that the xythalaxns may clue in and just trigger it at all hours of the night to try and abuse my sleep schedule but it¡¯ll work as a decent stand in until I can get something better set up.
They can¡¯t hurt me worse than my sleep schedule in college did now can they?
Engineer¡¯s Audio Log Day 8
I take everything I said back, Steve is an absolute saint! I may not have my files¡¯ real names but I do have access to the tags and in this regard Steve came through. He marked each and every single one of however many thousands of files with a few tags each. Technically speaking, this means I¡¯ll be taking his recommendations on everything but that¡¯s sooooo much better than just blindly stumbling through until I find what I need.
In the time since I made this discovery, I¡¯ve been working on labeling and organizing handy files to have at hand and moving them into my own personal records. My concern for Steve¡¯s well being has grown though because those 43 washing machines were just scratching the surface. There¡¯s a lot of odd stuff in there.
Oh, I was able to find a turret blueprint though. A few actually. Took a bit of time to go through each and I ended up choosing a design that sort of looks like an old school gatling gun. They¡¯ve been pretty clearly updated with more modern tech so I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be fine in terms of functionality.
There was also a missile turret that¡¯d caught my eye. I''m thinking I¡¯ll set one or two up on each side of the base so I don¡¯t end up having my wall knocked over by a tank. Now, I don¡¯t really think they have anything that heavy but it never hurts to be safe. That is definitely the only reason I¡¯m doing it and not because I think it¡¯d be really cool to have. Definitely.
I¡¯ll set it up as a second line of defense after I¡¯ve gotten the base secured. I¡¯m even less keen to get shot at while carrying heavy ordinance.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 9
Got into a bit of a fight over my trash today. A fuzzy, brown green critter, a little bit bigger than a raccoon, had made its way into the base and into my trash. I discovered his unasked for intrusion when he started hissing at me from inside the dumpster. It had a shorty bushy tail, a possumy face, and a wide sort of stance normally reserved for bugs. As you can imagine, I let out a very high pitched and manly shriek before tactically retreating inside. Fortunately, my natural alpha predator aura of superiority scared him off before my valiant return. Completely unrelated, I decided to prioritize getting the motion cameras set up today.
Being serious for a moment though, if that had been a xythalaxn, I would have been in some serious trouble. I¡¯d kinda wanted to wait to set up the motion cameras until I had a shield to defend myself but I don¡¯t think it''s a wise idea to wait. Better to take a smaller risk now of being spotted than to be caught flatfooted.
Chapter 4 - Turtling Up
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 10.1
Ok that was scary. Really scary. Whooooh. I need to properly calibrate those cameras.
Alright, I¡¯m just talking for the sake of talking but if I had any hair left on the top of my head I would have lost it just now. I can feel the wrinkles on me growing deeper and my beard going grey and I know for a fact I¡¯m doing that nervous rambling thing again.
I need to organize my thoughts¡ Where to start? Where to start? Let¡¯s start with a status update and then move onto what happened. It¡¯s currently 15 minutes to 11 with slightly overcast skies. Low percentage chance of rain but not zero if the clouds are anything to go by. We¡¯ll be seeing a lot of variance in temperatures from the nice air conditioning in the workshop to stuck outside in the sun. You can find your local engineer currently hiding out in the forest with a decently sized cut on his leg from an ill advised jump. If you move over here on the map you¡¯ll see the base currently has a higher than a xythalaxn front moving in and it isn¡¯t clear when they¡¯ll leave. We strongly advise that those looking to go outside today bring their water and sunscreen because you won¡¯t be going back in for a while. Back over to you Henry.
Thank you Henry, I¡¯ll be picking up here with the rest of the story. Sooo yeah to make a long story short there are xythalaxns in the base and I¡¯m a bit hurt as I didn¡¯t have the most graceful exit.
The day started out pretty normal. Last night when I had set up the security cameras, I rigged them to keep an eye out for motion then send a picture of the issue. Problem is I didn¡¯t really calibrate it before going to bed and got pinged through the entire night whenever so much as a leaf was blown by the wind. As a result, morning eventually rolls around and I¡¯ve barely gotten a wink of sleep. When my alarm for the day went off, I only half looked at the notifications. I¡¯m a bit more of a zombie than usual but I figure some instant coffee will do the trick of waking me up so I wander off towards the generator to get that started.
The backup generator is housed in a little sheet metal hut designed to act as an impromptu faraday cage for its protection. I wander in as I usually do and start the power up sequence. Fortunately for my half awake former self, operating the sucker is pretty easy, even if it does take a little bit to power up. I figure I¡¯ll take some time to go through the notifications and delete them all.
At this point, I want you to visualize the scene. It¡¯s early morning and I¡¯m standing next to the generator in a loose work shirt and pajama pants as the generator starts. I¡¯m alternating between dreaming about coffee and deleting the random photos I got overnight when I swipe into the second most recent photo. Two xythalaxns moving in on my base.
I¡¯d have done a spit take if I¡¯d had my coffee.
I slammed the emergency cancel on the generators and then silenced my datapad just in case. You cannot know the stress of hoping you weren¡¯t heard all the while waiting for your definitely not silent generator to quiet down in a metal room with one door. I swear I have the worst luck sometimes.
I checked the datapad again to see if they¡¯d maybe left after standing out front but no. It seems like they were taking their time talking to each other before moseying on into my base. A quick peek out the door and I was able to see them just standing in the middle gawking at the sights like a bunch of tourists. Then, they decided to come and see my building.
Panic mounting, I shut the door and realized there wasn¡¯t anyway to lock it from the inside. After all, its the room for the backup generator, you want to be able to get in. Makes perfect sense however unfortunate it may be to me. No time to lose, hopped on top of the generator and grabbed onto the roof. Like I said, the room is a Faraday cage so there were plenty of handholds to drag myself up to the ceiling. From there I began carefully prying one of the roof panels off.
Honestly, I would have been trapped on the roof of the cage if the builders hadn¡¯t phoned it in that day they were doing the roof. I slipped out like a phantom of the night right as they entered. My jump down from the top of the roof was significantly less graceful. I didn¡¯t have a particularly solid surface to jump from and I couldn¡¯t jump very hard. The side of my calf caught on the edge of the building as I fell to the ground though I didn¡¯t really feel it at the time. Staggering to my feet, I dashed out into the forest through the hole in the wall.
This brings us to the current point and time where I have no food, water, or base. I managed to get the bleeding to stop for now with my shirt so I¡¯m fine on that front but still I really hope they leave soon. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I¡¯d kill to know why they even showed up though cause I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve given them any signs I¡¯m back. I¡¯ve been pretty careful about going outside and keeping the lights off. Looking at the picture, one of them is in combat gear but the other is just in some normal looking clothing¡ I think? Maybe they did it as a dare or something? I don¡¯t know, super odd.
Ohh quick note to add to the end, I need to reseal the roof when I get back. I do not want water on my generator if it rains.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 10.2
Well, it took them long enough but they¡¯ve finally left. My leg has been hurtin¡¯ more and more as the day progressed so I¡¯m probably gonna need to boot up the autodoc in the medical wing. I don¡¯t super love the idea of leaving my wound in it¡¯s automated hands but a gash like this should be exactly in its wheelhouse. No surgery or anything complex just closing a straight cut.
Yeah¡ I¡¯ve watched too many horror movies.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 10.3
Oh man¡
I didn¡¯t know man¡
The autodoc gives ya painkillers which is nice for the pain killing¡
But like¡
Man I hope they don¡¯t come back tonight.
Hoooo boy!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 11
I still feel a bit swirly from the painkillers and it''s still a bit hard to focus but I¡¯m more or less back now. Unfortunately, I slept through the back half of yesterday and that means my lights were on and obvious all night. As much as I¡¯m not back to full, I need to finish that last generator by this evening and be setting things up tomorrow.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 12.1
You know what I still haven¡¯t done? Calibrated the cameras. Those suckers are still pinging me every third minute of the day and I¡¯m slowly losing my mind. I figure I¡¯m like 23¡ 22 pings now off of insanity. I¡¯m hearing pings that aren¡¯t even real and am just checking the datapad with no sense of rhyme or reason. I¡¯m losing my Cheerios and I¡¯ve been alone for like 2 weeks now.
On a less annoyed note, I¡¯m currently riding back from the wall and am between setting up generators. It¡¯s late afternoon so I may not get them done before dark at this rate but I¡¯m kinda thinking about just pushing through and working in the dark. It¡¯s not quite ideal and I might have managed completing the job if I hadn¡¯t ended up having to finish the last generator this morning but I just wasn¡¯t in any state to concen- 21 pings. I wasn¡¯t in any state to concentrate yesterday evening. I vastly overestimated how ok I was.
It¡¯s kind of a weird risk reward situation I¡¯m in right now because obviously I¡¯ve been up on the walls all day and have been way more visible so I don¡¯t want to risk just putting it off until tomorrow in case anyone is watching but if I push into the night I¡¯m gonna run into other issues. Keeping the lights on will be a must and, after having a night with the lights on and then a night off, turning them back on again will be incredibly suspicious. Additionally, as i work later and later, the odds of me fucking something up with my placement increases and I really don¡¯t like that situation like ¡°Oh haha you can¡¯t hit me¡± and then I just get blown to smitherines. Like not only am I dead but that was also an embarrassing way to die. At least with the other route I have some dignity as I die.
Frankl- 20 pings now. Man it sure loves taking pictures of that tree. Frankly though, I¡¯m thinking pushing through will work better since I¡¯ve gotten plenty of rest over the last few days and I don¡¯t know if I¡¯d even be able to sleep tonight with the stress looming over me. I¡¯ve only got 2 generators left and it should only be a little dark when I boot everything up.
19 pings you know what I was wrong. I think I¡¯m going to lose my mind now.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 12.2
We¡¯re finally done. I¡¯m safe. The absolute relief I feel right can not be understated and I want to cry tears of joy. I¡¯ve been alone for a full 12 days now and it has been so touch and go and that''s finally done. I don¡¯t have to worry anymore. I mean I do cause like I don¡¯t have automated defenses but like not nearly as much as I did.
There was a heart stopping moment mixed in when I was trying to turn everything on for the first time. 7 out of 8 of the generators were working perfectly fine but I just wasn¡¯t getting anything from the last one. If my stomach had dropped any lower in that moment, I would have been on the floor. Fortunately, I¡¯d just made one of the classical engineering blunders and caught it almost immediately. I¡¯d forgotten to plug it in and one power cord traced back to the generator later had everything resolved.
Man¡ I¡¯m gonna sleep well knowing that that blue field is gonna be keeping everything out. You know¡ I think I¡¯m gonna see if I can¡¯t scrounge up a nice cold beer and do a bit of stargazing. Now¡ where do we keep the lawn chairs.
Chapter 5 - Suns Up Guns Up
Darana sighed deeply as she checked the time again. It was quite late and she felt bad she wasn¡¯t at home right now with the little one but the neighbors had insisted they had things under control and that she should take the night off. Running back home down wouldn¡¯t do anything other than cause problems.
Bouncing back and forth on her feet, Darana fervently wished Glysia would hurry up and come out so she could forget about the last few days. That entire trip to the base had made her uncomfortable, the faint smell of blood lurking dangerously in the back of her mind. The trip had been supposed to be quick and simple, checking to make sure nothing was left on and causing problems. Everything had technically been fine but that faint smell had left her concerned. Maybe should get one of the trackers to-
¡°You¡¯re thinking too hard for girls'' night!¡±
Darana leapt 4 ft in the air in surprise and began whirling around to face her aggressor. Quickly schooling her face before she landed, she landed with surprising grace to face her friend that had snuck up on her,
¡°Took you long enough. I was beginning to think I might have to go drinking alone.¡±
¡°You think you can just breeze past that little jump if you talk fast enough?¡±
¡°That was certainly the hope, yes. Shall we get going?¡±
Glysia grinned widely and Darana grinned back at her long time friend. Her drinking companion for the night was tall, taller than most of their already tall race. Her fine black fur shone against the late evening sun and a faint grin always seemed to be touching her face. Darana mused that her friend would have been quite popular if she¡¯d been more of a socialite.
Feeling the weight from the intense gaze from her friend, Glysia would shift from one long leg to the other, checking herself over with a critical eye, ¡°You¡¯re giving me odd looks, did I forget to do something?¡±
Brushing away the troublesome thoughts, Darana grinned, ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it¡ for now. I¡¯ve plans for the future you could not even begin to fathom¡±
¡°For now she says. You could just add some villainous laughter on the end for good measure, you know?¡± Glysia whined as she rolled her eyes. Slapping her friend¡¯s shoulder, Glysia chuckled a bit grinned back, ¡°I don¡¯t know how I even got tangled up with you. Anyways, drinks?¡±
¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±
__________________________________
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 13
Nothing quite like waking up in the morning in a lawn chair, covered head to toe in dew surrounded by empty beer cans like a ritual sacrifice to the sun. May my sacrifice give them plenty of rain and good crop growth. I feel the need to say that I did not in fact drink that many. I may be many things but I am not an alcoholic. We may get there eventually though depending how stressful things get.
After I woke up and took a nice shower, I put everything up and got started on the turrets. Last night was nice though I¡¯m not thinking I¡¯ll be repeating it. I¡¯m a bit more of an indoor cat than an outdoors one so sleeping under the stars is only going to be an occasional treat. On to business, my walls are properly covered now so I¡¯ll have a bit of room to breathe but I can¡¯t afford to be slacking. No defense is absolute and I¡¯m sure my dogged friends will be able to crack up my shell if they really want. I need to have a counter force to discourage any level of shenanigans happening to me. I¡¯m going to be doing this with the threat of automated turrets in a move I like to call Cold War diplomacy. Mess with me and nobody wins!
Unlike the Cold War though, I have zero interest in expanding my territory. I might have some food problems in a few year so I¡¯ll need to figure that out but for the time being, I have the supplies of nearly 150+ people and that will last me several months. Thank goodness for being prepared ehh?
Today¡¯s my first day working on these turrets but I can already tell these things are going to be an absolute pain in my rear. These things are fully mechanical which is nice to avoid whatever trickery may be thrown my way but it also means that each is a lot more labor intensive to get into working order. This isn¡¯t even taking into account the fact that I¡¯m going to need to redo the code on my walls.
Currently, I have it set up so we can fire our railguns through ¡®em by flickering it off for just a moment. These won¡¯t have nearly as high of a bullet velocity and they¡¯ll be throwing multiple a second which will complicate the code needed to say the very least. I¡¯m kind of hopeful in regard to the code since in theory I¡¯ll just need to tweak a few numbers but things are never that simple. Nothing much I can do except check I suppose and to check I¡¯ll need to finish this¡
Man.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 14
I¡¯m going to beat the maker of this device with his own turrets I swear. Who prints things that need to go inside separately? Why is it like this just like this?
AAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH!Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 15
After a few slip ups yesterday that I don¡¯t feel the need to rehash, I¡¯ve been making good progress today. The parts are coming together nicely and I definitely didn¡¯t have to disassemble everything I¡¯d already worked on. Even if I did, there is no concrete evidence and it cannot be proven that anything along those lines had ever happened. There are no issues in the human base and you can trust me. I am a truly trustworthy and honest person.
So I¡¯ve finished 3 out of the 6 turrets I have planned. The unaccounted for delays mean I¡¯ll probably not finish them fully by tomorrow like I¡¯d hoped but it should be fine. I¡¯m thinking I might set up the ones I do have finished now just to get something up there. There¡¯ll be a few spots that won¡¯t be covered but better to have some show of force right? There also isn¡¯t any reason I can¡¯t put them up immediately after building them now that I have some level of protection. I mean obviously they could just do whatever they did and blow my shields apart again but¡
Actually, I think I need to hurry up on these.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 16
Four turrets are set up and the fifth is nearly done.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 17
Ok so I¡¯ve finished my turrets and in an unexpected and unforeseen twist of fate, my code did have issues. I managed to get figured out but the process of debugging still took me the entire back half of the day. Who woulda thunk it? Still, all 6 are set up and good to go now. Spent a bit of time setting up a few extra precautions so that my turrets don¡¯t just go shooting indiscriminately because you can¡¯t really unshoot things you know? I set up a few audible warnings so that folks don¡¯t just get their heads taken off out of nowhere and I¡¯ve a manual override that I can trigger a few different ways just in case.
Changing topics but I¡¯m kind of beginning to feel a bit concerned. I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m being paranoid or not but I really feel like there should have been some level of response from the xythalaxns by this point. I know I¡¯m looking a gift horse in the mouth but they orchestrated a proper attack and then just stopped? It kind of made sense that I wasn¡¯t under assault before if I was flying under the radar. The confusing bit is that I have started acting more directly but at this point, I¡¯ve been outside and on top of the walls multiple times and even activated shield generators over the whole place. I¡¯m leaving my lights on at night and it¡¯s not like we don¡¯t have valuable resources. They should have noticed I¡¯m here at the very least but my cameras haven¡¯t caught anything since the other day. All this begs the question, where are the xythalaxns?
I just don''t know what to make of it.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 18
Today, I¡¯ve decided to get started on some of the heavy weapons for my defense. I¡¯d talked a bit about them in the past but these would be for if vehicles are something else came skating up to the base looking for a fight. From the looks of the blueprints, I¡¯m not overly worried about assembling as these should be far easier than either of my other two projects.
They¡¯re basically a thin rectangle in the middle with two boxes hanging off the side holding 2 missiles each. For the most part, these will be manual both in regards to reloading and aiming. Reloading shouldn¡¯t be that big an issue since if I need to fire off more than 2 at a target, I¡¯ve got bigger fish to fry. Not that I expect trouble that big, I¡¯m mostly building these for me if we¡¯re being honest. Concerning manually firing these, I¡¯ve decided to take a bit of extra time to add a Doom overlay to the screen. It doesn¡¯t technically do anything but it certainly will make the rockets feel like they hit harder.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 19.1
Finished up both of the launchers today and am planning to set ¡®em up tomorrow. I ended up finishing a bit later since I¡¯d decided to play my own homebrew version of Russian Roulette with the 3D printer earlier this morning. How it works is as follows.
First, you set up a file randomizer in your 3D printer file folder. Click it a few times until you feel satisfied with the randomness. I do it 3 times minimum to make sure its really properly shuffled but technically speaking you can get away with 1 time if you¡¯re a killjoy like that. Step Two, you send it to the printer and you get what you get. That''s it, that''s all there is to it. Super simple to play and very interesting.
So far I¡¯ve gotten a faux wood kayak paddle, an actually pretty decent rubber ball, and something that¡¯s sorta shaped like a manhole cover but the top is a bit rounded. I checked the file for that one and the tags aren¡¯t helpful in the slightest. The only tags were foot, vibration, and HARP in all caps. I¡¯ve checked the file and I still can¡¯t figure out what this thing is supposed to be. There are clearly some parts that look like they¡¯re supposed to be connected but I can¡¯t make heads or tails of it. Maybe it''s like an amplifier for harps? Wait, are electric harps even a thing?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 19.2
My curiosity got to me and I checked for other stuff with the HARP tag. There are a surprising number outdoing the Washing Machine count by a bit. Most of these tags have some manner of body part also included but a few are just really dangerous looking or simply have the Module tag. I¡¯m genuinely baffled by what exactly this thing is supposed to be.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 19.3
Well, I¡¯ve finally identified what this is supposed to be. These are parts for the HARP aka the Heavy Armor Reactive Platform aka a small mecha style weapon. I¡¯ve been looking at the various pieces to build the sucker.
I remember learning about the HARP a while back when I was still in college because obviously any engineer worth their salt has a mecha phase at some point. These bad boys are specialty vehicles specifically designed to maneuver treacherous terrain that traditional vehicles would struggle in. They also can better take advantage of shield tech than traditional tank. HARP units tend to clock in at around like 20ish feet tall which is a bit puny in comparison to the classic idea of a mech but that¡¯s the cost of these sorts of things The main downsides are obviously they can¡¯t move nearly as fast as tanks and have a few more points of failure. Pros and cons across the board. I know there are some generals that prefer HARPs to tanks but it¡¯s really a use what you need for the situation sort of deal.
I¡¯m really questioning how Steve got his hands on these since generally speaking these blueprints are not available to the public. Hmmm¡ I mean¡ I¡¯m gonna have a lot of free time and it''s not like I¡¯ll be able to get my hands on this again¡
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Chapter 6 - Now What?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 20.1
I took a bit of time today to get the missile platform all set up. I had a touch and go moment where I was trying to shift it and my right leg, which I cut, gave out for a split second but I very fortunately managed to avoid getting my toes absolutely mashed so we¡¯re all good.
Now technically speaking, all my defenses are set up and I¡¯m good to go. Practically speaking, I wanna test my launcher on something to make sure it actually works¡ ahh who am I kidding I wanna blow something up. Just using it on the trees seems like a bit of a waste though. Maybe I set up a little testing range? That sounds pretty fun.
Maybe I can make a dummy or something along those lines. I¡¯m 100% sure that with a 3D print collection that big I have some manner of a cardboard cutout.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 20.2
Well bad news and good news. Bad news is there weren''t any cutouts in the database or if there were I don¡¯t know the tags I need to find them. The good news was I wasn¡¯t using my full brain and we did had some ballistic dummies. They were hiding away in the back of the storehouse where we keep our weapons, weary of my dangerous experiments. Alas, I have found them and it is far too late for them to run now.
They ended up only being the upper half which is a bit disappointing but beggars can¡¯t really be choosers. I¡¯m looking for a can of spray paint in the storage shed as I speak so I can paint an angry face over the model. The current semi transparent ballistic gel is depressing to look at. I¡¯ve found a nice white which gave me the idea to spray paint a clown face onto the front but I need a red for that. You¡¯d think red would be the most common spray paint for marking dangerous stuff but there¡¯s precious little to be found. I might have to do the clowns a disservice and do purple on white.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 20.3
Today¡¯s test was a little wild and by a little I mean a lot wild. It took me a bit longer but I did end up finding the red spray paint. Gave the ballistic dummy a very nice set of ¡°makeup¡± and rolled it out front of the base. Scuttled back in as quickly as my leg would let me and then hopped up on top of the wall so I could view the launch in all its glory. Hopped onto my datapad and then began the manual targeting.
It was around this point that I started getting pings about movement in the treelines. Nothing in particular stood out to me as out of the ordinary but I¡¯d adjusted my sensors to not trigger on every third leaf so that meant this was probably something real and I was missing it. Took a bit to sit down and actually pick through the pictures to see if I couldn¡¯t figure out what or who my mystery visitor was. I had a shiver go down my spine when I realized it was my old ¡°friend¡± Mr. Bug Panther prowling around the outside and he¡¯d been stalking me. I¡¯d gotten dangerously close to death via mauling.
I might have let bygones be bygones if he¡¯d been willing to leave me be but then he jumped the testing dummy I left out. The one right in the middle of my turrets which were still on. Not the brightest move by Mr. Bug Panther I¡¯ll admit as he refused to leave even after getting several warnings in the xythalaxn language but it¡¯s his life to live. What followed is better left to the imagination but suffice to say he was not walking that one off.
You might think this was the end of if but no things continued to escalate. I left the wall thoroughly baffled by the animal¡¯s life choices thinking that¡¯d be the end of everything but it wasn¡¯t.
I guess while me doing set up on top of the wall was missed, the sounds of two separate turrets going off certainly wasn¡¯t. An armed xythalaxn greeting party came by to throw me a housewarming party some time after the incident and by housewarming I mean they took potshots at the base with explosive rounds. They¡¯d run in, shoot a shot or two, and then quickly run back out when my warnings started which is an ok strategy though playing around like that kinda feels like tempting fate.
In the end, I decided to participate in their impromptu stress test on my shielding by suiting up in a set of combat gear and then doing mocking dances on top of the walls until they left. I don¡¯t think they understood the exact cultural context of my magnificent dances but I¡¯d like to think the general gist got through to them because they started yelling a lot more. After a good 30 or so minutes of remorseless taunting, I got bored and headed back inside, keeping an eye on things through the motion detectors.
In the end, it took them over an hour to finally give up. If they really wanted to get me they should have brought better guns. The volume of fire wasn¡¯t anywhere near enough to get at me. The biggest shame of today is I never got to test that missile launcher. Oh well.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 21Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
I¡¯ve started getting fanmail! How utterly delightful it is to be this popular. Why if I were a slightly less humble man, all these letters expressing their support for me in what basically amounts to google translate Common would go straight to my head with such kind phrases telling me to surrender and to kill myself. I really appreciate the effort my new found fan club went through to make their thoughts known to me since I still don¡¯t know how they managed to send messages to my account.
After reading through a few messages and getting the general gist, I¡¯ve decided it¡¯d be kind to respond. I quickly drafted up a professional response thanking them for their efforts and letting them know I would soon move out before professionally attaching a ZIP bomb and hitting send. As a follow up, I made sure to disable any incoming information to prevent any revenge plots.
Unrelated to all that, I¡¯ve decided to start cultivating my green thumb. Now that I¡¯m all bunkered up and don¡¯t need to worry about basic necessities like not getting shot, I figure I¡¯m going to have a lot of spare time to spend on thriving. If nothing else, I¡¯m hoping gardening will be a good way to kill time. I have a whole greenhouse and baby orchid sitting at the edge of the base that I¡¯ve been leaving to rot away over the last few weeks but not more.
I have access to the botanist team¡¯s notes through the hacked account so I have some level of confidence in being able to keep the plants alive. I hope anyways. I think I can keep the saplings alive at the very least. They¡¯re already making good progress from what I¡¯m reading here and trees are pretty hardy. Tomorrow I¡¯ll properly pillage the greenhouse to see if I can¡¯t find some basic instructions. A Botany for Dummies would be really handy.
The main reason I¡¯ve turned my interest towards the plants is because I¡¯ve been kind of missing fruit. One can only eat so many of the freeze dried variants before one starts missing the actual articles. I figure that the worst case scenario is that I kill everything and feel very sad that I have no fruit. Ideally, the best case is that in a few months I¡¯ll be able to have something sweet to supplement my diet.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 22
Alright, so I know plants need a lot of work but I¡¯m kind of unsure about these instructions. They¡¯re saying that I need to talk to the plants but I feel like if I start doing that, things are going to quickly devolve into a Wilbur sort of situation and I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m mentally prepared to look at myself in the mirror if I hit that point. I¡¯d much prefer to just talk to my computer like a normal person. I also feel like I¡¯ve heard that the whole talking to plants thing was a myth but that they also liked music?
Sigh
I¡¯m gonna start talking to these plants aren¡¯t I? Actually why am I even worrying about this? I know I¡¯m going to start talking to them and giving them imaginary voices to talk back to me because I was already doing it for half the stuff in the workshop back when people were still here. Why would me being alone change that?
Silly rant over, serious plant talk time. I spent a goodly amount of time in the greenhouse today making sure that everything is working properly. Fortunately, in the single month of disuse, nothing seems to have broken on its own. The sprinkler system appears to be working perfectly fine though they seem to be distributing water a bit unevenly. I¡¯ll need to read up and see if there is actually a reason for this and that''s why the plants are placed where they are or if it¡¯s a construction oversight that the botanists just kinda got used to. Everything else looks good for the most part but I wouldn¡¯t trust anything electronic in the room to keep working for more than a few months without any checking up. Spent a fair bit of time today weeding around the saplings and exterior portions of the garden but by no means got everything. That¡¯ll be a job for the next few days.
On a less clinical level, I gotta say it was kinda magical walking into the greenhouse for the first time. The whole place smells both earthy and sweet which is really nice after having spent so long working at my oily workspace and delving into dusty warehouses. Plants line the walls and hang from the ceiling making a proper mural of colors from the various flowers that are blooming. The whole thing left me with a sense of inspiration and a strong desire to properly try and keep this nice thing going. I don¡¯t know if improving it is in the cards for me but we¡¯ll see.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 23
Did some more weeding today and played a few more games of 3D Printer Roulette. I now have a rubber duck, a set of dumbbells, and what I¡¯m 90% sure is a yoga mat.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 24
The microwave broke while I was trying to heat up my meatball sandwich. I feel utterly betrayed. This shall be fixed post haste
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 25
Ok, a few things. The microwave was not in fact fixed post haste partially because I am a lazy man but only partially. The other part involves some shenanigans with the printer files.
As anyone listening knows by now, the tag system has a few gaps in it but one of the bigger ones is that the name of the item itself is rarely given in the tags. This means I have to guess a few different things before I¡¯ll find the item I¡¯m looking for. Very commonly, I¡¯ll start with the name of the item, move onto common nicknames, and then branch out to descriptors if neither of those work. I followed this logic like I normally do, started by checking the tags for microwave, not getting anything, and moving onto nicknames. Naturally, when I put ¡°nuke¡± into the search bar and got back one result, I thought I had my microwave.
Now, to be fair, it is on me for not actually checking the blueprints myself but I don¡¯t think I was wrong to assume something with the fucking food tag was designed for the kitchen. I can only assume that this was somebody¡¯s idea of a prank and I have to say that, while yeah admittedly funny, it wasn¡¯t at the moment. Watching the autoprinter spit one warhead after another out and trying to desperately catch them before they roll off onto the floor will age any man several times over.
Fortunately for me, they ended up just being empty shells but man I¡¯m not built to handle that level of stress. What do I even do with these things?
Chapter 7 - A Dash of Exploration
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 26
Spent more time today weeding and then spent some time adjusting the turrets around the base. They like shooting at the local bird population, particularly at 5am. While I appreciate the diligence, I also like to sleep in so I just took a bit of time to up the size requirements for things to be blasted. I feel fairly confident in my ability to square up with things like possum raccoon if it comes down to it.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 27
Spent a bit of time reorganizing the files today. Grabbed everything with the HARP tag and slapped it into one file. I¡¯d originally planned to try and build the sucker even going so far as to print a few of the parts but ended up running into issues. Problem is that I don¡¯t know which parts are supposed to go where. I can make guesses based on the electronic internals but I¡¯d prefer not to ride in a vehicle that''s powered by my hunches. I feel like the mere existence of the HARP blueprints means there has to be an instruction manual somewhere in the base but unfortunately for me I haven¡¯t found it yet. It¡¯s also big as fuck so even if I do find a manual, it¡¯ll be a while before I even make anything.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 28
Played printer roulette again and just got some tableware. Today¡¯s been kind of boring.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 29
More xythalaxn visitors. They took a few potshots at the side of the base again so I just ignored them. Cleared up the garden and sapling orchard but it¡¯s beginning to become clear to me keeping it cleared out of weeds is going to be something I need to spend a bit of time on each day. I¡¯d probably complain more if I had some more interesting things to do.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 30
Today, I patrolled for weeds, played a bit of Printer Roulette, and then alternated between reading some of the books I brought with me and reading up on botany. Concerning these audio logs, I¡¯m kinda don¡¯t have a huge amount to share so I¡¯ll probably skip out on making them until something interesting happens. No sense in making a 5 second logs.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 33.1
Boredom will take you to strange places and today boredom took me right into Command¡¯s office. I don¡¯t know really why I decided to snoop around the place but I did find a few interesting things.
First interesting thing I found was a set of unmarked books sitting on the shelf. All the previous times I¡¯d been in here I thought they were fake books for decoration or something boring like a dictionary but no these are actually proper books. Well, proper might be a bit of a strong word for these things since a quick scan revealed several misspellings, wonky grammar structures, and chapters that varied wildly in length. Nothing was off enough to make it immediately obvious what was going on but after flipping through a few more of the books things became clear when I started seeing some familiar names from pop culture. That¡¯s right ladies and gentlemen, Command¡¯s office is filled to brim with fanfiction. What a day to be alive.
While that was certainly interesting, it wasn¡¯t actually the most helpful thing I managed to snag from the office. Hidden away in one of the filing cabinets to the side, I found the dossier on xythalaxn relationships and biology. The information I¡¯d received so far was mostly through a disclaimer put out to discourage us from causing trouble.
Took a bit to sit down and read through it and I have to say it''s kinda interesting how convergent evolution does things like this. Xythalaxns are from a similarly sized but slightly lighter gravity homeworld than us which I suppose makes sense given that we want to both colonize the same planet. Their bodies function extremely similarly to ours with expected differences in our internals and a few obvious exterior differences.
They have a bit more range than humans in terms of heights but as a rule of thumb I can probably expect any that I meet in person to be clocking in a few inches short of 7 feet with their sexual dimorphism favoring larger females and smaller males. While they are typically covered in black fur, apparently there are a few folks that will come covered in brown and grey though these tend to be a bit more rare. I almost wonder if it''s kinda like humans that have red hair where it''s not something you¡¯ll commonly see but like it isn''t crazy if you do see one out and about. They also each have a small red stripe a little below their ribs on each side which is unique to each individual kinda like a fingerprint.
A lot of the information was a repeat of what I already knew or had guessed. They¡¯re omnivores like humans are but are slight closer to the carnivore side of the spectrum than we do. They¡¯ve got good sniffers but apparently their ears are more for show than ours are which is kinda interesting. They¡¯re also ambush predators to our persistent predators and the way their legs are set up reflect that. Theirs are much more springy, allowing for faster twitch movements which manifests in the day to day in a weird bouncy gait.
Psychologically, they¡¯re something like a 99% match with humans which is really rare. From what I understand, most races don¡¯t even hit the 70% mark so that fact that they¡¯re so similar is really wild. For the most part, their differences from humans don¡¯t super matter with the exception of two particular pieces. They have a stronger pack mentality than humans and a slight warrior culture. Basically take human family mentality and crank up the intensity a bit and you¡¯ve got xythalaxns. This all manifests in mobs consistently at my gates which is¡
SighYou might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
It¡¯s honestly fine. I feel a bit isolated so it could be better but like my situation is tenable. I wasn¡¯t selected for the mission for my handsome looks alone after all. I can handle a little duress.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 33.2
I¡¯ve made the ill advised but informed decision to crack open Command¡¯s fanfic collection. It¡¯s bad, really bad, so bad it loops around to being entertaining with how bad it is. I wonder what got Command into this sort of stuff in the first place?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 37
I received another visit by the unruly mob today and have decided to start up a little engineering project as a result. Seeing them has me kind of wondering what their place looks like up close. I¡¯d seen it very early on while both of us were still getting things set up and then from a distance when I returned from my forest sabbatical but never up close.
I don¡¯t think it¡¯s really safe for me to be going in person so that means if I really wanna see the town, I¡¯ll have to use a drone. Now, I¡¯ve given some thought to the situation and have landed on two particular designs that I like.
First and most probably the more logical of the two, I create a helicopter and disguise it as a bird to keep it from being identified and shot down immediately. This¡¯ll give me a pretty decent overhead view of the situation and I should be able to use it a few times. It¡¯s not particularly durable but that should be fine.
The second idea is a four wheeler drone. I can give it a bit of metal armor so it can survive more abuse and it gives me a bit of a closer look at everything but that''s about where the advantages end. It¡¯ll be way more obvious to anyone looking, easier to stop in its tracks, and I¡¯ll have a way more narrow view of everything. That said, this idea edges out the other for one simple reason. I can convert those empty bombshells into RC cars and the idea of doing that is entirely too funny to pass up on.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 38
I¡¯ve gotten started with my RC project and I¡¯m having a grand old time. Technically speaking, I have a working RC car made but at the moment it seems to only want to go forward and backwards which isn¡¯t quite ideal for maneuverability. The bombshells chasis mean this is a little bigger than your usual RC car but fortunately for me, it¡¯s still fairly light. The part I was the most concerned about was the camera but I managed to add it without any issues. It kinda pokes out a narrow slit in the top half that restricts the vision a little bit but not enough to really matter. I¡¯ve also been workshopping a few extra features, one that I think is kinda funny and one that should be generally handy. I¡¯ve cut a strip of the top out and attached a motor arm to that so that in the event it gets knocked over, it can right itself and zoom off on its merry way. The funny feature is the little Raspberry Pi I installed that lets me remotely play audio. I¡¯ve got some dastardly plans for that.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 39
Today was a very productive day!
The turning issue has been resolved and the drone successfully deployed for its maiden voyage. I wasn¡¯t super confident about its ability to make it through undergrowth of the forest unassisted so I suited up in one of the security team¡¯s combat outfits and left to deploy the RC drone myself. No issues to speak of on my walk there or back.
The xythalaxn¡¯s village is kind of interesting. In many regards, its quite similar to what we had in mind for our place with the outside consisting mostly of farmland and a few utility buildings. It¡¯s mostly dirt paths on the outside but as you get closer to the center they start to turn more and more into regular pavement. They then have a concrete wall surrounding the town with a few varying entrances. I will say their place is much bigger than ours in terms of shere land taken up. I didn¡¯t spot any automated defenses but that doesn¡¯t exactly mean they don¡¯t have any, just that I can¡¯t see them. The entrance I was near did have a few guards that had looked fairly bored right up until I zoomed up to their hut, started playing Barber of Seville for them, and then took off into their inner city. They clearly weren¡¯t fans of the bomb shaped RC car based on the yelling but they didn¡¯t get to do anything actionable before I¡¯d made it in.
