by Jeff Sproul
"Only negligible damage would occur if one of the outer buildings were set to self-destruct. The central building has a higher quantity of explosive material, which may damage the outer structures."
"And how many shipments are those two storage facilities able to hold, each?"
"The two storage buildings are the same schematic version. Each is capable of containing roughly one-hundred shipments from the excavator."
"I'm probably going to lose some power generation," Riley murmured. "Not that it's working anyway. Oh well. Screw it. This sounds like a good idea to me. System, self-destruct the north-west building immediately."
"Self-destruct on north-west building will occur in ten seconds. Nine…eight…seven."
Riley's hands were balled into fists as he watched the cameras that were directed on the north-west building. Perhaps this was overkill, but he didn't have any choice. He was low on equipment and resources, and his energy wasn't fully recovered yet. He had to act now, while whatever had attacked his troops was still in that building.
"Two…one…zero."
The very moment that the system said 'zero,' a number of explosions tore up through the building on his cameras. The entire first floor blew out as the roof collapsed around it, all turning into collapsing rubble. His chair shook. He could feel the command structure vibrating all around him. He kept watching, as if hoping to see anything that might show something dying. But he gained no such peace of mind. All he saw before him was a destroyed structure. The solar array was now gone, along with an entire building that could've stored resources.
As the dust settled and the smoke rose, Riley realized that there wasn't really any fire. Apparently, the structure had mostly been non-combustible material. Which, he supposed, was useful information.
Slowly, the billowing smoke from the explosion cleared from the cameras, leaving just a pile of rubble where the structure once stood.
"System, did you detect any lifesign readings at any point?"
"Negative."
"Dammit," Riley muttered. "Well…I'll just have to assume that it worked. Until then, I guess I need to be careful." He looked to Trooper One. "If you see anything strange, you tell me immediately. Especially if you see any glowing orbs. Hell, if you see a glowing orb, I want you to immediately put as much distance between yourself and it as you possibly can."
"Yes, sir. I'll remain vigilant."
Riley returned his attention to the rendered map and the cameras. He watched the rubble of the building he'd blown up. He stared at it for five minutes. Then ten. Fifteen. He stared at it, thinking to himself, up until the system notified him of a second excavation report. He pulled it up, but still kept a loose eye on the rubble, even though the system was apparently doing the same. The report was pretty similar to the one before it, with a 10-20% variation of material.
He still had an entire structure to investigate: the excavator itself. From what he knew, the excavator was a pretty simple building that fired a beam of energy down into the ground. The game simplified it all so that the beam both tore into the underground resources while also replacing those resources with nearby dirt or stone. This made it so that giant cave systems weren't created beneath resource outposts. It also was an easy way of resource-extraction compared to having a physical drill going down into the ground. Of course, there were vehicles and structures that had drills as well. The laser-excavator was simply one version of the excavation building. The one on base was of a low tier, the lowest that he'd seen of a laser-excavator, but that didn't mean it wasn't still incredibly useful.
For now, he put 'investigate the excavator' on hold. In the meantime, he needed to both bolster his forces and get the base back to self-sufficient power.
He pulled up the printer function and checked to see what it would take to make more of the troopers. He'd already seen the cost earlier and now that he knew what sort of materials he was getting, he quickly realized that general biomass was going to be the key ingredient in getting more troopers, since it didn't take much iron or copper and waste rock was plentiful enough. By his own loose estimates, it would take roughly one shipment per trooper. But with the 10-20% discrepancy per resource, he might not get enough per shipment, so the ratio was probably 0.9 or 1.1 shipment per trooper.
Next, he looked up the 'Basic Trooper Assault Rifle' schematic that Aaron had installed on the data-drive. But before he had any made, he decided to send Trooper One out on a mission of his own. He knew that Trooper One had 40 pounds of storage on his hidden inventory. Probably enough for a few weapons, but he knew he wouldn't be doing any sort of actual heavy lifting.
He still didn't want to resort to placing Trooper One on the system's command module, since he was running low on power at this point. He knew he was on a timetable, but he was confident that he had enough time.
"Trooper One, head out to the site that I engaged those threats from earlier. I want you to scour that little area and tell me if you find anything. Guns, ammo, anything at all. Anything we can use. If you can pick up a couple guns to carry on your way back, fill your inventory up efficiently with whatever you find. Just hurry out there and hurry back."
"Yes, sir."
"I won't be able to communicate with you once you leave the base, so just stick to those orders and only engage an enemy if it's directly threatening you. If it isn't bothering you, leave it alone."
"Yes, sir."
With that, the trooper turned and headed out of the room. Thanks to the in-game's system of basic AI, the trooper had enough intelligence to at least know or figure out where Riley had engaged the enemies from earlier.
"System, make sure you're opening doors for him."
"I planned on it," the system responded.
Riley shook his head. Was the system getting smart with him? It was kind of entertaining.
From the rendered map, he kept a close eye on Trooper One's progress. But since there was little else for him to do, he decided to whip up a couple new troopers. In the first two shipments of resources from the excavator, he'd acquired the materials to make two more.
