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A New Dawn.

Rimworld alpha 7 vanilla story.

Randy Random. Extreme Challenge. 3 colonists as chosen by computer with no changes.

Cristobal  - Miner, 39 year old, Male.  Medieval slave turned Deep Space Miner.
Lupieri  - Artist, 17 year old, Male. Sickly child turned Conceptual Artist.
Walter- Clerk,  69 year old, Male.  Urbworld urchin turned Civil Servant.

Planet Far Fum, Tropical Rainforest in the high mountains. 2758mm rainfall, 20.79c.

My name is Walter. I am writing this journal in the hope that someone finds it after my death and returns it to my beloved wife, Sarah. I have no doubt that I will die on this bug infested, nightmare world. My god, I wish I had never accepted a free trip to the Glitter worlds as reward for a lifetime in the service of the Emperor as a lowly scribe. I have spent a lifetime scratching dictums on fine plas-steel plates and now I am to die scratching out a poor death on this hell world.

Of course I never got to see the towering marvels of the Glitter worlds. The ship I was on was attacked by pirates; keen no doubt to strip the wealthy on the ship of their baubles. I chose not to try save my paltry belongings when the ship was boarded. Instead I headed straight for the survival station and luckily dived into an escape pod just as some fool pirate let off a nuclear grenade. I knew it was that which doomed the ship as radiation alarms were ringing out all over the ship as I made my lunge for safety. I saw only a few pods escape from the burning hulk as my vision faded and the life support systems kicked in.

I awoke to find that my pod had been joined on the ground by two others. At least I would not die alone. I had only a few moments to take in my surroundings before the other two pods opened and I could examine my companions. I could see that we were in a small valley between two low mountains. We had crashed through the canopy of thick jungle to rest on a lush, verdant mass of green vegetation. A short way away I could see the ruins of a small shack like building with broken walls and no roof. Beyond that was a small steam vent puffing volcanic gasses into the thick, warm air. In the distance I could make out what looked to be a herd of deer and maybe some pig like creatures. They seemed to take little notice of us. At least we would not starve straight away.

My co refugees, shocked and staring, and in a way introduced themselves. 'Damn, Damn, damn it to hell' Shouted a rather fey young man of perhaps late teens. He was dressed in a, gold and silver jump suit with nipple clamp tassels. Thigh length purple boots and topped off with a huge golden quiff.  'Those bastards have blown up my sculpture; the universe has lost its finest piece of conceptual genius.' He fell to the floor sobbing, his quiff dangling in the dirt.

The other refugee was a burly, bearded hulk of a man. His huge hands protruded from thick mining leathers. He looked witheringly at the sobbing child and then at me and said one word.  'Shit.'

Two.

'I'm Cristobal and looking at you two, I'm in charge.' The hulking brute of the deep space miner stood hands on hips staring at the dense foliage around our wrecked pods.

'If we are going to survive at least the next day or so we need to turn that ruin into a basic shelter and start looking for anything that might be of use.' He said, striding towards the rough walls of the ancient looking building.

'Stop blubbering boy!' Cristobal shouted at the be-quiffed loon. 'Go cut some of those trees down. Use the jagged edge of that plas-steel from your wrecked pod, and be careful not to break those girly nails of yours.'
He laughed and winked at me. 'Hey, old timer, are you any good at growing things? There are seeds in the escape pod for just this eventuality.'

'What's your name kid?' I asked the boy.

'Lupieri.' I'm a famous Artist and I am not going to destroy these genius hands to...'

I cut him short. 'Some advice, if you want to live more than a few hours then forget about what you were and think about what you are now. What you are now is in deep shit, go cut some wood. And don't go making a sodding sculpture out of it.'

I ambled off to my pod and retrieved the emergency kit. Inside were a few packs of potato seeds, a small power driver for drilling into anything from wood to plas-steel and a pack of plans for building emergency power units and food replicators and such like. I dug out a patch of earth and sowed the seeds. I then placed some small rocks in a rough rectangle and started to pile fallen wood and anything else I could see around our crash site that might be useful.

Cristobal returned from the shack grinning. 'Well done old fella. A potato patch and stockpile, It's a start. Looks like we can quickly repair that ruin and get a roof on and some rough wood beds made. A man works a lot better if he can get a warm bed and good sleep and we have got a lot of work to do.'

He offered his hand. 'I'm Cristobal, miner by trade but I can turn my hand to most things except shit like Art.' He spat in the general direction of the boy who was gingerly breaking small branches of a small bush.

'You look like your hardly cut out for this kind of crap, mind you, you still look more useful than that turdsmacker over there.' He nodded in the boy's direction. 'Even if you do look to be about a hundred and three years old.'

'Walter. Ex- clerk of the Emperor.' I gave him my hand and we shook.

'I like you Walter. I think you will do OK. He on the other hand is a liability, I suppose if things go bad we could eat him, but looks a bit scrawny.' He guffawed at this and I wasn't sure if he meant it.

Three.

'I have found the plan for a making a generator using the venting of those volcanic plumes, I'll get started with the replicator and make the parts needed, might have power by tonight.' I said.

'Great, I'll use that wood you stockpiled and make a start on the repairs to that ruin and at least get some log wall to plug the gaps and a rough door. I'll get some basic beds sorted using the smaller branches and vines.' Cristobal Replied. 'By the way that place was full of some kind of Cobra so watch out.'

'Yeah, there are a few native critters about, what I thought at first were deer in the distance are some kind of Monkey like beast. I've also seen a few large slow tortoise types with a nasty looking beak as well.' I said.

Lupieri came trotting over he seemed to have at least cheered up a bit. 'Right I have had a think and I am willing to help as much as I can but let's get one thing straight. I am not going to lugging one single thing as I must not damage these hands. I have a glittering career ahead of me which resumes as soon as we get off this dung heap. I suggest we put all effort into building a spaceship.' And with that he turned on his thigh length high heels and flounced off to cut more wood.