The inside of their village was interesting. Their buildings seemed to be all of the same design, an almost boxy adobe kinda style with slanted roofs, and each were painted a variety of different bright colors. Most of them were blues and yellows but I did catch a few red buildings hiding a little deeper in. Unfortunately, I wasn¡¯t able to make heads or tails of the various buildings given the guards were in hot pursuit but each seemed to fulfill some sort of purpose. I don¡¯t know why I added that, every building fulfills some purpose. That¡¯s how buildings work.
I did notice something kind of interesting as I tore through the streets. In contrast to the human settlement, the xythalaxns brought their kids along. Their population was also far greater than the human¡¯s back when they were all here, maybe two times the size? It¡¯s pretty clear they were here to set up a colony to our outpost.
Now, I covered a pretty good amount of the village with the drone so when the horde of military folks began boxing me in, I wasn¡¯t overly sad about my RC car¡¯s inevitable demise. That¡¯s not to say I just rolled over and accepted it though. That¡¯d be no fun. For the most part, I¡¯d been sticking to the public walkways since they were a little wider and easier to maneuver but that wasn¡¯t my only option. There were also an abundance of alley ways clearly designed for small amounts of pedestrian traffic. Tore down one of those and slipped into a different part of the village. I think it might have been a residential area since there were a lot of little xythalaxns around. Did a few donuts real fast for the fans and was planning to leave but then things got interesting.
Listen, I¡¯m not saying I¡¯m a people pleaser but when a group of xythalaxn kids started pointing at a ramp, I felt a moral obligation to take it. They were also 100% right because the speed I hit the ramp let me get onto the roof tops and that was when the real fun began.
Since they were slanted, I was able to start hopping from rooftop to rooftop and actually lasted a surprisingly long time. All good things must come to an end eventually I misjudged a distance and crashed into the streets below. One of the guards caught up but unfortunately for him, I had one more trick. I had a sound effect that would make my RC car start beeping like the bomb it kinda looked like.
I feel a little bad since it spooked her something fierce as the game of chase reversed. They actually tripped basically immediately and I responded by rolling the little RC car riiiiiight up to ¡®em. Poor lass looked like she was about to have a heart attack when the beeping ended and I shot a little confetti out the top at her.
I didn¡¯t manage to get any farther than that since they immediately grabbed the cart, ran it out of town, and blasted it to smithereens from a safe distance and you know what. After the scare I probably gave her, turnabout is fair play.
Overall, I¡¯d consider that run an absolute success. I managed to achieve my objective of mapping out the town and even managed to get a better idea about the sort of people I¡¯m dealing with. I also managed to cause some chaos which is always a win as far as I¡¯m concerned.
Those poor fuckers don¡¯t realize it yet but that whole thing was entirely too much fun for me to not do a repeat run.
Chapter 8 - Making Friends
¡°Momma, Momma I wanna go play!¡±
Darana did her absolute best to keep the smile off her face as she glared down at her adorable son. A moment of weakness now would mean trouble down the road, ¡°I don¡¯t know¡ you ran off last time you said you would play.¡±
¡°That''s because there was a cool car! I promise I¡¯m not even going to go there this time. I want to see the farms with Mr. Delsorm!¡±
Darana paused for a moment as she considered the idea. Delsorm did work the fields outside the base and the experience could very well be helpful for burning off a bit of energy, ¡°If you promise not to wander that''s fine by me but we¡¯ll have to ask Mr. Delsorm if it¡¯s ok for you to join him.¡±
¡°YAAAAAAY!¡±
________________
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 41.1
I decided to give the people of the town a day¡¯s break before going back to my shenanigans. This single day delay coincidently had nothing to do with me iterating the design for the car further but that''s neither here nor there and even if it did, the changes would be relevant to today¡¯s mission.
Last time, I just wanted to take a preliminary look around the town but today we¡¯re going to be getting much more personal with the buildings. Now you might be wondering how I plan to do this with my relatively limited mobility. Well, as a famous engineer once said ¡°use a gun¡± and that¡¯s just what I¡¯ve done. Kinda. The trick for today is that I¡¯ve added what essentially amounts to a paintball gun to the top of RC car and then instead of loading it up with a few small 360 cameras to fire in through the windows and open doors. I¡¯ve also added normal paintballs for when my work is done because what''s life without a little vandalism.
I think this has the potential to be even more fun than yesterday because now I get to shoot things.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 41.2
They¡¯ve gotten much better at dealing with my RC car, I¡¯ll give them that. I didn¡¯t even manage to shoot all my paintballs before they caught me and not for a lack of trying. Still, I¡¯d count it a success since I was able to get a bit more information about the buildings and their color classifications.
Yellow buildings are pretty clearly community housing. I managed to get the cameras in a grand total of two yellow buildings and each had plenty of signs of being lived in. I don¡¯t know what I had expected but most of the decorations are kinda similar to what I¡¯d see around the base, albeit in a foreign language. The only thing that surprised me was the distinct lack of chairs but I reckon that tails make the ones I use fairly obsolete for them. Aside from that, the two I was able to peek in on had bookshelves, computers, and even a kitchen at the edge of one of them, all in all pretty domestic scenes. That did make me feel a touch bad about shattering the windows to get that info but that¡¯s the way the cookie crumbles ain¡¯t it.
The blue buildings are kinda interesting. I was able to observe three in total and each were completely different. First blue building up to bat was a figurative flashbang of colors. The walls were lined with fabrics of all colors each organized to make a spectrum. The center bits were way less organized with large metallic vats and a pretty heavily stained floor. The second blue building was pretty clearly designed for woodworking. If the plethora of chisels, saws, and discarded lacquer cans hadn¡¯t given it away, the bountiful piles of woodchips scattered on the floors sure did. Last one was the biggest and either a bakery or a metalworking shop. I¡¯m not quite sure since the lights were off and my range of vision was a bit limited with a camera that small. Near as I can figure, blue means the building is specialized for some manner of craftable material?
Red buildings I¡¯m still unsure about entirely. My second run around town did confirm that there are only a handful of the red buildings and the camera I did manage to get in only revealed a spartan room and a desk sporting some papers I couldn¡¯t read. Maybe that''s where the bureaucrats do their thing?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 43
Tried sending in another car though this time it didn¡¯t quite pan out. It¡¯s honestly fine since I didn¡¯t really have goal for today, I¡¯d just figured that my last two visits had established a tradition and the guards would be disappointed if I didn¡¯t show up today. I was kinda pushing it trying a third time in a row and they¡¯d pretty clearly planned for me showing up. Ended up getting chased all the way home, drone still in hand. If nothing else, today I really had it hammered home that the xythalaxns have an abundance of explosives and a great willingness to throw them at me.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 49.1
Today was a dreadful day. A no good horrendous day! It¡¯s raining and I broke my arm but more importantly it¡¯s raining!
Today¡¯s no good day started as it usually did, masquerading as a good day until I was too deep in its clutches to escape back to my bed to wait it out. Got up, had a bowl of cereal, and checked over my plants to get any weeds that may have sprung up. After that, I realized the sky was a bit overcast and a memory came back to me unbidden. Now I don¡¯t know if you remember from a few weeks ago but I¡¯d popped open part of the roof of the generator room and I¡¯d never actually come back to fix that.
Time being of the essence, I quickly jogged back to my workshop and grabbed the required supplies to get up onto the rooftop and seal everything back up. You might think this was where I¡¯d have made my mistake and man do I wish it was but no that came later. I was able to get the panel fitted properly anchored to the surrounding ones and then sealed around the edges. Slid down the ladder, a job well done and was prepared to head on out.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
This is when the doubts started. Not the usual ones where you wonder if you did actually turn off that oven or not but the ones where you question how good of a job you really did. Concerned that water may leak through my work, I decided to do a test. Got the ladder back out, turned on the water, and then hosed down the roof before running back inside to check. I got a little wet but not that big a deal right? Luckily, my patchwork seemed to hold and I was happily on my way. Brought the ladder back to my workstation and then promptly slipped on the bomb drone and landed on my left arm funny.
Didn¡¯t think much at the time but when the pain didn¡¯t go away after a while I decided to let the autodoc do a scan on me. Lo and behold, fractured forearm. A bit of local anesthetics later and the machine has splinted my arm. According to the machine, I need to keep the splint on for a minimum of 3 weeks and it¡¯d probably be for the best if I keep it on for up to 5. I can already tell this whole thing is going to be real annoying since the splint makes it impossible for me to effectively grab anything with my left hand. I¡¯m especially annoyed at this whole situation since I probably could have recovered if my left leg wasn¡¯t still a little weak from previous injuries.
And then it started raining to add insult to my literal injury! The audacity of the weather!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 49.2
I decided to treat myself for dinner to make up for today and pulled out some of the steak protein rations. As it would turn out, you traditionally do need two hands to be able to effectively use your knife. I considered just eating it with my one free hand caveman style for a bit before deciding I was classier than that. So classy in fact, I duct taped the knife to my splint and used it like that. Surprisingly, this was actually quite an effective method.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 51
Doing things one armed is much more difficult than I gave it credit for initially but I¡¯ve been especially feeling that sentiment while weeding. Since things have had a bit to dry, I¡¯d decided it¡¯d probably be fine for me to go and resume my weeding duties again. My speed when removing weeds has notably tanked and to my humiliation I even had to go get a trowel to uproot some of the particularly determined invaders. This being hurt thing sucks and I¡¯m of the personal opinion that it should be abolished.
On a more serious note, I should probably try avoiding doing too much manual work for a bit. Both my leg and arm need more time to heal
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 55
Did you know that clap on clap off lamps will not respond to chests, legs, or stomachs being smacked? They do however make an exception for when you smack your bald head in frustration and that information vaguely makes me want to die.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 56
I¡¯ve read through most of my reading material and have had to resort to the fanfiction Command has graciously supplied me. May God have mercy on my soul because this grammar certainly won¡¯t.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 58.1
I¡¯ve received an unexpected visitor to my base and I¡¯m not quite sure what to do. This whole mess had started with me bebopping over to the greenhouse like I usually. I am trying to take a break from physical work but between the automated sprinkler system and the fact the watering can easily be one handed, I can still manage the work pretty well. Gave the plants the usual once over while rambling about the inane things I¡¯d been reading and exited like normal.
Stepping out, I almost immediately heard movement and caught a glimpse of something jumping at me from the rooftop. Brain kicked into emergency mode and I responded as any reasonable human would by backhanding the threat and legging it for safety.
Then the crying started behind me and things got a whole lot more complicated. See, my mystery guest wasn¡¯t some random wild animal like I had originally thought but instead a small xythalaxn child¡ who was crying. His crying was high pitched, mournful, and immediately made me feel bad as if he hadn¡¯t tried jumping me not two seconds prior.
After cursing my soft and bleeding heart for a moment, I carefully picked the kid and checked him for injuries. Fortunately, he seemed to have managed to dodge anything worse than a mean bruise, no doubt thanks to his youthful vigor. Part way through the inspection, he stopped crying and kinda just stared at me all angry which I mean fair enough.
Decided to give him one of the protein rations which he quickly ate and now I have a new issue. He¡¯s kinda just staring at me expectantly now. What am I supposed to do in this situation? I¡¯ve not received any training for what to do here.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 58.2
This kid has no survival instinct. It''s now past late evening and dark which is an issue as he hasn¡¯t left yet. He¡¯s already plowed through the rest of the protein ration I opened earlier and is currently cracking into my meal for the evening. I probably¡ no definitely should have sent him away earlier but as mentioned before, my heart is soft, spongy and bad at that sort of thing.
Initially, it was just a lot of awkward milling around on both of our parts. For a bit, I was a bit concerned he was here to cause me problems but for the most part he¡¯s just looking around. When I started pulling up some of the weeds, he watched solemnly for a little while before beginning to emulate me, chattering away in his native language. I¡¯m not gonna lie, it was pretty dang cute.
Currently, I¡¯m heading about locking up any important places so he can¡¯t cause me any trouble. When I¡¯m done with this, I¡¯ll pull out one of the folding beds and get him set up for tonight in one of our garages. This feels really stupid but I¡¯m also not letting him out in the dark. I¡¯ve seen one too many dangerous predators lurking about the area to do that.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 59
Sent the kid off today with some poorly translated words in his own language telling him not to come back and stressing the danger of the place. No real issues on that front as he gladly ate more of my food before zipping off after I temporarily disabled the turrets.
I spent a bit of time last night trying to figure out how he managed to slip into my base unannounced and I think it''s a combination of a few things. I think the code I made to prevent the turrets from shooting random birds combined with what I suspect is a blind spot in my defenses. Basically, if he entered just right I can totally see the turrets ignoring him.
Ended up turning the turrets off again and walking around the outside until I found the spot. I¡¯ve put in a new camera so in theory I shouldn''t have to worry about other folks slipping through the cracks here. A small part of me is worried that he might try and come back so I¡¯ve also taken the liberty to increase the size of creatures that get ignored just in case. Figure it¡¯s better safe than sorry you know?
Chapter 9 - Boredom and Building
Colony Commander Sarlunt swerved a bit to avoid stepping through where the glass window shards had been on his way back to his desk. They had been swept up but he still preferred erring on the side of caution just in case anything had slipped through the cracks with the first sweeping. Making a mental note to go and check the other vandalized buildings again, he sat down at his desk and let out a long, suffering sigh when he saw what sat before him. Another report on that damned human.
Taking a bit of time to read through the content, Sarlunt was pleased to see that the disturbances had been relatively minimal though he would have preferred that his troops hadn¡¯t chased after the human directly. He¡¯d need to sit down and discuss that with the company leaders. Just because the human seemed unwilling to fight didn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t dangerous. The defenses he¡¯d set up proved that was anything but the case.
Sarlunt thanked the ancestors that the human wasn¡¯t causing serious problems though. The recent streak of what at worst could be called delinquency was a far cry better than the total war he¡¯d initially feared. It did confuse him that the human had denied all attempts at diplomacy through proper channels but with how many times a mob had formed outside his base, Sarlunt couldn¡¯t quite bring himself to hate the man for that. Tossing the paper onto the desk, he sighed again wishing this problem hadn¡¯t fallen into his lap. So many little things seemed to be slipping through the cracks.
Why did he have to be stuck with the weird human?
_____________
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 60
Well, good news I suppose. No visit from the little guy today. I¡¯d been concerned that he¡¯d make a habit of traipsing through my land and inevitably bringing down all of the local firepower directly onto my head but it seems we¡¯ve dodged that bullet this time.
I can tell I¡¯m getting particularly bored if this is the highlight of my week.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 64
Hey hey, guess who actually found something useful. Well I mean it''s not technically useful in the sense it provides utility but I mean¡ no¡ I don¡¯t know how to spin finding the assembly guide for the HARP as useful. It does help shove off the boredom but I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m willing to use that as a classification for usefulness. By that logic, falling off the roof could technically be considered useful even though it¡¯s actively making my life worse in every regard except boredom. Actually, this is definitely useful if it gets me something to do other than read that god awful fan fic. I wish I¡¯d had more casual reading stuff.
Aaaaanyways, I did find the assembly guide for the HARP. Steven had been keeping it on a completely separate thumb drive and I lucked out finding it. Fortunately, assembling this thing doesn¡¯t look terribly hard. The most challenging part originally would have been creating each of the pieces which I can neatly bypass for the most part with my printer. Once I have enough of the pieces made, it should just be a matter of welding, fastening, and attaching everything. Kinda like legos but with much greater potential for chaos and destruction!
By the way, I cannot understate how nice this 3D printer is. Most of the time, you have to pay a premium to be able to look at stuff like this and out here I get to make what I want every day with functionally no restrictions other than size. Shame the opportunity came with more downsides than I care to count.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 65
Welp, kid came back, tried jumping me again and everything. I caught him on the cameras as he was trying to sneak in. Turned off the turrets, locked up the dangerous bits of what I had been working on, and got ready to receive my guest. Initially, I¡¯d planned to send him away like last time but that train of thought was kinda lost in the weeds when I actually saw the guy in action.
I wouldn¡¯t say he¡¯s bad at stealth considering how he did manage to get the jump on me the first time we met but I¡¯m also not gonna say he¡¯s good at it with the whole running across the courtyard directly in my line of sight. After a bit of snuffling around on his part, he managed to find a decent enough ambush spot and settled down to wait for me. The whole time his little tail was going a million miles an hour. Obviously, I walked forward and he jumped out to latch onto my leg. Absolutely adorable. 10/10 would get jumped again.
He seemed to be in a stunning mood after a successful ambush and ran off to go and explore the rest of the base. At the time, I¡¯d kind of chuckled and let him do his thing but he returned a bit later with a length of rope and the rubber ball I¡¯d printed up some time ago. I don¡¯t know how he got his hands on either.
When he saw me though, he dropped the ball, ran up to me with the rope, and gave me one of the ends. I took it from him, a bit confused, before he gave me an expectant look, said something I didn¡¯t understand, wrapped the middle around his waist, and legged it the opposite direction as me. My end of the rope goes flying and he nearly faceplants.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
A few more charades and one sided conversations later and I get the idea he wants to play tug of war. Repeat of the last few steps but this time I actually hold on properly and the game is afoot. For someone barely clocking in at 3 ft, this kid had quite a strong pull.
After only a little bit of back and forth, I had to call it quits on account of my leg which he seemed to take more or less in stride. Tossing the rope to the side, he grabbed the ball and then gave me a very solemn look as he mimed throwing it and catching it while chattering on. I got the idea pretty fast but I am a little sad his impression of me is that dense.
In the end, we played catch for a while. I¡¯d throw the ball a pretty decent distance and he¡¯d run off to get it before running back and handing it to me. We rinsed and repeated until several hours had passed by and he decided to call it quits. I gave him some food before sending him off with the same instructions as last time to not come back. Once again, he dashed off scaling my walls with uncomfortable ease.
I¡¯m a little concerned about why he came back to my base. I¡¯d thought xythalaxns tended to be pretty group oriented but here he is on his own, a young kid who really should have some level of supervision. He also eats like it''s his final meal every time he shows up but I don¡¯t really know if that sort of thing is normal or not for his age.
Might just be that the kid is odd. After all, he ran up to someone of a different species and just started talking. Maybe I¡¯m missing some sort of cultural thing? Maybe playing ball has some sort of meaning I don¡¯t get?. Maybe it''s some sort of predator game? Humans have plenty of their own ¡°predator¡± style games?
¡
You know I¡¯m almost certainly overthinking this. I¡¯m pretty sure the dog alien had to teach me how to play fetch. Maybe he didn¡¯t underestimate me.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 67.1
Boredom has struck and I¡¯ve decided it''s time to reintroduce the invasive species known as the drone back into the xythalaxn¡¯s natural habitat. This time we¡¯re doing it in the air because I¡¯m not keen at the idea of being shot at while dropping off another RC car.
The design I¡¯m using for the flying drone I¡¯d made back when I was first being a pest so things were able to pretty quickly. Originally I¡¯d been considering doing a helicopter style drone but that had ended up being significantly more complicated than just going with a quadcopter. Printing, assembly, and testing all went off without a hitch within the span of an hour and badda bing badda boom I¡¯m ready. The steering leaves much to be desired but to be fair I didn¡¯t put any real work on it.
Now it¡¯s time to see my pretty fly!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 67.2
They shot my pretty out of the air. I should have seen this coming but somehow didn¡¯t.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 68
What if I solved the drone getting shot problem by candidly ignoring it? Lemme explain my thoughts.
Currently, the weakness of the flying drone strategy is that my drone can be shot out of the air before I get anywhere close to the town. I could try solving it but increasing the drone¡¯s durability but in order to weather the ordinance they like to throw around I¡¯d need to scale it up pretty significantly and that kind of defeats them being easy to make. Instead, I¡¯m going to try and use multiple drones. I figure if I can space them out enough, they can only stop so many at once and, by sheer dint of numbers, I should have at least one slip through their hands.
Since I can only really control one drone at a time, I can swap between them but that won¡¯t really do the trick if I have more than two drones deployed at a time. I¡¯ll need to set up an automated flight path for the ones I¡¯m not actively controlling and my current thought is that I just have them maintain altitude and fly in a straight line whenever I¡¯m not actively controlling them. It''s a bit simplistic and won¡¯t scale up indefinitely but that¡¯s fine for now. Scaling it up would mean actually adding some effort to making these things which would be a bit of a shame.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 69.1
The test run with 3 drones today was a great success. I was able to get them more or less circling around the top of my base without any big issues. I¡¯m ready for the big time.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 69.2
Man, they just shot all of them down! Unfair!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 70
I¡¯ve decided to stop being annoying for a little while. Not for any benevolent reason but it''s been getting windy and that makes it really hard to fly a drone. The weather has been getting rougher in general recently which has also had the side effects of giving the belated realization that I could finish up the job that had originally taken me out of the base. It¡¯ll take me a while to make a new weather spike but if there¡¯s one thing I have it¡¯s time.
I¡¯m a little concerned about trying to make the trip again but my splint should be coming off in a few days anyways so it should be fine so long as I take precautions. And by precautions, I mean I intend to go armed to the gills for this little trip. We are not having a repeat of last time.
On a much happier note, the kid showed up again today. Played some games with him for a little while before he ran off.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 74
All done building the weather spike. I definitely remember this taking longer last time but I suppose prior experience was helping to carry me through it.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 75
It is officially a pattern now. The kid shows up every 5 days. I can¡¯t help but wonder at the reasoning for it since it feels just a little too consistent to be some arbitrary decision.
Showed off the RC car I made but didn¡¯t end up getting used to him today. He seemed absolutely infatuated with the thing and had an absolute blast slamming it into my shins when I let him pilot it. I can hear my mom laughing at me in my head when that happened because I definitely did that to her too. Funny how things work out like that.
Chapter 10 - Who Needs to Know the Weather Anyways?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 76
If my recording software could pick up the clapping I¡¯m doing, you¡¯d be hearing quite a lot of it. Given that it has now officially been 28 days since my arm contracted a mild case of hurting from my inability to watch my step, I was able to swagger right on into the medbay to get verified that I could safely stop using the splint. Autodoc scanned my arm and told me that I should probably eat more vegetables, which is code for me being good to go. The splint is finally off and gone from my arm. I can eat cereal with two hands now! I mean, I won¡¯t but I can.
I¡¯m thinking I¡¯ll still keep things relatively light for the next few weeks in the interest of not having a relapse but that still means I can tackle a few of the tasks I¡¯ve been putting off. This especially means weather monitoring plan can finally start coming to fruition. I¡¯d already gotten most of the parts assembled so it should just be a matter of the final assembly and then suiting up to go and plant it. I¡¯m bringing a few extra tools this time to avoid any of the issues I had last time.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 77.1
Alright, I¡¯ve left the base and taken off into the great unknown¡ well maybe the great kinda known since I¡¯ve walked this way before. I made a few extra preparations but there are 3 that I think are particularly notably different from last time.
First, I¡¯ve made sure to take some dedicated mapping devices to avoid getting lost. Not one but multiple. Last time, I wandered around for some 3 days before I found my way back and I¡¯m not overly keen to have a repeat of that incident.
Second, I¡¯m traveling in combat gear. It¡¯s definitely a bit of a pain to wear for so long and I might catch a slight bit of heat stroke but the trade offs should be worth it. I survived that little fight on my last expedition due to a bit of luck on my part because if I¡¯d been a few feet any other direction, my limbs would probably have been in 4 different places. Power armor won¡¯t protect me from everything but I¡¯d like to increase my odds of survival as much as I can. At the very least, it should help keep me safe from any roving Bug Panthers. Power armor also has the added benefit of some light servo assisted movement which means that it helps move itself. There is the tiniest bit of delay in copying your movement but that¡¯s hardly noticeable once you¡¯ve gotten used to it. Those tiny delays do make it chafe something mean though.
Last little upgrade was me tying the weather spike to myself. It was such a pain to handle last time that I¡¯ve decided to circumvent that entirely by just not. I ended up using the rope the little guy had found and made a little holder with what remains of my boy scout knot tying knowledge. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m winning any awards for how neat it looks but it¡¯ll do for my purposes.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 77.2
Alright, I made it to the destination, planted the spike, and am now taking a water break. It took me a bit longer than anticipated to get the bottom half of the spike actually buried but I suppose the original plan involved me having a few extra folks around to help dig. Fortunately, the dirt here is relatively light so I was able to dig my hole, drop the spike¡¯s base in, and then fill in the surroundings with a bit of concrete in a relatively short amount of time.
Planning on sticking around a little bit longer to make sure that the whole thing is stable before heading out because the worst crime I could commit would be failing to secure it and having to come back out here later to redo set up. After I¡¯ve verified it won¡¯t tip like a surprised cow, I¡¯ll do one last performance check and head out. I¡¯ve one more stop on the way home and I¡¯d like a bit of extra time there.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 77.3
Well¡ I¡¯m back where everything started. This little clearing where my life flashed before my eyes several times over. I¡¯m glad I¡¯d grabbed the dog tags from the folks who¡¯d been here to guard me because nature had done its work and little remained of the bodies besides a few scraps. I made 5 memorials, 3 for us and 2 for the xythalaxns. Even if it wasn¡¯t much, I owe it to the guys who¡¯d come to stand guard over me and died for it. Godspeed soldiers, I didn¡¯t know you on a personal level but I¡¯ll come out here again with a better tombstone.
I made two for my former enemies as well since I had a bit of extra time and it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 78.1
After a very solemn trip through the forest last evening, I¡¯d tossed everything off to the side, showered real fast, and then slid into bed. Now that I¡¯m up this morning I¡¯ve noticed something a bit odd. The signals I¡¯m supposed to be getting from the spike I planted yesterday aren¡¯t coming through anymore. Naturally, I went to check the recording logs and I¡¯d been getting consistent updates for less than 30 minutes before it suddenly just stopped.
I valiantly resisted the urge to scream in despair like a man and instead have made some plans to fix this. I¡¯m almost certain that there is something physically wrong with the spike because there isn¡¯t any reason for my code to have broken at that time. If it were a code problem, the issue would have happened much sooner or some manner of event would have been noted in system memory. Neither happened which leads me to my suspicions.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Assuming that this is, in fact, a physical issue, I have to wonder what was the cause? The first thing that springs to mind is that some small woodland animal decided to beef with the random machine sitting out in the woods and in the process of beefing, it somehow caused permanent damage to the spike. I know there are a few animals that are big enough to cause the sort of damage that would total the spike entirely but to my understanding those guys tend to live quite far from here. Obviously, it could be some unknown animal like the Bug Panther but I find it highly unlikely anything big enough to knock it over would have completely avoided detection. Small external repairs are likely to be the main course for today¡¯s trip.
I suppose there is the second option of Zeus taking personal offense that I would dare to try and scan his domain but I rule that very unlikely.
There¡¯s a few things I can think of that might have broken for it to transmit perfectly fine initially only to change its tune like an hour later and all of them will be annoying to fix. Given that I¡¯m not going to be dragging out the whole weather spike this time, I can afford to bring a few extra tools and pieces I need so I can hopefully avoid making this trip again.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 78.2
Well, I¡¯m still pretty sure it was small animals still but damn they have hands. The weather spike was still standing when I arrived but a few panels on the outside of the spike looked like they¡¯d been pulled open. Unscrewed them and peaked inside and man whatever my mystery creature is sure did a number. Several of the diagnostic screens had scratches on them and a few of my neatly collected cords were cut. Fortunately for me, the screens weren¡¯t damaged badly enough they were unreadable and I¡¯d brought plenty of wire to replace the cut portions.
After getting everything fixed, I closed the panels and ran my tests again. The weather spike was talking with the base so I was good to go¡ Ish. The mystery animal could still come back and fuck things up so I spent a bit of time sealing everything up using the wonders of a blowtorch and melted plastic. It¡¯ll make it a pain in the butt to get back into the weather spike for future maintenance but it should be worth it in the short term.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 78.3
Nah. No way. Just¡ ugh. I just got back home and ran to check and make sure that the spike was taking to the base like it was supposed to. It made it a whole hour this time before going silent once again. I¡¯m going to lose my mind. I¡¯m going to have to walk that 5 hour hike for a 3rd time. I don¡¯t have it in me!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 79
I suppose there was a third option I didn¡¯t consider for why my stuff might be broken. The xythalaxns might have gotten involved. I say this because the entire top half of the weather spike appears to have been blown to smithereens which neatly put a hole in my small animal theory. I suppose the Zeus option isn¡¯t off the table yet with this new evidence though I will say the skies were clear almost all of yesterday.
The xythalaxns being the responsible party makes the most sense now but it does have some pretty disturbing implications. First, they either saw me making the weather spike or they monitored me as I was leaving the base with it. There¡¯s no reason for them to be out this far in the woods for anything besides following me. Second, they managed to tail me for 5 total hours and completely avoided my detection for the entire time. Mind you, I wasn¡¯t keeping a particularly close eye out but the fact that they presumably did do that is kind of unnerving. This unnerving nature is compounded by the third implication, the weather spike was blown to pieces which means they most certainly had the explosive means to take me down.
I¡¯m briskly walking back to the base now but I think that when I get home, I¡¯m going to lay low for a little while. No sense in risking death just to get weather forecasts.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 80
The sun is setting and the kid didn¡¯t show up today. I think my mystery stalker may have caught him on his way here which I think is technically for the best. Every time he approaches the base, there is some risk that my turrets go off and he gets hurt no matter how effective my code may be. There are also additional concerns for me that if the xythalaxns think I kidnapped him, they properly bring the hammer down.
It has not been lost on me that I am outnumbered 300 to 1 and no defense is absolute. My best defense is by me not being enough of an issue to the point they feel it''s worth the resources and manpower to deal with me. To be fair to me, I¡¯m confident that I¡¯d have to really be causing problems to reach that point¡ like kidnapping their kids.
Sigh
Ahh well, mopey, sad thoughts aside, I was able to get some good work done today. The sapling orchard has been weeded and I was able to start making progress towards a functional HARP. Technically speaking, it was just some of the extremities but hey, progress is progress.
____________
Glysia watched as her friend¡¯s son walked through the forest for a moment more before deciding to step out and intervene.
¡°Well hey there kiddo, what do you think you are doing?¡±
The young xythalaxn jumped guiltily causing Glysia to chuckle to herself, like mother like son it would seem, ¡°I don¡¯t recall your mom saying you could wander the forest like this.¡±
The young xythalaxn sputtered for a few moments as he tried to think of an answer, ¡°Momma uhhh¡ Momma said I could learn farming and my friend farms!¡±
Glysia felt an ear flick with amusement, ¡°But did she say you could come this far out? You do know the human lives very close to here, yes?¡±
¡°Yeah! My friend managed to lock up the human! He¡¯s really strong even though he¡¯s really short. Plus he can build all kinds of cool things! He isn¡¯t very smart though-¡±
Figuring this could continue for some time, Glysia decided to shortcut the conversation and jumped in, ¡°It''s good to make such an interesting¡ friend though how did you get to his house? I¡¯m told the area is quite dangerous.¡±
The young xythalaxn tilted his head in confusion, ¡°I just walk there?¡±
¡°Just walk there?¡±
¡°Yeah wanna see?¡±
¡°No, I think I¡¯m fine.¡± Glysia intoned sweetly all the while shifting closer to the kid.
Sensing something was off, the kid turned to run only for Glysia¡¯s arm to shoot out, grab him by the collar, and lift him into the air, ¡°Lets go talk to your mom ok?¡±
Chapter 11 - Codes and Diplomats
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 82
I¡¯ve definitely been walking around in a bit of a haze today. Last night was kinda rough sleepwise on account of a few xythalaxns that decided to make some noise around the perimeter. It wasn¡¯t like what I¡¯ve come to usually expect with a few yelling at me from the border of the danger zone while lobbing the occasional shot my way. This group looked decidedly more dangerous. I wasn¡¯t up for the beginning but they kinda just lurked near the edge of the forest only really coming close enough to be spotted once.
I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯re up to something but I haven¡¯t the foggiest clue what. None of the sensors installed seemed to register anything out of the ordinary which makes me particularly nervous. Better the devils you know and all that right? Weirdly, I¡¯d feel waaaaay more comfortable if they at least shot something at the field but no, nothing. Very ominous.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 84
I¡¯ve decided to work on getting the cockpit for the HARP functional. In a lot of ways, the HARP is very much an oversized and overcharged version of the basic combat gear where it will watch your movements and then copy them about as fast as it can. The HARP is actually a decent bit better at this since it can afford to dedicate much more of its space to processing power.
All this said, I¡¯ve been running into a bit of an issue where I don¡¯t actually have the required code and unlike my flying drones, I¡¯ll actually want to make sure I do this well. Fortunately for me, a lot of what the HARP does is replicated in the normal power armor so I¡¯ll have a better than decent starting place to launch from and get things modified to work. Unfortunately for me, I¡¯ve never had the chance to mess with code like this and it is obscenely complicated on top of that. I¡¯m going to need a few days at minimum to pick through this and I may need to go and pick through my old college textbooks again.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 85.1
Alright, this has once again been a very spicy morning. I¡¯m currently barricading the main entrance to the cafeteria, my right leg has gone completely numb, and I¡¯m not having a good time.
A bit of context perhaps, when I woke up today the base sensors told me that I had a visitor. Given that it¡¯s day 85, I kinda figured it was the kid so I went about my normal routine and stumbled over to the cafeteria to make myself some coffee. Weirdly enough, I don¡¯t think actually need coffee anymore.
As I arrived at the cafeteria and fumbled about for a bit trying to get the door open, I caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of my eye. Gave what I thought was the kid a wave and then pushed the door open right as the taser round hit my leg.
For those of you participating at home, you may have guessed by now that my visitors were not in fact the kid. They were far too big and mean to be him and frankly being quite rude for how early in the morning it was. As soon as I felt the shot land, I yanked the door open, fell inside, and locked it behind me. With this table the door should hold for now but I don¡¯t expect it to la-
Crashing sounds in the distance
Ah nice, I think they found an alternative entrance. I¡¯m gonna see if I can¡¯t hobble somewhere to hide now.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 85.2
So... I suck at both hide and seek and 1 legged races.
Best I can tell, it¡¯s around midday right now and I¡¯m currently sitting in a xythalaxn detaining room after my daring escape attempt. I had bravely hid in a closet until I thought the coast was clear and then began hobbling my way to the engineering bay. This was apparently, an anticipated move as several were waiting there for me and promptly lit me up with more of those funny little electric rounds. Naturally, I drop like a sack of rocks.
After shooting me a few more times for good measure to reeeally make sure I wasn¡¯t getting up, hint I wasn¡¯t, one of them tossed a bag over my head and then picked me up in a fireman¡¯s carry. I don¡¯t really understand what the deal was with covering my eyes given that I¡¯ve seen the inside of their town in no uncertain terms but I mean, hey, it did make ¡®em look like a cool spec ops team.
A lot of jostling around and general movement later and I¡¯m unceremoniously dumped into a large prison cell before removing the bag my head. The adobe looking building material combined with the prison bars had me thinking I was dropped into a wild west film for a brief moment. After slapping restraints on my forearms, they¡¯ve since fucked off and haven¡¯t returned. They didn¡¯t even bother checking me over which feels like a bit of an oversight but to be fair, I can barely move with all the taser rounds in me.
I hope they return soon because I never actually got anything to eat this morning.
Xythanlaxn-Human Diplomatic Video Recording 1
The camera focused on Henry sitting slumped against a metal table. It¡¯s quite easy to see he¡¯s a bit bored as he slowly tested the limits of his movement, grunting in discomfort as small glowing devices occasionally administer shocks to his limbs. A click sounded from the metal door to the side and an averaged sized xythalaxn male entered the room and took a seat. Colony Commander Sarlunt placed what appears to be a small speaker and microphone on the table.
Shifting on his stool, Henry grinned weakly, ¡°G¡¯morning, I don¡¯t suppose I could trouble you for a bit of food and drink?¡±
The xythalaxn sighed and began speaking in a quiet voice. ¡°I am Colony Commander Sarlunt Xyavanna. We received the following recording from the rest of your group. I¡¯ll¡. I¡¯ll see if I can¡¯t get you something appropriate to eat. In the meantime please listen to this¡± Sarlunt hit a small button on the speaker before stepping out of the room.
A deep voice booms through.
¡°Henry, this is Commander Benton of the Boreas. We are currently under attack and I have a number of things that I need to tell you but first of all I feel the need to apologize. About 30 days ago we received word that you had survived and were asked to come and get you. I could make a plethora of excuses but we left you alone on that planet and that is inexcusable. I pray you will someday find it in yourself to forgive us. Back onto more pressing matters, when we realized you¡¯d survived, we dropped out of slipspace to attempt a proverbial U-Turn where we were immediately attacked. It seems we had the misfortune to stop quite close to a lurking pirate fleet. Our accompanying cargo ships came under fire almost immediately as we arrived but we managed to slip away with the bulk of our people. We are currently retreating but at this point, it is unlikely we will be able to slip our pursuers.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Now based on our ships¡¯ designs, it should be pretty obvious that we were a colony fleet and when the pirates realize we don¡¯t have any of the construction materials, they have any know how they will likely trace our path back to you. If so, you will have half a year at most before they are able to locate the colony.
With this message, I am sending a few things to help. First, I am sending a code that should give you full authorization levels over everything in the base. Make sure to check through my account in particular as I think there¡¯ll be a few things you¡¯ll want. Second, I am officially promoting you to acting diplomat for the colony in order to establish relations with the xythalaxns. My understanding at the moment is there is more than meets the eye and we were greatly premature to cut our losses when we did. Your new status as human diplomat should serve to help
Once again, I¡¯m greatly sorry I cannot help you any more. Best of luck and Godspeed.