"System, can you automatically assign all new troopers numerical designations, starting from six?"
"Appropriate designations will be assigned."
Creating new troopers involved just a few simple button presses on the appropriate menus. With the rendered map, he was able to direct them from point to point around the printer building. The lights for the newly created troopers were green since they were assigned to the base's command module and not himself.
Since he couldn't produce a large number of new troopers yet, he decided to wait on Trooper One's return. There was also no reason to produce any weapons for them, since Trooper One would be hauling back some of the leftover weapons from the assault group. So for the time being, his troopers could only punch things. Which was fine, for now.
The next task on Riley's list was to stabilize power. The best way he knew to do that was to get the solar array functional.
"System, how do I get to the roofs of those outer structures?"
"In each building, there is both an internal elevator system and a stairwell that will take you to the roof. The elevator is hidden away if there is no power. The stairwell can be found usually in one of the corners of the first floor."
"Was there a stairwell in the printer facility?" Riley asked.
"Yes there was."
"Hmm, must've overlooked it. Guess I didn't search the place entirely top to bottom. Got a little sidetracked."
He then pulled up a list of base facilities. This showed him everything that the base had to offer. It was a list of each and every system. It showed the ones that were damaged, destroyed, functional, dormant, active, everything. From this, he was able to select the damaged solar arrays on the other three building's roofs, since he was down one of his buildings. Since he blew it up.
He made a note of what types of resources would be required to repair the solar array. He didn't have enough to bring t
he array 100% back to functionality, but every little bit would help.
The sun hadn't come up at this point, but there was now some measure of light outside. Trooper One wouldn't be able to see perfectly out there, but he wouldn't be in the dark either. Riley figured at most it would just take him another minute or two to get a full inventory of whatever was out there. He needed that report so he could best plan his next move.
For now, he got out of the command chair and tapped a side button on the band that the system had provided him earlier. With the press of that button, a smaller scale version of a rendered map appeared. Essentially, the band acted as both a communication device and a mobile interface with the base itself. He just had to flip those features on.
Bit by bit, he was learning how to properly run a facility.
Even if he had been attacked and nearly lost the drone he had.
Even if he had to self-destruct a building just to try and kill some mysterious threat.
But he was learning. This was good. He could do this.
He transferred some resources through the base's tube system, which let him queue up resources to any location around the base almost instantly. He emptied the remaining contents of the backpack crate into the base's storage. Next, he filled it with the appropriate materials that he'd need in order to repair the solar array. Repairing the solar array was going to cut into his capability to make new troopers since the solar panels and the troopers took a lot of the same materials. Every shipment of materials was going to be pretty important to him for the next few hours.
He headed to the cabinet on the second floor in order to retrieve the repair tool that the system had told him about earlier. The repair tool was a simple enough device. It was a bit like a welding torch. It connected via a cord to one of the side ports on the crate he was lugging around. It would utilize the internal inventory of the crate to apply resources toward repairing whatever the repair tool was used on.
After that, he made his way outside. He looked all around his surroundings as he went to the remaining storage facility. He had to be cautious in case something was still in the base.
If he was quick enough, he might be able to get a good portion of the solar array running, but currently, he didn't have enough resources to complete more than one roof's worth. The array had been made up of four roofs. Each roof supplied 550,000 GU of power per hour. With four fully running roof arrays, that meant that the base had been producing 2,200,000 GU of power per hour. The base itself only required about 1,000,000 per hour, but that would fluctuate depending on what was running, such as the excavator. The excess power would be supplied to the battery backups in the command center, so that the base could function during non-daylight hours. Each day was separated into 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night time.
Each roof supported twenty-five panels each. Each panel put out 22,000 GU an hour.
Currently, he only had about 44,000 GU able to be produced, which wasn't nearly enough. Even at full capacity, the arrays that were able to be repaired would only net him around 1,650,000 GU an hour. So he would be able to keep the power on through the daylight hours, but he'd need more solar arrays or epper rods to cover the difference during parts of the night.
He glanced up and down the streets as he made his way to the still-standing storage building. Everything looked pretty normal. Everything was quiet. He kept a sideways glance on the map, displayed as a holographic representation from the band on his wrist.
He got into the storage building and made his way to the top. There was actually a secret elevator that let him zoom right up to the roof. It was a series of panels that pulled out from the wall as ceiling tiles retracted. It was all very neat to watch. It gave Riley the impression of an old mansion or castle with secret passageways. He probably didn't need to take it, since he could've walked right up the side of the building, but he wanted to see how it functioned regardless.
The ceiling panels retracted as a four-by-four panel lifted him up to the ceiling. The building hummed around him. He imagined that some sort of magnetics were at play here, but he didn't think too hard on the mechanics behind a panel lifting. It was still a game, after all.
In less than twenty seconds, he was on the roof. He stepped off the floor panel, which was then lit up by a series of small white lights, letting him know where it was. All the roof's tiles otherwise looked the same.