'He's mad as a hatter.' The miner muttered.

'I read somewhere once that madness and genius are two sides of the same coin.' I replied.

'If he manages to build a spaceship that works we can call him a genius. Until then I'll be calling him something else.' Cristobal grinned.

By nightfall Cristobal had finished patching up the ruin which was little more than a tiny rectangular hut. There was just enough room for three rough beds. I had got a generator fixed up and a small amount of power was flowing to a faintly glowing lamp that I had rigged from some of the metal lying about that had likely fallen from the same spaceship as we ourselves had been rudely ejected.

Before turning in, even though we were all thoroughly exhausted, we scouted the immediate area and stockpiled any useful items. We had a pile of Silver, a good amount of ready to use metal, lots of wood, some medic kits and most importantly; a good stock of readymade survival meals. These had been automatically deployed from small rockets as soon as our escape pods had shot from the dying ship. Each one of these rockets held a couple of dozen meals and that meant we could last out until some food had grown or we had found out if the local fauna was edible.
We awoke early and all three of us started on building a much larger wooden structure with power conduit in the walls to facilitate later equipment that our blueprints would provide. We then got a basic food nutrient replicator up and running and put down a rough plank floor. Lupe, as we started to call him, much to his annoyance made a very good table and chairs and a few plant pots with fresh flowers in. Cristobal found that intensely annoying.

During the day Cristobal had seemed to soften a little towards the lad and I could see them chatting as they worked inside what would be our main living space. I could see them being a lot friendlier towards each other and this made me feel a lot better.  I could see that they both shared an optimistic outlook. Myself, I tend to be a little morose and reflective.

'We had better get some defences up. Those pirates who crashed the party might well be based on this planet or there could be other unfriendly types about as someone built this hut; I saw what looks to be another structure overgrown with vines in the jungle to the west.'  Cristobal said munching on his packaged meal.

'I built some machine guns that killed automatons in a site specific installation piece for the museum of galactic war on Persod IV last year. I could have a go at building something.' Lupieri said whilst staring at his breakfast.

We both looked at the boy with raised eyebrows.

I'm enjoying the read, please do continue.

' "
Although I've noticed the forum is disagreeing with whatever it is you're using to mark talking apostrophe's and quotation marks seem to be working fine for me so I'm unsure what is going on there.

Thank you. I will be writing this one till it ends as have some time off at the moment. I write in Microsoft word and cut and paste as writing large blocks of text is difficult for me with the forums white text on black due to eyesight / colour blindness problems. Not sure why that would display incorrectly for others though - looks fine here.  UK English keyboard settings maybe ???

Would using 'text' be better than "text"?  I write TV scripts and have done so for 20 odd years and the former is habit from using typewriters back in the day for scripts. It's no problem to switch if it reads easier for most.

Four.

By the end of day I found myself laying awake and reflecting on our situation. I have spent a lifetime writing up reports on the mundane and the fabulous for the edification of the Emperor. Not that I ever imagine that in forty odd years he ever read one of them.

So where were we? What was the prospect of any kind of survival? Was my beloved Sarah already mourning? 'Fool' I thought. Of course she would not know. She would not know that the ship I was travelling on was missing. She would not know that for several months at least. With that small mercy I gazed upon a single star that I could see twinkling through the inadequate, barely patched roof above me.

It was whilst looking up at this star and watching the heavens slowly move that the realization came that we must be on a moon orbiting a planet and not on a planet itself. This was bad news as we were likely to suffer the effects of eclipses on our power supply. But what planet did we orbit? To what star did that planet and this moon belong? Small tears of lost desperation formed as I thought of Sarah so far, far away.
I awoke with a start to the sound of a heavy tropical rainstorm beating down. Small rivulets of water were dripping down from the patched roof as thunder boomed and jagged white brands of lightning made ghastly half images on the dark walls. We would have to find a better place to call home if we were to survive this sort of weather. If rain fell like this on a regular basis such a rude shelter would not suffice for long. Hard work, poor nutrition and damp would soon ferment illness.

My companions were already up and working as I struggled from my bed and ate from yet another package survival meal pack. I could hear them discussing the machine gun project to which Lupieri was devoting much of his time. Although none were actually working as yet the laid out parts he had constructed were looking menacing.
The rain eased and Cristobal was able to erect a small lean-to made from salvaged metal. This was to house three storage batteries that would skim off some of our spare power and store it for later use in case we had a power failure or just to power the machine guns if the generator failed. I spent the afternoon working on building a communication console and orbital beacon to see if we could contact a passing ship. It would also be useful in discovering if any others shared this damp jungle we reluctantly now called our home.

Our first small crop of super quick growing potato was ready to harvest after just five days. They do not taste good from what I have heard but they are super nutrient enriched and are easy for the food replicator to turn into a thick goo paste. This muck will keep us alive when the survival packs run out and they will run out in a few days unless we find more. With this in mind I picked up the old Lee- Enfield rifle and headed out to try hunting some of the wildlife we had seen.
We had decided that I would use the rifle, being somewhat familiar with old time weapons but still not a good shot. Both my companions had old pistols that are only good for close use and neither professed to any real knowledge of projectile weapons. Cristobal said had some basic tuition when employed briefly as a guard on a gemstone mine site many years previously. Lupieri had only seen them in museums.

'What does monkey taste like?' I called to them as I passed.

Lupieri pulled a sour face 'bad probably but I bet snake is worse. Try and get one of those pig things, they might be better. I'll rig up a table for jointing whatever you find.'