Captain Radley Benton signing off.¡±
Henry sat in silence for a few moments thinking over the message. After a few moments, Sarlunt reentered the room to place a small data chip on the table in front of Henry. ¡°We received this message about 2 weeks ago along with what my tech people tell me are your codes. We¡¯d hoped you¡¯d received that also and have been attempting to reach out. Unfortunately, you have been... most uncooperative as far as communications go.¡±
Henry shrugged as best as he could, ¡°I don¡¯t know what you want from me. There¡¯s never been any real reason for me to add a vulnerability to my electronics and your people have been taking potshots at me since forever. It¡¯s understandable if we are enemies, expected even, but if you say something about how I¡¯m supposed to just stick my head out so I can listen, you''ve got another thing coming.¡°
Grimacing, Henry would push himself off the table, a snarl forming at the edge of his mouth, ¡°The actual audacity to tell me I should have been listening when you lot started firing on us first¡±
Sarlunt sat down across from the man, ¡°First, do not raise your voice at me. You are in our territory and subject to our laws. Second, we did not start this conflict, your people did. Third, you¡¯ve done nothing but make yourself a nuisance since returning to your base making any attempts at communication fall through before they even begin¡±
¡°Your territory?¡± Henry snarled, ¡°We made our agreement before we even landed. Smoked the whole peace pipe and everything and you want to tell me that this is yours?! Furthermore, we were literally just walking when your fucking super weapon-¡±
As he pushed himself up in a haze of anger, the shock rounds still embedded in Henry go off as one. Light rapidly extinguished from his eyes, Henry fell to the ground unconscious.
Sarlunt sighed, ¡°We should probably get those removed.¡±
The metal door clicked as another xythalaxn entered the room, saw the scene, and quietly stepped back out.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 86.1
I¡¯ve woken once again to a whole new room. It¡¯s nicer than the wild west jail cell but I don¡¯t know if thats a particularly big achievement. My datapad was left nicely on the desk with a very sad looking plate of what I think might be food and water. Seems they¡¯ve determined that they¡¯ll treat me as a diplomat so long as I behave and I don¡¯t know if I have it in me to get angry again.
Situation isn¡¯t great right now but I mean at the very least they¡¯ve removed those stupid taser rounds from all over me. Silver linings. According to my datapad, my little stunt had me snoozing through the entire back half of yesterday which puts me nicely at an entire day since I¡¯d been grabbed. Feels like it''s been an incredibly long time and short time both.
If what they told me yesterday was true, everyone I know from the colony project is probably dead to pirates at this point. I¡¯m going to try and not think about the reality of that situation for now though and try and do something actionable.
I don¡¯t know what they gain from lying at this point but I remember what I remember. We were walking and then got hit by their thing well before we even knew they were there. I just don¡¯t get it.
Sigh
Until I can check the passcode Command allegedly gave them, I can¡¯t really be certain that they are telling the truth. The message sure sounded like the boss but these things have been known to be spoofable and I¡¯m sure if I were in their position I¡¯d love for my prisoner to be compliant and work with me. Work with them for what? I don¡¯t know. Maybe they want me to build them some shields or something?
I hear some people approaching my cell, so I¡¯m ending the log for now.
Xythanlaxn-Human Diplomatic Video Recording 2
Sarlunt sat at the table, leafing through a small binder as Henry entered the room and quietly took a seat on the given stool before scooting it a bit to more comfortably lean against one of the near walls..
¡°You called?¡±
The xythalaxn matched his human counterpart somewhat and relaxed his composure. ¡°After our last meeting, it occurs that we got off on the wrong heel.¡±
¡°The expression is wrong foot but yeah.¡±
Sarlunt would frown and nod, ¡°I¡¯ll see if I can¡¯t get that updated then. I apologize for how yesterday¡¯s meeting ended up going. As Colony Commander, I should have acted with greater respect towards you.¡±
¡°Yeah well¡ .¡± Henry sighed, ¡°Let''s just get to business. What do you want from me? Am I gonna be working to build you shield platforms for the rest of my life?¡±
¡°No no, nothing like that,¡± Sarlunt stated as he pulled a sheet of paper out from his folder and slid it across the table.
Picking it up, Henry would quickly skim through it, ¡°What¡¯s this?¡±
¡°A peace treaty. Those are some of the finer details but it would essentially open us up for a certain amount of trading and mutual defense.¡±
Henry spent some time looking at the paper before looking up, ¡°If you¡¯re willing to let me wait until I test that code from Command, I¡¯m not explicitly opposed to most of this. I¡¯m not super thrilled about the line where I¡¯d need to have one of your military types breathing down my shoulder. Can that be removed?¡±
¡°We¡¯d prefer not. We wish to foster a certain amount of cooperation between our people and I¡¯m told thats best done through time together. In addition, we would need to ensure your safety as an official diplomat. The woman we have in mind is a xenobiologist and diplomat making her uniquely suited to help you. She was who I largely consulted for the writing of this treaty.¡±
¡°If you have to then. I don¡¯t reckon I¡¯ll need much help though.¡±
¡°Your the scar on your left leg would suggest otherwise¡±
¡°Fine, let¡¯s say that I do agree. Is this person just going to follow me around and annoy me?¡±
The xythalaxn gave a toothy grin, ¡°As deliciously ironic as that would be no. Her job will be to act as a go-between for us making sure both parties are getting what they need. If you wish, I can see to it you¡¯re released to check the codes and formalize our agreement and she¡¯ll show up tomorrow. I believe you may know her son.¡±
¡°Ahh shoot she¡¯s the mom of the kid? Nice. That sounds agreeable to me.¡±
¡°Excellent¡±
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 86.1
I¡¯m currently back at the base and the codes check out. Bastard was probably telling the truth about that at the very least and if that''s true then the rest of what he said may be true¡ that¡¯s not what I wanted to find out.
Sigh
Guess I¡¯m signing a peace treaty.
Chapter 12 - Doctors and Diets
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 86.2
It¡¯s been a long day of cleaning and preparing for my new ¡°guests¡±. The base should more or less be in a presentable state now that I¡¯ve cleaned up some of the garbage I¡¯ve been staring at for months and saying I¡¯ll hit it tomorrow. I can¡¯t say I know anywhere close to enough to have all their needs met so they¡¯ll have to be lenient with me.
After getting all my stuff prepared, I powered down my turrets and opened up the communication channels again. The original idea had been to check and see if there were any updates from Sarlunt. The reality of the situation is that every tech nerd on their side spammed my inbox with enough junk to cause my computer to crash three times before I managed to delete enough of it. I can¡¯t say much though because like I¡¯ve always said, turnabout is fair play.
It wasn¡¯t all in vain though as my soon to be guests did send me a message through Sarlunt. She gave me her name and her son¡¯s name, Darana and Bayfur Yantee. It also had some credentials listed which is cool butI have zero clue what any of those things mean. The fuck is an ¡°Incottsor¡±?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 87
It occurred to me this morning that I was actually told when to expect my guests other than ¡°around midday¡±. In a moment of decision paralysis, I opted to sit on a lawn chair on top of the wall instead of doing anything useful. Naturally I got little bored and eventually fell asleep. Nice little daytime nap you know? Well, it was until I felt some sharp stabs as the kid, Bayfur I guess, pounced onto my shoulders with his normal levels of glee and bit down. I¡¯d say I handled it well but in reality, I flailed my arms about until I fell out of my chair. After my moment of panic, I was able to pull the kid off my back and go find his mom
I found Ms. Darana Yantee as she was wrapping up moving her stuff into the base. I don¡¯t know how she found the room I¡¯d cleared out for her on her own but more power to her I guess. As an aside, I know that I haven¡¯t spent much time with them but man I always forget how big xythalaxns are and this one was no exception. Even if I¡¯d had high heels on to add a few inches, she would still be at least half a foot taller than me.
Naturally, we exchanged greetings and I gave her a tour around the base to give her an idea about where everything was. She seems to already understand human common language and customs so that part actually went by pretty quickly. I showed her the sapling orchard, engineering central, and then gave an overview of what sorts of stuff we had before looping back around to the dining hall. Ran into a snag with the bedding situation where she was taller than anything I had but fortunately she brought a sleeping mat. Tomorrow, I''m thinking I¡¯ll show her some of the basic base functions and see if we can also get her a proper mattress. I don¡¯t know if I fully trust her but she seems nice enough.
I just need to make sure I don¡¯t say the name wrong again. Yain-tee? Yawn-tee? Yuan-tee? Won-tee ... One Deaged.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 88
Today, I took Darana on my usual rounds and gave her the basics on how I keep the base running. I feel slightly embarrassed because a lot of stuff just isn¡¯t in super great condition. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I¡¯ve been keeping all the stuff I¡¯ve been using consistently in good repair but I can only keep up with so much stuff on my own. As a result, there may be a few of the redundant systems that have fallen to the wayside. Because look, I¡¯m in the middle of a forested mountainous area and if I need four wetsuits and 40 hours of oxygen in order to survive, I think I just take the L and perish.
It was both fun and a little sad when I showed her and Bayfur how our food machine worked. Most of our food is kept sealed up to prevent issues like mold or bacteria. End result is not the greatest food but it still tastes pretty decent. Kinda like fast food where it isn¡¯t anything to write home about but you still enjoy it. Anyways, the kid tackled meal time with his usual excitement, practically bouncing off the walls and Darana seemed almost confused. I didn¡¯t think much about it until later into the day when I caught Darana just scrolling through the menu. When I asked her what she was up to, she gave a little guilty jump.
Apparently, the war crime of a paste that they had tried feeding me in the cell was the main supplement for most of the colony. They apparently had some issues that cropped up while they were transporting the normal food and they ended up losing most of it. As a result, decent food is something of an expensive commodity that she hadn¡¯t been able to really afford. She tried to be all nice about not eating too much of my nice foods. I told her to get whatever she wanted. Like, I have at least six months of prepped food for a base full of people who aren¡¯t here anymore, I don¡¯t give a flying fuck if she eats bacon with a side of bacon.
I know Sarlunt talked a little bit about trade so maybe I pull out some of the stored food and trade it for¡ something. Not a clue what I would trade it for though. Most of the luxury goods that they have probably aren¡¯t designed for me and I can make anything basic I need using my printers. Maybe their printers can make higher quality material than mine but if they are responsible for spitting out that horrific paste, I wouldn¡¯t bet on it.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Food bits aside, I also took today to show Darana around the med ward. I gave her a basic rundown on how to power the machines and gave her a few of the manuals for the various machines and the autodoc. Its actually so nice I¡¯m actually able to get my hands on these things now that I have the master code for the base.
After, I left her working through the manuals as I went about my daily maintenance work with Bayfur. I swear to you I was only gone for like 3 days no matter what the state of my garden may tell you. It¡¯s like the weeds knew I got grabbed and are trying to make up for lost time. Jokes on them though because I have Bayfur and he has been helping me wack some of them back. Speaking of him, the kid has been having an absolute grand old time as of late. He brings a sort of vibrancy to the place and it''s just nice to have him around again.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 90
Darana finished the manuals earlier today, just a little after breakfast. She asked if she could run a test check up on me to make sure she knew how to use the various machines and to also get a general idea of my health. I told her I¡¯m a bit of a busy guy but should be able to schedule her in sometime after morning chores. She gave me an expression that I can only assume to be the xythalaxn version of the raised eyebrow.
When I showed up in the med bay later in the day, she had all the machines set up and ready. All I had to do was stick my arm in this and that and wait for her to do a few scans on me. While the scans were in progress, we chatted for a little bit discussing random things. I was telling her about one of my college stories when she asked if she could try the blood test features on the autodoc. Now, I¡¯m a bit of a bitch when it comes to needles and began telling her as much when she hit a button and the machine stuck me. Naturally, I yelled at a highish pitch because doctors are supposed to warn you well ahead of time so you can avoid the appointment and they most certainly aren¡¯t supposed to give you surprise blood withdrawals. It¡¯s. Just. Wrong. She didn¡¯t even seem remorseful either!
According to her, my blood content was a little off in a few categories and my diet could stand to see some correction but apparently my arm was doing really well. I¡¯m glad to get some professional verification because I¡¯d just removed the splint from my arm when enough time had passed and the machine was telling me it was ok. Technically I could have still had fractures but today has removed the last of those doubts!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 91
Seeing Darana finish the manuals yesterday brought a brief but sudden desire to do something ¡°properly productive¡± with my time. I decided to finally go through Steve¡¯s machine and get all the files out unscrambled. Now that I can see the names of stuff, a whole new world of interesting stuff to throw at the xythalaxn base has been unlocked. Frankly, I¡¯m the most excited to find bumper kart schematics.
On a more serious note, I also took some time to go through Command¡¯s notes about ¡°the incident¡± and a few things actually make a little less sense now. The base had gotten hit by the same thing that we did out in the forest and with the arrival of injured groups they¡¯d assumed the worst. Makes sense so far but they only targeted my team. Apparently, the other two groups were still doing their thing when they were evacuated. If they were going to try and fight us, why only hit one group? It just doesn¡¯t quite make sense. Since communications are back open again, I shot a few messages off to Sarlunt with a few questions.
Maybe since we¡¯re technically allies now, he¡¯ll tell me how he fucked with my stuff. I¡¯m not holding out hope for that though.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 92.1
I can¡¯t believe I agreed to let that woman stay in the base. First, she sticks me with a needle and now she¡¯s after my food. She caught me pretty early today when I was getting out my normal cereal. It¡¯s an important meal and what you eat can impact how you feel the rest of the day. I¡¯d like to think that my usual breakfast gives me a sense of hope, wonder, and a nice little sugar high.
Now, there could be an argument made that my choices are ¡°suboptimal¡± or ¡°actively detrimental to my health¡± which may or may not have some basis in facts but that''s mostly fine. However, a recommendation to the audience at home, if your friendly neighborhood xenobiologist asks ¡°what are you eating?¡±, if your answer is miniature Oreos in milk with a brisk mug of coffee... lie to her.
I made the mistake of being honest and told her the truth. After spending a moment trying to find what I was eating, she pulled up the health statistics for my meal and her eyes got real big. According to her, my meal can put down several small forest creatures. I let her know that I was fortunately not a forest critter and that I¡¯d eaten worse in college. She didn¡¯t seem to like that answer and told me I should have ¡°sOmE fRuItS aNd PrOtEiN¡± for a better breakfast. Now, I¡¯m a reasonable person but a man has to take a stand for something he believes in. Oreos for breakfast are my god-given right! I¡¯ll not have my breakfast ritual stopped for some measly thing like personal health and Darana can¡¯t do anything to stop that!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 92.2
It¡¯s about 30 minutes since the last log and while I know what I said earlier, it is no longer true. She can and will stop me. She¡¯s stolen the box of cereal I already had out and somehow locked the ones in the dispenser behind a password. One that I can¡¯t circumvent using the master key. Attempts at diplomacy have fallen through as apparently my desire for good food as the diplomat does not supercede her orders as resident doctor and expert of health. I tried using puppy dog eyes on her completely forgetting that she already literally has a puppy and is immune to such tactics. I got laughed out of the cafeteria.
Just because she¡¯s right, doesn¡¯t mean she has to actually be good to my health. Let me rot away! Honestly, first with the poking of needles and now the stealing of oreos. This woman was sent as an elaborate ruse to get me off the planet. What a menace!
Chapter 13 - Mysteries and Missiles
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 93
Got a message back today from Sarlunt and it¡¯s caused me to do a bit of sleuthing. Concerning the question about the inciting incident, he¡¯s saying the humans fired on the xythalaxns first. Now if you wanna be real technical, we did fire first since our guns went off before the xythalaxns started blowing things up but that doesn¡¯t tell the whole story. He sent out a team of 4 and only one made it back and they died shortly after returning. The important bit of info here is that that individual had to return in person since their communications were down.
Since this was so close to my experience, I figured something kinda stunk here so I decided to dig a bit on my side. Using the master code, I got my hands on the reports to Command right before everything went to shit. According to what I read, all humans got hit by whatever was going on at the same time. Communications went on the fritz and then after a few hours the shields exploded along the walls. Around this time, the remains of my team arrived back to tell their story.
Figured from here, I¡¯d want to check the diagnostic records for the shield generators. I¡¯d not thought to check them initially since I thought the xythalaxns blew them up a lot more directly but the reports to Command seem to imply that it happened on its own. Now, records showed normal behavior right up until roughly when we started experiencing issues with our communications. From there, the wattage started to creep up in each despite no changes in the generator. This happened evenly with all of them at roughly the same rate. Eventually, the generators had had enough and filed for a divorce with our reality. They took the original generator in the proceedings.
The main takeaways here are that this wasn¡¯t a localized thing and that this required enough power to overload our stuff. I should say that the amount required isn¡¯t by any means a small amount. Overloading multiple shield generators like this would require a small spaceship¡¯s energy. To hit such a massive area with such effectiveness, the xythalaxn¡¯s would basically need an entire battleship for something like or to somehow have revolutionized energy production. This is nonsensical for a number of reasons but primarily is that if they have that level of power available, they can just focus it on the base and fry us without having to go through any level of subterfuge. My shields are good but they aren¡¯t that good.
All this seems to point to the issues being related to something else that isn¡¯t the xythalaxns. I¡¯ll ping Sarlunt asking if he knows about anything that happened that day.
That info blast wasn¡¯t the only thing I got in the email though. I was also able to find out how the xythalaxns managed to get into the base and it honestly makes me really mad. See they figured out that Brayfur was obviously somehow exempt from my criteria of things to blow into tiny pieces. You wanna know how they managed to get past the defenses I worked so hard on?
They crouched down and waddled in.
Sigh
I just don¡¯t have it in me to be mad at that because it makes sense just¡ I don¡¯t know, it feels bad to be circumvented so easily. I guess I¡¯m a sore loser like that.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 94.1
Alright, it''s official, I hate the planet. The weather can just blow my shit up because why not. It''s cool, it''s cool, I¡¯m cool.
Sigh
So, I got screwed over by an ionic storm. I¡¯m not a meteorologist so I only have a vague understanding of what exactly it means but the long and short of it is that if I use certain tech during an ionic storm, it¡¯ll misfire or even worse explode on me. My shields are particularly weak to this sort of interference and there isn¡¯t particularly much I can do besides deactivate them in the event one of these storms happens. I can add faraday cages to help my tech avoid catching hands passively but activating anything energy based will be very dangerous.
A bit of testing showed that, yes, this event can just cause the rail guns we have to misfire so now I have to disassemble our weapons to prevent any misfirings in the future and spend the next few days making the aforementioned faraday cages. I¡¯m so mad.
The thing that makes this all worse is that this finally gives me the full story. There were no secret weapons, no malicious plots, just stupid blind, gamble in the casino and win big, levels of luck. A blind firing some 4 hours out from the base and we hit the poor motherfuckers walking through the woods trying to eliminate a threat to everyone. Now things have escalated and I don¡¯t wanna be here!
Oh yeah and that means the message about space pirates is probably true and that means its 50/50 on whether or not they¡¯re on their way here to Yo Ho my ass and take my shit. Jokes on them though I¡¯m going to have an aneurysm before they arrive.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 94.2
Currently hiding out in the generator room eating an ice cream with the kid. Originally I hid myself because I wanted to cool down before talking to anyone but I guess I¡¯m not half as sneaky as I¡¯d have liked. Fortunately, I¡¯m not the only ice cream lover around here and he¡¯s been bribed into silence with a bit of my bounty. Don¡¯t worry though, I¡¯m responsible¡ish, most of the time, and checked to make sure that he could have some of this. Interestingly enough, xythalaxns can eat a lot more various things than humans but they just can¡¯t handle nearly as much of certain types of things but I digress.
Kid ran in on me and was all over the dish asking if I could have some. Now, I grew up with two younger siblings so I really should have known better than to try and get some sweets without being found out. The one issue now is that I can¡¯t eat as much as I¡¯d like since I need to set a good example. You know at some point, I need to set up a proper translator so that I can talk to him properly. Probably be nice to make one for Darana too, thinking about it.
I¡¯ve been giving some thought to the pirates. They want my stuff and will most certainly kill me for it. If they can take the base, it seems likely that they¡¯ll just turn their guns on the xythalaxns soon afterwards so I should probably defend it to some degree. Yet, if I defend my base too well they might decide it''s not worth the effort and just go after the xythalaxn¡¯s stuff instead. I don¡¯t either situation really counts as a win. Ironically, the one silver lining to this whole scenario is that these people want my stuff which means that they can¡¯t just drop rocks from orbit if they want to recover anything. In theory I could just surrender my stuff to them but I doubt that any agreements would even hold as I imagine their line of work breeds a good bit of ruthlessness and bad people.
I¡¯ll need to talk to Sarlunt about it but it¡¯d likely be worth while to set up some anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic launchers. No planetary defense is absolute but if we make ourselves enough of an obnoxious target they might not even want to deal with us and will just leave. I mean if they come here, we¡¯ll probably have issues one way or another but you have to set yourself up as much as you can you know?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 95
Today was a busy day. Spent the first half in the workshop working on trying to get the HARP into usable shape. I figure that if I¡¯m going to try and help with moving any of the planetary defense stuff, it¡¯d be handy to have an actual vehicle that¡¯d let me work solo. Better yet though, the HARP will allow me to bring a nice source of power and since I¡¯m still in the building stage I can augment it to dodge problems with ion storms. With the new master code, I was able to find some better software for the HARP. It isn¡¯t completely set up but between what I already have and the bit I got, I¡¯ll have that set up in the next few days rather than weeks like I¡¯d feared.
I also took a bit of time to head into town with Darana to speak with Sarlunt. She¡¯d planned her first rendezvous to give updates so I decided to tag along to talk in person about how we¡¯d set things up. Entering town I got no small amounts of funny looks but that kinda makes sense considering how our relationship had been up until like a week ago. When we arrived at Sarlunt¡¯s office, the red building I¡¯d spotted apparently, we ended up getting delayed for like 10 minutes. I may not understand the language itself but the message that I wasn¡¯t welcome was plenty clear. Sucks for them though because I do not care in the slightest but Darana seemed to be willing to tear into them plenty.
When I finally did get inside, I was brought to Sarlunt¡¯s office which was a little depressing to look at for a man that holds the title of Colony Commander. The place seemed to be devoid of happiness, only sporting a desk piled high with papers, a small computer, and the man of the hour himself. Darana turned over her report before assuring me that she¡¯d stick around to help as needed. After he quickly read through it, Sarlunt pulled out the translator device from our last meeting and we got down to brass tacks.
It was definitely a bit surreal planning with the guy since he lead off the conversation on cooperation by pulling out a paper map to help us plan. I feel the need to emphasize this here because my mans whipped out a whole ass rolled up, slightly fringed, treasure planet lookin¡¯ paper map. He said he liked the feel of it over the holomaps when I asked. Fair play I guess but still weird.
In the end, he¡¯d been thinking along the same lines as me and had a few locations in mind. I offered to take a handful of local areas which got a bit of a surprised look but he seemed ok with it. I figure once I have the HARP ready in a week or two I¡¯ll be able to move supplies quite well. In the end, it was decided that we¡¯d need to compare my tech with the xythalaxn¡¯s tech but I don¡¯t foresee any problems so long as we can get our systems talking.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 96
Spent today getting a translator set up. I can¡¯t talk to anyone on my own so I figure it¡¯ll be worthwhile to get something thrown together. Fortunately, I literally didn¡¯t need to do anything aside from some light calibration since we have a few from the early days when we arrived in the system. The whole thing is fairly easy to wear with an earpiece that translates their language to mine and a small speaker/microphone that does the opposite. Bayfur seemed to think it was pretty cool to be able to talk to me and had apparently been ready to tell me all sorts of things to me all at the same time.
Not everything translated properly which I suspect might be a mispronunciation problem given Bayfur¡¯s age. One work in particular, ¡°farlish¡± came up commonly as his nickname for me. After bringing that excitable conversation to an end, I hunted down the resident human whisperer to see if I couldn¡¯t figure out what the words I was missing. Darana told me that farlish apparently is a mispronunciation of uncle in their language.
My weak heart is melting.
Chapter 14 - Peer Review
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 98
It''s Show and Tell day today where I showed off the missile platform I made and then the xythalaxns told me I needed to build it differently. Then we got into the classical engineering fist fight where the victor of a bracket style tournament was declared the Greater Engineer. Little did they know I¡¯ve years of intensive arcade punching machine experience under my belt and they didn¡¯t stand a chance.
Fun fact, did you know those machines can sometimes be tricked with a sheet to paper? Some of the punching machines measure the ¡°strength¡± of a punch by how fast a little light they have is blocked and then unblocked. If you have one of those sorts of machines you can just do the same thing with a sheet of paper and super quickly move it past. Did I scam arcades out of tickets with this? Maybe but it isn¡¯t provable and arcades are a scam most of the time anyways.
Fun little Henry fact for yah, I actually had been considering going into the arcade machine business for a little while after college. It may not be as popular now as certain points in the past but like every 3rd bar either has a pinball machine of some sort, a shooting game, or some derivative of Pacman. I decided I liked money more though and went all in on becoming a fulltime engineer though so here we are. What a different potential life I could have been living ehh?
I¡¯m tired from today so I¡¯m chasing rabbits right now. Jumping back to the missile platform topic, everything went about as well as I could have expected. There were frustrations involving communication slowness and certain terms and phrasing not getting through properly but for the most part things look good. They actually had a few more things to say about my missiles rather than the platform itself. If what they¡¯re saying is true and I do end up yoinking their munitions to fuel my stuff, I¡¯ll probably be able to shrink down the scale of my launchers and both build them faster and more of them.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 100
Today marks 100 days since I got stranded. I¡¯ve been sitting here listening back to my records.
I¡¯m still sorting through my emotions about everything so I don¡¯t know quite what to say. On the one hand, I¡¯m very glad to be alive and to no longer be ina fight. Then there¡¯s the other part of the situation where everyone I worked with for the last like 2 years might just be dead to what ultimately is just cosmically bad luck.
When everything is all said and done and I no longer need to be worried, I¡¯m a bit unsure about what I¡¯m going to do. Hopefully more humans will show up but what do I do if they do? I don¡¯t know if I wanna stay at this point with everything that''s happened but will I even be able to since I¡¯m technically a diplomat? I don¡¯t know anything aside from the fact that things are very uncertain. Whole thing leaves a pit in my stomach to be honest. It¡¯s definitely been a little fast-paced this last month and I¡¯ve just been mentally tired.
Sigh
I guess for now I gotta keep truckin.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 104
Hello, it¡¯s me again. Only updating now as for the most part, it¡¯s been an uneventful week. I¡¯ve been working on getting the parts together for the pirate¡¯s welcome gift and Ripley¡¯s Believe It or Not, creating stationary turrets is a bit boring and not really worth reporting on. I have had some good news in the HARP department as I have managed to get everything correctly calibrated and now I¡¯m on the final stages of construction. Still a good week¡¯s worth of work getting everything finished but I¡¯m close now.
The bulk of the week has been me struggling with getting my computers to play nice with xythan¡¯s. Actually wait, I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve mentioned that in a log yet. I recently was pleasantly surprised to find out that ¡°xythalaxn¡± is as much of a pain for them to say over and over as it is for me. Darana said they typically use xythan in informal settings and xythalaxn in formal ones. Kinda like how humans use humans and terrans depending. Armed with this new information, I shall now be endeavoring to make every situation informal enough so I can stop using that long form.
But back to the topic at hand, the computers. Obviously, two species with different normal languages are going to have communication difficulties and that problem extends itself to our computers. On a very, very basic level, both of our machines use ones and zeros but as they start to get more advanced, the computers¡¯ languages branch out into completely different directions. Right now, it¡¯s looking like the human and xythan anti-ballistic and anti-craft launchers will have to stay on separate systems. Honestly, I don¡¯t mind it all that much because while the xythans are technically my allies, I like being able to verify that I am protected at the very least. I¡¯m still gonna see if I can¡¯t whip something up to connect to their controllers at the very least.
Fortunately, I have some time. I¡¯m still in the mass assembly stage and testing all of the stuff. I¡¯m doing most of it on-site so I don¡¯t have to haul my ass halfway across the proverbial continent to figure out if I forgot to plug something in.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Onto a not work topic, I¡¯ve had the joy of watching some movies with Darana and Bayfur. Honestly, the movies aren¡¯t anything super out there or unusual but it has been such a nice change of pace. I need you to put yourself into my head for a second. I¡¯ve spent like a third of a year in this base with only the scraps of entertainment being what I have been able to get out of other people¡¯s saved media. Entertainment has been very sparse but now the floodgates are open.
Man, this last week has been oh so very nice. Like, I¡¯ve got my normal work but since I¡¯ve got Darana pushing around, my workload has gotten a little bit lighter and I¡¯ve actually had a healthy amount of freetime. In addition, between working on planetary launchers and movies, downtime isn¡¯t even boring anymore!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 107
Alright, Darana and Bayfur are out of the base so I can talk about this now. The kid doesn¡¯t seem to have picked up what has been going on and I don¡¯t intend to drag him into this but I think I said something wrong to Darana? Well, maybe ¡°think¡± is the wrong way of putting it. I¡¯m almost certain I said something that made her upset, I just don¡¯t know what it was that I said. Everything was fine yesterday but this morning I could barely get her to talk to me. It might have been something I said during the movie, but for the life of me, I cannot pinpoint what I said. I vaguely remember making a few corny puns but that¡¯s about it.
Like running through it, I made a few bowls of popcorn, sat myself down on the opposite side of the couch from Darana, and watched the movie. I fell asleep at the end and woke up a few hours later with Bayfur on top of me. Pulled myself off the couch and brought Bayfur to his bed. Darana caught me leaving their sleeping area. Told her I put Bayfur in bed and promptly bid her a good night before retiring to my own room.
Wait...
Yeah I still don¡¯t have a clue where I messed up.
Fuck.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 108.1
Update on the situation but I haven¡¯t managed to get past Darana¡¯s avoidant behavior since yesterday so now I have a new plan. I¡¯m going to pull the oldest trick in the book by baiting her with food and then talking to her. I know you don''t need to say it, I¡¯m a social mastermind.
The plan is as follows. Step One. Figure out what she likes to eat. This step has already been done for me as I know that she has a tendency to go for steak rations. Step Two, set the bait. I took today off and spent it setting up high necessary gear like frisbees, a bean bag toss, and most importantly a grill. Fortunately, the higher-ups of the base had eventually planned on having a barbeque so I was able to get my hands on some meat set aside for grilling. Step Three is where my genius really kicks in. I¡¯ll set the nearish to the base¡¯s air system to pump the smokey goodness around the base in safe quantities until she has no choice but to emerge. Step Four, I give her food and apologize for whatever I did. It¡¯s a flawless plan and I see no way it could go wrong.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 108.2
To be fair, it was a flawless plan but it was being executed by a flawed man. I set up my barbecue nearish to an air intake vent and got everything setup. This part went perfectly fine; it was the actual cooking part where things went lopsided.
You might think that the cooking would be the easy part and and unfortunately would be correct because it isn¡¯t terribly hard when the food has your full attention. The steaks did not have my full attention though. I put a few of them onto the grill and was started things up slowly when Bayfur showed up and asked me to play a few games with him. Figured I had a bit of time while things heated up so I put the lid of the grill and left to play some cornhole. Time does its thing and before long I realized that I should probably check on them. I walked over and casually lifted the lid only to be greeted by an aromatic pillar of smoke directly to my face.
To my misfortune, Darana arrived just in time to see my little act of simultaneously choking, coughing, and crying at the smoke. I tried playing it off and spat out something akin to ¡°Steaks may be a little while off.¡± Apparently, my face in combination with those words absolutely broke her because she ended up rolling with laughter on the ground, crying due to how funny it was.
I don¡¯t think it was that funny but hey it worked to clear the air so I¡¯m not complaining. After she pulled herself together, I tried to apologize for whatever I¡¯d done and she waved me off. She had a bit of a sad look in her eyes for a moment before thanking me and then apologizing for herself. She told me one of my comments during the movie reminded her of her late husband and seeing me bring Bayfur to bed had really driven it home. I¡¯m going to be honest. I should have said something at that point but I was a little speechless.
After a few awkward moments, I asked if there was anything she wanted me to do but there wasn¡¯t and we went back to the mini barbeque, mood a little dampened down. I did what I could to switch the focus onto a game of cornhole. Winner got to choose the next movie and loser had to cook the next meal. With my superior human skills of throwing random things, I won! Barely! It was luck.
Real talk though, I still don¡¯t know how to respond to the idea that I remind her of her late husband. It¡¯s a tricky situation. I just...It¡¯s hard¡ you know? It puts a whole new crazy spin on the relationship between us that I¡¯m struggling to nail down. At the very least, I think it is safe to say we are at the very least back to better than neutral and maybe friends? She¡¯s been the closest thing I have to a friend for a while now and I do have to say my life would have been much less colorful without her.
There is the whole situation with Bayfur. I love the kid but now I have the fear in the back of my head that I may be sort of replacing his dad? I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s the proper way to put it but it leaves me with a quiet discomfort that I don¡¯t like. I never knew my dad and would have loved it if someone could have stepped up but I don¡¯t think I¡¯m the right man for this job. I¡¯ll¡.I guess I¡¯ll give this some more thought and keep on doing my thing? It feels like there are a lot of wrong answers to this one.
Chapter 15 - Building Problems
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 109
Alright, so I know that I talk the talk but don¡¯t actually walk the walk like 80% of the time in these recordings but this time I might actually be a bonafide genius. I realized that I don¡¯t actually need my systems to properly interact with the xythan¡¯s. I just need to set up a cluster of sensors to figure out the whens and wheres of their launchers and have mine fire in a volley after theirs. This method is technically a little bit more inefficient since we won¡¯t be able to saturate any landing craft¡¯s point defenses as hard as we could if our machines were talking but I don¡¯t exactly have a proper set of Xythan Coding for Dummies sitting around.
The main issue I actually see with my plan is convincing the xythans to actually let me install said sensors. I hardly imagine they are just going to be cool with me running around to each of their launchers and hooking up my many machines of mystery doing who knows what. Won¡¯t hurt to ask but I don¡¯t have particularly high expectations in that department.
Code nonsense aside, progress on the launchers has been proceeding quite well and while we are still in the early days, I might be able to expand the defense array even further! The more shit we can throw at our pirate friends the better. To compound on that progress, the HARP is nearing completion. Soon I shall be the sole owner of a mighty fighty punchy crunchy robot and shall be able to start hauling things out.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 111
Good news and bad news today. Sarlunt had given me the go ahead on my idea provided I showed his engineering boys the plan. As a result, I spent the better part of yesterday tossing a basic model together with them and testing it. Those guys were actually pretty cool if a bit skeptical of me at first. They opened up after I started bribing them with food though. The best part was when they nearly put a hole in the roof of their lab while we were testing on one of the nearby hills. Truly engineers to their bones.
Moving on to the bad news though, I need to be monitored while installing said sensors. A few reports have been going around about a potential second predator lurking. It doesn¡¯t seem like a maneater but Sarlunt figures it¡¯s better safe than sorry. This may not sound like a problem but rest assured it is. My escort is one of Darana¡¯s friends and if the grin she had after hearing about that is anything to go by, I¡¯m in trouble. Luckily, it¡¯ll just be for the further out stuff so when I shift gears and start setting up launchers closer to the base, I¡¯ll be working on my own again. For now I¡¯m just gonna pretend that all hunky dory though and work on finishing up these sensor arrays. It''s gonna be a problem, it¡¯ll be a problem for tomorrow me.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 112.1
Past me is a bitch for letting all xythan¡¯s past the wall. I should have fought harder for my freedom because at exactly 5:47 AM, 3rd Fang Glysia cheerfully scaled my walls and entered the barracks waking me up. She then proceeded to hurry me through my wake up routine and try and assist me with getting my stuff together. I use the word assist here loosely as I didn¡¯t have my translator on me at the time and as a result her attempts to help veered more towards detrimental more often than not. After 20 or so minutes of scrambling to find my translator, getting dressed, and eating, the two of us emerged into the early morning air to get started on our work.
I haven¡¯t felt this hassled since Command found out I was responsible for those definitely funny photoshops . I can appreciate wanting to start early but please, let an engineer get his sleep!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 112.2
When I used cheerful as a descriptor for Glysia earlier, I was being angry about waking up early but the longer I¡¯m spending with her, the more I feel it fits her. She almost has golden retriever energy.
For example, even considering the fact that xythans sort of have a hopping lope for their walk, Glysia¡¯s almost reached kangaroo status and has been bouncing all around while I set up the launching sensors. I did figure out why Darana was grinning so much earlier but Glysia has a fun little quirk where she really likes to talk. Personally, I think all of this is a psyops to a certain introverted engineer more sociable
Ha! Can you imagine that?
All things considered though, I don¡¯t mind it at all. It''s nice to have someone to listen to as it makes my work go that much faster and she seemed to enjoy my stories also. Man, does she talk a lot though. Like much more than Darana and Bayfur ever have.
Hmmm¡
I wonder if Glysia isn¡¯t just a chatterbox or if it''s more the case that Darana is a bit more of an introvert. Do introvertedness and extrovertedness even apply to xythans? Questions for later.