With a single glance, he realized he had his work cut out for him. There were scorch marks everywhere. Each of the solar panels was cracked and broken in one way or another. Each panel was still standing, grouped in sets of five in a row. There was plenty of room on the roof for probably another twenty-five panels, if he wanted to build more. But for now, it was more cost-effective to repair what was damaged. He went over to the first panel and tapped it with a finger. Upon doing so, he was given a readout of the panel.
-
Solar Panel Mark 2a
Status: Damaged - Non Functional
Durability: 0%
Output: 0 GU
Effects: Able to produce 22,000 GU at 100% durability during daylight hours.
Repair costs:
Copper Ore: 1
Iron Ore:2
Epzyte Crystal: 1
Waste Rock: 2
Pugstine Ore: 1
General Biomass: 2
-
He glanced it over quickly, noticing how much damage it had sustained and how much it would cost to repair. He'd estimated the repair cost in materials before he'd left the command center. The cost to build a new solar panel was more expensive than repairing a damaged one, luckily. He couldn’t afford to build new panels for a white. He dismissed the window and aimed the repair tool at the panel. He pulled the trigger and immediately created a beam of green and yellow light which hit the panel with some small sparks. An indicator appeared above the panel and showed the panel's name and 'repair percentage.' He continued to hold the trigger, watching as the percentage gradually went up about 3% a second.
So that was what he did.
Panel by panel, he went down the line, repairing one after another.
Upon repairing the fifth panel, his wrist-band chimed out with the system's voice, "Power generation now at 110,000 GUs."
"Thank you, system," Riley murmured to himself. He had to wait on the roof for the next shipment of materials before he could finish more of the work. At this point, he was just trying to utilize whatever materials he was getting from the excavator every twenty minutes. As time progressed, he continued along with his repairs.
He decided to speed things up just a little. So instead of taking the elevator back down, he simply leapt off the roof, letting his boots save him some time. The height of the roof didn't exceed his maximum fall threshold, so he figured it'd be easier.
He landed with a thump on the dirt below, kicking up a little dust in the process. He glanced around and lifted his arm so he could see the rendered map a little better. He still had two green lights in the printer building, which were the troopers he'd made before setting out for his repairs. The yellow light representing Trooper One was still there, thankfully. Upon seeing it, he sighed in relief. At first, he thought it had disappeared, but it was just moving back toward the base. To save some time, Riley headed over to the wall so he could meet Trooper One there. On his way, he noticed that Trooper One had stopped about twenty or thirty feet from the wall. His brow furrowed. Why wasn’t Trooper One moving?
"Trooper One requests your presence at the north wall," said the system.
"Yeah, that's where I'm going…or, well, I'm here," he said as he reached the north wall. "What's he want? Why did he stop moving?"
Riley reached out and pressed the button to open one of the secret doorways on the wall, so he could pass through.
Apparently, Trooper One could be heard by the system's comms, even if he was just outside the wall. He figured it didn't extend all that far, though.
"He says you have a visitor," came the system's voice
, just as the wall slid down into the ground, giving Riley sight of both Trooper One and an armored figure standing beside him.
Chapter 6: Visitor
Riley's eyes widened as he saw the sudden presence of a figure he wasn't expecting. He had begun to step through the doorway in the wall, but stopped mid-way as he found himself staring at his visitor.
"Uh…Trooper One, who's your friend there?" Riley called out, unsure what else to do.
The figure stood about the same height as Trooper One. Riley was unable to see their face or any real identifying features. All he saw was some kind of medieval era armor, draped in reds and blues. Their head was covered in a mask that looked pointed toward the face. Their shoulders were tucked in but slightly rounded. There was some kind of chainmail between the metal plating. The figure stood there, with hands on their hips. Riley couldn't see their back, but they weren't holding any weapons.
Before Trooper One could respond, the mysterious armored figure stepped forward. Their hands came up and pulled their helmet off, revealing long, flowing blonde hair with a streak of blue and a streak of red.
Riley wasn't sure what the significance of the two colored streaks were, but they matched the woman's armor. She had hard, strong features. Her lips were curled in a noticeable smile. "Hello there, friend," came her warm and hearty voice.
"Who are you?" Riley asked, still just as wary as he'd been a few seconds ago.
"System, are you detecting this person?" he asked under his breath.
Apparently, the system detected that he was whispering, and matched his voice level. It spoke back in a quiet voice, so that the person couldn't hear. "I am detecting the vocal signature of another presence, but I do not sense any new lifesigns with scans. I cannot add their presence to the map nor follow their location, except for a loose estimate when they speak."
At that, Riley saw a vague static area of orange appear around Trooper One. Orange meant 'neutral/possible threat.' This was separate from red, which meant 'hostile threat,' such as the enemies earlier. Since the system couldn't pinpoint their location, it was creating an 'area' that this neutral entity could be located in. Riley assumed that the system had been able to use its cameras to detect threats, and not just the scanner. But…well, he supposed he could just ask how this person was here, and undetectable.