'How about we rig up a basic stove instead of just shoving it in the replicator? Pig and potato can be sausage and chips.' Cristobal said laughing.

As I headed into the surrounding jungle I looked up at the sky and realized that one of my fears was coming true: The planet was moving towards the sun, eclipse was not far off.

Great read so far. I enjoy the characters you've introduced us to.

The speech mark problem is word. It doesn't use normal " it uses left and right aligned versions for each end of the speech. Not sure how you fix that bar not using word or use single apostrophes. unless the forum has a "paste from word" button that some wysiwygs have.

Thanks. Ok I'll drop word then and use notepad. That should cure it. :)

Depending on the version of word, It would be an "auto correct" setting somewhere.
Which refers to: change the default "" into the curly ones.
Or something a long these lines. I just hope I translated it correctly from my language.

As for the story, great read indeed.

I'll have a look at that - thanks. I do not use word much, normally using Final Draft on an old Power Pc MacBook pro  ::) But that's no good for this sort of quick off the head scribbling :) I was using word 2007 for the first four episodes. Will have a go with notepad or something light and see if that works better. Thank you for the kind comments.

New episode shortly.

Five.

It was evident that we had crashed quite high up in the mountain range. The crash landing of our pods had cleared away only a little of the verdant jungle canopy. Tall spiky trees with bushy tops stood in little clumps like giant woolly matchsticks. I could see large snake creatures hanging in grotesque coils from the branches of several of the trees, as well as some moving between bushes thick with red berries. Carefully I crept up to one of the bushes to inspect the berries. They looked quite juicy and I pulled a small clump of them off a branch and squished them between my fingers. The pulp was bright, bloody red and juice dribbled from them. I picked a few and tucked them away. If they proved edible they could be an important supplement to our diet as there were many bushes full of the bright fruit. As I slowly made my way under the canopy of branches I kept a wary eye on the trees above me. I did not want one of those huge snakes dropping on me in surprise. I still did not know if any of the animals we had seen were dangerous, although none had yet taken much notice of us. I decided that I would do as Cristobal had said and try bag one of the pig like creatures. They were the most edible looking of the animals seen so far. A plump, slow moving target, just what a poor shot like me needed practice on.

I settled down behind one of the bushes and waited. Very soon a likely looking specimen wandered into view. I sighted down the barrel of the ancient rifle and 'crack' my shot rang out, echoing off the mountains around me. I looked at where my prey had been and saw that I had missed. The animal was still peacefully grazing the same patch of grass. At least the sound of the gun did not seem to register with these animals. I carefully took aim again and this time hit it in the head, it made a few odd noises and then fell on its side. It was as I was hefting the thing over my shoulder that I heard a ripping, tearing noise above me. I instinctively dropped to the ground with the dead pig on top of me. Looking up I could see a boiling, streaking line of vapour crossing the sky. It could only mean one thing another escape pod was re-entering the atmosphere. Hefting the hog over my shoulder I tried as best as I could to hurry back to Home.

I dumped off the animal near to a rough bench Lupieri had knocked together from odd ends of logs.

'Cristobal has gone to investigate the pod.' He said, looking with some distaste at the mangled head of the pig.  He looked relieved when I told him that I had some small experience of cleaning hunted animals and while Cristobal was off looking for the pod I would make a start on getting some meat from the animal, saving what of its skin I could. If I cured it well it would at least give me something to write on.

It was two hours or more before we saw Cristobal emerge from the undergrowth carrying a figure over his shoulder. He was near exhaustion and covered in sweat and small scratches. He dumped the figure on the ground.

'Guess we had better make some kind of hand and leg shackle, dig a hole and throw this one in it.' He said.

I was horrified. 'We can't do that. Why do that?'

'She might be one of the pirates who destroyed the ship, you idiot.' I felt foolish and started to blush a little.

'Of course, I was not thinking. There are plenty of psycho's amongst pirates. We will build a holding cell, putting people, pirate or not in holes in the ground is not humane. If we lose our humanity we loose everything.' I said.

'I hope she's not a pirate though, I kill pirates but she's pretty.' Cristobal leered creepily.

We gave her a knockout shot to keep her sedated for a few hours and set about building a rough cell out of a mixture of stone blocks found around the clearing, along with logs and pod remains. Whilst Lupe and Cristobal fussed over the new prison, I investigated the berries I had brought back. A quick test showed that the berries were packed with vitamins and trace elements. I extracted the seeds and immediately dug over a small area next to the potato patch and planted the seeds. Hopefully they would provide us with another source of food. It was then that another pod vapour trail whooshed down to land a few miles off into the jungle.

'Better build a bigger prison.' Grinned Lupieri.

Screenshot of colony taken just after this story point. (http://i.imgur.com/e7c30Ow.png)

I actually giggled at the pig not reacting to the shot bit. Nice touch.

Six

' If we are going to get these guns working I need some fresh mined metal, there is not enough scrap around here for me to finish more than this prototype.' Said Lupieri as he fingered a freshly made auto trigger.

'That's my job then. I have been making a rough mining kit from some of the scraps and there is a small ore outcrop up north a little way I saw it when I was going to meet our new guest.' Replied Cristobal.

'Well one of us needs to go check out that new pod crash.' Said Lupeiri nervously.

'I'll go.' I said a little too positivly making me sound very nervous indeed.

'Anyway you need to stay here and get those guns going. First things first though, I have got to eat. I'll be glad if we get that stove fixed up and going. I'm getting a bit tired of these dried rations.' I picked up a packaged meal from the stack on the stockpile and slowly began to eat as I watched Cristobal head off towards his prospective mining site.

Lupieri was shaping a bit of metal, once he was satisfied he slotted it onto the side of the tripod bound gun.