During the involuntary exposition dump, I did learn a few interesting things. First, the xythans will be holding one of their family festivals pretty soon. From how she described it, it sounds like the most extra farmers market you¡¯ve ever heard of in all the best ways. Each family brings a set of crafts or foods that they have made through the year which they then trade or share with the other families. That continues for a while and culminates in a big ol bonfire star watching party in the evening. It sounds pretty family focused and while I¡¯d willing to share some of my food with everyone, I¡¯ll probably skip on properly attending. I think I¡¯d kinda just be an outsider at best and harsh the vibe at worst. Glysia thinks it¡¯d probably be ok to attend alone but I¡¯ve never been that big a fan of events like these to begin with so kinda eeeeh.
The second bit of info I was able to glean was that apparently the xythan society is a lot more matriarchal than the notes on them had initially indicated. Apparently, the illustrious Colony Commander himself is something of a slight oddity for how fast he rose to his current rank. Sarlunt has apparently seen a lot more combat than most other folks and made it out with nary a scratch. Allegedly, they had tried to promote him further but he declined and came out to oversee a colony. I wish I had asked if she knew why he had declined because I can smell a story there.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The last tidbit I received that was most unwelcome was that Glysia was apparently the one who tagged and bagged me during the raid on my base. On its own, this bit of information wouldn¡¯t be that bad. However, she went into great detail about how great it was to be the one who managed to take the base and how she was glad she had taken part in the raid given how simple it had ended up being. Apparently, there was a lot of respect to be earned for the simple act of hitting me with an automatic taser gun. Not for figuring out how to get past my defenses or fighting me in ¡°honorable¡± hand to hand combat but for specifically blasting me. Frankly, I¡¯m starting to think xythans have to be deriving pleasure from my displeasure.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 114.2
Been a boring last few days but I have been able to get all of these sensors online which is actually a yee haw moment. The fact that I¡¯m going to have to make additional rounds to add more sensors as my allies set up more launchers makes me want to brain myself but aside from that I¡¯ve made really good progress. All my tech has been tested for the launchers and I finally have the coding ground work finished which means I get to jump into the assembly stage of things now! I¡¯m thinking I¡¯ll start with the nearest launcher and then work my way outwards so that in the absolute worst case scenario, I¡¯ll have set up more launchers than not.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day Day 117
The HARP is finished. Woe be upon my enemies!
MUAHAHAHAHAHA!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 118.1
In a surprising twist of fate, I¡¯m not actually having any problems with the HARP. The basic testing today had everything sitting pretty and I passed each smoothly. The real testing will be the cross country hike but like this is really good.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day Day 118.2
Alright so now I¡¯m currently in the HARP suit lugging around what essentially amounts to an oversized wheelbarrow with all my stuff in it. Why a wheelbarrow? A wheelbarrow because it took me about 5 minutes to make and it''s good enough for now. I also decided to paint it red because as we all know, big things should be colored red. Thinking about it, this is probably this world¡¯s biggest wheelbarrow. Wait, I¡¯m the only human here. Which means not only am I the Supreme Human Diplomat and Supreme Missile Commander, I am also the statistically best human in all points of contest. Let''s go!
Getting the wagon loaded up wasn¡¯t nearly so hard as I thought it would be despite all the big parts. Turns out that when you have the files, you can just make some form fitting padding real fast and easy. From there, it¡¯s a simple matter of carefully putting it in with the HARP and badda bing badda boom you got yourself some easy transportation... of the big parts anyways. Concerning the smaller bits, I¡¯ve got about a billion screws and anchors that I¡¯m going to have to link up properly. I put a label on each and then tossed it into my big box of pieces.
I don¡¯t think the wheelbarrow method will work when I have to tackle the farther sites but for now, it¡¯ll do.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 119.2
Walking back now and I feel I actually made some pretty good progress. I finished about half of the assembly job on the launcher, covered it, and hopped back into the suit. Decided to check my messages on the way back like a responsible driver and had apparently received some 28 urgent messages. Initially, this didn¡¯t really phase my scam hardened exterior but then it hit me that I¡¯m a few lightyears to the nearest scammer and that means all of those are probably important.
So apparently, they never actually clued in on the fact that I was building the HARP. It wasn¡¯t assembled at all when I got jumped and Darana never went into that particular garage to check what I was doing. I also kinda sorta maybe kinda forgot to inform them I was building it. I mean it''s not like it''s small right? I figured they¡¯d seen it! The first notice they received was apparently ¡°the human ate Uncle Henry¡± from Bayfur and then things blew up from there.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 120
Build one mech for fun and suddenly you¡¯re ¡°causing a diplomatic incident¡± and ¡°need more supervision¡±. Diplomatic protection my ass. I just wanna build cool things and not do diplomatic things. Besides, I''m mostly safe¡ ish.
Ahem.
This morning, I got a bit chewed out and by a bit chewed out I mean that Sarlunt yelled at me properly for 15 minutes straight. I kinda tuned most of it out but was still able to get the general gist of it. What I did was irresponsible blah blah blah¡ If I die major interspecies incident blah blah blah¡ something about my ancestors blah blah blah¡ should have reported the HARP. End result is I¡¯m required to bring Darana or Glysia out with me now.
Now you might be saying, ¡°But wait Henry, you¡¯ve already done something similar, why is this so much worse?¡± Well it¡¯s a pain because now I need to figure out how to transport her because the HARP is designed to take only one person and moves quite fast compared to on foot. When I asked if we could take some of their shuttles I got a dead eye stare and was told they were being used elsewhere... Cheapskates.
I can use the parts wagon to transport Darana tomorrow but whenever I need to bring parts out that isn¡¯t going to work so well. Theoretically, I could bolt a chair onto the HARP¡¯s frame but if I ever slip, anyone in a chair is liable to be crushed. I¡¯ll need to give this some thought
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 121.1
Since yesterday, I¡¯ve brainstormed a few good and bad ideas. Initially, I wanted to make one of those hamster ball scooter things. The ones with gyrostuffs that keeps the rider inside upright because those things look absolutely sick. Stick some rubber pokey things on the outside and you got yourself an all terrain vehicle. Darana shot the idea down when I brought up the slight risk of getting spun but like it shouldn¡¯t be that bad provided I just add an emergency stop button. Honestly, even if I don¡¯t make one for her I¡¯m totally making me one of those when I have extra time.
The idea she liked the most was interestingly enough a revision of the chair design. The main issue with the chair idea I discussed yesterday is that the rider would be unprotected in the event the HARP fell over. The hastily sketched up revision is more akin to a backpack with larger boxed off frame. Add a roll cage with a little AC in there and suddenly you¡¯re traveling in style. I might have to add some counter balances to the front so it doesn¡¯t throw the balance of the HARP off too much but that should be pretty easy..
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 121.2
I have made the executive decision to add a secret snack compartment for me and a second chair so Darana can bring Bayfur if she wants. This thing is getting turned into a mom van and I¡¯m kinda here for it.
Chapter 16 - Digging In
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 124.1
Took several iterations but I¡¯m pleased to say i¡¯ve got a proper roll cage set up. Complete with some actual AC, extra storage, and two plush and comfy seats, I¡¯d say it turned out fairly successful. I would have added a smoothie dispenser too but that¡¯d take too much time to add gyro stabilizers to and this whole thing took me way longer than I initially anticipated. The design is simple but the main issue was trying to make it safe. It''s all good and fine to add a safety cage around chairs but said cage still has to survive being fallen upon. I¡¯m not exactly a material expert so I ended up having to do a lot more trial and error than I would have preferred. Make the sucker too big and suddenly the HARP can¡¯t really move all that well, too skinny and the cages get crushed. I¡¯ve finally got the design to work in the simulations where it¡¯s able to handle the HARP¡¯s weight and then some. Just a matter of getting the parts printed and assembled.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 124.2
I need to find some fucking titanium. If I still had hair to rip out, I¡¯d be bald again. I¡¯m going to go and lie in bed and scream until I pass out.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 124.3
Right, I do live next to people that made a colony literally just for mining. Maybe I ask them.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 125
I bugged the xythans for some of their titanium and was able to actually get some. I got into an extended argument with their folks because allegedly ¡°Diplomatic Secret Missions¡± isn¡¯t a good reason for requisitioning it. After a bit of back and forth arguing though, I was able to get some in exchange for some of my base¡¯s food. A fair enough trade for both sides I¡¯d say, I¡¯ve got more food than I know what to do with and they get some sustenance that doesn¡¯t look like it could be used in the place of concrete.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 128
Work on the launchers has been resumed, this time with both Bayfur and Darana in tow. Currently, I¡¯m working on crunching out this second one.
Darana seems somewhat ¡°annoyed¡± she has to come along as well, going so far as to question why and stating, and I quote, ¡°she has to follow my dumbass around like a puppy.¡± Statements like that really pull at the ole heart strings. In the field, she spends most of her time working on what appears to be some manner of arts and crafts that I assume it¡¯s probably for the whatever it¡¯s called festival coming up. I did get in trouble when I asked her if it was supposed to be a hat or a basket.
Conversely, Bayfur seems to be absolutely thrilled to be outside of the base. He spends most of the time running around the surrounding areas occasionally stopping to help his mom. Kid never seems to stop moving, always jumping here and there.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 130
Same ole same ole for the last few days. Darana apparently finished all the above water basket weaving she intended to do for today early and has pulled out a book to read. This wasn¡¯t really anything of note until lunch time when I asked what she was reading about. Her eyes lit up as she began to go into the intricacies of romance that she had been reading. Apparently, this is the third book of the series and she decided to dump the entirety of the plot into my ear. Like spoilers woman! The book may be in a language I can¡¯t read but spoilers!
Now I¡¯ve never been much of a romance book guy, always liked fantasy more, but listening to her talk about the plot as I started my work back up made the day zoom on past. Based on this and my interactions with Glysia, I¡¯m starting to think I might be just a touch conversation starved. Who would have guessed being alone on a planet with hostile fellas for like 3 months would do the trick like that.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 131
Today I managed to finish up my second launcher and I was feeling pretty good about my progress. They say nothing kills joy like comparison so naturally I decided to take a look at their progress. They have managed to set up an additional 27 in the time it took me to get these two done. I¡¯d like to say it¡¯s because I got slowed down by the diplomat things and that I¡¯m catching up but I went and did the math. It takes me about two days to set each individual launcher up provided nothing goes wrong and at their current rate that means they are cranking them out about 4 times as fast as I am and I don¡¯t even think they have all that many people working on this either. With their man¡ err dogpower? With their wolfpower, I think they could even push it up to double their current rate.
Technically speaking, this is a good thing since more turrets means t less of a chance of getting overrun in the long term. However, while it¡¯s all good and fine to be thinking these things, it actually bugs me. I got stuck here and that caused my people to get caught and presumably blown to smithereens trying to U-Turn and save my dumb ass. I got captured by the xythans and had to get the message from them and am doing such a poor job at keeping myself safe that they feel the need to help me. To top it all off, I can¡¯t even keep up with goddammed work! Just¡ fuck!
Sigh
I¡¯m not going to fucking spiral over some stupid turrets. No sense bitching about any of this shit. Just¡ gotta keep¡keep moving forward.
Fuck me.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 131
Got another launcher done. Since the last log, I¡¯ve decided to swap up my schedule and take care of my plants when I get home. Originally, I¡¯d been getting it done in the mornings but It¡¯s been delaying me almost as much as the time getting out to the worksite itself has. Working during the late evening early night time kinda sucks but I have lights to illuminate the work when I¡¯m back in the base. I figure it''s better than trying to work later since it wouldn¡¯t be quite fair to Darana and Bayfur to keep them out so late on my whims. Besides, my work lights are just not nearly as effective as the bases so I couldn¡¯t really stay out there much later even if I wanted. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 134
Very recently I¡¯ve taken to wearing a back brace. I¡¯m kind of running around, picking things up, and putting things down constantly so stealing one from the medbay was probably long overdue. Wearing it is both nice and not since on one hand it lets me avoid straining my back but on the other it''s kinda warm to wear.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 138
I think I¡¯ve figured out a way to speed things up a little more. One thing that slows me down a bit is that I can¡¯t make too many launchers lest I find myself out of room in the workshop. Today, I realized this is a bit of a flawed premise since I can definitely take advantage of a few of the warehouses. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m doing anything in them so they make for ideal locations to get some of my work done at. The one downside is that they have a lot of extra dust and I need to blow my nose more often.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 150
Been a bigger gap than I thought since the last log. It¡¯s kinda the same old same old with me keeping my nose to the grindstone. I probably should have kept up on the habit but frankly I¡¯ve just been falling asleep the second I¡¯m showered. I am making progress though, finished work on the 15th launcher just a bit ago and it''s only the early afternoon. If I hurry I can probably crunch out another one if I work late tomorrow. I may not be able to catch up to the xythan¡¯s numbers but I will be getting my work done in record time.
Darana felt a slight frown cross her face as she watched Henry trudge in through the barrack doors. He¡¯d been out late working again. After stomping around a few times near the entrance to remove dirt and removing his shoes, she watched him plod off towards the bathing room with a grim look on his face. The last few weeks had seen some changes in the human that she wasn¡¯t a fan of.
At the start, the changes weren''t all that concerning. He¡¯d just been throwing himself into the work with a fervor and she hadn¡¯t been particularly inclined to bother him about it. Clearly she should have given the state of him now. When it had become clear he was beginning to feel some strain from all the work he was juggling, she¡¯d brought it up and he¡¯d been less than receptive. He had agreed and listened but his work habits had seen no change. Darana considered trying something a bit more drastic for a moment but discarded the idea with a shake of her head. Doing anything like that would be counterproductive.
Flattening her ears, she sighed in frustration. Xenobiology was a complex and often frustrating field even before you started taking a look into psychology. Each species had their own weird little tendencies and to top it off many individuals fell quite far from their classifications. It certainly didn¡¯t help that Henry was already a bit off the normal beaten path in that regard. The fact that he had been here so long on his own¡
A poke in her side startled Darana, snapping her out of her thoughts. She turned to see an exhausted and somewhat damp Henry. ¡°Oop. Didn¡¯t mean to startle you. You were doing your thinking tilt thing so I figured I should check and see if you needed anything before I head off to bed.¡±
Darana blinked before putting on her best reassuring smile, ¡°Oh I don¡¯t need anything at the moment¡ Do I really have a ¡®thinking tilt¡¯?¡±
Henry snorted in amusement, ¡°Just a bit of one. You¡¯ve got a tendency to do it whenever I make a pop culture reference or say something especially stupid. Bayfur kinda has one also.¡±
Darana nodded knowingly, filing that bit of information away for later. She¡¯d have to be careful to avoid any tilting. The smile on her face faded for a second as she remembered her previous line of thoughts.
¡°Henry, if something is bugging you please tell me. You¡¯ve seemed a bit off lately.¡±
Henry shifted in place, a little farther back, and grinned. Darana noticed it didn¡¯t seem to reach his eyes, ¡°Ahh, it''s fine don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯ve just been a little bit tired but that''s ok. Speaking of, I gotta rest up, big day tomorrow. Good night!¡±
Waving his arm in a good bye, Henry yawned before retreating towards his bunk area.
After watching his ill-hidden retreat, Darana rubbed her ears in frustration again. Men were the same regardless of species¡ or at least engineers were. After that little talk, she knew something was wrong for sure now but Henry wasn¡¯t going to be any help. Sighing for what felt like the 10th time this evening, she wished she could just get in his head to hear what was going on.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 151
I didn¡¯t quite manage to finish the launcher today but realistically I should only have like an hour of work left. Gardening at night is still a pain and I feel like I¡¯m missing like half of the weeds to the shadows.
Sigh
I think I also might have annoyed Darana or something might be worrying her but I really don¡¯t know. My spare time has really vanished but I think I still have a little gas left to get something done. I¡¯m still hanging out with her during the day at the work sites but obviously that¡¯s less than ideal. I¡¯ll try to be extra helpful if I can going forward. I¡¯m tired and should go to bed.
Darana watched as Henry left the lab, oblivious to her presence in the dark. Perhaps there was a way to get some insight as to what was going on in that head of his.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 152
I think I figured out what was bothering Darana. The family festival thing is coming up and she had to run home to get whatever prepped for it. The woman is an absolute saint though because she called Glysia in as a favor so I could keep at it. I feel kinda bad since she¡¯d been helping me with the gardening. I wonder if this was what had been on her mind all this time.
I¡¯ve not really worked with Glysia since setting up the sensors and I forgot how significantly different her vibes are. Like significantly. She is just constantly asking me questions about how these things are designed or how I organize my parts before hitting me with the wombo combo mix ups and telling me about various stories from back in her training days. A lot of the stories aren¡¯t that different from what I¡¯ve heard from what some of the military guys in my base tell... well told now I guess...
Sigh
The whole day was kind of like that though, Glysia talking a mile a minute while I attached parts. She tried to help with the connecting bits initially but we ran into some issues pretty quickly. Organizationally, the launchers are designed with each of the parts having corresponding numbers. Makes the set up a hell of a lot easier but as we quickly realized that it¡¯s kinda hard to do said set up when you don¡¯t recognize the number system. Glysia is still able to match the symbols obviously but she has to go through the tool box for a significantly longer time than I do. So she helps as she can and stays out of the way when she can¡¯t.
Right now, I¡¯m back in the base. With tomorrow is the festival, I might have to take a break given my babysitters will probably be a bit preoccupied. Since, I¡¯ll not have much to do, I can try and get ahead of the assembly before noon. I¡¯m thinking I¡¯ll take some time in the afternoon to cook something meaty to share with the neighbors. Darana can take it in for me since I¡¯m still kinda not thinking I¡¯ll attend. I do wonder if the xythans have an equivalent to barbeque sauce.
Chapter 17 - Festivals and Feelings
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 153.1
I do believe this is the first early morning log I¡¯ve made since I got back to the base aaaaaalll the way back then and hopefully the only one I need to make. I kind of doubt that though and fully expect a repeat in the future. Bayfur was excited for today and made sure to make it everyone¡¯s problem. It¡¯s currently still a little dark outside and I feel like someone microwaved my brain and then decided to drop it into a coronal mass ejection. Just absolutely brain leaking out ears status for me.
Yawn
I suppose I¡¯ve been getting up earlier these past few weeks but this still feels like cruel and unusual punishment. To make it worse, Darana seemed to have gotten up early also and when she saw me walking to the restroom she decided to hit me with a full barrage of questions. It¡¯s a bit of a rat bastard strategy where she start with stuff like ¡°Are you awake?¡± and ¡°What are your plans for today?¡± and then just keep the question ball rolling. Fun fact, you can use this method to slowly but surely wake another person¡¯s brain all the way up until they can¡¯t go back to sleep. If I was a little more awake, I¡¯d accuse them of a coordinated attack. Right now, I just want an a double strength coffee
All that said, I¡¯m not actually recording this to complain. After I was interrogated into wakefulness, Darana filled me in on some of the plans for later today. From what she said, the trading and crafts stuff isn¡¯t happening until much later in the afternoon. Most of the day is actually basic competitions and carnival games with a few performances mixed in. Kinda carnival vibes but more personalized. Anyways, Ms. Doctor has apparently signed me up for a few events and performances. She¡¯s telling me that it¡¯s going be ¡°interesting¡± and ¡°fun¡± and other such trap words often employed by art majors. I mean I¡¯m gonna go and she is probably right that I¡¯ll enjoy the shows but I absolutely must maintain an air of aloofness lest she think that I might possibly be a cultured individual. Hehehe. I¡¯m kind of excited. Darana usually has pretty good taste in movies so I¡¯m somewhat intrigued by the things she¡¯s chosen.
You know, in spite of what I said earlier about art majors, I was in the band for most of high school and college which does make me something of an artist myself. It was nothing super high-level mind you but still enough to have a strong appreciation for musical technique. I¡¯m curious how the xythans go about making their music and what genres they do have. I was in the tuba section if anyone is curious. I know, truely a shocking development nobody could have guessed.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 153.2
I don¡¯t really know where my expectations were but frankly they were too low. That music SLAPPED.
So with human music, we have a lot of ways of making a pretty good variety of songs but generally, we have what I¡¯d say are three main ways that we use instruments. Firstly is percussion where we can slap stuff to make it vibrate like in drums or things like pianos. Secondly, the strings where we vibrate strings other strings like on violins or with one¡¯s fingers on guitars. Then lastly the winds, we have my preferred method of just causing the instrument to vibrate by pushing air through some sort of reed or by doing the vibrating yourself by buzzing your lips. Now, this all is a bit of an oversimplification but bear with me here. The core concept for all of these is to make your instrument of choice vibrate pleasantly.
With Xythans, percussion style instruments and string instruments are set up almost the exact same ways ours are. Those only really need hands to work so basically any sentient race should be able to use them. The real question is if they have an equivalent of brass instruments. Xythan faces are somewhat similar to our own but their noses extend far more and their mouths are a good bit wider. In theory, this means they possibly could play wind instruments but they would struggle a lot more than we do. So how exactly would their wind work you may ask? Well, they make their songs by sort of howling singing through their instruments. These guys have much more powerful singing voices than I gave them credit for and they use that to vibrate their instruments. The resulting sounds are unironically so cool.
Breezing past the music performances, the rest of the morning time was spent watching a play. Honesty, can¡¯t say as much about it one way or the other because I fell asleep about halfway through. In my defense, the play lost a little bit of its value to me as some of the acting and older references went over my head. I suppose I did enjoy the bits I was awake to watch but I did miss pretty significant chunks. I do have an excuse. Maybe not a good one but an excuse nevertheless. Bayfur was kinda being squirmy initially so I was holding onto him in my lap and then next thing you know, he was quietly snoozing away. Naturally I was trying to sit still to not wake him and I did that a little too well and fell asleep myself. That position was kinda weird to sleep in and has been doing my back no favors.
After the concert, everyone scattered for independent lunch breaks. Darana, Bayfur, and I went back to the base to eat. The early afternoon is going to be game time with a lot of different competitions. Some basic stuff like baking contests and trivia stuff but apparently they have stuff like races and other competitions. Now initially, I wasn¡¯t going to participate, wasn¡¯t in the original plans after all, but then Darana appeared with that dangerous toothy grin and I agree with everything she says because I¡¯m definitely afraid. She¡¯d made a short list of games I should try competing in that I¡¯d have better than even odds of winning. Now I may seem like a little bit of a competitive person but that¡¯s just not me. I¡¯m a very competitive person and I fully intend on stomping out the competition where I can. It¡¯s on like motherfuckin'' Donkey Kong.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 153.3
Currently working on grilling up some steaks as dinner seems to be a joint effort thing for the village. I don¡¯t know how many folks are going to want food for the human but grilling up a storm regardless. I figure that even in the worst case scenario, I¡¯ll just have a bunch of extra steak to eat so in the end it''s really no harm no foul. Those poor bastards have been forced to eat that food paste and I really can¡¯t condone eating that at a festival of all places. The one downside is that this endeavor is eating through a good portion of the meat I have in vac-storage but I¡¯ll still have plenty left over after this. Storage was for like 100+ people and there weren¡¯t that many vegetarians. Besides, it might not even matter in like 4 to 6 months depending on how things go so I might as well make the most of what I have. I want to make sure I get this cooked perfectly, for both my pride and the sake of doing Momma Mason¡¯s cooking recipes right.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!
Concerning the contests, it was essentially a wash. Most of the stuff I joined in on was either a bit disfavored towards me and most of the stuff Darana recommended was strongly in my favor. I absolutely stomped at the throwing contests and distance running contests. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m particularly good at throwing balls and the such but I still was able to beat out most of the competition. For the running, I was a bit concerned initially as everyone just absolutely took off at the beginning and I think that in a head-to-head sprinting contest, I¡¯d lose like 100% of the time. Xythans are more of ambush predators than humans and can take off at obscene speeds at the drop of a hat. However, they don¡¯t sweat nearly as well as I do and their muscles aren¡¯t built for sustained exertion. So after a few laps around the track, I was starting to pretty steadily pass them.
Now as for most of the rest of the contests, namely the ones I thought I could do well in, I forgot to take a few things into account, namely the fact that most xythans have me slightly out-massed and out-lengthed in the limb department. Pound for pound, I¡¯m a bit more efficient in the terms of muscle but when your opponent can generate about the same amount of force and has an extra 6 to 8 inches of reach in addition, well¡ lets just say the odds ended up very much not in my favor. Not much to be done about that besides getting fucking tossed on the wrestling mat.
I did also sign up for a bit of actual sparring and that was pretty fun. By no means am I an expert but I did take a few self-defense classes back in my college days and got a bit more when I joined up for the trip. It was scored by how many light touches you could get against vital spots. Technically in their favor, since they have a bit more reach and impulse speed but I had just enough training to help circumvent some of that. Actually made it to quarterfinals before facing Glysia and having my hopes and dreams dashed. Still, it was much farther than I ever actually expected to get. They call me Henry ¡°Rocky Balboa¡± Mason now.
Ok, so maybe they don¡¯t but still!
The last bits left for today are the trading, the dinner, and some other ominous thing Darana keeps making vague references about. Probably the family part of the family festival. Probably will retire for an early night then since I don¡¯t exactly have much reason to be there.
Henry was a little bit nervous. Darana had left Bayfur in the care of Glysia and had asked him to follow her out from the festival grounds into the forest. Now they were walking away from everyone and she¡¯d not said anything since they left. Being alone in the forest on its own didn¡¯t concern him overly much as he trusted her but the ominous silence that seemed to fill the air as they walked spoke greater volumes to him than any concern ever had. He considered asking her what she had in mind but couldn¡¯t quite find the right words to ask.
The walk took them a little distance from the village on the far side from his compound in the forest. The forest was backlit by the late afternoon sun tossing golden rays all around the path and Henry could hear the sounds of alien birds calling out in the distance. It was the picture of tranquility. Ahead of him, Henry could see a clearing in the forest. All the foliage in the area was trimmed down except for a few small, scattered saplings in a uniform pattern.
Darana approached one of the saplings, performing a small gesture Henry had learned was the equivalent to follow me. Quietly following, he moved to stand beside her quietly.
¡°These trees are called Itroframs. Any planet we want to live on ideally can support them,¡± Darana whispered, ¡°They¡¯re a hearty plant that we use in remembrance of the dead. It¡¯s a long standing tradition since our people left home long ago.¡±
Henry looked down at the sapling. It was a decent bit bigger than the rest in the clearing and had evidently received no small amount of car. He stopped for a second, collecting the right words, ¡°Who¡Is this tree in remembrance of someone you knew?¡±
The xythan nodded somberly, ¡°My late husband. His name was Trovaz and he was an engineer like you. He was always so full of life and always looking for something to fix or make. He would have loved it here. Hells, you two would have been close friends if you had met. A shame you couldn¡¯t. He¡ he¡¡± Darana tried to continue as tears began to well up.
Henry reached an arm around his distressed companion, ¡°It¡¯s fine you don¡¯t have to say anything if you don¡¯t want to.¡±
¡°NO! No¡ I should have said something about this earlier but I didn¡¯t. It¡¯s why I froze up on you a while back and why I need to talk to you now! He died a few years ago back when we were working to get our colony ships ready. He was working hard. So very hard. He wanted us to be able to see the new planet. He kept pushing, more and more, with his work trying to squeeze every last ounce of productivity he could out of himself. It caught up with him, Henry. It caught up and it killed him. A moment of carelessness when he would have otherwise paid attention. I don¡¯t want to see the same happen to you, I care about you too much, even in the short time we¡¯ve known each other.¡±
Henry opened and closed his mouth several times as he tried to process those words. The weight of what she was saying felt like a punch to the face and felt ashamed to look at her. ¡°I just¡. I don¡¯t¡everyone else I knew on the voyage is dead. Maybe they aren¡¯t but we¡¯ve not heard anything and the pirates and they¡¯re just¡ dead? I don¡¯t know!¡± Tears began welling up in the corners of his vision, ¡°Why did I live when they didn¡¯t? I gotta make sure I stay ahead or it¡¯s like they all died for no reason. I can¡¯t be a stain on their memory. So what if I dro-¡±
Henry felt an arm wrap around his shoulder as Darana pulled him into a hug, ¡°Stop. I don¡¯t want to hear such hurtful and undeserving words about you. You¡¯ve done a magnificent job and don¡¯t let anyone tell you otherwise.¡±
It was as if a dam had broken and tears began to flow freely from both the human and xythan. The two sat there holding each other as the afternoon light began to slowly fade.
Henry blinked hard and tried rubbing the last of the tears from his eyes, ¡°I¡¯ll try and take it a bit easier. I¡¯m sorry for scaring you like that.¡±
¡°No, I¡¯m sorry. I should have voiced my concerns sooner and shouldn¡¯t be laying those expectations on you.¡±
Laughing weakly, Henry pulled out a little out of the embrace ¡°We can¡¯t both be sorry. That¡¯ll cancel things out!¡±
It wasn¡¯t a particularly good joke but it did the trick. A chuckle started in Darana¡¯s chest and was quickly picked up by Henry. It bubbled forth and soon became impossible to ignore and soon the faint sound of both xythan and human laughter could be heard throughout the clearing. Two species united in both laughter and tears.
Chapter 18 - Thinking Ahead
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 154
In the spirit of actually listening to other people, I¡¯ve decided to take the day off work¡ ehhh kinda. I¡¯m still going to be getting some of the platforms set up but only for a few hours and it''s mostly just assembling things I¡¯d already started. It¡¯d be bad to leave some of that stuff from the other day half done. I¡¯ve done some soul searching and decided to actually listen to the doc and am putting the kibosh on doing overtime work. I¡¯ll still be working mind you because I still shouldn¡¯t be slacking overly much as danger could be arriving as soon as two months. Now obviously, that time is subject to some amount of variation and thats a really really grim estimate on their ability to find us. Its not even taking into account competence as the pirates could be stupid and just not know how to follow the jump trails back over here. Maybe they just have gotten beat to shit and just decided it wasn¡¯t worth it trying to touch us. I mean I don¡¯t think either of those are the case since they managed to jump the colony ship and Command had sounded concerned but a guy can hope you know?
Anyways like I said, I¡¯m going back to a much more normal schedule. I farm stuff in the morning, go out to hook up my launchers until early afternoon, and then head on home for the day to perform advanced relaxation. Now, is this any different than your bog standard relaxing? Not particularly but it has a funnier ring to it.
A thought occurred to me while I was workin¡¯ earlier today. While I am familiar with how to make most of the base work and am able to fix most things, my area of expertise is in the ground defenses. Now ground defenses are a pretty wide field but you could say that I¡¯m a pretty wide man. Actually wait no, I¡¯m not wide but I got a wide head. That doesn¡¯t sound right either but rest assured, I have a big brain, I promise.
Jumping back to the point though, my specialties lie in shield tech and defensive positions. Basically, I¡¯m responsible for understanding a bit of tactical know how, planning out basic bases, and then setting up shields. Technically speaking, a lot of this is originally designed for ship side stuff but things still translate well. The point is that while we have all these missile launchers as deterrents against pirates bombing us into submission or landing directly on top of us, they can¡¯t truly protect us. To put it simply, while the xythans and I are kind of populating only one section of the planet and can defend our bit from a good number of ships, any sufficiently intelligent and determined invader can still cause us problems either via volume or just going around.
In practice, the fact we are defending a stationary point on a planet means that we can¡¯t ever truly be safe. Worst case for us would be if they decide they hate us particularly and then bomb the far side of the planet until the atmosphere gives out. I strongly doubt it will be coming to that though for a few reasons but the primary one is that they¡¯d need to have enough armaments of sufficient caliber to do us in before we try and do something desperate. After fighting the colony ship, which was by no means undefended, they should be down a fairly significant portion of their arsenal before they even arrive. After that, if they test our antiballistic array, they don¡¯t have a snowflake¡¯s chance in hell of actually doing shit to us if they have anything short of a battleship.
Now, the big issue I realized today is what happens if they decide to land on the far side planet and just walk in at us. Theoretically, they can just blow our launchers to bits with their ground troops and then land full raiding parties or worse yet just bomb us. This is what folks in the living business call, less than ideal.
I know for a fact that Sarlunt will have a few plans in mind. The real trick will be getting him to actually share some of those ideas with me. Maybe see if I can¡¯t get him to share any secret tech.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 155
I¡¯m going to blow a gasket. The actual audacity. The nerve! The actual nerve! This means war! Total and complete war! I mean not really but still!
Sarlunt had already considered the idea of a ground assault and had already worked out patrols! This is good except for the fact that I¡¯ve been completely excluded! When I asked why, he simply stated that since I¡¯m an engineer and a diplomat furthermore and as such he is honor bound to ¡°see to my safety¡± or something the other. I made sure to inform him that I¡¯m plenty competent and I could have actively help with this to which he responded by listing off my failure at defense. Jerk.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
On the practical side of things, I can definitely understand his position of wanting to keep me at a distance here even with the whole honor thing set aside. You hardly want to have your singular human diplomat going out, getting involved, and potentially getting himself caught in a fight and that¡¯s before you take into account my value on the engineering side of things. As I¡¯ve said before, I¡¯m stationary defense expert and have been keeping my force shields working for a pretty long time and that¡¯s exactly who you want to keep close to home. This is especially exacerbated by the fact that I¡¯m the only one who really knows their way around human tech and reproduce it with any real speed.
This isn¡¯t to say Sarlunt doesn¡¯t have plans for me, he¡¯d apparently just wanted to wait on asking until after I¡¯d progressed further on the launchers. From what it sounds like, he wants me to work on making a safe haven for the villagers which does make sense. If we are being raided it would be smart to have the innocents as far away from the danger and chaos as possible.
Hmm¡ wouldn¡¯t me building a haven like that make me the Supreme Defender of both Man and Aliens? You know, that actually has a rather nice ring to it. Maybe, this isn¡¯t such a bad plan. I¡¯m always down to pick up an extra title.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 157
A few days back, I¡¯d talked about kicking back in the evening. What I¡¯d meant by that was basically just taking a nap, watching a nice dinner movie with Darana and Bayfur, then maybe tinkering with fun stuff in the workshop. Fantastic pass time by the way 10/10 would recommend. That said, these idyllic days might be changing soon due to some stuff that happened today.
To set the scene, it was early afternoon and I¡¯d finished up work a little bit earlier than usual and laid down for an early nap. About halfway through though, I started receiving a few pings about people approaching the base so with bleary eyed I picked myself up and checked. Naturally, I¡¯m pretty curious when I see a few unknown folks around the edges of the base. At this point, I hadn¡¯t received any word from Sarlunt¡¯s people letting me know that anyone was scheduled to be showing up and there are to many folks for it to be Darana and Co. so by process of elimination I knew it had to be someone new.
Initially, I¡¯d thought it might the folks who¡¯d come to yell and shoot at me back when I was on my own but they¡¯ve stopped their shenanigans for a while now . I¡¯m not certain what caused the decline . Maybe it was some sort of weird honor thing, maybe they got warned off by Sarlunt in attempt to try and get me to cooperate, or something else. I¡¯ll actually have ask Darana about that later.
Either way, that wasn¡¯t what this was about. When I poked my head over the wall to see what was up, I was greeted by a rather ominous sight. Four xythans with that malicious grin Darana makes whenever she is scheming something. Not a good potent of things to come but I decided to hear them out. The leader of their little back of four declared a challenge as a follow up to the festival.
The fools.
THE ABSOLUTE FOOLS! MUAHAHAHAHA.
Their first mistake was challenging me. The second mistake was also challenging me. That¡¯s right ladies and gentlemen, it¡¯s the rare double mistake from these lads. What a blunder! Why is it such a blunder you may ask? Well, Mama didn¡¯t raise no loser and as such I have now added a bit of extra training to my daily routine. They thought I was doing well before, well they ain¡¯t seen nothing like what¡¯s about to happen. This is me before the training arc. I¡¯m about to step into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and show them how we do it back where I¡¯m from.
Mad power trip rant aside, I just got challenged to a few friendly contests and we were able to hash out a good date and time for the both parties to meet up again. While it took the guise of honor, I¡¯ve seen enough of these sorts of things in college to know that this mostly just for fun which Darana agreed with when I brought it up to her later.
Interestingly, half of the contests are things I won at the festival with the other half being things I either didn¡¯t participate in or did kinda middling in. I think they¡¯re trying to bait me in with a few gimmes so they can have at me with the middling stuff which is very kind of them to give me some leeway but that shall be their undoing.
I¡¯m kinda hoping that my appearance at the festival dispelled some of the magic that surrounds me in their eyes. The thought of having a social life again where I can talk to more than just the same 3 to 4 people has me a little bit excited. I mean I¡¯m probably going to just talk to the same 3 to 4 people anyways but its nice to have the options you know?
I do have a bit of a problem right now where I actually cannot for the life of me remember what their names are. I do remember that one of them was brown and one grey though I¡¯m not sure there¡¯s much I can actually pull from that information. I¡¯m praying Darana will be able to help provide a few names so I don¡¯t end up looking like a total doofus.
Chapter 19 - Competition and Compliations
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 158
Tadorn, Vrokflen, Pottem, and Grel. Those are the names of the folks who came to challenge me and I¡¯m saying it here to help me remember. Tadorn is the challenger, Vrokflen had the tear racing stripe thing and is grey, Pottem was taller than the rest, and Grel is the brown furred one who seemed kinda bored. I need to go and perform my voodoo ritual of chanting the names in front of a mirror or I am going to forget at least one of those names.
Darana wasn¡¯t able to tell me much about any of these individuals aside from the fact that it''s two couples and they¡¯re kind of outcasts. Kinda. There was some distinction there that wasn¡¯t getting translated well but it didn¡¯t sound like that big of a deal so I¡¯m not gonna worry about it. Pottem and Grel are married but Tadorn and Vrokflen are something else. Darana gave a word for them, ¡°imaxi¡±, which, near as she can explain, is something like a fianc¨¦ but with extra steps? I don¡¯t know but I¡¯m hardly an expert on matters of marriage.
I did ask Darana a bit about that though and their courting ritual things are cool. I say courting rituals but I more mean that in the lines of stuff like dating and asking for a hand in marriage. Actually, as it turns out, more often than not species that make it to space tend to do marriages of some sort according to Darana. Something to do with stability and raising a family but I digress. Xythan marriage. Apparently in the past, one of the big things they¡¯d do is prove themselves to their partner and families. Both groups would provide some feat and if they couldn¡¯t they¡¯d just fuckin square up.
I¡¯d say humans don¡¯t do that but we have it literally immortalized in Shakespear in like 7 different variants. I also have far too many friends who spent far too much of their college life trying to impress chicks. Darana apparently knew a few folks like that too while she was getting her education. I suppose college students are a universal constant.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 159
My training arc is in full swing now. A couple more pushups and a few more miles and I¡¯m liable to start losing my hair and surpassing my limits. I¡¯ve already succeeded on that first point so thankfully it''s all up from here. My previous training regime was mostly to keep me in ok shape while preserving my stamina so for my new and improved routine I¡¯ve decided to try a generalist strength workout. I figure my stamina is pretty ok where it¡¯s at and this¡¯ll help me strengthen myself up for those areas I¡¯m just barely weak in.
Some of these contests are gonna just be a complete wash for me and just completely unwinnable so I¡¯m planning a bit of selective training. If I can win at the competitions I¡¯m neutral or just barely disadvantaged at, I should push the scoring in my favor. I don¡¯t need to win them all, just enough to prove my totally real superiority. Totally.
That''s just part of my day though. Spent the rest of it scouting around a few different areas to see what places would make for a good defensive encampment. While the human military base has done a valiant job at keeping me safe and makes for an excellent starting point to be able to expand and colonize, it¡¯s kind of a sitting duck defensively. While I do have the shields, all sides of the base are available for infantry and ground vehicles to attack, making it a bit harder to properly plan a good defense. My strategy of just using the cameras only works so well as evidenced by my failure.
Ideally, I¡¯d like somewhere where the terrain isn¡¯t super great for letting large numbers of people in on foot, maybe somewhere with decent ground cover and open skies, and importantly an underground reservoir nearby. The reservoir might be the most important thing on the list since if we are forced to hide behind our shields, we can have as much food as we want but if we can¡¯t get any drinking water it¡¯ll be game over for us. Technically speaking, I can set up some machines to generate water from our supplies but those aren¡¯t efficient and wouldn¡¯t be able to create enough water for the entire xythan population.
The main issue for me right now is that I don¡¯t have the foggiest clue as to how I would even begin charting out water reservoirs so it¡¯s probably time to reach out to Sarlunt. I¡¯ve started charting out a few potential locations so they should have a few good starting places to check around. I should probably start pushing for them to check around since getting a base set up for that many people will no doubt take a good amount of time.
That said, if I do have enough time to set up, I should be able to make it so we can repel anything short of an orbital assault vehicle. We¡¯ll probably end up with something more mild since that level of defense would probably take a few years even if I had some 50 odd clones of me working on it. Optimization is a pain like that.
Hopefully, the locations I have my eye on right now have some sort of water source nearby. The ones I have my eye on should have some natural resources that¡¯ll allow us to expedite any base building and with the crunch we¡¯re presumably working under, it¡¯s vital that the terrain be working with us.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 160
So my plan of relaxing in the afternoons via nap is kinda fading since I¡¯m always doing a bit in the afternoon. Sometimes it¡¯s exercising and working on my general coordination for competing and sometimes working on design plans for potential bases. I can¡¯t get too far on that second point since I¡¯m still waiting on the xythan hydrologists to finish their inspection of the sites. Hydrologist sounds entirely made up but I have looked it up and believe it or not that is the name for folks who find water basins among other things.
The spare time I spend tinkering has transformed into trying to make a few quick toys for potential upcoming fights. Figure that even if I won¡¯t participating in battle directly, I can at least help provide support from a range. Sort of thinking about it like I¡¯m in an MMO, you got the people doing all the combat and raiding but then you have that one glorious bastard who does all the gathering and crafting for the rest of the guild. The crafter is quite important for endgame stuff and if you don¡¯t have one, you¡¯ll have to hire the services of another.
Bad analogy aside, I¡¯ve been spending the last few days asking what exactly I can make that would help boost the xythan¡¯s combat prowess? My knee-jerk reaction is to start making some explosives for them to play with as you can never have too many but they definitely have more than their fair share of those. I remember them lobbing explosives at me far too liberally in the early months for me to think they suddenly need my help in that department.
A bit of an interesting point actually, they¡¯ve got some similar baseline tech to me we just have differences in where we¡¯ve been focusing. Humans have tended more towards our shields and railguns while it seems they focused more on explosives. This is even reflected in our ships where ours use the shield tech to skip along the surface of reality with the Ender Drive while they simply blow a temporary hole in space and slip through essentially a temporary wormhole. Differences in philosophy leading to differences in tech. Pretty cool stuff.
In so far as helping, I¡¯ve been considering just setting up a few smaller shield generators at a few choice locations. Obviously, they can¡¯t be as powerful as my base¡¯s without a generator but having them around at the very least should help create a variable terran that the enemy can¡¯t predict as well. Our pirate friends were able to catch the colony ship so I can¡¯t write off the fact that they may have hardware that lets them detect anything I build. Probably need to talk to Sarlunt about that... Maybe there are some other areas they struggle with?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 164.1
Alright the training arc is over and I have to say, one week is not nearly enough for there to be even the slightest of differences in physique or skills and our mini tournament is later today. I went even on the competitions when the whole festival thing happened so I¡¯m proooobably going to be fine. Probably. I really hope. It doesn¡¯t matter to me that much if I win or lose but I do still need To win this little competition or Darana is never going to tease me for the rest of my natural life.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 164.2
Thankfully, my fears did not come to fruition and I have managed to keep my humiliation to completely acceptable levels. The whole little contest was actually really fun with all the constantly changing competitions. I did run into one small complication during my time playing though as there was one important little twist to the whole thing that these fellas neglected to let me know about ahead of time. All of them participated. Now if it was all of them going at the same time, I think thats fair play but no. They had one person chosen for each event and all took turns with each taking the sport they were best at.
First of all, unfair. Second of all, imagine challenging a human to a stamina game. They may not have known going in humans have yee ole stamina in spades but they certainly left knowing that. That isn¡¯t to say they did their bits of the competition and just passed out after but they definitely got winded faster than I did. I¡¯d say I performed about as well as I could have considering the situation but they definitely pulled one over on me. I almost wonder if this is how the fey in older stories felt getting tricked like this.
They were good sports though and afterwards even invited me in for one last ¡°contest¡±. It¡¯s something called ¡°calydr¡± which roughly plays out like dodgeball. The main differences between calydr and dodgeball are that you play in a sort of box arena and you have to bounce the ball off the walls or floor first to eliminate a player. From there it¡¯s basically a free for all with a couple fewer balls than players. I only have one thing to say about that game though.
YOUR HONOR! I¡¯M FUCKING BALLIN¡¯.
I¡¯m what you might call a pro at dodgeball so naturally I had to take them up on it. They put up a good fight despite not being able to throw the ball as accurately as I did, making up for any perceived lack of aim with fast reflexes and great gusto when throwing the ball. There was one exception to this status quo though. Grel is a dodgeball master. She was routinely the last woman standing and over the few games we played we ended up having to team up on her to have any real chances at winning.
One odd thing though was that she absolutely hammered the tar out of my entire left side. Never the right, only the left. I don¡¯t know how she managed it but she did and I¡¯m having a distinct feeling I¡¯m going to be feeling a few bruises there tomorrow.
I suppose I made a good impression on them as I got invited again. They expressed some interest in Darana joining us for the next little adventure which I am more than down for. When I brought it up this evening over dinner, she seemed receptive to the idea but had some doubts about what Bayfur would be doing during the time to which I can only say, fair enough. Definitely for the best that we don¡¯t leave Bayfur unattended since he does have a tendency to wander into trouble if left to his own devices long enough and there is no shortage of problematic things to get into. She did suggest that Glysia might be interested but she wasn¡¯t technically invited so I¡¯ll have to ask next time we meet.
Chapter 20 - Base Relocation
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 166
Today I got a response back from Sarlunt¡¯s survey team. I¡¯m apparently a genius when it comes to choosing spots because none of them actually have water. What made my talents particularly apparent was when they showed me the water maps for the area and I managed to actually dodge every single concentration of water. Back to the drawing board on that front. They¡¯ve given me a few different sites they¡¯d recommend for getting water so we¡¯ll have to check them out. I can¡¯t help but feel I¡¯ve put the horse before the cart but I guess things are moving now?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 167
Alright so I¡¯ve taken a look at about half of the suggested sites and I have to say, most of them are just not ideal. A lot of the larger water reservoirs are located in valley areas which isn¡¯t quite ideal concerning base defense. You don¡¯t want to be parked on top of the side of a valley as you¡¯ll be at risk of losing the ground under you to normal weapons or just getting washed away by water. It is afterall a valley. To circumvent these issues, you¡¯ll need to either spend a pretty significant amount of time leveling by backfilling, digging into the surrounding hills, or worse, both. Either way, you¡¯ll need to spend extra resources making it flat. Any ideal location also wants to be able to see the surrounding area which is another mark against valleys given the whole lower elevation dealio. We can definitely make what we have work but it might need a lot more effort than we can afford to give. I¡¯ll still have to check the remaining half but I¡¯m not super thrilled about the prospects.
I don¡¯t think I have enough resources to get any of the areas I was looking at today set up so if I¡¯m forced to make a choice of one of them, it¡¯ll have to be the xythans that actually pay the price. Frankly, I¡¯m probably going to make them pay regardless because this is for their benefit.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 168
I took a look at the remaining options today and I think I have my pick. While I did skip over it before, it''s not a bad place per say and it won¡¯t take as much work getting it into working order as a lot of the rest buuuut I¡¯ll still need to do some pretty heavy work. The area itself is a former wetlands with a huge number of naturally forming pillars. Now typically, you don¡¯t even want to consider these sorts of areas just due to the intrinsic threat of stone pillars just being there. A crafty enemy who doesn¡¯t care about ecological destruction can just drop one of these pillars on your camp if they are feeling particularly spiteful.
That¡¯s not to say there isn¡¯t a way to circumvent these issues though. Unfortunately for any crafty enemies, they have to deal with a crafty engineer who also doesn¡¯t particularly mind causing ecological destruction. You might even say said crafty engineer would enjoy it. I¡¯m thinking I can detonate the pillars prematurely and clear out a nice little area which should give us a number of benefits including but not limited to; all the filling material we¡¯ll ever need, potential watchtowers and emplacement platforms, and a nice supply of water. Additionally, I get to blow some shit up. This sort of scenario is every half decent engineer¡¯s wet dream and I¡¯m gonna get to live it out. I¡¯m practically giddy.
Of course, I¡¯ll give Sarlunt a heads up about my plans. It would hardly do to just go and start creating ominous and mysterious craters without letting someone know first. Plus, once I¡¯m done blasting some pillars into kingdom come, I¡¯ll still need some folks to actually drill down to the water. Technically speaking, I could drill for the water also but I strongly suspect they want their water drinkable so probably for the best I don¡¯t.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 169
Sarlunt got the weirdest look on his face when I presented my ideas for getting the base location ready. He didn¡¯t like it at first but this time I actually had a few allies on my side. Namely his entire engineering division. They wanna blow stuff up also. They say when you leave home things change but I¡¯m not so sure, the engineers out here are still the same! I did get ordered to work with them on this which I¡¯m not too troubled by? Like that''s kinda expected and I can¡¯t be denying my engineering homies the opportunity of a lifetime.
Between hanging out with the 4 lovebirds, Darana, and new buds in engineering, I feel like I¡¯m really starting to settle into my role as the human diplomat. Hmm¡ since I¡¯m doing my job so well I just might have to reward myself with a promotion. Let''s see¡ what sounds better between ultra and supreme¡ but I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a real thing¡ hmmm¡ Supreme Human Interspecies Diplomat? Yeah that sounds cool and the acronym is funny if maybe a bit not professional¡ whatever I¡¯ll workshop it later, just know I¡¯m now promoted.
I also took the liberty of updating Sarlunt with my progress on the defense launchers. He kind of gave me a look when I told him the number I¡¯d finished. Apparently, I¡¯ve, and I quote, ¡°Already passed the numbers expected and they would be more than fine to pick up the rest.¡± They were assuming I wasn¡¯t going to complete my stuff in time. What a backhanded compliment! It¡¯s so rude yet so nice to hear. I guess this means that I won¡¯t have to deal with launchers any more which is so nice to hear. I¡¯ve been quietly losing my mind to the minor inconveniences when setting those up so I¡¯m kinda just glad it¡¯s done. Like, if I had to handle any more screws after applying sunscreen, I¡¯d sunscream.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 170.1Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
Today was a little boring all things considering. Got up early in the morning and met up with the engineers outside of the xythan base. We exchanged greetings we couldn¡¯t understand, fumbled with our translators until they worked, and then exchanged greetings we could understand. From there, we hitched a ride on one of their transport vehicles, which are really nice by the way, all the way out to the site. Me and the other engineers then took measurements, did a lot of math, wept tears of relief realizing both of us used a base 10 number system, and headed home to fact check ourselves. Overall, very productive day.
Concerning the math, we gotta make sure we are using the correct tonnage for our blasting gear or we may very well cause an unwanted chain reaction and possibly render the area entirely unusable. We need to skirt that fine line of just enough to blast off the parts we want broken and not such an excessive amount that we lose control of where the stone pillars are going and get some collateral damage. I mean in theory we could just bomb the area into an actual crater but that would very likely render the water basin unusable. Better that we stick to fun-sized payloads rather than using excessive and unnecessary force.
Regardless of its boring status, once we have triple and quadruple checked the measurements, we can get started on the construction of the base itself. If we do this intelligently, we should be able to take advantage of some of the pillars we knock down and use the bases as good starting points for the walls. Depending on how much explosives we have access to, I could very well see the base ending up as a multi-layer sort of deal which sounds kinda cool when I visualize it in my head. It''d kinda give the whole base a fantasy dwarf style vibe if we did do that I think.
I¡¯m also working on making a temporary generator and potentially a new 3D printing machine. The generator itself will be a pain to set up but shouldn¡¯t be anything unusual and I already have a backup for the 3D printing machine. I say back up loosely here since I¡¯ve got it in a bunch of carefully stored pieces. It¡¯d probably be a good idea to go ahead and check each of the parts and maybe run a quick diagnostic on both machines before I move one. I don¡¯t foresee there being any issues but I¡¯d rather be safe than sorry since the catastrophic worst-case scenario here is I somehow break the replacement machine while it¡¯s en route and then the one back home explodes.
While the xythans technically have a 3D printer as well, theirs is much lower quality than mine and furthermore is programmed in a language that I am completely unable to read. Getting parts from them would have me feeling real nervous. I think I¡¯ve said that I could make a new 3D printer but I still really don¡¯t like that idea. Universal 3D printers like these are notoriously touchy to being replicated and their failsafes are quite extreme. While I was trained on how to repair everything in the base at a basic level, I was the shield and defense engineer and really only had in-depth training for those areas. To really drive home my nervousness here, we had 2 full engineers that were both there specifically to build and repair the 3D printers.
I don¡¯t think moving will ever be quite ideal but I guess that¡¯s just how the cookie crumbles when dealing with back up parts... Wait a minute. Actually, wait a minute. Darana put a lock on Oreos on the main food machine. Could I swap out the computing bits and circumvent the lock like that?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 170.2
Yes I can. Oreos are back on the menu baby!
Audio Log Day 171
Dear Audio Log, last night I had a heart attack. I went into the kitchen and saw eyes glowing in the dark just staring at me. I screamed a little, jumped a little, and choked on an Oreo a little. Not quite my proudest moment I must say.
I had just gone out for a midnight snack when the incident occurred you see. If I went during the day, Darana might have had to go out of her way to do things like reprogram the machine and whatnot and since I¡¯m a gentleman and would never wish extra work on her, I had to sneak around. Now, while it will never be said I¡¯m the stealthiest cat in the litter, I¡¯d still like to think my sneaking skills are rather passable in no small part thanks to my rather formative teenage years but thats neither here nor there. That said, I forgot one very important aspect of my guests. They are descendants of ambush predators. They walk a lot more quietly than I do, can hear better than I do, and can still see in lower light than I do. Oh, and it means their eyes glow in the dark because holy shit that¡¯s spooky.
Fortunately, it was Bayfur who caught me and not his mom otherwise I¡¯d never hear the end of it. To that end, I consider myself both very lucky and unlucky to have been eating at that time as it muffled my startled sound with the downside being the crumbs that decided to mosey their way into my windpipe.
After I finished choking and generally dying, I split what remained of my midnight snack with Bayfur. Technically, he can eat chocolate but it¡¯s worse for his body to eat that stuff than mine so the little man got some of my beef jerky instead. He seemed to enjoy the spicy stuff so I¡¯ll make sure to set some aside for him in the future. I¡¯m more of a hickory smoke sort of guy myself so he¡¯s free to have it as I don¡¯t really care one way or the other if he eats all that.
Since I¡¯m going to be sharing with the xythans the thought occurred to check how much I actually have and, as it turns out, we have an absolutely obscene quantity and variety of beef jerky just sitting in food storage, like way more so than we properly should have. It kind of makes sense that we would have some, after all, it stores well and doesn¡¯t taste half bad but a disproportionate amount of my food supplies are just jerky. I kinda suspect we had a fan of the stuff onboard though I do wonder how he or she slipped that past Command. I don¡¯t mind personally but man that¡¯s still a lotta jerky.
Jerky numbers aside, the engineer squad has been making some good progress today on the new base. With our calculations completed, the other engineers and I were able to start carving out locations for the explosives and create our guiding wedges. The theory is to create a path of least resistance for each part of the pillars as they take their middle bits leave existence in an effort to prevent chunks from being thrown in every which direction.
Decided to spend a bit of time tuning up the HARP suit today as it¡¯s probably the safest way for us to be interacting with these explosives between the long robot arms and shield generator inside. One of the worst-case scenarios is that we have one of our payloads detonate while working on planting it in the rock and subsequently having the rock collapse on us. The HARP has personal shields that should be able to withstand blasts exceeding the level we intend to be working with so the only really scary part should just be the avalanche portion. The HARP suit should still be able to handle the weight of the rocks provided we take the blasting in smaller chunks which is what we have planned. Once we finish with the drilling tomorrow, we¡¯ll be setting up a few supports and then getting into the nitty gritty of rock removal.
Chapter 21 - Waiting with Storms
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 171.1
The math on my side is done and now I find myself at an impasse where I need wait for the xythans to actually wrap up their calculations and make their bombs. Most of the math should be done but they need some time to get some proper explosives created and tested. I think this is nonsense but thats probably because I want to blow stuff up now!
In the interest of curbing my excessive desire to shoot and explode things, I¡¯ve decided a compromise must be struck and it shall be at Darana¡¯s expense. Today, I shall be fabricating the tools of complete and utter destruction. Known through many a summer and feared for many more. Water guns! In a twist, instead of using the usual fabrication plans from Steve, today I get to use the ones that I smuggled for personal use. Ended up fabricating a few to test and then a few for for fun purposes to a grand total of 6 in varying colors. I gotta say I am quite pleased with how they came out. I fully intend to arm Bayfur with one before we gang up on Darana but first I have a few preparations. First, I need a good spot to load them and an excuse to have Darana ready for some water. Hardly considerate to hose someone down with if they aren¡¯t at least a little bit prepared for some wet.
The plan I¡¯m currently running with is as follows. Step one: Set up the pool. Base inventory tells me that we have an adult-sized mini pool for ¡°Mental Health and Physical Therapy Purposes¡± which I¡¯m pretty sure is just military code for ¡°We got it so we could enjoy it¡± but I¡¯m not gonna question that. I¡¯ll have to find it first but I know that it¡¯s there. From that point, I just need to drag it out and fill it all the way up. Step two is going to be the tricky one. I need to get the guns to the pool and Bayfur ready without her noticing. I¡¯m going to have to move quickly and quietly. Stage Three is easy. Hose the woman down and run, easy as!
First, I gotta actually find the pool though.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 171.2
A slight miscalculation was made. Well¡ I say slight but it was closer to a pool sized miscalculation. The plan went off almost entirely without a hitch. Found the pool without any issues. It was just sitting in the back collecting dust. Not even that hard to find, I could have just stumbled onto it by chance honestly. Step two even went better than expected. I snuck the guns out into the pool without issue, got Bayfur in on it, and even got him shooting properly. This brings us to step 3, the ambush. It went mostly well. I let Darana know about the pool and scuttled out quickly, Darana came out in some swim clothes, a clothy wrapping sort of thing looped around her torso a few times to make it look like a one-piece swimming suit. Looks nice but that¡¯s beside the point. The point is she did get soaked. Success right? Success until you remember she is approximately many times faster than me in terms of reaction and burst speed. That is to say, I got quickly grabbed and just as quickly dunked into the pool. I know I say turnabout is fair play but this ambush wasn¡¯t supposed to have turnabout!
It was fun though and we spent the rest of the afternoon shooting each other with the water guns, running around the outside of the base, and enjoying the swimming pool itself. It wasn¡¯t big enough for me or Darana to swim in so we kinda just sat in the water but Bayfur was able to enjoy it to the full extent. I feel like I could make a doggy paddling joke here but that would be unoriginal and that¡¯s not how I roll!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 172
I forgot my favorite part of swimming outside. THE MOTHERFUCKIN SUNBURNS WOOOOOOOHHH!
Fortunately, it isn¡¯t as bad as it could be as I¡¯m not a complete idiot. I put some sunscreen on a bit before heading out but in my enjoyment of yesterday, I very much failed to actually reapply to any part of me. So now I get to sit inside the base extra crispy with aloe vera on my back. It doesn¡¯t help that Darana keeps coming through to check up on me. I appreciate the thought but she refuses to believe it¡¯s not all that bad. Just because I grunt and wheeze in pain whenever I walk around doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m actually in pain. She has been fussing over me ever since I winced from being tapped. I¡¯m mostly fine, just a touch sensitive is all. Fortunately, I didn¡¯t have anything planned anyways so at this point I can probably take credit for this whole chilling out today idea. No need to sneak out.
Ha!
As if she wouldn¡¯t wrangle my ass out of the HARP if I did try and slip out.
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Engineer¡¯s Log Day 174.1
Sarlunt finally got back to me about creating some shielded fallback points. He mostly wants a few small ones scattered through the forest with a few big ones in the town. The forest being lightly protected should help any potential retreats and actually curb wildfires that¡¯d potentially break out which I can appreciate. Concerning the town, he feels it can be used as a potential point of defense before they have to retreat again. Now all of this makes sense to me and should be perfectly within my capabilities. Since I¡¯ve a bit of spare time. I¡¯ll get started on some of that now. On a partially related note, I¡¯ve been also been asked to do more diplomatic stuff and actually come and talk to some of the folks in the xythan town.
I¡¯ll admit, I am a touch uncomfortable with the idea of just meandering around in their town overly long, even if I am there on ¡°official business¡±. We were technically fighting like, what? 4 months ago? A little less? Regardless of that, I¡¯m going to be getting a lot closer than I necessarily feel comfortable with. I suppose I should get used to it given the current plan of shoving me and all the noncombatants into the new base but still.
Just¡Ugh.
I suppose I¡¯ll have to get over this soon or later but that thought doesn¡¯t make me feel any better.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 174.2
I talked a bit to Darana about my discomfort and she ended up offering to tag along with me to act as a barrier of sorts towards any ill-intentioned folks. It¡¯s funny, I wouldn¡¯t have initially thought that would be that big of a deal to me but after thinking a bit on it I think it actually makes a world of difference. At the very least, I¡¯ll still have a friendly face around and at best I¡¯ll have someone who can help me socialize a bit more. Believe it or not, I was never a super popular kid growing up but I did have a pretty close group of friends. They used to like to joke they hung out with me to repel the bullies like I wasn¡¯t in the exact same boat.
I¡¯m gonna have some wild stuff to say at that reunion¡
Still, I suppose what comes around goes around and I¡¯m getting my goes around right now. That sounds weird saying it but I¡¯m sure the intended message comes through. Darana¡¯s concern makes me feel warm and appreciated. It¡¯s nice.
One way or another though, I do need to get some batteries made. Those shields won¡¯t power themselves and right now I have about twenty spots needing some Zeus juice¡ Actually, that terminology is terrible. Straight up the worst name I¡¯ve ever come up with. I should never say that again.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 175.1
Today was quite interesting as I¡¯ve finally figured out what was going on all the way back at the beginning of my time here. Turns out that the weather does in fact just hate me. Well, not me in particular, the weather actually hates the stuff I like to build. Turns out I¡¯ve been dealing with Ion storms. How did I find out? My stuff tried to explode again. I heard things beginning to whine and had to throw the emergency switch on the generator to prevent anything undue from happening. All my communication gear is still on the fritz and I don¡¯t appreciate it. I didn¡¯t even figure out what was going on until I dashed over to the xythan base and they weren¡¯t even doing anything. It was literally just the weather. Kinda.
Let me explain starting off with the obvious question. What are ion storms? Well, they¡¯re bullshit that''s what they are. To put it simply though, they are a fun little anomaly that sometimes crops up on planets with a higher than average silica content in the atmosphere and funky magnetic poles that like to swap often. When the poles do swap, the atmosphere will hold high levels of ambient energy. This tends to pan out in the form of massive lightning storms most commonly but as a fun little side effect it can also overcharge all my energy based tech. Peachy.
I guess we didn¡¯t see any signs of this when we were planning? I feel like this should have been caught by someone before now. I mean now that I know about this I can actually set up some preventative measures and actually have my tech work normalish but like how didn¡¯t we see this coming? This seems like something that shouldn¡¯t have been able to slip through the gaps like it did.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 175.2
Spent the rest of the day ¡°storm proofing¡± my stuff. A lot of it is just adding what I¡¯ve decided to call storm limiters to prevent things from going boom due to being overcharged. This is a particular pain in my rear for the shields since they have a tendency to be a good bit more sensitive to these sorts of things. Small wonder that nothing went up in flames last time this happened. I spent today making a few bargain bin faraday cages to dodge most of the effects.
It''s actually hilariously easy to make a super simple cage. All you really need are two metal trash cans, one smaller than the other, and some foam to separate the two of them. Technically speaking, you can also use industrial grade microwaves though I¡¯ve heard those aren¡¯t super great at keeping everything out so I don¡¯t know. The fancier you get the better they tend to function at their intended job of keeping things from getting in or out for my purposes, a few trash can cages should easily do the trick.
I¡¯m probably going to have to scrap the mini shields for the forest that I¡¯ve already made and redesign them to be more resilient but that''s fine if a bit frustrating. They¡¯ll definitely be a bit bigger in the redesign but I don¡¯t foresee that being a huge issue. Might be a bit of a tripping hazard but I can bury them to avoid that.
Chapter 22 - Explosive
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 176.1
Today¡¯s the daaaaay. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I¡¯m soon going to be detonating some TNT! It¡¯s boom day and I could not possibly be more excited! I¡¯m running quick last second diagnostics on the shields to make sure that in the very unlikely event that something goes boom a bit prematurely, I¡¯m already shielded. Fortunately for me, all ¡°funny¡± weather events are done and my tech is good to go! I¡¯m practically vibrating with both giddiness and stress. Casually hauling enough tonnage to make a very noticeable crater if I mess up anything along the way. Like¡ yikes but also lets go!
I¡¯m glad I¡¯m not having to supply the majority of the blasting materials as that would be a little touchy. Fortunately, the xythans have now finished their specially designed stuff from which we shall be pulling from. I¡¯d done a bit of asking to see what they currently had and from the sounds of it they have an extensive horde though ill suited for the task at hand. I wasn¡¯t able to weasel any specific numbers out of them but it definitely seems like they have a lot more explosives than they initially let on. Frankly though, it¡¯s all the same to me in the end so long as they don¡¯t make it my problem. I¡¯m more than willing to let them have the privilege of dragging that level of payload in their aircraft and most certainly willing to keep it away from my base.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 176.2
Aight, back home now but today took a relatively unexpected turn. I knew I was excited to blow some stuff up and I knew they were excited to blow stuff up but I really didn¡¯t expect the level of glee demonstrated. It was like watching a kid in a candy shop except it¡¯s Richy Rich and he just bought the building and is running around eating all the candy he wants. That isn¡¯t to say that they were careless in their work. They were triple checking their gear and explosives when I arrived and showed the utmost professionalism when actually dealing with the explodey bits but I don¡¯t think I ever saw xythans grinning as much as this group. Not that I¡¯m one to speak, I¡¯m 100% sure I had the exact same grin slapped across my face. The only bit I found truly offputting was probably the fact that after each detonation, they would all start howling. I asked one of them what the deal was with the howling and got a bit of a history lesson.
Turns out the whole howling thing is a bit of ritual dating all the way back to their race¡¯s early years on their home planet. Well, earlyish years. Apparently, explosives were waaay more prominent in their history than ours due to the combination of their planet having more of the resources needed to make things go boom in natural abundance and the fact that explosive sounds are an unsurprisingly effective way at dealing with sensitive ears. It was apparently a common tactic to start off most of their fights with sound bombs in an attempt to deafen their enemies. Obviously, the tactics and countertactics for this spiraled off in their own interesting ways but the important context is that for a long time a blast would mean battle. As such, as a remembrance of those who fought and died in the past, xythans will howl after blowing stuff up. Honestly, that¡¯s kinda metal and I¡¯m absolutely with it. They even let me howl along in some of the later blasts.
Thanks to our prep work, everything went extraordinarily smoothly and we were able to clear out the area we wanted with minimal issues. Obviously, I¡¯m going to let things settle for a few days before I start working on clearing out the area and making the space livable but I¡¯m feeling good about progress.
Speaking of progress, I¡¯ve finished my redesign of the shields and am working to get them all printed this evening. They ended up coming out a little bit bigger than I¡¯d hoped but they¡¯re still pretty manageable. I¡¯ll unfortunately need to do a bit more work actually digging them in than I¡¯d like but that¡¯s kinda how it is. Maybe I can conscript some folks for an official peacekeeping diplomatic mission? I feel like I could swing that.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 177
It¡¯s a bit late at this point, so I¡¯m going to be trying to keep the log brief. I¡¯ve gotten the shields down in the forest planted and marked each area with a small red X. I did end up conscripting Glysia and one of her pals and was able to get everything down in the end. I¡¯ve set a few remote controls up so that the shields can be powered up remotely by me or the xythans. Once activated, stomping on the top 3 times should activate the shields. Now, this does run the risk of the shields activating prematurely if something sufficiently big walks through the area but I can¡¯t imagine that¡¯ll be an overly large issue if there is an active fight going on. Honestly, worst-case scenario would be a group of our guys running through the area, triggering it, and any stragglers getting bounced. Granted, I decided to make a slow shield so even if they charge full tilt into it their impact shouldn¡¯t be that bad. Depending on the fortifications in the town, I may or may not want to do hard shields there
Actually, I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever talked about shields before on the audio log. This may not be such a short log. Ok ok ok where to start¡ uhhhhhh ok got it. So there are a large number of various types of shields but the basic concept is to project energy in a manner that has certain physical properties. Technically speaking, the field of science is adjacent to slipspace tech in our Ender Drives but instead of pushing a ship just above the surface of reality, we are pulling bits of slipspace into our area. I won¡¯t explain the exact mechanics of how it works but I can go into the applications. In terms of shields, there are huge swathes of various types you can make but they can generally be categorized into three main types. Those three are hardlight shields, slow shields, and momentum shields.
Hardlight shields are the easiest to understand. They function very similarly to walls or floors. Functionally, you can make all sorts of fun, complex shapes with them although the energy cost increases the more complex you get so most of the time you stick with basic shapes. Once activated, you can¡¯t really edit the shape until you stop providing energy to that location. These bad boys have a pretty high energy cost by default though so if you want them to work you have to have either a big battery or some automatic optimization. This is the same type of shield that I currently use for the HARP and base. Technically speaking, they¡¯re optimized to only turn on when they need to help preserve power.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Slow shields are a bit more complex in their construction but have a few handy features. The primary feature we enjoy is that these shields function in a non-Newtonian manner. That is to say, if a given object hits the wall fast enough, the wall will be solid and vise versa where objects traveling at slow speeds can slide through the wall. These types don¡¯t take nearly as much power as hard shields but you can¡¯t make anything nearly as complex. Now, I¡¯m not saying you can¡¯t do complex things with them but getting a generator to make anything more than a dome or wall is actually hellish. The one big weakness of these types is that it is far easier to hit an upper limit on shield toughness. As a result, these types have a tendency to shatter far more easily.
The last type is momentum shields which are rather hard to explain. You can use them to maneuver spaceships in ways that would never be possible with just thrusters. I don¡¯t fully understand the underlying mechanics of these because this particular facet of the field of science is incredibly complex but the most generalized version is that these things store and generate momentum while they are activated. There is a bit of an issue though when you want to turn them off as they will try and take the net of that momentum generated and stored and just release it which can potentially be catastrophic.
You know, it¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve just talked about this stuff. I remember having to explain it to my aunts and uncles every year at family reunions. Those were always a bit awkward but definitely fun. Made me feel like an absolute nerd in all the best ways. Mom always loved showing me off. I wonder if I¡¯ve got some pictures saved from some of those reunions somewhere on my PC. I should go find those. Bet Darana would laugh a bit at them.
I also just looked at the time and I should go to bed.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 178
Today was a massive fucking mess of a diplomatic proportions. Got into a fight, have been temporarily banished to my base, and am generally quite cut up. To top it all off, I¡¯m still more than a little mad.
I¡¯d been asked to help get some protections in the town set up a bit ago and so I decided today was as good as any other to get that done. Figured I¡¯d make a day of it and do my diplomatic socializing also since I¡¯d be around for a while. There were three different points that I was supposed to reinforce with shielding and since these needed to be heavier emplacements, I couldn¡¯t use a battery for them like yesterday.
I ended up deciding to take a bit of a short cut and repurpose some of the shield generator back ups I had sitting around. Spent a good amount of time in the morning adjusting the generators, making sure they all were compatible with the xythans power supplies and were outputting correctly. Once I had it all good to go, I grabbed Darana and Bayfur and we were off. Got through the first two generators without issue. I¡¯d been overly worried for almost nothing as it would turn out and once a few of the engineers came over to say hello, the ice was officially broken and I was able to chat with a few of the townsfolk.
Issues kinda made themselves apparent right as I was wrapping up the last generator. Two large kinda surly looking xythans wandered over to pay a visit. I don¡¯t remember their names but I do remember the faces. These two were some of the folks that taken potshots at me for a few months.
Initially, all they did was belittle me. Untrustworthy blah blah unfit for survival blah blah blah. You know the works. I probably would have been annoyed by them in all honesty, but I made the executive decision to just try to ignore them. Obviously, they got pretty irritated by my ignoring them and decided to try and get into my space. Darana stepped in to try and keep things from escalating and at this point they turned their aggression on her. Slung some nasty stuff ranging from accusations of being a traitor all the way to insulting her dead husband. To her absolute credit, Darana maintained her composure throughout and didn¡¯t start anything. I regret to inform you that Bayfur did not though and he decided to go on the offensive on their legs. Then the fuckers kicked him off.
Now, I¡¯ve seen a variety of emotions from Darana but the face she made right then was definitely a new one. She¡¯s clearly furious and jumps to Bayfur¡¯s defense but the two were ready for such a response and began to physically gang up on her. Bit of a shame they weren¡¯t ready to catch my hands though. Clocked one, shoulder-checked the other, and now a proper brawl had broken out.
I¡¯d like to think I gave as well as I got but xythans tend to be armed with a lot more dangerous natural weapons in the form of vestigial claws and very much not vestigial teeth. My work gear and torso are absolutely shredded but I am pretty sure I broke a few of their bones.
I don¡¯t know how long exactly we were fighting but we were eventually pried apart by a security team. From there, I was given basic medical attention and escorted back to my base.
Darana or Bayfur were taken off with the security team, I haven''t seen them since, and some of my tools are still over there. I¡¯m incredibly pissed.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 179
Feeling a bit better today. Started off talking to Sarlunt and was given an update on the situation. The two chucklefucks who started shit are in hot water right now and will likely continue to be so for a good while. Darana was being held for the night as she apparently got a somewhat deep scratch on her leg but was apparently getting released with doctors orders for rest.