'Well I think that's done, it should fire automatically if it detects any enemy. It's controlled by a chip I salvaged from the crash pod. I just hacked a script for it and; well lets hope I got it right and it don't go shooting up the wrong targets, like us for instance.' He mused.

I got behind a boulder and suggested he do the same before he turned it on. From behind our boulder we carefully peeked over the top and were relieved to see that the gun had not trained itself on us. It was just scanning from side to side. We watched for a few minutes and then suddenly it stopped scanning.'

'Aw damn, what the heck is wrong. I'm sure my script was good. My script like my art, like my reflection is always very good.' Said Lupieri as he started to rise from behind the boulder. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

'Unlike your common sense. Look, way out far in the distance to where the gun is pointing, someone is walking towards us.' I whispered.

We watched as a man walked quickly straight towards our position.

'That man has bad intent. The gun is pointing straight at him and he has not seen it.' I added.

Closer he came, ever closer, not stopping or even scanning, he looked to be armed with just a small knife.

'Get ready to jump him if that gun don't...'

My words were cut short by the suddden stacatto stutter of the quick firing gun. We watched facinated as a line of bullets hit the advancing figure right across the body. He stood still looking shocked for a second and then fell flat, flat and square on to his face.

'It works.' Said a fascinated Lupieri.

We walked slowly up to the man both pointing our weapons at him as we approached. As we got nearer I could see that he was still breathing. We gathered him up and soon he was bound by the hands, sedated and sharing our other prisoners rough cell. I quickly checked him over and found that his wounds were unlikely to kill him, so I patched him up from the med kit and gave the girl another sedation shot.

'Best to keep them quiet until we figure out what to do next with these two.' I muttered to myself as I exited the cell.

A few moments later Cristobal came bursting out of the jungle pistol in hand.

'What's going on?' He shouted.

'We had another visitor, but my Art installation here got him.' replied a proud looking Lupieri patting the guns barrel.

'Great kid, well done, that's very well done. I have found a good seam of lovely soft ore, I think we can easily make a lot of good stuff out of it. I suggest that I mine it, Walter carries it and you make more guns, a lot more guns. If those pirates we got are just scouts then we are likely to see a lot more of them before too long.'

'Ok, but we got a couple of jobs we must get done here first, like making sure those two can't get free and maybe build a basic stove. I don't think I can eat too much more survival food. If you two can get a stove built, I'll cook us all a decent meat meal.' I said.

Lupieri pulled some round objects from his pocket. 'I found these eggs under a tortoise creature, how about Pork, egg and chips?'

Seven

It was a splendid if simple meal. I felt better being able to transport a little bit of civilization to this cesspit of a home. My companions seemed to
relax a little whilst eating and Cristobal told us a little of why he, a lowly space miner, came to be on a ship that was hi-jacked.

' I was on a recce mission for my boss, a big man in the plas-steel mining world. He had reasons to think a big asteroid of plas-steel was orbiting the glitterworld we were heading to. He didn't want his corporate rivals to figure this out so got me dressed up as a Urbworld businessman who had got lucky and shoved me some cash to splash. He told me that as soon as I got to the glitterworld I was to hire a small support ship and check out the asteroid. That's a different life now though.' He sat back and picked his teeth with a small piece of hog bone and stared whistfully at the leaking roof where drips of water still deposited a small puddle on the floor.

' This place isn't going to be much good for too long.' I said.

' Nope, we got to dig into the hill. It will be safer, less damp and will give more protection from all sorts. I think we should start in the morning.'

Suddenly he was on his feet with his gun drawn. 'I hear something outside.' He said as he crept on all fours and peeked out of a gap in the wall.
A low singing, whistling tune was being hummed, it sounded human. It did not sound like pirates.

'Well I be damned, looks like a couple of natives or something. There are two guys out there in the dark dressed in furs like bloody Tarzan.'

Lupieri and I both tentativly crawled guns ready and peered into the dusky edge of our camp. Sure enough squatting just outside the range of our guns sat two men of indeterminate age. One was humming a strange but charming tune from what seemed to be his throat. I put down the rifle and picked up a roasted leg of the hog and opened the door. Slowly I approached the men and held out the sweet smelling meat. The men approached smiling and without much fuss broke into what could only be a greeting chatter. They quickly devoured the meat. We had made some friends. It felt a lot better to know that we were not completely alone here. We had figured out with the help of some sign language and pictures drawn in the earth that they called themselves 'The Crica of Koala' or something like it. The older man was an elder called Legua and the younger man a warrior called Riesling. We got the idea that they lived about ten miles to the west of us and that they had already met and dispatched several pirates in the last few days. This convinced us that we had to build more defences and start to dig and to dig deep into the hill behind our rough shack. After a hour or so and with much bowing and back clapping the tribesmen retreated into the jungle.

'We should build a good thick wall to slow down a concerted attack. An attack could come from the pirates and we should be prepared just in case those types turn nasty.' Said Lupieri thoughtfully, 'with some of these trained on it', he patted his machine gun. He was growing up very quick. I noticed that he wasn't puffing up his quiff any longer.

It was raining heavily again as we started work again next morning. It was the ninth day we had been here. The sky was grey and a thick fog was obscuring visibility.

'At least this weather should cloak us from more pirates while it lasts. They would have great trouble locating us in this thick fog. I suggest we start on the cave first today, best not to go wandering off getting lost in the fog.' I said.

Lupieri picked up some metal pieces that Cristobal had brought back from his mining expedition and started to make more guns. I decided to check on our prisoners. The girl was awake and I gave her some of the roast pork which she hungrily woolfed down. She ate watching me with untrusting eyes and I started to try and find out more about her. If I could make her less afraid we might get ourselves a new ally. I was sure that not all pirates were psychopaths. I hoped that some were just unlucky in life and given another chance could be very useful indeed. By the time I left the hut I at least found out that her name was Sissy. 'Odd name for a pirate,' I thought as I closed the door on her. Our other friend was still unconscious but I left some meat for him, cold on the floor. I would start to work on him soon.