Naturally, I quickly dashed over to check for myself and fortunately she was quite alright. She was back in her old house temporarily and had a few neighbors keeping an eye on both her and Bayfur. When I arrived she was more concerned about my honestly superficial scratches and trying to fuss over me instead of resting. I had the absolute privilege of pointing out the irony of the situation since I don¡¯t think it could be any richer considering our history and she knows it. Frankly, I think we¡¯re just both glad the other is ok. Ended up sticking around most of the day just talking with her and keeping an eye on Bayfur before getting chased off by the neighbors to go rest myself. I¡¯ll be visiting again tomorrow but I reckon we can both take a few days off.
Chapter 23 - Now Build It Again
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 181.1
Alrighty tighty, all of the rocks at the future base seem to have settled down so it¡¯s time for me to go ahead and start taking measurements. This is probably my least favorite part of construction but I¡¯ve run out of stalling methods. I¡¯ve already made extra food for the base since Darana still isn¡¯t particularly mobile and the plant care is finished so unfortunately I need to head on out.
In an ideal situation, everything has settled down nicely and I can start working on setup. The first order of business will be me evening out the area, setting up a new generator, and then lastly a fabricator. The xythans will be in charge of getting the water above ground and usable as, quite frankly, I don¡¯t have the foggiest of clues about fluid dynamics or even where I would need to drill in the first place. For food, we¡¯ll be splitting the bill and then lastly, we¡¯ll be setting up defenses and housing. The housing situation will primarily be the xythan¡¯s responsibility as there are much more of them than me. My main role here is to set up the power and defenses and once that¡¯s done, I¡¯m a free bird. Any work I do that doesn¡¯t fall into that category is basically for my own comfort.
The biggest issue I¡¯ll have to deal with will undoubtedly be how I¡¯m going to create the walls. I don¡¯t necessarily need to make walls although they are incredibly handy and giving them a bit of extra height would make my launchers and shields more effective. The shields wouldn¡¯t have to cover nearly as much ground if a bit higher and defensive emplacements always love having the height advantage.
On all levels except physical, the walls are a good idea. Physically though, I am running into a bit of an issue where I need to figure how I¡¯m actually going to be getting these walls. In theory, I can take advantage of the fallen pillars and build on top of those but that plan is liable to have all sorts of complications. The rock around here isn¡¯t the toughest thing which was handy for blowing up but makes it a bit less than ideal for actual construction. I¡¯ve an idea about how I can make it work but it¡¯s a lot more time and labor intensive than I¡¯d like. Concrete. If I crunch down the fallen stone and I could potentially make a sort of concrete. In that form, it¡¯d be pretty easily reinforceable with just a bit of rebar and fairly effective if I make it correctly. The one downside is that I¡¯d be having to to move a lot of rocks which is just... Ugh.
I¡¯ll need to do some fact checking on this but for now all I need to worry about is just getting a working generator and fabricator into place. After those two suckers are down and working properly, I can start getting fancy and I¡¯ll hopefully have a better idea about how I want to do this wall stuff.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 181.2
At this point, my scratches from the brawl the other day have healed enough that I don¡¯t need to keep like 5 tubes of neosporin on me at all time. With this new found power, I¡¯ve declared Darana to still be infirmed and unsuitable for anything beyond the most basic of movements and if I¡¯m interpreting her glaring and grumbling correctly, I think she agrees and greatly appreciates me reminding her. In light of this new found appreciation, I¡¯ve decided to help her out with a good old family remedy.
Back in my youthful summer months, I remember catching a strong case of whatever seasonal flu was going around and being bedridden for a few days. Initially, I felt so bad that I couldn¡¯t get up without feeling nauseous. Mum had to hand feed me a steady diet of chicken soup and saltine crackers for a full week before I started to improve. Now, Mum was always a cautious woman and didn¡¯t want me running around while I was still recovering and infecting my friends or relapsing so naturally, even after I reached the point where I was mostly better, she still kept me quarentined in my room. I can somewhat appreciate the sentiments now but at the time, I was absolutely miserable. She could obviously empathize with my frustrations and decided to literally sweeten the deal. For the rest of my quarantine, I got to have homemade vanilla ice cream with every single meal. To this day, I still remember the taste fondly.
Bringing this roundabout story to a close, I intend to make some ice cream for my bedridden companion. Tonight, I¡¯ll get an ice cream mixer made. I¡¯ll need to check and see if we actually have blueprints for that but even if we don¡¯t I should be able to design something pretty quick, ice cream machines aren¡¯t exactly the most complicated things. Tomorrow evening, I¡¯ll gather up the ingredients and spring my little surprise. You know, I bet Bayfur would think it¡¯s pretty cool if I show him ice cream is made. The whole ice and salt thing is pretty dang cool if you ask me.
Ahh, I forgot to talk about the work site. Everything has settled down pretty well although I might have been a little too hopeful with the pillars. The remaining pieces are fairly large but kinda not large enough to make a proper wall on their own so it¡¯s kinda looking like I may have to do the concrete method. I¡¯m did check and I¡¯m currently out of rebar so I¡¯ll have to make some soon. It¡¯s not that complex, I¡¯m just a little annoyed that I have extra work. On the bright side, I was able to find an excellent location for a generator. The large pillar near the camp actually flattened out really well so I should be able to take advantage of that space and use it as the center. I¡¯m oh half a mind to make a divot and hide the generator in it. It¡¯ll be a bit more of a pain to work on but this isn¡¯t exactly going to be a long-term base and the convenience of having it out of the way and safe from any oncoming fire more than makes up for any downsides. Tomorrow, I¡¯ll start breaking in the area so everyone else can also get started.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day182
What a resounding success of a day! I had a big brain moment this morning when I was about to go to the new base site when I realized I should probably measure the generator before putting a hole in the ground. Printed out a box that was a bit bigger than my measurements so I could verify the spacing of my hole. Made it to the site without any issue and in what can only be considered a stroke of astronomical luck for me, I didn¡¯t have any issues today. Considering my recent trends, I honestly found this refreshing. My tools all worked properly and I was able to carve everything out without issue. Extraordinary.
On top of that, while it was technically last night, I found ice cream machine plans already included in the printer by default which is great because I¡¯d initially thought I was going to have to make them myself. Whoever put those plans in there is an absolute saint. Like they were just sitting there ready to go for me.
Jumping forward to today, armed with some vanilla extract, ice, and suitably heavy cream among other ingredients, I was able to produce some absolutely delectable desserts. Dug around until I found some the sprinklesand made three bowls. My big brain struck again and I had the excellent idea to crumple some Oreos into mine. I¡¯m actually a bonafide genius.
Darana absolutely tore through two full bowls back to back. Can¡¯t really blame her, homemade ice cream practically crack with how good it tastes although I gotta say it was still a nice little boost to my ego. Might have to add Chef Supreme to my ever expanding list of titles.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 183
Today was a very stressful and annoying day. Good old generator moving day. Step one of generator moving day is to have a generator. Fortunately, I remembered to bring mine from home so that wasn¡¯t a huge issue. Step two was to actually move the generator which is definitely a bit more of a hassle. I removed all the fuel from the generator and started packing it up. This was the ¡°fun part¡± of the whole experience as I needed to break down the generator back into its components before packing each part individually. See, the generator is incredibly efficient but that¡¯s only the case if all of the parts make it to the destination without significant damage to any of them. If one or two of the parts become damaged, my efficiency will absolutely tank so getting everything over in pristine condition was my main focus.
To keep all the parts safe, I packed it into reinforced boxes filled with foam which are surprisingly heavy. Turns out having heavy pieces of metal plus a bunch of foam actually just makes a box heavy as shit. Technically speaking, I could have saved some time and just slapped the whole generator into a box and simply replaced any damaged parts and although it sounds like a nice idea, I¡¯d likely have to march the whole distance multiple times to get new parts as I found pieces broken and honestly that sounds like an absolute pain in the ass. So in the end, I just loaded all the small parts into their boxes and then the boxes into the HARP and marched my way over to the new camp praying that nothing got tumbled too hard in the back. That wasn¡¯t too bad overall. You that feeling when you are holding onto a somewhat skittish cat that would love to jump out of your arms if you so much twitch incorrectly? Well, imagine that feeling except instead of having the finesse of a human body, you¡¯re using an oversized machine of war. That is to say, I was very STRESSED. Fortunately, I managed to get everything over without anything being smashed. It took me a few hours to reassemble the sucker but now we have some power. Tossed down a small tend to protect it from the elements and here we are. I¡¯m not looking forward to tomorrow when I get to repeat the entire process with the 3D printer.
Thank goodness I have some ice cream to make things better.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 184
Today was a lot like yesterday with a lot more double-checking to make sure I wouldn¡¯t get borked when I turned the printer on. These printers use a lot of dangerous tech that while it does have a lot of fail-safes, I definitely am still allowed to fear a malfunction. I¡¯ve survived this long without losing any limbs and I fully intend to keep that streak going. Fortunately, my fears were ill-founded and I managed to escape without losing so much as an eyelash.
I took a bit of spare time to set up a tent for the printer and then some small shields around both the generator and the printer on the off chance someone decides to cause problems. The sketchy part on my side is done and I can create my defensive emplacements over there now and shouldn¡¯t need to lug anything other than materials back and forth. It all gives me a profound sense of satisfaction.
Got to play more Not Dodgeball TM with Todorn, Vrok, Pottem and Grel today and I must say, I¡¯m definitely beginning to hit my stride. At this point, it¡¯ll only be a few more years of consistently playing before I¡¯m ready to hit the Calydr Big Leagues. Darana decided to tag along with Bayfur to watch this time. I¡¯d bet it¡¯s just cabin fever beginning to catch up with her but I do hope she feels tempted to join in after watching. They say that the time-honored tradition of hitting your close friends is important for any bonding process. I suppose that would make Grel very close with me with how disproportionately much I seem to be hit by her. I¡¯d call her a cheater but I¡¯m unsure how one cheats in a game with literally just a ball. It¡¯s not just me getting nailed either, Todorn and Vrok are both on the chopping block also. Grel seems to take it easier on Pottem which is frankly unfair. Please employ some equal opportunity targeting!
The worst part is that every time Grel nails anyone, she gives the most unenthusiastic cheer you¡¯ve ever heard. You wouldn¡¯t think it to be a big deal but she does this every time. Todorn, Vrok, and I are beginning to discuss an alliance to push back against the menace in our games.
Chapter 24 - Dig Deep and Fly High
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 185
I want to complain about today as I started work on the walls and I have to say, this stuff is obnoxious. In order to reinforce the walls properly, I need rebar, a mold, some rocks, and of course the concrete itself. Fortunately for me, concrete isn¡¯t the hardest thing in the world to get my hands on. We have a lot left over from when we constructed our base initially and should we run out, I¡¯m fairly confident I can bully the xythans until they give me some. This is the easy part unfortunately and from here the annoyingness of each task only increases.
I¡¯ll need to crunch down the rocks into gravel-sized pieces because otherwise, the structural integrity of the wall is going to be at risk due to the inconsistencies. It''s a relatively simple task but simple doesn¡¯t mean easy and I have a lot of it to do. The xythans are more than willing to work with me with the basic stuff so that should help prevent this from taking me terribly long but that¡¯s not all. The rebar is obnoxious to print and move and I generally found it laborious due to its unerring ability to get tangled in itself whenever I try to put it into neat piles. Toss in the burnt smell each of them have and you have a recipe for a fantastic time and by fantastic time I mean I¡¯d prefer to get into a fight with an electric fence. The absolutely worst part about this is definitely going to be setting up the molds for the walls. I need to dig down into the stoney earth so I can plant the supports, break aforementioned rocks for the molds, pour it all in, and then remove the cast so I can do it all again. This is going to be a lot of work.
In theory, I could pass the task off to the xythans I really don¡¯t want to. Let me explain. I have pretty extensive training for this and have precise knowledge of what exactly each of the walls requirements. On the other, the xythan base, while built in a defendable location, doesn¡¯t really have all that much in the way of stationary defenses. They have a stone wall that looks like it could handle the wildlife at best and no automated defenses to speak of. I don¡¯t know if the lack of defenses is a cultural thing or if they really just felt like the security wasn¡¯t needed when colonizing the planet. Additionally, a few months ago, I was literally able to drive a remote control car into the center of their town. They got it in the end but if I had any actual hostile intent, I could have caused some real problems. In comparison, I was able to hold a base on my own for over 3 months with just the defenses I set up in a week¡¯s span. My base was breached because I have a bleeding heart. While the xythan miliary¡¯s offensive abilities are nothing to scoff at and their guerilla tactics far outstrip my own, this is literally my specialty, I build shields. I¡¯m almost certainly overstating my abilities here but not by much as this is one of the few things I feel confident on.
Furthermore, Sarlunt asked me to head this project so I want to make sure this place is a tough ass nut to crack. I want the foundations to be nigh unshakable and the only way I can make sure of that is to do this myself. Any good defense needs to be sitting on a firm foundation or else you¡¯re just asking for all sorts of trouble.
Bleh, I got way to serious. I do have some good news though. Darana is finally healed up enough to be walking around the base. She still has a bit of a limp but that should hopefully heal by itself pretty quickly. The one downside is that I¡¯ll have to get used to her returning mobility as I got used to being able to make snide remarks and dashing out of range before she could retaliate. Now, with her increasing mobility, I¡¯ll have to move faster and further to avoid her vengeance. Sooner or later, she¡¯ll catch me and I very much doubt she¡¯ll have forgotten and forgiven the last week. I don¡¯t feel any remorse though! I remember how the woman tormented me when she first arrived here so as far as I¡¯m concerned this is simply a spot of revenge. Turnabout is fair play afterall!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 187
I got got by Darana today but she caught me off guard ok? Stupid, lanky xythan arms being able to grab you from entirely too far away. I got a squeeze hug and a lick on the back of my head for my pestering. Gwoof, I can still feel my ribs creaking as they shift back into place. Still, it¡¯s a sign of good health in my personal and very professional opinion.
On the work side of things, I spent today printing and moving the rebar. Decided to use the one on the new site to speed transport time up and to double-check that the backup printer is working properly. Figured something simple like rebar would make a decent test. Not today but at some point, I need to make a little storage shed and bring over some of the materials. Lugging them back and forth is going to wear on me.
On a bit more of an interesting note, I was actually joined by a handful of rough-looking xythans today on the worksite today. They were there to help me with some of the rock breaking in addition to getting started on building construction. I suppose now that I have the generator going and the walls planned they can actually start bringing over their tools and getting started. Not that I¡¯m complaining, I¡¯m thrilled to have a few extra hands around to help me actually get things done. These guys even have a fun name for themselves that translates something close to ¡°The Reforgers¡± which is a killer name by the way!
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 188
Wrapped up my work on the rebar today so unfortunately, I¡¯ll have to move on to getting the walls ready. The terrain itself around here is somewhat flat which is both a blessing and a curse. On the bright side, it means the main section of the base will require very little work to get everything flattened out so the proper foundations can be laid. On the other hand, it means that digging down will take extra work from me to actually get everything set up.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Ugh¡
Well, take things one step at a time. Tomorrow I¡¯ll chalk out all the locations I need to break and then the day after I¡¯ll get started. I believe I should have some tools to do this from back when we were setting up the base originally so I should be able to avoid the indignity of having to snag some the Reforger¡¯s tools. I didn¡¯t actually take part in any of the earth-breaking way back when but it can¡¯t be that hard right?
Oh, one last little fun thing from today. The team to get the water pump set up showed up in the early afternoon and surprise surprise, Pottem was with them. I can honestly say that this has entirely blindsided me. Apparently, when his group started rounding folks up to go and work on this project, he volunteered. Can¡¯t say I¡¯m mad since I get to see one of my buddies at during work. Speaking of my buddies, I don¡¯t actually know much about them other than the small talk we engaged in when playing our games. Like, I didn¡¯t even know what Pottem did for his job before today. I¡¯ll make sure to remedy that next time I see them.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 190
Today took me a bit longer than I would have liked to get started because as it turns out, machines that are supposed to break rock will only do their job properly when you are very particular about properly using them. Ended up spending entirely more time than I would have liked just trying to get it all started since I had to dig into the database for some tutorials. In the end, I only got a small portion of what I would have liked done today.
Once I did get started though, the work was fairly monotonous and gave me a good amount of time to think and think I did. At this point, I don¡¯t really think the xythans or I have all that much more time left. The message was sent to us a little over 4 months back. If the pirates manage to trace the colony ship¡¯s trail back to us, they could be here in anywhere from a few weeks of time to maybe three months more if we¡¯re lucky. Since, I¡¯m making a much bigger base here, I¡¯m going to need a significantly higher generator count and for a heavy emplacement like this one, the shields will need to be smart in how they are activated otherwise they¡¯ll eat through my power reserves. Setting that up will probably take me the better part of two weeks. Between the walls and this, I¡¯ll be hard-pressed to have and extra defenses like I did back at my original base if timing isn¡¯t particularly kind. Can¡¯t say I¡¯m super comfortable with the idea of being under armed when they come a-knockin¡¯ but them¡¯s the breaks.
Hopefully, the xythans have some bite to my bark.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 192.1
Wrapped up the last of the earth breaking today and got all the molds set up and ready. Tomorrow, I¡¯ll add the rebar and from there I can get started with actually pouring the concrete. Well, I¡¯m saying I but I rather mean we. The Reshapers helped me put up the molds and have offered to help me pour everything in tomorrow also. That should push the schedules a few days forward in our favor.
A bit of a dangerous thought occurred to me today during work. What if the xythan¡¯s satellites get blown out of the sky? I¡¯ve been making do without one thus far but if we have to deal with hostile invaders and they do the normal hostile invader thing and shoot our eyes, well be blind and quite frankly I¡¯d rather know where they are. I¡¯ve started looking into some scanner designs I¡¯ve got and I have to say I¡¯m not super thrilled. No super fancy tech to trivialize the problem means I¡¯m going to have to figure it out myself. Worst case scenario, I can start putting down cameras around the areas we want to keep an eye on but that¡¯s not particularly efficient among a host of other problems.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 192.2
I¡¯ve remembered the issue is everyone¡¯s issue and have brought my concerns to Sarlunt. Fortunately for me, he¡¯s actually put some thought into the idea also. Turns out, his transport ships have fairly potent scanners and can give him a pretty good idea of the surrounding terrain. They were designed for mining and being able to identify materials but he seemed pretty confident they could be repurposed. He currently plans to plant a few in various discrete locations and use them to keep track should things come to that. Not a bad plan all things considered but it could be problematic if invaders realize and start trying to track down the vehicles. If they turn the scanner off, they should be able to evade any counter scanners although that will put a few holes in the map.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 193
Ok, I stumbled onto an idea a little earlier today while watching Bayfur play and reminiscing on my earlier days with the xythans. I was thinking about how I had used the car to harass them then it hit me. What if I do something similar where I slap a few a remote camera on some toys, call ¡®em drones, and use it as scouts to check out problematic areas. Not particularly discrete perhaps but In lieu of some sort of any proper military tech, I figure this is probably about as good as we¡¯ll be getting. I should be able to make a few basic designs pretty quickly and, if Darana is willing to help me with this, start making a few variants for testing in the next few days. I even already have a few designs from a while back so my starting point isn¡¯t even that bad.
I don¡¯t think this will be anywhere nearly as effective as Sarlunt¡¯s scanner idea but as I see it they¡¯ll help us in a two-fold manner. Firstly, they¡¯ll be super simple to deploy. They don¡¯t need to be hidden ahead of time and have a minuscule resource requirement so we can just crank them out by the dozen and call it day. With enough, we can use them just about anywhere and if they¡¯re numerous enough it doesn¡¯t really matter if they get blown to pieces. Secondly, their less than discrete nature will actually help us hide the scanners. If the invaders think those are our main methods of spying on them, they may not think to check for anything more powerful.
It also gives me the excuse to make a whole armada of planes but that¡¯s besides the point.
Chapter 25 - Dark Musings
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 194
Work is moving along nicely. We managed to get the rebar all planted today and start prepping the concrete which actually puts us significantly ahead of schedule. Credit where credit is due, I completely underestimated the ability and work ethic of the Reshapers. Pending a bit of luck, I should be able to get the walls ready and shields up in seven or so days. Once that¡¯s all done, it¡¯ll be time to move onto the stationary defenses. I¡¯ve been thinking about how I want to set those up and I¡¯ve come to an unsatisfactory conclusion. Since I don¡¯t really have any clue as to when or even if pirates will be showing, I need to have the base¡¯s defenses well spaced out or I¡¯ll just be introducing points of weakness that can be exploited. The downside to this is that I¡¯ll have to move my point of work each time I finish and the walls are way larger than the ones back at my base. I can already feel pain starting in my lower back when I think about the amount of picking up and putting down I¡¯m going to have to do. I suppose my turrets won¡¯t have the most optimal positioning based on how I decide to space them out but that¡¯s honestly a secondary concern Icy Hots I¡¯ll be needing.
If things weren¡¯t going great already, Pottem¡¯s team managed to get the water running which means it¡¯s actually starting to look like a civilized location over here. Me and some of the Reshapers partook in some of the newly aquired water after our nice long and hot day of work. The hydrologists were making sounds when we did it, something about ¡°potential lead poisoning¡± and ¡°unknown elements in the water supply¡±. I can¡¯t imagine that ever coming back around to bite us provided we don¡¯t just drink that.
On a less happy note, I¡¯ve been giving some thought tonight as to how this situation is going to actually end. Right now I see it being resolved in a few different ways, with three of them I suspect to be the most likely. The one I most expect is if the pirates show up and decide to play it smart. I could see them trying to make a deal for my stuff in exchange for just fucking off afterward. Kill too many folks and you¡¯ll have somebody¡¯s navy breathing down your neck regardless of who you decide to harass. I could see this one being what we go with since the xythans don¡¯t really have any combat-focused ships with them so contesting them in the air wouldn¡¯t really be an option I don¡¯t think if it¡¯s really worth throwing any amount of lives to keep my stuff, no matter how nice my action figure collection may be. So long as I have my blueprints and a working printer, I¡¯ll be fine. It¡¯ll take forever to properly rebuild but I¡¯ll be fine.
The second possibility I foresee is the pirates deciding to shoot first and loot later. Again, they¡¯ll have aerial superiority so they may think they can get away with this. I feel like this is a possibility simply because our navies can¡¯t hunt them down if the pirates have already burned any and all traces of themselves. All the anti-ballistic and anti-ship emplacements we¡¯ve put up are basically there for this explicit reason, we want to make ourselves as unappealing of a target as possible and discourage them trying to annihilate us as we can. We cannot rely on the pirates showing any amount of goodwill towards us because if they are given enough time, they still may very well be able to execute on this plan. Our goal is to bleed them if they try and stall until help can arrive.
That actually brings us to the last and most ideal scenario where the xythan or human military show up and we don¡¯t have to fight. The xythans have been blasting messages back towards their nearest colonies. On the xythan side of things, this planet is actually far from most of their inhabited space so reinforcements on that front are still pretty far out. Personally, I¡¯m a lot more opportunistic about some of my folks showing up. The colony ships got about half of the way home when they sent the message back hear so it isn¡¯t out of the question that they let someone back home know and I¡¯d be willing to bet money they called them first. The problem is, even if they were on their way, we won¡¯t know until they actually arrived because we never actually got the communication satellite up and running. The human satellite population matches the human population on the planet and is current sitting in orbit insulting the xythans. I don¡¯t know what to about it because I certainly don¡¯t know how communications work and I¡¯m not going up there to fix that..
Odds are, Options One and Three are the most likely to happen with Option Two being an ominous if unlikely option. If it does end up being Option Two, there isn¡¯t much to be done anyways so not much point in thinking on it.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 196If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
The last two days have just been a lot of theoretical waiting around and a lot of practical hard work for me. The Reshapers helped me with the concrete mixing and pouring and just like that all I¡¯d have to do was wait. Theoretically of course. In practice, they made small snide comments and we got into a contest about who could prepare cement faster. Jokes on them though, the extra cement will go to the houses and the more of those there are, the greater my chances of getting my own room.
After a few hours of work, the concrete making up the walls is all poured and I can move onto more important things aka actually getting started adding in the shield generators. I¡¯ve decided these suckers won¡¯t be anything complex and will just have an off and on switch for the time being. Figure that way it¡¯ll just be a matter of configuring everything and making sure they don¡¯t combust the second they have any amount of power running through them. Once I have them all up and running, then I can start looking into getting the fancy stuff integrated but functionality first.
Once I start adding in the automated guns, I¡¯ll be able to start adding in the extra complexity but for now this should do. They¡¯ll be super inefficient but that¡¯s fine for the time being. I did make a quick little testing program to flicker the shields and stress test them. Kinda hurts my eyes to watch but it was effective. Fun fact, if you run this test at night, you can throw on some electric music for an excellent rave.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 199
Shields added, eyes strobed, generator ready, HERE WE GOOOO!
I have been able to crank out the shield generators in record time and fortunately after a bit of testing nothing went up in smoke. I¡¯ll still need to do another round of testing once I have the guns integrated but that¡¯s an issue for later. It¡¯s actually kind of funny how that sort of field testing works because it¡¯s literally just me walking around the outside firing various projectile and energy weapons to make sure that the shields are actually stopping the bullets and can withstand a little bit of beating.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 200
Today went pretty well right up until it didn¡¯t. One of my shields wasn¡¯t working the way that it¡¯s supposed to and I had to basically disassemble the whole thing and put it back together. The sucker was super delayed in its response to me activating the test and just wasn¡¯t being responsive. What really annoys me is that when I took it apart to check what was broken, you want to know what I found? Absolute fuck all that¡¯s what. Every part looked fine so I checked each segment in a different generator and they all worked perfectly fine. Plugged it all back in and it just works now. I didn¡¯t even change anything so why does it work now like pities sakes. This might sound like a good thing but I really need to know why it was failing earlier so that I can prevent it from happening with any of the others and determine if I¡¯m going to have to replace it. For now, I¡¯ll just keep an eye on this glitchy one and see if it doesn¡¯t begin having these issues again. Maybe I assembled it wrong the first time?.
Fortunately for me, all the rest were in working order or had relatively simple fixes. Provided Mr. Blinky here doesn¡¯t have any additional problems, I can get started on the turrets. Currently, my plan is to put up 3 at a time spacing them out relatively evenly. I¡¯m fairly confident in my ability to get down three in about a week¡¯s time and any additional turrets I get down after that will just be icing on the cake. In so far as I¡¯m concerned, I¡¯m running right up against the clock here and anything more I get is mercy, not a given.
One good bit of news from today though Is that I¡¯ve got a working prototype for my info gathering drones. They need to be manually piloted but are lightweight, cheap to make, and most importantly, they have red flames painted down the side. They don¡¯t move especially fast and can be shot down pretty easily by just about any defense be they manual, automatic, or otherwise but they are still cheap and I¡¯ve already been able to make a small fleet. The important iteration of this batch is that I¡¯ll only need a few controllers to control the whole pack. I just need to sync the two parts up and then it¡¯s off into the skies. This should help take the burden off anyone piloting them.
I¡¯ve given some thought into actually weaponizing the suckers but I¡¯ll need a few extra resources if I want to look extensively into that. The issue is that these things are lightweight and can¡¯t really handle the amount of kickback projectile guns provide and the batteries for energy rifles aren¡¯t exactly light. So, I¡¯ve decided to go to the logical solution. Much like how I¡¯ve attached cameras to the planes, I¡¯ll just attach some small ordnance explosives. I don¡¯t expect them to be super effective on their own but I was thinking if we use them in conjunction with the normal ones we might be able to slip on or two in every so often. The xythans have mastered getting the most bang for the least size so if I use some of that I should be able to make some good stuff.
The difficult bit of this plan is going to be getting the xythans to fork over some of their explosives for testing.
Chapter 26 - Finally Arrived
A battle cruiser flashed back into real space followed shortly by three additional frigates. The battle cruiser¡¯s surface was marred with several impacts and scorch marks but didn¡¯t appear to have suffered any real loss in functionality. The ship¡¯s inhabitants had a simple mission; loot, burn, and steal in whichever order seemed appropriate at the time. Slowly turning, the ships checked their last projected coordinates and began preparing for their final jump.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 201
Alright so the plans for the little drones have been accelerated. The difficult bit was supposed to be getting the xythans to fork over explosives but I forgot how entirely blast happy they are. I literally just asked for a small amount to test my idea and I received a record speed response of, and I quote, ¡°Ok, go for it and let us know how it goes.¡± No restrictions, no warnings, no nothing, just rapid access to explosives. To be entirely fair, they are probably feeling the pressure of a looming invasion even more acutely than I am. I mean, I¡¯m just one person and if push comes to shove, I can try and just rough it in the wild. It¡¯d suck but I could probably do it if I¡¯m ready ahead of time. They have a whole population center to worry about and a lot of moving pieces to worry about on top of that. It¡¯s also entirely possible that they¡¯ve learned that I¡¯m an actual professional and to be trusted to not cause chaos.
HA! As if!
More seriously, the few tests I did run actually seemed somewhat successful. I can¡¯t put that much on the plane so it¡¯s certainly not taking out anyone with combat armor on but the drone¡¯s suicide attack was still potent enough that any hostiles probably can¡¯t really afford to ignore any planes so you know, worst case scenario, they¡¯ll make for an excellent distraction.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 202
The first of my mounted defenses has been set up and passed its integration tests with the shields around the base. It took a bit of time today but with the original base as a starting point, I was able to knock it out right quick. If I can continue working at this speed, I¡¯ll be done in about four or so days. To that end, I cannot stress exactly how much the Reshapers actually pushed my project through to completion. They were such an immense help and I cannot stress how nice they were to work with. These lads managed to help me get my rebar ready and molds up and ready and have still managed to find time to make a not insignificant amount of housing. Actually in awe.
Speaking of good work ethic, I went and checked the progress on anti-ballistic and anti-aircraft emplacements and good night have they made some progress. I guess what I was seeing initially was just the warm up because they went and covered a small country¡¯s worth of land with enough launchers to truly impress. Obviously, we can¡¯t protect everywhere on the planet with the time we have to set up but they¡¯ve certainly been making an effort.
While I¡¯m still going to need to mount the shield generators and turrets, the Reshapers have just about finished their work up and are getting ready to head on out. They¡¯ve finished the aforementioned housing up which means that the base is officially ready for habitation! Now, while I''ve not been kept in the loop concerning the particulars here, my understanding is that we¡¯re planning on moving folks over gradually in groups of like twenty or so at a time. Something about helping folks get adjusted or something like that? I don¡¯t know the particulars but the xythans hardly want to abandon their small town and I feel very much the same about my base. I¡¯ll tell you what, it would make it an absolute shame if we did end up abandoning both only to have the pirates never show up. Actually, I think I¡¯d prefer that now that I say it out loud.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 203
Work has been proceeding apace but I encountered a bit of an interesting problem. I¡¯ve been keeping track of time recently via the use of these audio logs. Before this, I kept a general eye on the electronic calendars but never really thought much of them before today. I¡¯ve been running with the idea that 28-30 days belong in a month but that¡¯s just Standardized Sol Times or SST. Obviously each habitable planet will have varying lengths for their days and years and sometimes, the residents of a planet will use an alternate and more convenient form of time keeping. Personally, I grew up on New Abrams and while we used Earth length months, we only had 7 in total. I know there are a few places where they just split their year into ten months and then called it a day regardless of length.
Ha! Unintentional puns.
But back to the topic at hand. I know that when we landed we knew the length of the year and had already divided up. The problem here is that I don¡¯t remember now how we had it divided up and I don¡¯t know where I would even begin to look to find that information.
I could ask the xythans if they had received any communications about that from us but I strongly suspect that I would receive the xythan calendar right back. The base¡¯s clocks aren¡¯t helpful since they all just use the New Abrams calendar by default. If I do want to make a calendar, I suppose I could be a boring individual and just use the original Gregorian calendar and add a few extra days to each month but let¡¯s be real, being normal was never really on the table for me. I¡¯m legally obligated to choose something stupid given the fact nobody can nay say me.
Each year here lasts 350 days with some change which actually breaks down really nicely into a whole lot of numbers which in turn, gives me a lot of options. This kinda means that dividing things is up to my taste and that I can change it to fit my personal desires. I think I¡¯ll make it fit a naming scheme, maybe something classical? Hmmm.. I¡¯ll soundboard a few ideas later with Darana.
While all of this stuff isn¡¯t super important, I¡¯ve been needing a bit of a distraction recently. I can feel stress building up since the festival and am like 90% of the way to developing an ulcer.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 204If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
The distraction I needed was found this afternoon when a three way dance off broke out. I was grooving to some of my music while cleaning and at some point Bayfur snuck in and started copying me. Once I realized, I began introducing him to the intricacies of hitting a Rick Roll to the music. Naturally this commotion summoned Darana who was fully prepared to bust out a few moves of her own and from there it fully degenerated.
I definitely styled on her. Yup, yup, yup! She 100%, definitely, totally didn¡¯t absolutely show me up. My practicing of dance moves now is definitely to keep the lead.
Yeah...
Nah.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 206
Today was kind of nice for a number of reasons. Yesterday, the cement mixture had finally finished drying which meant that I could peel off the molds and begin mounting everything which leads into today where I managed to finish mounting the last of the base defenses. The base is now officially and fully defended. Not heavily defended mind you but defended nevertheless. At this point, my goal is just to get down as many turrets as I can and increase the density of metal I put down range. Unlike the shields, turrets don¡¯t add much in the way of energy draw so I can pretty safely just keep adding them. Regardless of work to come, I¡¯m quite pleased with everything I¡¯ve completed thus far.
With the new base completed, it''s been decided that a new name needs to be chosen. Since the base is a joint effort between xythans and humans, I¡¯ve decided to give Sarlunt a call and discuss it with him. We ended up going back and forth for a bit with different names and ended up landing at one I personally like, Camp Treaty. Xythans all seemed to like the name, or at least did object, so it¡¯s more or less official.
A second bit of good news is that I have managed to secure my own private room to live in. It¡¯s nothing more than a small hut with a bed, desk, and closet but it''s private so I¡¯ll still be able to keep to my own company. It¡¯s got working air conditioning, optional sound damping, and a window that lets me keep an eye on my defensive emplacements which is a hell of a lot more than my college dorm rooms ever offered in all three regards and easily beats having mystery roommates. Apparently the Reforgers had a bit of spare time after they finished the main houses so they decided to make something for me. When this is all done, I¡¯ll have to make them a gift basket.
Move-in on the base has been going pretty well so far. Several families have already made their way on over and gotten settled in. Darana and Bayfur have yet to move over which I have to say, I¡¯m not super thrilled about but Darana says she has no intention of leaving me all on my lonesome and that aside, she wants to get all the human medical equipment moved over. She¡¯s thinking she¡¯ll keep working out of the base so long as I do and then catch a ride with me on HARP when I do make the final trip over.
While I appreciate the company and having access to medical supplies, I have zero faith that I¡¯ll be able to just march over to Camp Treaty without some issue arising when the time comes. These things some how always end up complicated for me and I¡¯m confident this will be no different. Is it bad luck to think like that? Maybe, but better to plan for the worst you know? When I have time I¡¯ll set up a few contingencies
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 208.1
Got some good work done and managed to finish up the last of this set of turrets. This is the second set of three I¡¯ve finished. As I jump into the third set, I might squeeze it a bit closer since I¡¯ll have some spacing issues if I go for a fourth set. I also managed to finalize the drone designs and have been getting them ready at a pretty decent rate.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 208.2
The pirates have arrived. Will update as I get more information.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 208.3
Well, the pirates are here and I¡¯m not a happy camper. I suppose it was too much to expect them to come during the day. Space doesn¡¯t really have a day night cycle so it was really a coin toss as to if they showed up during the day or during the night. Just my luck I lost this one. We received a warning signal and location from one of the xythan satellites before they were all blown out of orbit.
You remember how I was doubting things would go smoothly when the pirates arrived? I was unfortunately right as I¡¯m currently marching off into the wilderness instead of heading to Treaty like I originally planned. Some of the code in the backend of the xythan launchers went sour when the satellites started going boom and now all of their transports are being marked as hostile. We can¡¯t fix this remotely and will need to manually disable a total of three launchers before anyone can safely fly towards Treaty. Since the transports can¡¯t be used and the HARP is about the fastest all terrain land vehicle either party has, I¡¯m currently sprinting through the dark with two xythan engineers strapped onto my back.
Right now, xythans are getting organized to begin a trek towards Camp Treaty since they really can¡¯t afford to risk waiting around in the event that the pirates make an early landing and decide to visit. The infirmed are being moved into my base in preparation for the transports being able to fly again but worst case scenario, they¡¯ll be sticking to my place. All my shit is powered up and ready to defend them so it¡¯s probably one of the safer places right now.
We don¡¯t have much information at the moment but what we do have is rather concerning. Our pirate pals have decided that punching down is funny and have brought a whole battlecruiser to the fight just to do that. We saw a few smaller ships that looked like barges but we can¡¯t be entirely certain as they seem to be quite keen on picking off the satellites that do have anything to tell us. Small mercies, they seem to be taking their time picking those off and haven¡¯t decided to try anything with us directly yet but it¡¯s only a matter of time.
The part that really makes me nervous is that we haven¡¯t received any messages from them yet which is particularly ominous. No statement of objectives, no bartering, no nothing. Just silence.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 209
I¡¯m so tired right now. I ended up marching through the better part of the night to the first launcher and only ended up getting 2 or so hours of light sleep before the engineers fixed the problem and we could run off to the next. Only two more turrets to go! Weeeeeee¡
If I still had hair, it¡¯d be turning a nice silvery grey right now.
I¡¯ve been keeping in contact with Sarlunt and at this point all of our satellites are gone. Fortunately, we were able to sus out a bit more information on our opponents before we lost the last of them. The battle cruiser we spotted initially isn¡¯t a design any of us are familiar with although it¡¯d be hard to say all that much without seeing the interior of the sucker. We were also able to identify two frigates lurking nearby that appear to be repurposed trading ships. They don¡¯t have weapons which I¡¯m thankful for but the battlecruiser more than makes up for that with enough point-defense to protect all parties with our current firepower.
The pirates haven¡¯t been idle either and have been probing our defenses with a few missiles. Nothing super heavy so far but they¡¯re definitely up to something and the sooner I can be away from these launchers the better.
The pirates have still maintained their silence so maybe they¡¯re still in the decision phase? I mean, we have a lot of rockets so maybe they¡¯ll figure we aren¡¯t worth the effort and¡¯ll just screw off.
Chapter 27 - First Skirmish
The captain eyed his troops as they struggled to slide their tentacles into their power armor. This group didn¡¯t particularly ooze competence but that was fine. Most of them would be dying in the upcoming days but that was fine as it was never that hard to pick up a new brood to fill the stupid muscle role.
Wiggling his tentacles to check his own armor basic combat gear, the captain resisted letting any annoyance show. He shouldn¡¯t have to show off that he was wearing this but the lower borns seemed incapable of actually understanding why they¡¯d even need the armor. Like the gravity wouldn¡¯t slow them to a crawl on its own they also had to deal with those¡ beasts.
Heavy gravity creatures were quite good at inflicting casualties and could pull some nasty surprises out if given the opportunity to dig in. Excellent workers in certain conditions and most certainly a rarity. While fewer survivors would mean a greater flow of money in his direction and the commandant was never particularly opposed to having a little more shine to his nest, it still was important for at least some to survive for his plan.
Shuffling forward in an eldritch mass of tentacles, the captain began to assist some of the more inexperienced troops don their armor.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 210.1
I¡¯ve been sitting at my original base since my little run last night and I¡¯m feeling increasingly twitchy and nervous. It all went to plan and we were able to disable everything but we¡¯ve been watched since late yesterday. The invaders decided to lay off on trying to bomb us and have since reverted to sitting in orbit quietly which highly indicated they want a better look at what all is going on down here so we¡¯re trying to do things discreetly for the time being. I¡¯m thankful since it gives us a little bit more time to evacuate the elderly and infirm from my old base to Camp Treaty but it''s still incredibly nerve wracking.
To make things worse, we only have one transport ship going right now so it¡¯s been slow getting everything moving. The civilians are walking to Treaty as I speak while the few that need medical attention are riding on the only transport. Me and a few soldiers are sticking back at the old bases drawing attention to ourselves to try and distract from all that. We haven¡¯t heard anything from Sarlunt about the other civilians but right now I suppose no news is good news. It would hardly be a good idea to let our pesky foes know we have a whole gaggle of hostages making their way through the forest. Darana ended up leaving a bit earlier with Bayfur which I¡¯m glad for considering the danger around here.
Sigh
The situation is still overall a little bit confusing. I talked at length about the possible scenarios but I can safely say that everything hasn¡¯t quite lined up with my earlier thoughts. If they wanted our stuff, why haven¡¯t they made any moves to try and intimidate me or something along those lines? I guess they could still be trying to size us up before trying anything drastic. Maybe I¡¯m missing something here?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 210.2
The last of the base was just cleared out as the engineers took off about half an hour and that leaves me all alone again. I shouldn¡¯t really be here but someone needs to cover for them and I¡¯ve got more armor if it things do go bad. Also, a thought crossed my mind, we still haven¡¯t heard any communications and I wonder if that isn¡¯t just because we aren¡¯t listening properly. I¡¯m thinking the pirates won¡¯t be having up-to-date, primo condition software and if that¡¯s the case, there¡¯s a nonzero chance they have been communicating and we haven¡¯t been listening properly. I¡¯m trying to get my scanners to look at a wider range of frequencies and I¡¯m juuuuust about to have it¡ working.
Alright¡ let¡¯s see what we have here. Doesn¡¯t seem like anyone is talking to us from orbit but I am getting a lot of static. It¡¯s weird, you wouldn¡¯t think there¡¯d be all that much but it¡¯s actually pretty heavy. Far as I can tell it isn¡¯t an ion storm this time so I¡¯d be willing to bet that the Yar Har crew in orbit are responsible. Blocking communications huh? Can¡¯t hide from me though¡
Oop, I¡¯m finally getting some vision. I can see the xythans and their vehicle array. They''re all moving right now though they do look a bit odd... I thought we were only supposed to be moving one transport with the rest on scanner duty? Maybe something changed? They¡¯re heading for the civilians¡
Ahh, wait.
I don¡¯t think that¡¯s the xythans.
Ahh fuck.
The commandant was in a good mood. Thus far, his squadron had made significantly better progress than he had ever dared expect. It pained him to admit it, but the captain¡¯s over planning had seemed to be paying off today. He had been doubtful about the effectiveness of the combat suits but thus far their usefulness had been well worth the extra time they had spent actually acquiring them. The commandant didn¡¯t even find himself struggling to move and could even aim with his armor. He could still feel the gravity pressing on him but, so long as he got off the planet soon and was well compensated, he¡¯d be fine.
His men were forming up at the edge of the clearing. He felt a bit of annoyance flicker through his thoughts as he watched them. They hadn¡¯t done anything wrong per se but they had already lost quite a few of their already meager number to a few of the xythan sentries stationed through the woods. Most had been taken care of already but one had managed to sneak off before they had arrived. This bothered the commandant quite a bit as he had no doubts that many of the other sentries were being alerted and would soon be on the move. Their group wouldn¡¯t have the numbers advantage for long if they stuck around. Waving his arms, the commandant signaled an advance on the base. They could run if they needed. Looting the base was only the secondary objective after all.
Glysia felt like she was going to keel over if she didn¡¯t stop running soon but someone had to gather the others. Taking a second to stop and catch her breath, Glysia reflected on what she knew between gasping breathes. The bastards were already on the ground for who knows how long and the infernal jamming was keeping her from letting the others know about the situation. She could probably circumvent the jamming if she reached a sufficiently strong transponder. Henry¡¯s base was closer, but the wriggly-looking pirates appeared to be heading that way and there was no promise he was even there. No, her best bet would be running to the town. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
While Glysia hadn¡¯t been able to get an exact count on the pirates during the brief glimpses she got, the distinct lack of communications from the outer scouts told her plenty. Their numbers were too high for her to tackle head-on.
Shaking herself from her stupor, Glysia resumed her running when a static-filled barking voice sounded over her transponder.
¡°This is Henry sending out a warning. The motherfuckers are already on the planet and OH GOD ARE THOSE FUCKING SPIDERS!¡±
And with that, the forest erupted into a cacophony of gunfire.
Henry liked to think he was a fairly brave man and in most scenarios, he thought that to be correct. This situation, however, was not one of what he would call his better moments, making it all the more of a shame that he had broadcasted it to everyone.
After his initial realization, Henry had quickly suited up for combat and sprinted for the walls. A quick interaction with the system saw the shields activated and waited just in case he was wrong. Seeing nothing immediately, he had decided to call and let his allies know what was going on just in case. It was at this point that he was then greeted by the sight of what looked to be a mix between a spider and a sea urchin with an extra helping ugly as they broke the tree line and began running at the base at an alarming speed. Neurons fired and primal instincts kicked in as Henry activated the turrets.
An immediate response and the turrets began putting a significant amount of metal in the intruder¡¯s location. The armor had done a valiant joh at protected the pirates but the sheer volume of fire combined with the turret¡¯s innate coordination had blasted anyone exposed for more than a few moments into chunky salsa.
To his credit, Henry quickly recovered and immediately began activating a few contingency plans he set up for potential invaders. He¡¯d figured that the more problems he caused them now, the better his survival odds would be. Activating the jump pack he¡¯d recently pillaged, Henry leapt off the wall and began sprinting towards the HARP, praying whoever was in charge out there wouldn¡¯t clue in on his plan.
On the other side of the clearing, the commandant was busy cursing fate and whoever was responsible for this apparent blunder. His assault team had retreated behind one of the nearby outcroppings, making sure to put as much rock between that hellscape and themselves as possible. According to the intel they had received, the base was supposed to be abandoned and its turrets deactivated. Clearly, that was not the case.
Flailing a tentacle in annoyance, the commandant resolved to kill whoever was responsible for monitoring movement once he returned. Taking a quick count of his men, the commandant damped down his growing frustration. A quarter of his warriors had been killed right off the bat and of the remaining, a further third were hurt in some manner. Eyeing the puncture marks on a few of the wounded¡¯s suits, the number dead would probably rise even further
The entire outcropping began shaking as the commandant felt the two explosions slam into the opposite side of the hill. What was that human aiming at- the air began to be filled with the sound of gunfire from the turrets. Something was clearly wrong with that human and the farther he was the better. Turning towards the rest of the raiding party, the commandant began signing for a retreat when he saw movement near the edge of the forest. Hesitating for a moment, the commandant tried to decide whether to have someone investigate or just retreat and ignore it before promptly erupted into a ball of fire.
Glysia was already moving before the grenade landed. Grinning to herself as she ran, she was glad all the time she had spent stalking the area had paid off. A quick sprint saw her to the second hideout along the route, a rather sizable tree. A few bolts of plasma streaked off into the forest past her lighting some of the underbrush on fire and singing her fur. Hissed in surprise, she yanked off her thermal goggles before she could be blinded by the heat and began weaving between the trees, doing her best to lose any tracking eyes.
Leaping into the tree hideaway, she took quick breather as more bolts of plasma arced into her general area. She was thankful they didn¡¯t seem to know exactly where she was but they clearly had a general idea of her area.
Taking a deep breath before the smoke spread to her location, Glysia picked off two more pirates with grenades before disengaging again. Leaping into the forest below, a volley of plasma peppered all the trees around her.
Huffing in frustration, she dipped behind a tree cursing under her breath. ¡°Henry, you stupid bastard, why are you in the base?¡± Glancing out to see if she¡¯d been spotted, she resolved to rough the human up the next time they met. If she survived anyways.
The disturbing sound of creaking metal that accompanied the invaders where they walked began sounding through the forest even over the hail of bullets still firing telling Glysia she couldn¡¯t stay long. She already hated those stupid suits and that horrific sound they made with a burning passion.
Poking her head out once more, she lobbed two more grenades toward the bastards and broke cover. Another hail of plasma fire erupted towards her location and Glysia felt her lower left leg begin screaming in pain as armor began melting over it. Stumbling forward, Glysia narrowly avoided a few more rounds of plasma and all but fell to where she¡¯d been running. Slamming the ground with her hand twice, a hidden contraption was activated and a force shield sprung up from the ground, interposing itself between her and the attackers. Knocking off the melted chunks of her armor, Glysia snarled in pain and fired the last two grenades in her launcher over the shield.
Plasma erupted against the shield as an almost continuous stream of energy and began threatening to break it. Frustrated, Glysia lobbed one last grenade while she still had the cover. It landed true and a feral grin broke out on her face only to be wiped off a moment later when the shield broke and another two more plasma bolts slammed into her. One landed in her arm and the other hit her center of mass. Glysia fell hard, grimacing as the pain flooded her chest.
Fighting to even stay away as pain and darkness crawled in on the edges of her vision, the pirates seemed to relax and begin wiggling tentacles at each other. Damn, they were ugly, it was a shame¡ getting caught like this. Oh well¡ Henry probably got¡. out¡ that¡¯s good¡
In one last, passing moment of clarity, Glysia heard a bellow of primal anger followed by a horrific cacophony of crashing of trees.
Henry was beyond furious. He was mad at himself for not having seen this shit coming, he was mad he had gotten himself caught in a bad position, but above all, he was mad his friend had just been shot by some dumbass tentacle aliens. His initial plan was to deploy a few of his drones before retreating. Upon realizing the situation, he had charged in ignoring anything between himself and the monsters that dare threaten his friend.
While he didn¡¯t have much in the way of ranged weaponry on the HARP, he wasn¡¯t particularly inclined to let that slow him down, opting instead to go for a more direct approach, a more physical one. Kicking into overdrive, Henry sprinting in, closing rapidly the distance.
His entrance onto the scene wasn¡¯t subtle and the pirates quickly noticed his presence. Turning about, they began laying into the HARP as it closed. Shields flickered into existence blocking the plasma with an almost disdain as the engineer closed the remaining distance.
Closing into melee, Henry began swinging.
After all, his opponents were bugs and he simply needed to squash them.
Chapter 28 - Fight and Flight
Henry hopped out of HARP, grabbed his first aid kit, and dashed across the shattered forest towards the prone xythan body. The shield that had been protecting her was flickering ominously and it looked like a forest fire was in the process of starting but for the time being, he didn¡¯t care. Swallowing the fear that was beginning to form a lump in his chest, he dashed around the shield and slid to a stop next to her. Quickly crouching, Henry pushed Glysia onto her back placed his ear next to the nose while trying to feel for a pulse. A few tense seconds of patting her around her neck trying and trying to find a pulse passed before he realized that he both wasn¡¯t finding the pulse and that he could hear her breathe shallowly.
Sighing in relief, Henry quickly moved to help alleviate the problem. Swiping a few metal shards of her chest armor off of her stomach area, Henry tapped the still warm but shattered metal before changing tracts and starting from the latches on the side.
Thankfully, he mused as he peeled it off, the armor had performed its job admirably. The first layer had shattered and melted some but her chest had been protected by what looked like a kevlar jacket. Her arms were a bit of a different story, covered in scorched fur that Henry was a little hesitant to touch. He knew he wasn¡¯t qualified to take care of much beyond bleeding and wasn¡¯t sure if he¡¯d make it worse or not. Still, Henry thought as he removed the gauntlets, a bit of disinfectant couldn¡¯t hurt. Dabbing it carefully, Henry used a light touch.
Turning to address the shattered shin pads, he saw her leg armor had been shattered with most of the molten pieces thankfully having fallen off to the side. Most, not all, unfortunately Henry mused as he scorched his fingers prying the padding off. The burns in this area looked quite bad. Reattaching his own hand armor, he began trying to remove the still burning pieces when he felt an impact into the side of his armor and his world view quickly flipped
Henry felt the air quickly vacate his lungs as he found himself wheezing on the ground staring up at the smokey forest sky. To compound this, a weight came crashing down on his chest as Glysia''s face came flying into view. She looked positively feral, arm raised and prepared to strike. Wheezing out a panicked complaint, Henry brought his hands up in defense to cover his face and stomach only to find the anticipated strike never came.
¡°Henry? What¡ what are you doing here? I thought you were in the base.¡±
Henry wheezed a few times as he tried to sit up, ¡°Maybe if you didn¡¯t judo-flip me so fast I could have explained.¡±
A grin touched Glysia¡¯s face as she hopped up and offered him a hand, ¡°Well, maybe you don¡¯t act like dumbass then. Crawling all over the unconscious predator! Don¡¯t you humans have any warnings about doing that kind of stuff?¡±
¡°No, but don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ve learned my lesson. I¡¯ll just leave you next time. Actually, I probably won¡¯t I think this is the second time you lot have tossed me like a salad¡±, Henry groaned as he accepted her hand, ¡°Also who are you calling a dumbass? You literally engaged them alone!¡±
¡°So did you!¡±
¡°Yeah. In a 14 ft mech! You just had a grenade launcher.¡±
Turning her head up and sniffing in disdain, Glysia feigned contempt, ¡°You were trapped and someone had to make a distraction for you to escape. Besides, I knew reinforcements were on route anyways.¡± Her face dropped into a frown as she tentatively touched the burns on her arm, ¡°In all seriousness though, thank you for the help. I underestimated them and overextended.¡±
A grin touched Henry¡¯s face, ¡°What are friends for! Besides, Darana would have killed me if I let her friend die anyways.¡±
¡°Is that all I am to you? A friend of a friend?¡±
It was Henry¡¯s turn to snort with amusement, ¡°You wish.¡± Glancing back at the HARP, he waved the xythan to follow him while handing over the medical kit, ¡°Jokes aside, we should probably get going. We¡¯ve still got people in the forest and I know that wasn¡¯t the last of those¡ spiiiiders? I don¡¯t know but we need to move and since you¡¯re up and about, you can do what you need while I carry you.¡±
Taking the medical kit, Glysia would give it a quick once over before nodding, ¡°Sounds like a plan¡which of these was the disinfectant?¡±
¡°Red one. Blue bottle also has a mild painkiller which should be safe for you to use last I checked.¡±
Nodding, Glysia closed the kit and began following back to the human¡¯s war machine. Glancing around the clearing, Glysia let out an impressed huff as she surveyed the carnage, ¡°You really did a number on the bugs.¡±
¡°Like I said earlier, the HARP made it pretty easy. If they had anti-tank weapons, I would have been in a lot of trouble.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t discredit yourself.¡±
¡°Nah, you could have done it too if you had one. I just wish I¡¯d have gotten out there sooner.¡±
Glysia whined quietly to herself as she pulled herself up into the HARP¡¯s passenger unit, placing the medkit off to the side and quickly attatching herself to the seat with practiced ease. ¡°By the way, why were you even in your base in the first place? I thought you were a pretty high-priority individual?¡±
Satisfied Glysia was secured, Henry hopped into the cockpit and hit a few buttons. As the HARP suit began to quietly hum to life below him, he flicked on the communicator with the back, ¡°You and Sarlunt both. Nah, I stayed behind to cover for the engineers since they were just leaving. Realized something was going on with the scanners and when I decided to check things out, I ended up finding way too many of those¡ bug things ¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
¡°Yeah, no kidding. Put an awful lot of steel into them too. Way more than you probably needed¡±
As he snorted in amusement, Henry felt the HARP finish boot up. Guiding it forward, it began moving, ¡°Had to cover the sounds of the HARP approaching somehow. I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve noticed but this ain¡¯t exactly the stealthiest of devices. Hey, actually, while you¡¯re back there, do you see a remote control with a screen sitting around?¡±
¡°Uhh¡ the one attached to the other chair?
¡°That¡¯s the one. Can you hit the button on the side and check and see if it¡¯s displaying anything¡±
The line went quiet for a moment before the xythan, ¡°I think I¡¯m seeing a chair? What''s this connected to?¡±
¡°It¡¯s a lightweight drone sitting on my workbench inside my base. Just wanted to check and see what sort of range I was dealing with before I got myself into any trouble.¡±
¡±I like the sound of that. What¡¯s the plan?¡±
¡°Here¡¯s what I have in mind. First we need to catch up to the engineers¡¡±
Marching HARP carefully between the trees, Henry found himself in another clearing, this one distinguished from the many others they had passed due to the rather noticeable signs of battle, xythan and pirate bodies, and a destroyed vehicle. Coming to a stop, the two sat in silence for a moment surveying the destruction.
Henry spoke up first, ¡°I knew it would be bad but just¡ yikes. ¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± the xythan sighed darkly, ¡°The one good thing is there aren¡¯t nearly enough bodies here to account for all the civilians so it means at least some got away.¡±
¡°Silver linings I guess. Let¡¯s get going.¡±
The radio lit up with static as a third voice joined the channel, ¡°Do any... over?. ¡ West¡. Holding ¡ in a cave...¡±
The voice cut out as the channel returned to static and the two sat there in silence for a moment.
¡°Hey, Glysia?¡±
¡°Yeah?¡±
¡°If my map¡¯s worth anything, I think I know where they might be right now. Can you tell the engineers to get the planes ready?¡±
Lt. Terpen¡¯s senses were on high alert when she caught a glimpse of one of the many roving pirates. Stepping out from the cover of the cave entrance, she fired off an optimistic shot at the closest pirate before dipping back behind cover, all the while cursing his luck.
The engineer¡¯s warning had come just in time to prevent their forces from becoming completely annihilated but was still a little too late. The damn nightmare bugs had swarmed out of the tree lines blasting anyone not smart enough to make a run for it. Terpen had initially considered herself fortunate that her squadron had been relatively untouched and that they¡¯d gotten as many civilians out as they did but their misfortune, they hadn¡¯t been able to shake their pursuers. Maybe if they had left the slower ones¡ Terpen shook her head at the thought. She¡¯d sworn to protect them when she took the job and she¡¯d be damned if she was going to break that promise before she himself broke.
Terpen heard that dreaded raspy metal sound the pirates made while moving begin outside the cave again and watched as one of her remaining soldiers followed her lead and stepped out to take a pot shot. The hellish rattling seemed to retreat for a moment only to quickly begin again. It wouldn¡¯t be long now before they braved the cave. Terpen felt a small hand tug on her armor.
¡°Are the monsters going to eat us?¡±
Turning to look, one of the pups had wandered to the front of the cave and was looking at her with concerned eyes. Crouching down, she pat them gently on the head and tried to keep any notes of worry out of her voice, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. We won¡¯t let the monsters get you. You should go back and join your mother.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know where she is.¡±
Terpen grimaced, ¡°Well, go join the others for now it¡¯s not safe up here.¡±
As one of the civilians came forward to collect the pup, the lieutenant realized something had changed. She was hearing a new sound. This one was different, sounding sort of like a flying bug except but steady, and Terpen was sure she had heard it before. It was also growing louder. Glancing over the other soldier, Terpen noticed they clearly seemed to be hearing it as well. Dread began to fill her as various scenarios began to play themselves out in his head. Did the pirates have a new weapon?
Carefully peaking outside, Terpen realized the pirates had stopped their advance and were waving their tentacles towards¡ something. She frowned at their reaction, puzzled. It seemed to imply that whatever that sound was, wasn¡¯t theirs and Terpen felt a bit of hope spark in her heart as the buzzing continued to grow and the tentacled beasts began tracking something above them.
Taking advantage of their distraction, Terpen flashed a handful of signs towards his troops and began stealthing forward out the entrance. Breaking the cover of the cave, Terpen finally got a look at what was making the sound, as small swarm of RC planes menacingly circling the pirates.
Unfortunately, Terpen¡¯s sneaking was not missed and one of the pirates turned his blasters toward him and fired. It was an inaccurate and poorly aimed shot that ultimately did nothing but it did signal the beginning of the end as all hell broke loose and planes began diving out of the swarm.
Detonations began to ring across the clearing as the planes kamikaze into their opponents and the now clearly panicked pirates began firing into the impending swarm. This was also accompanied by a loud crashing as Terpen watched the human¡¯s vehicle break the tree line.
¡°Sorry we took so long!¡±
Terpen turned back towards the cave, waving herarms for those still in to follow and calling, ¡°This is our chance. Let¡¯s cook some bugs!¡±
The battle was decisive for the defenders with all save two of the pirates killed. The combination of the drones piloted by the engineer corp, the human¡¯s warmachine, and supporting fire from the remaining soldiers all but ensured that. One of the pirates has managed to skitter off into the forest but the other was currently unconscious and tied up.
Terpen watched as the citizens began streaming out of the cave and began mingling with the engineers. She could only sigh in relief that things had worked out this well.
The small one missing his mother ran up to the human, crying, and began shaking his leg, ¡°Uncle Henry, Uncle Henry!¡±
The human bent down and scooped the pup into his arms, ¡°Thank goodness you¡¯re safe. Where¡¯s your Mama?¡±
¡°The scary spider things got her! You gotta save her!¡±
Terpen fought the urge to flinch when she saw the budding horror and anger bloom on the human¡¯s face. Someone was going to have a bad day very soon she mused.
Chapter 29 - Whats Going On
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 210.3
I¡¯ve been working on the size of my ulcer today and I think it¡¯s been coming along nicely. If the stress can keep up the current level, I should be able to get it up to a very nice size soon.
A lot of shit has gone down today so it¡¯s been stressful. The invasion finally kicked off and I had the absolute privilege of starting in a fight and now Darana is gone and I just don¡¯t know what to tell Bayfur like fuck this man. Just what am I supposed to do.
Sigh
Since my last log, I¡¯ve abandoned the old base and made the trek to Treaty. Everything is loaded up and turned on so it¡¯ll still be a pain for the bugs to get at us. Got into a fight with them there and grabbed the last of the military stragglers including Glysia before legging it into the forest with everything dangerous I could carry. We caught up to the engineers, gave them the explosive drones and sprinted ahead to the battle. Steamrolled that and made it the rest of the way to Treaty.
We got pretty lucky all things considered as my defenses did their work quite well. Both my original base and Treaty were attacked while they were muting us and I¡¯m pleased to say that neither fell. This doesn¡¯t mean this is the end of it because, while it didn¡¯t end up being that close today, if they return with some heavier weapons, they should be able to break down my stuff plenty well. They¡¯ve presumably managed to sack a full human ship so they should know their way around those by now. Not to say I¡¯m not making contingency plans, this is the part where stationary defenses get interesting in war theory.
There¡¯s numerous things that I¡¯ll need to be getting going but I have a whole team of properly motivated xythans working with me to get some of these off the ground. Obviously, we¡¯re going to need a few extra layers of security if we want to maintain our ability to defend our remaining numbers. I have a few ideas that should make for a bad time on invaders but that¡¯s not to say we aren¡¯t stealing some of the old classics.
In so far as how everything started happening, near as the xythans and I can tell, the rat bastards snuck down with the bombardment that started yesterday. Used the warheads they were lobbing as a smokescreen for their ships to slip in. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that it''s us they¡¯re attacking, I¡¯d be impressed.
Their next step was to fill the comms with an obscene amount of static that wouldn¡¯t look any different from the normal background noise. No talking or planning for us. This was once again fairly impressive thinking and a very difficult maneuver. Shame they used it to scuttle their way from outside our perimeter and pick off our scouts. With both a surprise and an informational advantage, they kind of steamrolled our watchmen via ambush and we didn¡¯t get anything out of it.
Things also took a turn for the worse for us when Sarlunt noticed one of our launchers went down. Those things are hardwired so he didn¡¯t even realize that there were any problems with the communications. Took a team out to go and repair the launcher just as the enemies attacked leading to the nasty situation where the Commander couldn¡¯t be reached physically or digitally. Worse still, his squad was one of the ones attacked.
I want to blame him for missing the fighting with the civilians but I just can¡¯t. If I hadn¡¯t gotten lucky, I would have missed the static and been completely unprepared myself and from what I hear, he ran a train on groups he did encounter. Shame he missed the main group. Slaver bastards.
Oh yeah, I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve mentioned my favorite part about this whole thing. The pirates aren¡¯t here for the gear my people left or the planet¡¯s resources. I mean they¡¯ll take them if they can but that isn¡¯t their main objective. The attack on my base was just a little opportunistic raid, they were planning on hitting the xythan village. They were here to collect slaves. High gravity folks like the xythans or humans apparently sell really well on the black market. That was one of the warnings we¡¯d received all the way back in training before we came out here since it was such a big risk with the colony.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The horrendous thing is that it also means when we tried to move all of our people through the forest on foot to try and avoid anyone getting caught in the crossfire, we were just playing into their hands. The shitty thing is that only about half of the civilians made it over. Bayfur got out but Darana didn¡¯t. Last the little man saw was her running to help one of the soldiers who got shot. Stupid¡ just¡ run Darana¡
I¡¯m going to introduce those bastards to a new form of hell.
I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve actually talked about the enemies yet, the inins. It a stupid name but it took us a bit to identify them but some of the folks in the xythan¡¯s biologists were finally able to get a lock on their species. They¡¯re from an aquatic planet with gravity about half of this one¡¯s and grew up near the seaside. Professionally I have to say, nature did them no favors. They look like someone decided to take a sea anemone, hit it with the ugly stick, replace all the tentacles with spider legs and eyes, and then hit it with the ugly stick a few more times to make sure the ugly took. All those eyes and legs make them quite horrifying. If I have to look at them much longer, I¡¯m pretty sure my mild arachnophobia is going to evolve into a more severe form.
Physically, they aren¡¯t anything super impressive if they aren¡¯t in shallow water though they do have 360 degree vision and can change directions on a dime. Omnivores apparently though they mostly stick to fish. On a galactic scale, they don¡¯t tend to interact with others outside of trade and generally tend to be pretty laissez faire about the value of life.
The bio nerds have been picking through the files and have made a small list of areas that we can abuse them biologically. First, they need their suits to be able to do all that much planet side. They may be amphibious and perfectly fine walking around on the land but without water to help support them in this level of gravity, they can¡¯t really move all that far or fast. That¡¯s not to say that they aren¡¯t dangerous in a fight. They don¡¯t have limits on their range of fire and can snap their gun to whatever side of them they need at a moment¡¯s notice and their suits only serve to enhance that with multiple little gun attachments. That said, if we can somehow disable the suits, we¡¯re in a winning situation.
A second interesting tidbit is that they can¡¯t actually hear. They can sense some amount of vibrations around them but they¡¯ll struggle to differentiate various sounds. Interestingly enough, this was how we managed to identify them in the end. A few of the folks who¡¯d fought them pointed out that they never seemed to talk and mostly used ¡°hand¡± signs leading us to look for nonverbal races. To speak, the inins basically use a form of sign language that involves waggling their arms around in a complex manner. When the inins need to talk long distances, they use a buzzer attached to their combat suits that buzzes in a pattern not unlike Morse Code. As an annoying aside, they don¡¯t really have verbal names per say as much as a set of gestures each goes by that don¡¯t translate super well.
Psychologically, as mentioned before, the inins are opportunistic at the best of times and downright predatory in the worst. Fortunately, they are relatively far removed from human and xythan territories most of the time although from what little information we have on them, it isn¡¯t super unusual for them to be this far abroad from their usual territory.
The last tidbit of info we got was that the inins have a strong survival instinct and are willing to great lengths of humiliation to survive. This has worked quite well in our favor as the inin we knocked up has woken up. We didn¡¯t even need to lean on the man at all, he just woke up and immediately began begging for his life. Like with resolve like that, you almost wouldn¡¯t think the man to be a pirate. Funny thing there, since he doesn¡¯t really have a name that we can say, I¡¯ve just decided to call him Rat on account of his behavior and for whatever reason its stuck..
We were able to get a good bit of information out of him actually. Initially, we had identified a battlecruiser and two frigates in orbit but apparently we missed one and there are three in orbit. Fortunately for us, we had it confirmed that all three of them are only resupply ships which means the only one we really need to worry about is that battlecruiser. Still a battlecruiser is a battlecruiser and I know for a fact that they can have a lot of manpower on those things. Currently, Rat seems to be of the opinion that there¡¯ll be a second attack sometime soon and from the general look of things, I¡¯m inclined to agree.
Fortunately, Sarlunt¡¯s got a plan and while I won¡¯t go into details right now, just know that it¡¯s risky, dangerous, and puts me right in the heart of danger. Its a bit of a turnabout from his previous thoughts on the matter but that''s fine.
Because frankly, I wouldn¡¯t have it any other way.
Chapter 30 - Build a Better Gun
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 212
It¡¯s been a second since the last log so I¡¯m making this now. I kinda planned on making this when I¡¯d already executed the plan for drama¡¯s sake but they¡¯ve decided to sit up in their ship with their thinking caps on so I¡¯m doing it now. Sarlunt¡¯s plan was supposed to go into action whenever the inins decide to make a move and commit a secondary force to the surface which, according to the information we got from our friendly neighborhood traitor Rat, should be soon. I mean, they have an entire battleship full of meat they¡¯re willing to throw into my blender and a distinct lack of qualms about doing so but I guess they have some level of planning skills. Not terribly surprising considering how things played out over the last few days I guess now that I think about it .Now I don¡¯t want to say too much about our plans because I¡¯m going to look like a certified idiot if things don¡¯t go how I say they will and then if I don¡¯t record the plans then I can say whatever happens was always a part of the plan but that''s boring¡
Ok, I guess I can talk about the initial stages and preserve the mystic for the later parts.
Mind you, a lot of this is reactive so I¡¯ll be speaking in broad strokes because like I said earlier, we are waiting on the inins to make their grand return back to the surface. This return isn¡¯t likely to be particularly subtle since they know that we know how they got in the first time which means that in all likelihood we won¡¯t be caught with our pants down again. That''s not to say we won¡¯t be keeping a close eye out but now we know what to look for and there¡¯s no chance they slide through unnoticed if only due to the fact that they¡¯ll need to saturate our point defense so our antiaircraft weapons don¡¯t blast them out of the sky the second they enter. This warning should give us a little bit of extra time to begin responding and executing our plans.
One nice advantage we have right now is that Glysia and I wiped out the entirety of the southern team and nobody was able to flee. This means their ship is just sitting somewhere in the forest, ripe for the taking so we¡¯ll see if we can¡¯t go ahead and snag it. Rat seems to think there should be a second ship somewhere to the south so it¡¯s just a matter of finding it. Sarlunt has Glysia actually out with a squad and a few of the engineers looking for the thing right now.
My drone strike technique probably won¡¯t hold up now that the advantage of surprise is gone. Put a little bit of buckshot into the suckers and their effectiveness will tank.
I¡¯d like to help with that but currently there are a number of reasons I can¡¯t. One of the big reasons, I¡¯m working on getting the HARP equipped with some actual weapons so I can actually throw hands without having to actually use my hands. Since the HARP isn¡¯t an unknown variable anymore, I can¡¯t really bank on being able to get into melee range before they start pointing some heavy duty weapons at my ass. I¡¯ve got a handful of different ideas that I could try and implement but I¡¯ve landed on two ideas in particular. The first is that I just use an automated turret like the ones on the walls. The HARP has the power and shielding to be able to execute that plan but I¡¯m liable to run out of ammo if I get into an extended firefight. The ones on the walls work well since they can be reloaded safely from the base¡¯s vast stores but won¡¯t be the case with the HARP. I¡¯ll probably still add a turret but it¡¯ll likely be the backup plan for if things are going wrong. For now, I¡¯ve printed out two small turrets that I can mount.
With ammo limitations in mind, I¡¯ve decided to revert back to the human classic of a nice railgun. I figure the HARP will be tracked to some degree or another so it¡¯s highly unlikely that I¡¯ll be able to get away with nearly as many shenanigans as I was initially. That said, unless they decide to send down some heavy duty vehicles, I will usually have an advantage in the amount of mass I can put downfield. That''s right, I¡¯m thinking about adding a sniper rifle to the HARP and being a dirty camper. I¡¯ve some concerns about if we have an electric storm again but the most recent one has faded and we shouldn¡¯t have another for a good while. Still though, I¡¯m adding some safety measures to shut it down should one start up. Last thing I want is to have the HARP blown to pieces due to an electric storm or even worse, misfire into my allies.
As I speak, I¡¯m working out the kinks on a few different designs. I certainly have the mass and power to launch the suckers while I¡¯m in the HARP although my current models don¡¯t really are one shot rounds and aren¡¯t reusable. My current design has me replacing the barrel with each shot which is a bit less than ideal. If I¡¯m in an extended fight, I¡¯ll probably be able to put maybe one down range every ten or so seconds at best. Technically speaking, I can set up some automation with the HARP to shoot at about twice that speed but I¡¯ll need to already have the ammo at hand and it takes time to grab each. It should be more or less fine at the slower rate of fire though, I just want to see if I can¡¯t improve it a bit.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
In terms of upgrades, right now I have a few different ideas. Obviously, if I want these things to be effective at crowd control and by default they don¡¯t blow up as much as punch through everything in a line. I¡¯ve iterated through a few designs for ammunition but I think I¡¯ve landed on one that I¡¯m satisfied with. It should have a relatively small blast radius for its initial detonation but that¡¯s not where the fun ends. What truly makes it beautiful is that, if I haven¡¯t fucked anything up and my math is correct, I should be able to short out their armor and leave them sitting ducks. The real trick here is adjusting the strength to avoid nuking both the xythan¡¯s gear and my own.
I¡¯ve already verified that my designs won¡¯t short the HARP so all thats left is to test it against the movement assist in the xythan¡¯s gear. Best case scenario that¡¯s left untouched and I can fiddle around with making it stronger. Frankly, even in the worst case scenario where my rounds do short out the xythans, I figure it''s better xythans struggle to move and fight versus literal sitting ducks. In addition to these EMP round, I¡¯m thinking I¡¯ll make a few with explosive payloads and a handful of anti tank rounds. You never know when those will come in handy.
Now all of this work is a good reason for me to not go out gallivanting looking for a inin ship but there¡¯s also a bit more of a personal reason to be hanging back. Bayfur is still missing his mom and he¡¯s scared. While I¡¯m going to be mobilizing with the rest of the fighting forces when the inins show, for the time being, I¡¯m sticking around Bayfur and keeping him company. His mom is gone and if his insistence on following me is any gauge, he clearly seems to feel the most comfortable with me right now. I¡¯ve asked around to see if anyone else knew him but it seems like most of the folks he was close with got grabbed also. I don¡¯t feel super comfortable with him following me around while I work on weapons but I¡¯m also not about to chase him off.