Eight.

I awoke to a soft bleeping sound and a strobing blue light that was flashing from our communications console. I leapt from the bed and pulled the headphones from their cradle. The ship contacting us was from the robotic weapons trading concern Boxon. The stuttering generated voice in the headphones listed the inventory of the ship. Amongst various guns and tribal weapons they had two R-4 charge rifles and that is what we urgently needed. The problem was that the price was far higher than the value of the metal ore we had found so far. I awakened my companions and told them the news.

'We need to do a good scouting of the area and see if we can scrape more material of value together, we must get those rifles if we are to hold off any serious attacks by pirates.'

They both nodded in agreement although I got the feeling that Cristobal would rather be back at his cliff face mining and Lupieri was staring at his hands.

'I will stay here and try convince the pirates to help us.' Said Lupieri.

I eyed him warily ' Ok but no funny business, no abuse. Agreed.' I said firmly.

'Sure.' He replied.

'Ok lets go off seperately and in different directions and see what we can find.' Cristobal said making for the door.

As we stepped out heavy rain was falling steadily and thunderheads were growing darker. We stopped suddenly as the gun turret to our left started to turn towards the jungle edge.

'Another pirate?' Enquired Cristobal.

We peered into the rain which had reduced visibility to a few hundred yards. A strange bellowing honking bark permiated the gloom as a flash of lightning ignited the tops of some trees a mile or so away. In the flash I saw one of the hog like creatures charging out of the brush towards us. It had only gone a few feet when the turret spat out a stream of bullets and the pig fell screaming to the ground.

'Not a pirate but dinner for tonight. Wonder why it suddenly decided to attack us, every other one we have seen has been very docile.' Cristobal said hefting a rough bag over his shoulder.

'I'll head due south and circle west back to here and you do the oposite.' he said as he strode off.

It was after dark when I returned and Cristobal was squatting on a log talking to Lupieri. A array of goodies lay on the ground in front of them. I poured out the contents of my own rough bag. We had both found nuggets of pure silver that had been scattered on the ground and Cristobal had also found some nuggets of gold. We had a dozen more pre packed survival meals, some high grade uranium ore and some more metal ore.

I made contact with the combat supply ship and arranged to swap nearly all our treasure and one of our pistols for the two R-4 rifles. I then made a call with some food on our two prisoners. As I opened the cell door I saw that our male prisoner was sprawled face down on the floor.
I checked his pulse. He was dead.

Shocked, I had to come to the conclusion that one or both of my companions was guilty of murder.

Dang you 8)... ending with a cliffhanger ;D

Loving the story, thank you!

"or both"

What if I told you it was the Squirrels.

Nine.

Sissy was squatting on the floor in the far corner of the cell. Her hands were clasped tightly around her knees and she was gently rocking backwards and forwards. Her eyes were not leaving the cold dark stare of the dead man who was crumpled facing her on the floor. I gently placed the food tray onto the edge of one of the rough beds we had made.

'What happened here Sissy?' I gently enquired.

She looked up at me and then back to the corpse. 'I was asleep, I woke up and he was dead.'

'Did either of the other two come in here since the last time I was here?' I asked.

'No, I don't know, maybe, I was asleep as I said.' Her voice was distant and small like a distracted child.

I bent down and closed the dead man's eyes and then started to strip him of his dirty clothing. It was as I pulled off his leather jacket that I saw the thick dark pool of Congealed blood around his waist. I probed a now obvious hole with a finger and fresh blood squirted over my hands and onto the floor. He had been hit by the machine gun here and it was a injury I had not spotted when first dressing his wounds. It was this which had done for him. I looked over his bed and saw that a huge amount of blood had seeped into the furs we used as blankets and a large dark pool had formed on the floor under the bed.

'This is my fault. I pretty much murdered him by not spotting that wound. I'm no trained doctor but I should have spotted that.' I said to no one in particular but saw that Sissy was watching me intently.

'I'm not sure if I was dreaming but I think I remember something or someone moving around in here, he was alive then as he was groaning. It was dark and I was frightened. It might have been a dream though as there is little to do but sleep when tied up in the dark.' She said accusingly.

'I will fix some lighting so you can see. Why not make a pledge to help us and join us? I promise you will be treated well and as an equal.' I said gently.

'I'll think about it.' She replied coldly and started to pick over the food.

I picked up the body and staggered out of the door with it and dumped it onto our waste pile. It could stay there until I could get a grave dug. I then went and explained the situation to the other two. A I talked I looked to see if any clue from them betrayed an interest in the death. The only reaction I got was a sarcastic one.

'So you're our self proclaimed doctor and you have managed to kill one of your two patients.' Sneered Lupieri.

'Looks like it. Just hope I don't have to slice into you, so try not to get shot.' I said as I stomped off to dig a shallow grave.

When I got to a likely spot I glanced round and could see Lupieri And Cristobal watching me and talking in low tones. Suddenly a cold feeling crept across my body. Was I wrong? Did they now think I murdered the pirate? Was one of them trying to cover up an involvement? Were they plotting to do the same to me? Was I going insane and conjouring up fantasies when the man had simply died of his wounds?

I could hear the sound of Cristobal's mining tools hammering out as he started to make rough passages and rooms in the cliff behind our rough ruin of a shack. When I had finished making the grave I stared into it for a long time imagining that it was my own last cold home that I was digging.

Ten.
It was the morning of February the fourth that we gained a new member of our colony when Sissy made it known that she wanted to join us. I had been talking to her on and off throughout the morning as I skinned and cleaned some of the smaller creatures that we had bagged around our camp. In front of me were various lumps of meat from squirrels, monkeys, pigs and even snakes.