It actually broke my heart when he came looking for me last night. I was up late working on wrapping up some designs and he showed up in the workshop pillow in hand. He didn¡¯t say anything, he just latched onto my leg and began whimpering. Actually crushed my heart. Ended up with him sleeping the night away with me. I¡. Look, I¡¯ve never had a father figure in my life. He died before I was ever born, the bastard. I joke but Ma raised me on her own and while I¡¯d say she did a pretty bang-up job at it, there¡¯s still that hole you know. I don¡¯t know how to act like a super good dad in this situation. I just¡ I just want to be there for him right now. A good paternal figure. A dad. I¡¯ve got to make sure this whole operation doesn¡¯t go belly up. If only for him.
Ha... man I wonder what my dad was like. Ma always said I turned out like him. Wonder if he got into nearly as much trouble as I have?
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 213.1
If the encrypted audio logs that I don¡¯t have access to codes to decipher because I stole them from the xythans have been translated even vaguely correct, then big things are happening. While obviously, I don¡¯t know the exactities of the message until Sarlunt deigns to inform me, the fact that messages are getting sent tells me what I need to know. The xythans were supposed to maintain radio silence until they found something or four days had passed, whichever came first. Judging by the early message and that its only been 3 days, I¡¯m assuming we have something of worth. While it would be nice to have a fully functioning ship, I can probably make some real problems with just computer data. Regardless, the time being I¡¯m going to stick to the task at hand, committing war crimes!
Ok, technically speaking it isn¡¯t actually war crimes given this is targeted specifically at enemy combatants but it sounds funnier to phrase it that. Currently, I¡¯m helping to dig holes for anti-personnel landmines. The xythans and I figured that since we have a bit of spare time, we might as well make the most out of it and layer our defenses further. We have copious amounts of explosives sitting around who just so happen to want to get acquainted with inin feet. They¡¯ll have pay for every single inch they take. My current responsibilities have me digging holes and then marking the location on our maps. Once I¡¯m done, someone else will come through and add the mine before burying it. Since I¡¯m not working with the explosive bits of this operation, Bayfur has made the executive decision to join me today.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 213.2
I know I talked about it earlier today and if I could go back and slap myself silly, I would. I should have known better than to tempt fate by now but for some reason I keep doing it. The reason we got the message back from our teams in the field was because while we did find the ship, it was broken into tiny pieces. From the looks of things, the ship got bored and just self-destructed. Just pieces scattered to and fro across the forest. I was brought into the loop after this second message and brought in to question Rat about it. When told him though, he seemed to be about as surprised as we were. Our current best guesses are that they have the ships set to detonate remotely via timer or they can just hit a button on the battleship and blow the shuttle to kingdom come. I guess it kinda makes sense when you have potentially mutinous pirates away from the boss that they might get some ideas but I mean come on. Just give us a break already! We really needed one of their ships for our plan so our next engagement is going to get extra spicy as we now have extra objectives.
I have to say, hats off to fate for the pettiness on display here, like truly props.
Chapter 31 - Base Defense
Henry walked around the tree examining his handwork again. The HARP was currently huddled under a small evergreen with a camouflaged cloak tossed over the top. Tugging it a bit over, Henry tried to hide just a little bit more of his vehicle before sighing and returning to the cockpit. He was bored. So very bored.
Hopping back into the cockpit, Henry began another diagnostic check. Realistically, the HARP should be nigh undetectable by the orbiting invaders but it never hurt to double-check, if only to keep himself occupied and aware. As much as he wanted to just kick back and reread one of his saved books for the third time, he couldn¡¯t afford to be caught with his pants down whenever the inins actually decided to show up.
Shifting in his seat to try to find a comfortable sitting position, Henry placed a hand on his stomach which was filled with butterflies. A sense of impending doom had been following him the few days. He knew why since the inins had landed another set of troopers on the planet and it wouldn¡¯t be long before fighting broke out but knowing wouldn¡¯t help. Frustrated by his nervousness, Henry leaned even further back in his chair a desperate attempt to feign a casualness he just didn¡¯t feel. A faint buzzing from his communicator drew his attention. Leaning forward, Henry lazily flicked the receive call button before reclining again
¡°Henry are you in position?¡±
¡°Sorry, Henry Mason is out right now due to being asked if he was in position six times in the last ten minutes, please leave your name and number after the tone and I¡¯ll get back to you as soon as possible. Beeeeeeep. ¡±
¡°Henry!¡±
¡°I was and still am in position. If for some godforsaken reason, my position is somehow compromised, I can promise you that you and just about everyone else in a 4 mile radius will be made acutely aware.¡±
¡°Excellent, I¡¯ll be calling in another two minutes. Make sure to stay in position.¡±
Henry huffed in annoyance, ¡°Can¡¯t you leave a fellow to his intrusive thoughts Sarlunt?¡±
¡°I wouldn¡¯t have made it to this rank if I let your type think freely.¡±
Henry felt a grin of amusement crack his face, ¡°Ha, I¡¯d believe that. Any update on the location of our ¡®friends¡¯? My trigger finger is beginning to get a bit stir-crazy.¡±
¡°No and trust me, I want to jump into action as much as you do but we need to execute this plan with extreme prejudice if we want to pull this off. There are going to be a lot of moving parts and we can¡¯t afford to be sloppy.¡±
Throwing a salute to nobody from his reclined chair, Henry snarked ¡°Well, don¡¯t worry boss, I wasn¡¯t named the Supreme Human Leader for nothing.¡±
¡°That¡¯s not an official title. You named yourself that.¡±
¡°That¡¯s beside the point and has hurt my feelings. Don¡¯t hold me in reserve too long, yeah?.¡±
Henry heard a sigh come from the other end of the line, ¡°I don¡¯t intend to. We just need them a little bit closer. I¡¯ll touch bases again with you in a bit.¡±
¡°Roger that¡±
The new inin commandant was in high spirits as he watched the lone xythan sprint off into the forest. Their march had been going quite well thus far and his precautions had already paid dividends. They had managed to flush out ten xythans from their ambush locations thus far and, while they hadn¡¯t caught any of them, he hadn¡¯t taken any losses. Furthermore, he had been able to destroy each of their vehicles along the way. Cruel amusement flickered through the inin as he thought about how they were boxing the opponents in. The few options they had to escape and maneuver the better.
Frankly, it was a small miracle they had been able to make it as far as they had with such little resistance but the commandant supposed that the xythans would have been weakened from the previous assault group¡¯s attack. It was a little bit shocking that they had managed to wipe out the other squadrons but the captain wouldn¡¯t have brought as many warriors onboard if losses like these weren¡¯t expected to an extent. Heavy gravity aliens usually had the propensity to pull all manner of obscene feats when backed against the wall and that they¡¯d lost as few of the assault troops as they had was quite nice.
Pulling out a small device, the commandant flicked on a holographic map displaying their current location as well as a few areas of concern. Crossing out the marker near where they were currently standing on off the map, the commandant wiggled his limbs in anticipation. That had been the last of the expected outposts before they got to the xythans¡¯ nest. The commandant felt his tentacles still for a moment as he glared at the base on the map. They had dug in deep and it was going to be hard to pull them out. It shouldn¡¯t matter though, he thought as before shifting his focus back towards the heavy weaponry they brought. The commandant felt movement begin to return to his limbs. It would be hard perhaps but not impossible. Especially not with the toys he had now. They might lose some of the merchandise but getting a smaller bounty was still better than swallowing an overlarge morsel and choking.
Suddenly feeling inspired, the commandant powered down his map and began to signal his forces to resume their forward march. The xythans should know they were coming at this point and procrastinating would only make things worse in the long run. The sooner they got the mission done, the better. The commandant felt his tentacles contorting in anticipation as his squadron began their crawl forward again.
Sarlunt looked about his war room and reflected on the changes in recent times as the last of his squadron leaders moved in and settled down. The war room had always been relatively sparse in the furnishing department and while he hadn¡¯t had terribly much back in their town, that particular aspect had not improved since they had moved into Camp Treaty. The once nice padded seats had been replaced with pale, plastic replicas that would wiggle if one put too much pressure. The few screens and decorations on the old office were fully gone now, simply replaced by a picture of the human giving a thumbs up. Annoying.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
The one thing that remained the same was the rather plain-looking table that sat in the center of the room. It had been brought over in the early days and Sarlunt was quite thankful for it. There were many aspects about the table that Sarlunt appreciated from the smooth finish to the sleek jet black coat of paint. Most of all, Sarlunt appreciated the obstinant sturdiness that he couldn''t help but respect. It also happened to be able to create and display real-time holograms and maps of the surrounding area. Maybe he mostly appreciated it for that last aspect but the other benefits were definitely still nice.
Powering up the table, Sarlunt glanced about the room and suppressed a grimace as a holographic map sprung to life. Far too many of the seats were empty for his tastes. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Sarlunt swiped at the newly formed map, running through their plan in his head again. ¡®Rat¡¯, as the human liked to call him, had been able to give them a good idea about what exactly they would be facing and the reports from the scouts he had left afield had corroborated.
The numbers were far larger than he would have liked but that had always been a concern. Fortunately, they had a few tricks up their sleeve to even out the number although it would still very much be an uphill battle. Resisting the urge to sigh in frustration again, Sarlunt activated a few preset markers for the map. Clearing his throat, Sarlunt waited a moment for the group to quiet down and began.
¡°As you all know, a second group of inins have landed planetside and I don¡¯t think I have to go into detail as to what a failure to repulse this attack will result in.¡±
The mood of the room subtly shifted and Sarlunt watched several of the occupant¡¯s eyes darken with anger and a few further seemed to be barely suppressing a snarl. Sarlunt felt a wolfish grin touch his features and almost felt bad for whatever inins would be on the receiving end. Almost.
¡°This meeting is mostly a last second formality to make sure we are all of the same understanding. Many of you have been helping to work with our defenses so I¡¯m sure that you already have a decent idea of the plan but I ask that you all still bear with me for the time being.¡±
Sarlunt turned to the table and pinched a small part of the map to expand it.
¡°Let¡¯s start with the bad news. These red dots represent the bulk of the enemy forces. Thus far they have remained grouped together and have shown zero signs of splitting up or trying to flank. Our current understanding is that they aim to push into our base and overwhelm us with excessive firepower. From our scout¡¯s reports, they have a few units with heavy assault weapons that may be capable of breaking through Camp Treaty¡¯s shields. Despite the fact that Henry¡¯s defenses may have held during the inin¡¯s first assault, we cannot be sure to what extent they are equipped to fight through. Furthermore, we have been unable to identify the leading components of their forces. I cannot stress how much we need to capture them alive if we want to have even a chance at recovering our people.¡±
Sarlunt felt a feral grin begin to make an appearance.
¡°Now let¡¯s talk about the good news.¡±
Henry felt his face crease up more than usual as he contemplated the choice before him. Music or not. On the one hand, it would certainly bring up the level of shock and awe as well as serve as a decent inspiration for him. On the other hand, he lost a bit of tactical awareness. Decisions decisions.
Having to sit out while he watched the fucker probe his base was infuriating but that would coming to an end soon. Hmmm¡ I¡¯m Still Standing by Elton John would work pretty well¡
The inin commandant watched as the last squadron departed from the main group. The intel from the orbital scans had proven correct as the defenses hadn¡¯t been evenly spaced. The overall density of guns was dramatically lower on the northeastern side of those accursed xythan burrow and with a bit of coordination, that was where they¡¯d be able to break through.
Focusing on the sun for a moment, the inin shifted with displeasure. Their probing attack had verified the effectiveness of their weapon¡¯s abilities to breach the shielding on the base but it had come at a cost. Over a third of the heavy weapon had been destroyed or lost in the returning hail of bullets and unless they coordinated their next attack, they would find themselves forced to attack a much closer range. They needed to get a heavy volley off if they wanted to¡
A large vibration shook the air and the commandant felt as his transmitter immediately began to rapidly signal for help. Waving to the rest of his remaining troops to follow, he began to quickly scuttle in the direction of the recently departed squad. They were making good time when the first of Henry¡¯s EMP rounds slammed into the group.
The main inin force had been gathering behind one of the many stone pillars that littered the valley area when all hell had broken loose. It started with a faint buzzing that some of the more perceptive individuals might have noticed but the lack of any obvious source had caused them to brush it off as nothing of immediate importance.
The buzzing originated from several small drones that had been circling their encampment from quite high, spying and feeding information back to their owners. The owners had, in response, made the executive decision to detonate the demo charges they had planted several days prior. This abuse ended up being too much for the pillar and it fell right towards the inin encampment.
Forced out into the open, the inins fled into the waiting xythan guns. Heavy gunfire erupted from both sides at this point and people began dropping as explosions began erupting across the field. As the inins quickly fired off a few heavy weapons, the base buckled, shields shrieked their protest, and segments began to fall.
In response, the drones that had been patrolling began targeted dives.
Mr. Blinky the shield generator was many things but a failure certainly wasn¡¯t one of them. All equipment had a certain level of variability in its effectiveness and after all of Henry¡¯s tinkering, Mr. Blinky was far and away the best shield generator on base. Sporting two googly eyes and a small name tag the human slapped on, it stood proudly in defiance of the attackers. Working in defense of the many innocents locked away behind its wall. One by one his shield generators companions fell until he alone remained guarding the last of the defenders.
Gun fire had slowed down but one final obstacle remained. Two heavy weapons. The first managed to fire into his bulwark before quickly being gunned down and Mr. Blinky quivered in nonexistent fear. Noticing the shaking, the xythans redoubled their efforts, firing with a sort of desperation into the advancing forces. Mines exploded, guns fired and people died on both sides. Two drones came screaming from the heavens to remove the problem but arrived a second too late as the second heavy cannon was fired. Valiantly flickering, Mr. Blinky valiantly threw everything it had into one last hurrah.
Glysia bent down over the smoking generator impressed. It had held out far longer than expected and had prevented a not insignificant number of casualties. A faint flicker of energy told her it was still holding on if just barely. Snorting with a grim sort of amusement upon spotting the googly eyes, Glysia patted the small machine with no small amount of appreciation.
Chapter 32 -
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 217.1
Wait I probably should¡¯ve¡ Hey, can you hear me? Alright, looks like they can¡¯t. Ok, so right now I¡¯m sitting in the HARP which is currently wedged into an inin¡¯s landing shuttle with several combat-ready xythans surrounding me. Given my opening statements I feel like it doesn¡¯t need to be said but I gotta talk about a few things, both to prevent the butterflies in my stomach from evolving into a full-on stomach ache and to touch on some important things because I¡¯m thinking about doing some stupid stuff. First and most importantly though, we were successful in defending Camp Treaty from the second inin incursion.
That isn¡¯t to say it wasn¡¯t a bit touch and go throughout the whole process but no plan truly survives contact with a semicompetent enemy. I gotta say though, all things considered, Sarlunt¡¯s gamble of a plan held up surprisingly well. Not that it didn¡¯t try to go spinning off the rails as fast as possible because believe me it did try.
The main idea behind Sarlunt¡¯s plan was to let them get a little closer to us so we had some extra time to identify their commanding officer. The main rub was that we needed him alive and the rest dead which could possibly be a bit of a problem if he were to say, I don¡¯t know, throw himself at the wall and accidentally be splattered by one of my turrets. With that issue in mind, we decided to employ a multilayered approach.
In an ideal world, we create a screen of our scouts and identify their captain before they even reach us and then I very tactically hit them with my EMP rounds until they stop moving. In our less than ideal world, they apparently had a pretty good idea about where our people were and took a bit of time to root them out. Honestly, I¡¯m super lucky I wasn¡¯t spotted all things considered as that would have been an unmitigated disaster. From what I saw, they had enough heavy weapons to put me down if I got too close. I almost wonder what they were looking for since they also visited one of the weather spike sites I¡¯d set up forever ago. I bet we could¡¯ve wasted more of their time if we¡¯d realized.
I think I¡¯m beginning to ramble so back to the story. I know I talked about it a while ago but while I was getting the HARP combat ready, the xythans invested a good amount of time setting up some explosive defenses. Obviously, there were the mines but they also rigged the entirety of the area surrounding the base to go boom at the touch of a button. As a fun fact, I was technically able to finish installing the last set of turrets, I just didn¡¯t so that we had a few ¡°obvious¡± weak points that the xythans were more than delighted to make less hospitable.
There was the catch 22 with the explosives where there was a limit to how much they could actually plant without risking them being found before hand but it seems like they managed to find the balance. I¡¯ve heard through the grapevine the mines were a little sketchy which gives me all kinds of sweats.. Apparently, there was a miscommunication in the creation process and they had to go back through all of them since somebody in the supply line apparently gave some incorrect numbers. I only dug the holes but man I feel like you want those things consistent.
Honestly, that whole mess was such a logistics nightmare I feel like I should be glad so few things actually went wrong. Credit where credit is due though, setting the pillars to drop on them was a stroke of genius. It didn¡¯t wipe out the inins entirely and we had a firefight break out but it was pretty grim start to the fight for them. We did have a bit of an upswing in luck though when that dumbass commandant announced his position. I nailed his whole group with enough EMP to make a faraday cage wince.
I don¡¯t have much to say about the actual fight itself, most of my shield generators along that wall were fried from the fighting and several of the turrets are no longer operational. We cannot get our defenses set up again fast enough to repel another attack which makes this whole operation even more vital. Worst part is we lost more people, about a third of our remaining xythan forces, which is just grim¡
The one silver lining is that we were able to grab the commandant and, believe it or not, he cracked even faster than Rat did. Turns out, leaving an inin tied up inside his soon to explode shuttle will cause a rapid shifting of loyalties. Our guess about them having check in codes was confirmed when he overshared and gave us a whole list of codes from shuttle access to landing codes for their battlecruiser to the code locking his personal minifridge. How very considerate of him! Since he gave us our wings, I¡¯ve decided to call him Gull, our flying rat.
Speaking of Rat, he¡¯s clearly been feeling the pressure to perform recently with Gull¡¯s appearance and was actually able to give us enough information to somewhat confidently identify the cruiser¡¯s model. Apparently, it was originally made by some lanky frog-lookin¡¯ race called the eldih or something like that as a bodyguard ship for their merchants. I bring up the lanky bit because today it is quite important as it means that I¡¯m actually going to be able to bring the HARP for this excursion as the hallways should actually fit it. I¡¯ll have to crouch a bit for the HARP but that''s fine. This is particualrly important for me as there is a zero percent chance Sarlunt would have let me come along if I wasn¡¯t riding a walking tank. Blah blah diplomat and all that stuff.
There is a notable downside as this model of battle cruiser packs a lot more heat than most ships its size. If they get annoyed, a fully stocked ship of this midel will have more than bombs to saturate our defenses and wipe us off the face of the planet.
Publicly and from what I¡¯ve been told, the plan is just a smash and grab where we bloody their nose enough to make them screw off for easier opportunities. These pirates do have a streak of committing to risk-averse behavior but I¡¯m not nearly optimistic enough to believe a simple bloodying will fix that. Pirates, in addition to being cowards, have a long and storied history of being spiteful and petty as fuck and I don¡¯t foresee that changing anytime soon. Additionally, when dealing with weapons of mass destruction, playing defensively isn¡¯t really an option even if they don¡¯t have enough to get in since just one getting through means we lose and no defense is perfect. Sarlunt knows this as much as anyone else and will be planning to adjust for that.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Our main objective today is to get the xythan captives out of here and, if we¡¯re lucky, human captives also. Now, unofficially, unless I¡¯m dramatically misremembering who is who, I¡¯m seeing a few to many of the folks who worked demo with me to not have some suspicions as to what sort of secret plans Sarlunt may have cooked up. Someone needs to make sure the weapons on this ship aren¡¯t aimed planet side and I¡¯ve a ¡°vague¡± idea on how they aim to do it. I¡¯ve a few guesses about what they¡¯re planning but they¡¯ve decided not to tell me which kinda implies this is a suicide mission for them. That¡¯s not cool by me so I¡¯m currently putting together a plan in my head. Its a terrible idea so far.
One last bit of bad news to be looking forward to in this upcoming raid is that we don¡¯t know the exact location of our hostages. Fortunately, I came prepared for this with a few mechanical scouts. With a bit of luck, we¡¯ll find them quickly and scoot them out of here.
Today, I intend to bring my full arsenal to bare and reminding these inin fuckers why you don¡¯t mess with engineers.
To say the deck leader was frustrated would be an understatement. The captain had received word that the ground forces had been routed again and that only a single shuttle had managed to escape. Deck leader felt his tentacles curl in frustration, the captain¡¯s normally overbearing presence had evolved into a micromanaging nightmare that seemed to leak into every aspect of the ship but especially into the bay. Everything about this had to go just right or the deck leader would have peace of mind again. Quickly running through a short checklist in his head. Speaking of things going poorly, the returning shuttle was apparently damaged. They weren¡¯t responding to any of the requests for a video connection and were just spamming that they were damaged.
The deck leader coiled his tentacles together in an attempt to avoid letting his frustration show too much. The shuttle would be in visual range soon enough and then he would be able to take a better look at the damages. Perhaps he would be lucky and those that remained were simply incompetent and or unwilling to troubleshoot. Just a bit of exterior damage and some idiots he could sacrifice to the commander, that¡¯d be ideal.
A faint vibration on the bulkhead characteristic of a landing ship dragged the deck leader back to reality . Shaking away the mental fog, he confirmed that it was in fact the correct ship and began running diagnostics. To his delight, most if not all of the electric systems were completely intact and in more or less the same condition they had left in. Allowing himself a quick celebratory wave, the deck leader gave the signal to his subordinates to begin assisting with whatever the issue was. Perhaps he would be able to get out of this mess with minimal hassle after all. The ground troops¡¯ general incompetence was his victory.
Turning around, the deck leader began the process of alerting the captain when several things happened at once. First, a small fleet of what appeared to be bombshells blasted out of the still opening hatch of the ship and tore off towards the cruiser¡¯s interior. Secondly, and perhaps a little more immediately relevant, a war machine crawled out of the shuttle followed by several free xythans.
For an awkward moment, everything went quiet in the bay as a brief stare down commenced between the war machine and the inins. The quiet was broken when the deck leader sounded the alarm and activated the automatic defenses.
Darana was losing her mind. It was probably a mix of the general boredom of captivity, stress, and the terrible food. She was no stranger to eating stale foods, her finances hadn¡¯t been fantastic following her husband''s death, but she also strongly suspected that the food she¡¯d pushed into the corner hadn¡¯t originally been green. Pushing it a bit farther into the corner, she leaned back on her bunk, closing her eyes as she trying to ignore the situation at hand.
Before she could sink too deeply into her fears, a cacophony of sound erupted from outside. Jumping up and pressing herself against the small viewing window afforded to her, Darana saw a small, familiar bomb shaped device roll into the room with two inins in hot pursuit. Staying just ahead of the inin, the bomb swerved and skidded about the cells, beeping cheerfully as it began to broadcast in rough sounding xythan.
¡°Guess who!¡±
Darana couldn¡¯t help but chuckle to herself.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 217.2
As much as I don¡¯t want to say it, this is kinda fun. Their automatic defenses were designed for infantry and have about a 14-0 track record for actually breaking through the HARP¡¯s shields so¡ Oop hello there.
Crash
Sorry, a 15-0 track record. We¡¯re making good progress but the blast doors they repeatedly insist on closing have forced us to get a little creative with how we¡¯re getting around. The main halls have a lot more reinforcement so we¡¯ve been forced to stray towards the sides of the ship where the blast doors are a lot skinnier and I can physically punch through. We¡¯re on a pretty strict timer and gotta hurry cause it¡¯s only a matter of time before the inins manage to pull their heads out of their asses and properly hunt us down with some heavy weapons. Believe it or not, I don¡¯t have any particular desire to be on the receiving end of their heavy weaponry.
Oh, forgot to say but my bomb drones have done their job admirably. We were able to fill out all the missing gaps in our maps and have a lock on the prisoners. Before we left, I had juuuust enough time to quickly make two different types of the suckers. With the first design, I installed a speaker in it to cause some confusion around the ship and communicate and organize with any prisoners. Since they¡¯ve already achieved their main goal of finding people and warning them, right now they should be scooting around making noise and generally obfuscating our location. The second design is a bit spicier as I¡¯ve filled them up with some of those remote detonation explosives. Those are actually part of my master plan. The more of a clusterfuck it is for the inins, the better things will turn out for us.
I¡¯ve about got my plan finalized and I gotta say I¡¯ve really outdone myself this time since I think it¡¯s one nobody is going to like.
Chapter 33 - Jail Break
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 217.3
Turns out they don¡¯t make blast doors like they used to. Why back in my day, when a blast door closed it could actually withstand a little melting and by golly it sure didn¡¯t crumple like a tin can when you hit it with a mech. Utter hog wash and whippersnapperin¡¯ and I¡¯m running out of old timey phrases to pull out from the top of my head. Needless to say, we¡¯ve made very good progress and have only just had to pull out our high grade explosives. This one was actually reinforced so it¡¯s taking a bit longer than I¡¯d like due to the fact that we need to cut the locking mechanisms without blowing up everyone in the room. Once those suckers have been dealt with, I¡¯m going to be knocking the whole thing in. We played with the idea of going through one of the walls but the whole area is pretty heavily reinforced which kinda makes sense since I can¡¯t imagine they want the ¡°merchandise¡± to arrive damaged in the event a fight breaks out.
Speaking of, I¡¯m currently responsible for holding one of the hallways while the rest of the xythans cut through. The inins have made a few incursions to try and stop us but their attacks have suspiciously dropped off. Drones have them moving towards some of the other choke points and weapons so I¡¯m suspecting we¡¯ll be getting into more fights on the way back. Fortunately, the folks back on the shuttle have kept things locked down so at the very least we¡¯ll have some breathing room.
Darana watched as the bombshell RC car hybrid continued to zoom around distracting a few of the inins. All attempts to capture the car had failed and all but the most persistent of her captors had given up. That wasn¡¯t to say they tolerated it, taking the occasional shot or tentacle swipe, but generally they seemed to be more focused on creating their barricade.
Speaking of, that thing was an insult to barricades everywhere. It looked like they had stolen it from a child¡¯s play, Darana mused as she watched one of the pieces flex and bend.
Leaning back, Darana attempted to feign disinterest unfolded before her. Between the roving drone, the poor barricade, and the speed at which things were moving, Darana found it difficult to muster any emotions as increasingly pounding headache was beginning. Rubbing her head, she darkly chuckled at how fast her fear had been put into the backseat when she hear the sound of heavy metal hitting the entryway door.
Ding da da ding ding ¨C Ding Ding
Quickly clamping her hands over both ears, Darana barely in time to protect her hearing from both the horrific screeching of metal as the sealed door was knocked off its hinges and the sound of gunfire as a fight erupted in the room. The inins began firing a hodgepodge of plasma and small explosives at yet unseen invaders as they hid behind their barriers.
After watching a judicious application of plasma melt one of the nearby barricades, Darana decided that watching could be better done farther back as she scooted as deep as she could into her cell. Even with the reduced field of view, she was in the perfect position to see the little bombshell RC zoom past the front of her cell playing a cheery song followed by a flash and explosion. A few moments later, a stream of scorched inins ran past her cell, blasts of energy rushing after them in hot pursuit. After a few moments, the room had gone quiet.
Tentatively removing her hands from her ears, Darana slowly began to creep forward to check what was happening when the sound of screeching metal began again. Slamming her hands back into position just in case, she leaned a bit to the side against the wall to spot xythan soldiers piling to the room. The horrific screeching stopped for a moment as a crumpled sheet of metal was thrown into the now very melted barricade. Squinting, Darana felt her ears perk up as she realized the crumpled metal was a disfigured door to one of the other cells. Pushing against the door as much as she could Darana spotted the ever familiar war machine Henry had freeing the others in record time. Pressing herself against the small window,Darana called out, waving best she could through the door
¡°Hey! Over here! More people over here!¡±
One of the xythan soldiers spotted her and trotted over, ¡°We¡¯ll be with you in a moment ma¡¯am. Please move to the back of the cell so we can get you out safely. Do you need any medical attention?¡±
Darana nodded and retreated a bit, ¡°No but my neighbor does, could you make sure to check them? Also is that Henry? Why is he here? I thought he was supposed to be staying away from things like this!¡±.
¡°Henry¡ oh the human,¡± the guard nodded half listening as she waved a few others over, ¡±Listen I don¡¯t like male civilians here anymore than you do but apparently that war machine of his specialized for this sort of stuff. Don¡¯t worry he¡¯ll be out of here soon enough. You know him?¡±
¡°Yeah, I was the xenobiologist that was working with him.¡±
The soldier turned to an unseen entity,, ¡°Ahh, please step back. He¡¯s here.¡±
¡°Which one do I need to open?¡±
¡°Both. Be careful with the right one, they need medical attention.¡±
¡°Gotcha¡°
The soldier disappeared from the window only to be replaced by grey metal. A loud thump saw the edges of the door give to robotic fingers that quickly grasped the thing and yanked. For a brief moment, the door remained in place, groaning from the pressure exerted on it, before folding in on itself entirely and falling off the frame. Darana watched as what remained of the door was tossed haphazardly into the middle as the HARP continued its march towards other doors. A soldier with medic markings quickly rushed past into the adjacent cell.
Darana stepped out of the cell to see the familiar hulking suit a few cells over ripping another door off its hinges. Looking around, the soldier that had helped her seemed to have joined the medic and everyone else was gathering near the entrance.
A loud, slightly metallic sigh sounded from behind Darana, ¡°Is that the last of them?¡±
Turning around, she saw Henry talking to a soldier who just nodded, ¡°All civilians accounted for. ¡±
¡°All the xythan ones yeah... Let¡¯s get out of here.¡±
The soldier saluted, turned, and jogged off to help herd the increasingly large group of civilians as the war machine lumbered over towards Darana, rambling all the while, ¡°I¡¯m so glad you¡¯re ok. Bayfur is safe down planetside and now there¡¯s this whole dealio and¡ ¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
Darana stepped forward and gave the metallic leg a hug, ¡°How do you sound so stressed through a voice modifier?¡±
The war machine froze as the cockpit leaned down to face her, ¡°I¡¯d say it¡¯s natural talent but unfortunately I fear it might be practice.¡±
Darana could only laugh as she felt much of the pressure she¡¯d carried since getting kidnapped ease, ¡°It''s good to see you again.¡±
Looking around the bay as the others boarded the transport, Darana couldn¡¯t quite shake the feeling of nervousness. It felt like the quiet before the storm. The trip back to the transport had gone mercifully uninterrupted thanks to a few detours and excessive scouting. She¡¯d known that any fighting along the way would have resulted in massive casualties and while she was thankful, Darana was a realist and knew there should have been at least some. The military folks seemed to be feeling very much the same, nervously herding the civilians with a quiet urgency. Henry had taken patrolling the various entrances, the HARP constantly swivelling as he checked each.
Darana felt a gentle tug on her shoulder and turned to see Glysia gesturing for her follow, ¡°You need to get moving. Leave the worrying to the professionals¡±
Turning her attention back to the immediate surroundings, Darana realized she was alone in the bay, the rest of the civilians already having entered the shuttle. Climbing in herself, Darana joined her contemporaries as several soldiers in heavy, black armor pushed past, hauling a large box with several colorful markings on the side indicating danger. Taking a few moments to decipher the markings, Darana felt her stomach drop as she realized that was a rather large bomb.
The bomb squad, as she now recognized them, broke into a flurry of activity as they began preparations, each taking pieces out and assembling. In short order, they¡¯d finished and were beginning to run diagnostics. A large metallic clanking sounded as the mech lumbered over towards the bomb, ¡°Yeah¡ I¡¯d thought as much. Anyone care to tell me why I wasn¡¯t brought up to speed on this?¡±
One of the bomb technicians paused for a moment, glancing at his comrades, before speaking, ¡°It¡¯s ahh.. well¡ Commander Sarlunt didn¡¯t want you to be to close. Just in case you got shot while out of your war machine.¡±
¡°I see¡well¡ where are you at now?¡±
The technician fidgeted nervously, ¡°Wrapping up the last of the prep.¡±
Darna frowned, that one clearly wasn¡¯t telling the truth, and was displaying a number of telltale signs of lying. Henry seemed to believe it though as he nodded, ¡± Fine. Once you have everything wired correctly let me give it a once over. Wouldn¡¯t want anyone to get caught in the radius¡±
The bomb tech shook his head, ¡°Ahh shouldn¡¯t you¡ uhhh¡.¡± the xythan withered under as the HARP stared down at him silently.
¡°I¡¯ll survive in the HARP but you won¡¯t have that luxury. Go.¡±
The bomb technicians seemed uncomfortable, looking back at a few of the soldiers who were preparing near the door. They nodded their accent and the bomb technician quickly jumped back onto the shuttle
Darana felt herself pulled deeper into the shuttle as Glysia and a handful of other military personnel pushed towards the exit, each brandishing several heavy weapons, their eyes locked onto the human as he began taking a look at the bomb.
¡°Ma¡¯am please. Move further to the back.¡±
¡°I¡¯m far enough back already aren¡¯t I? What¡¯s going on?¡±
¡°Please ma¡¯am.¡±
Henry¡¯s voice echoed from outside and over a few of the communicators, ¡±We might have an issue. I need to make a quick fix. Can you disconnect the shuttle for just a second?¡±
Glysia picked up her communicator and shot a meaningful glance towards the other heavily armed soldiers who began creeping forward, ¡°What¡¯s wrong? We¡¯ve got people to fix that.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve got it, just stay inside for now.¡±
¡°Henry, we¡¯re coming out now. Step away from the bomb.¡±
Darana heard a long-suffering sigh come through the communicators before the human answered, ¡°Yeah, I don¡¯t think so.¡±
In quick succession, several shields sprung to life in the entryway of the shuttle, blocking any further view of the bay and an explosion could be heard.
Darana felt her heart heave in fear until Henry¡¯s voice sounded over the radio a bit frantic. ¡°Well that went a bit better than I expected. Consequently for you lot, I¡¯ve now put a sizable hole in the opposite side of the docking bay so you lot aren¡¯t getting out of there until that¡¯s fixed. Guess I¡¯ll just have to go and deliver this bomb myself now!¡±
Darana¡¯s mouth dried as Glysia snarled into her communicator, ¡°Henry what the fuck are you doing!¡±
Clear peals of nervous laughter sounded through the communicator that seemed to echo through the shuttle itself, ¡°They didn¡¯t have any humans.¡±
¡°HENRY!¡±
The human¡¯s voice roared back over the intercom, ¡°THEY KILLED THEM ALL DAMN IT. They killed my friends and family for the last 3 years for fucking money. This is my goddamn fight and I¡¯m not about to let my new friends pay the price for that.¡±
¡°Under Colony agreement 1.23.4 you wil-¡±
¡°I¡¯m sorry I can¡¯t hear you communication¡¯s breaking up. You¡¯d better start getting ready to get out of here because I¡¯m not lettin¡¯ you in! I¡¯ll let you know when the guns are down! Oh and by the way, maybe don¡¯t make plans for a suicide run behind your friend¡¯s back. See you all planetside.¡±
A faint click sounded over the radio as Glysia screamed in frustration and Darana felt all the stress from earlier return.
Engineer¡¯s Log Day 217.4
Well that¡¯s done and my fate is sealed one way or another. I¡¯m pretty sure I can still get out of here alive though if I hurry up and get this bomb packed. Honestly, I¡¯m kinda annoyed that they really just went and tried to hold a secret meeting in the base I built like oh yeah I¡¯m totally not going to notice or find out. Also I¡¯m integrated into communications thanks to the time I spent getting the defense arrays set up so that¡¯s another mark against them.
Their plan though¡ man it¡¯s just bad. Outside of the ship is well insulated so any bomb they set has to be manually activated. Now technically speaking, they can set a timer and run off but practically speaking the inins can try and stop that meaning they need to guard it to a degree. Now perhaps they could plant it somewhere opportune if they had the right gear, read HARP here, but like they had planned to set it up then clear out tunnels to an escape pod in what basically amounts to a suicide mission.
In all reality, they needed the HARP for this sort of environment but as the de facto diplomat for everyone I was going to be forced back planetside. Maybe it''s honor or something I¡¯m overlooking but¡ I¡¯m not going to sit to the side while my new friends die to someone who killed my old ones. It''s just not happening. If they would have let me along, I¡¯d have no complaints but they didn¡¯t and had every intention to kick me outta here which was just not in the cards.
The short of my job I¡¯ve now signed up for is to dismantle the ship to ship weapons so our shuttle can slip back into our defenses. Our turrets aren¡¯t exactly the brightest bulbs in the closet so we can¡¯t rely on them to get us safely planetside.
Storming the weapons bay would likely be a suicide mission for me even with the HARP but fortunately I¡¯ve got other plans. I¡¯ve a working seal on my suit which means I don¡¯t need to worry about little things like holes in the side of the ship which does mean most of my ballistics are free to be used again. Odds are more in favor for me than it ever was for the xythans.
I¡¯ve got a good idea about where my opponents are thanks to the scouts and an even better idea about important locations to hit. I think it''s time to introduce even more chaos into this clusterfuck.