'So you have a good amount of medical training? You can make stuff out of furs such as these and have a little mining experience?' I asked.

'Yeah I was based on a mining depot ship for Hardacre industries for a few years and took some of the free surgeon and nursing courses they were offering. It's pretty boring on those hulks and doing those courses filled up the time.'

'We could really appreciate your kind of skills you know. We can give you the first of these rooms we are carving out of the rock for yourself and one as a sickbay that you will be in charge of. Why don't you chip in?' I cooed at her. 'You will be well fed, warm and safer with a better chance of getting out of here. That boy out there thinks himself to be a genius and says he will build a rocket one day and blast off of this rock.'
She smiled and laughed and I could see that idea was obviously mad but she seemed to be thinking deeply. For a long time she looked to be turning her options over and then suddenly said. 'Ok, I'm in.'

I went and conferred with Lupieri and Cristobal.

'I trust her and think she could be a useful addition, four can fight and work better than three.' I bargained.

'She's a pirate and I don't trust scum like that. One night she will creep up and slit you throat old man.' Cristobal spat onto the floor.

'I think she's alright, for a pirate that is and will be cool.'  Lupieri chipped in.

'Well that's two to one and I count that that's a vote to free her, keep a good watch on her and well, let's just see how it goes.' I said.

'She isn't going to be any good at hauling stuff, she's a skinny streak of pee, no meat on her.' Cristobal grunted.

'She says that she is a trained medic and that she can mine, she worked for Hardacre.' I countered.

'We will see about that, she can help me and I'll be the judge as to whether she can mine or not.' Cristobal said as he picked up his tools.

I led the girl out into the sunlight and she winced at the sudden change from darkness to light. I cut her bonds and gave her the pile of clothes that had belonged to the male pirate.

'You might want to see if any of these are any good for you as it looks like we need help mining some rooms out of this rock. You can start by helping Cristobal here.'

'So you have done some mining.' Cristobal asked condescendingly.

'Yeah I did three years on asteroids and one on a comet in the dread rings.' She replied confidently.

He tried not to show it but I could tell that Cristobal was impressed. They headed off together to drill where Cristobal had already made a start. As they headed off Sissy turned round.

'Thanks for releasing me and accepting me it's a good present as it's my twenty eighth birthday today'.

It was as they were mining that a strange low droning sound started up and a odd panicky feeling enveloped my whole psyche. I staggered and held on to the bench on which I was cutting furs into strips. It was a feeling I had never encountered in the past. Part fear, part dread and revulsion with a rising panic. My head pounded and my vision wavered. I glanced around and could see that Lupieri was suffering in the same way as he tinkered with yet another machine gun.

'What's going on?' He shouted at me.

'I don't know but I think we should get inside.' I shouted back.

Thunder cracked and torrential rain fell as we started to run towards the shack. We had only gone a few metres when about a dozen enraged pigs threw themselves at us from the jungle. A pig barrelled into me and I felt it's tusk burrow deep into my left leg. As I collapsed to the floor I could see that bullets from the turret guns zinged and pinged all around me. Some were hitting the pigs, thankfully none were hitting me as I slumped into unconsciousness. As the light faded I could hear Lupieri screaming for help.

I awoke with Sissy bending over me. I could see Lupieri was bandaged and asleep in the cot next to me. Next to him was Cristobal. He was heavily bandaged. He looked to be in a bad way.

'Sorry, I done what I could, the pigs are dead or dying. Whatever it was, It's over and I think you and Lupieri will live. I think the big miner might die though, he is infected with something and after treating you all there are only a few medical supplies left.'   She said as she finished inspecting the tusk wounds in both my legs.

'Thank you. I'm glad you joined us when you did.' I said.

'So am I, It wouldn't be much good if I was still tied up and you three were dying out there full of hog tusk holes.' She grinned as she left the room.

'Men.' I heard her say as she closed the door.


(http://i.imgur.com/w6uY1Vp.png)

THIS is why Rimworld was made, keep it up. Loving it so far.

I will keep the story going till the end of the colony. Is there still a formatting problem for some readers with the speech quotes? If so I'll try writing them direct to the forum despite my difficulty in doing so

Think you've fixed speech marks but apostrophes have the same issue. If you copy and paste into notepad then again into the forum it might address the issue.

Cheers. I think it should look ok now. I'll go back and fix the older episodes as and when I have time. Will have a new episode tomorrow.

Think they are all fixed now.

- tomorrow  ' Songs, Sissy and the Scythers!'

yep all fixed.

Cant wait.

Been a good read so far. Interested to see how useful the artist is in the long run.

Eleven

I awoke in the middle of the night and thought I must be dreaming as I was sure I could hear a rich baritone accompanying a tune being played on an old time hurdy-girdy. I did not know the song but it sounded like folk music from the past. I looked over to the other sick bay cots and saw that they were still occupied by Lupieri and Cristobal. I then heard Sissy laugh, clapping her hands. I was awake and not dreaming. There was someone else here. I crawled out of the sick bed and half walked and half staggered to the door. Upon opening the door I was surprised to see Sissy clapping her hands to the performance of what looked to be a medieval troubadour. He was dressed in a minstrel's motley complete with bells on his many cornered hat. He had cymbals on his knees and was holding what was indeed a wooden hurdy-girdy. His right hand worked a revolving handle as his right hand fingers found the notes on the strange stringed instrument. He stopped his playing and leapt up with a flourish of a bow almost to the floor whist doffing his cap to me.

'Cisneros at your service squire. I have decided to join your merry band as minstrel, pun maker and entertainer. I was passing this sad looking castle and I said to myself, Cisneros this is a palace that needs your mirth and your fine singing voice. A tune or three is what they need here, a joke, a pun and much merry laughing fun.' He said with a giggle and then a bent over to release a massive fart.

Sissy clapped her hands again and turned to me.

'Isn't he wonderful? He's funny and he sings and plays and is another hand to help, what with you three out of action for the time being.' She said.

'We put any new member choosing to a vote, not just invite anyone to join. Anyway he's obviously mad. Who would be wandering a place like this with just an old instrument whilst singing his head off? I am having trouble believing all of this.' I said shaking my head.

'Don't you worry lord, I do not only sing finely and play a canny tune but also cut trees and hunt wild beasts and I'm a young sixty-two sapling with many a warm spring yet to come. Although I do have a bad back that gives me a fair amount of gip from time to time.' He then launched into another song and resigned I fell into a chair to listen.

Over the next few days Lupieri had recovered enough to be up out of his sick bed and back to doing some light work. Cristobal thankfully was also recovering and was off the danger list. Sissy had found it necessary to amputate his left pinky finger as gangrene had set in and if it spread elsewhere he was likely to die. So off it came. He was indignant and cursing but came to accept to reality of the situation and thankfully did not seem to hold a grudge about it. The addition of the fool to our group had been less of a problem than I first thought it would. He was a remarkable cutter of wood and a very good hunter. Very soon he provided a great deal of fresh meat and well cleaned skins. His constant merrymaking though was getting tiresome after a while. He tended to repeat jokes, made puns of near everything and seemed to only know half a dozen songs.

One night a few days later we were all sitting around playing cards. We played with a deck that Lupieri had made from dried snake skin. Outside the wind was howling and rain was yet again lashing at the door when there was an almighty crash of thunder that shook the room. Shortly after we again heard that dreaded droning that had sent the boars mad. We dashed from the table and quickly I explained to the minstrel the danger we were in. We took up defensive positions with guns pointing at the door. We were waiting for another onslaught of pigs and listened intently for the spitting fire of our defence turrets to start, but none came. There was just the low, maddening, droning hum.

'We need to take a look outside.' Cristobal whispered.

Slowly we opened the door just a chink and looked into the blackness of the storm. Nothing. We edged outside, In the light of the jagged forks of lightning we could see the outline of what looked to be part of a crashed ship outlined against the dark night. It was just a few dozen yards from our camp.

'What the hell is that?' Sissy said.

'Is that where the sound is coming from?' Lupieri asked.

Cristobal aimed his rifle at the hulk and before anyone could stop him, he loosed off a shot and then another.'

The bullets clanged in the darkness and suddenly just a moment later two strange, fearsome robotic mechanoids burst with great speed straight at us from out of the darkness. One of them levelled a charge lance straight at me. I dived to the ground and the bolt of hot plasma missed me by just a few inches. To my left I could see Lupe and Cristobal taking aim. I pulled out my R-4 charge rifle and brought it up to eye level. I aimed carefully and squeezed off a burst and I saw at least a few hits. What shook me most though was the sight of our foolish but brave minstrel as he dashed from cover right up to one of the mechanical monstrosities and bashed if squarely on its metal snout.

'Die you tin sack of crap.' He screamed as he scissor kicked it in the area where if it had been a man, the man would be unlikely to father children. The mechanoid staggered backwards and fell over and the minstrel also collapsed rolling around. 'Oh bugger, my sodding back.' He screamed in horrible pain, oblivious to the danger he was in.

'Try and shoot the other one.' I shouted and a volley of shots resulted in the remaining monster exploding in a shower of multi coloured sparks.

'Can someone help me up, I can't move. I think I might have slipped a disc.' Moaned the troubadour as he thrashed around next to the strangely bleeping robot he had disabled.

Twelve

We hurried over to the stricken Minstrel and between us gathered him up and carried him back to the sickbay. Sissy looked him over and saw that apart from his back injury he had also suffered a gunshot wound from one of the R-4 charge rifles in his left leg.

'I know my jokes are bad but there was no need to shoot me!' He groaned as he fell into a deep sleep.

Embarrassed I shuffled off to bed. I was the only one directing fire at that machine. I must have accidentally shot him. At some point we would have to put some rules down about gun safety as I could foresee some more friendly fire incidents whilst defending ourselves or even when hunting. The night was still wild with thundering skies and high winds so we decided to leave any investigating of the wreckage until the morning.

Thankfully the terrible weather had abated somewhat as we investigated the remains of the crashed ship part and the mechanoids. Most of the parts had burnt out during the night leaving a tangled mess of metals. We recovered a good amount of scrap metal and some silver along with an intact sealed unit that Lupeiri thought might be part of the ships computer system. We carefully extracted this and carried it back to the base and placed it into a secure area we had made as we hacked rooms into the cliff. The two mechanoids were now just hulks of twisted junk with a little recovered metal and little else. The one that Cisneros had kicked had burnt out in the rain but we could see a large dent in the panel that he had contacted with his feet. It looked as though that had destroyed delicate parts underneath and shorted electrical mechanisms.

'I saw things like these in the war museum, there are different types and they are called Scythers. Fast and deadly if not dealt with quickly. Always best to rush them. I think our minstrel has met these before. There is more to him than he is letting on.' Lupeiri said bending down and sifting the remains for further treasure.

As we were talking we heard the familiar whooshing sound as pods re-entered the atmosphere. Six vapour trails descended to the ground into the thick jungle some miles off.

'Better warn the others and prepare for more unwelcome visitors.' I said un-slinging my R-4 and finding a good look out spot in the rocks nearby.

'How's laughing boy?' Cristobal asked Sissy as she took up a position in the rocks next to him.

'He's going to recover in a day or two with the med-shots I gave him. That back needs surgery that we can't offer though. It looks like he has had that back injury for a long time and unless we get a proper surgeon he will have it for a good time yet.'

We watched and waited and shortly saw the signs of a small group of pirates advancing on the base. We stalled our violent welcome until the first of our turrets reacted to the invaders. Then we let loose with all we had. It was a short battle and in a few seconds there were six dead raiders just in front of the tree line. When we went to investigate we saw that this was a badly armed bunch with four of them using bottles filled with fuel and a basic wick, two had small knives. We were delighted to find that these two were dressed in military armour vests and one had a very attractive Iguana skin jacket, this Lupieri found fitted him perfectly. I snaffled an armour vest and Cristobal got the other one. The rest of the day was spent in constructing another geo thermal power station over a freshly discovered vent that we had found close to the base. Soon we had cables running and it felt good to have an alternative power source.

'Within a few days I think we will be able to move from the sleeping shack to our own rooms in the caves. We will all feel better when we have some space' Said Cristobal.

'Wood plank floors will be good. Those rock floors are bad for the feet and chilly.' Sissy Chipped in.

It was as Sissy and Cristobal were carving out a new room that they happened across a large vein of metal ore. The vein was opened up and the cavern that was excavated looked to be a good place to start a new battery store.  Another smaller room was made to house a general workshop for lupeiri as he had ideas about making mortars, researching improvements to our machine guns and even making the goo from the nutrient dispenser a little more palatable. By this time the minstrel was up and moving about and fool that he was he started cutting down trees almost as soon as he was out of his sick bed. We now all had a room of our own and that lifted our collective mood a fair amount. We cleared most of the rubble and laid wood floors. The outpost was now starting to look like a home.

It was early one morning when our fragile peace was once again shattered when from out of a clear blue sky a mortar bomb fell on our shack. It fell directly on the spot where Sissy was preparing breakfast.

Thirteen.


I was looking after our patch of vegetables which now included ripe berries when the first mortar bombs fell. The first had hit the kitchen and dining area. It was early in the morning and Sissy had been cooking breakfast for all of us. It was a job she seemed to enjoy. It was a busy part of our small outpost most days. I dropped my hoe and ran towards the kitchen. I could see flames and billowing smoke already coming from the roof; dust and broken bits were all over. As I reached the area of most devastation a second mortar fell into the vegetable patch very near to where I had just been. I felt very odd for a second and then remembered why I was staring at the gaping hole in the wall and the pile of rubble. I clambered over the pile and fell inside the remains of the kitchen. I could see that the nutrient dispenser had been destroyed and the wood table was burning with the chairs part cinder and part smashed wood. I looked around for bodies and saw none.

At that point the door to the kitchen area opened and several faces including Sissy's stared out.

'I think we are being bombarded. The pirates have changed to a new tactic.' Cristobal said stating the obvious.

'I thought you were under that.' I blurted out.

'Ahh, that's sweet. I finished in here and was starting to get on my mining stuff.'
'We need a plan. I got two rough mortars made. We can try them out and see if we can dish it back out.' Lupieri said.

'Ok, you set them up. Two of us should go and see what they are up too and how many of them there are.' Cristobal said as he was picking up his rifle.

'I'll go.' I said feeling a little too brave for a short second. I picked up my R-4 charge rifle.

We slowly entered the jungle after first camouflaging ourselves as best we could with some dye Lupeiri had made some days earlier using  juices from the vegetation. He was investigating paints but it made pretty good jungle disguise as well. The usual animals were scampering around the trees and through the brush as we carefully passed. There was no sign of the foe except a plop and whoosh of an occasional mortar shell heading towards our camp. We followed the sound in a general South direction and after a few thousand feet we heard a voice shouting orders. We stopped to listen. The voice was a few hundred feet off and was ordering shells for the mortar to be readied for use.

We crept closer and worked our way round to a point where we could see our adversaries. They numbered eleven in all and were a ragged bunch of desperado's more than cut throats. Most were armed with small pistols or improvised weapons and only one possessed an automatic rifle. We could see that they had built two medium mortars and had a good amount of ammo although not a lot of food. There was a single crate of survival meals in the middle of the lightly sandbagged gun pit. One of them was obviously injured as he lay on the ground groaning. Several others were arguing.

We retired back to camp to make a report and as we did so the first of two missiles went overhead but this time they were towards the pirates. It looked like our own mortars were ready for use. We held a short council and after a short ethical debate we decided that we should go kill them and kill them quickly and thoroughly. Wewould wait until the very early morning and then attack the pirates as they rested for the night. Considering we were outnumbered two to one we gambled that our R-4's would sway the battle. I didn't like the idea of attacking people whilst they slept but survival is all. I tried to get some sleep until my firewatcher stint but tossed and turned as I felt we would be engaging in a dirty business that night.

We assembled clothed in darkest garb we could get together and used up all Lupieri's paint which upset him until it was pointed out that it was much better used if it helped save our lives and if we didn't take out the pirates then we would have little of the base to defend. With no base there was no need for any Art. We pulled straws as one of us would have to remain behind as a fire watcher as half of the missiles had been incendiary types bursting with a napalm like ferocity.

The straws were gathered and we all pulled from Sissy's hand. I looked away and then down: a short straw, I was going  to stay behind. I felt shocked and then relived but suddenly fearful and wanting to go as if it all went horribly wrong, I did not want to be the one left behind. I did not want to face a band of pirates alone. Horrible visions of torture flooded my mind.

The hours waiting for their return seemed very long and I tried to busy myself with little chores. The outpost come base was very large with just myself wandering it. I remembered that I was on fire watching duty so I snapped out of my day dreaming and wandered around from cover to cover just outside of the camp area. The odd missile was still coming over but most burst helplessly into the cliff. I only had to douse a small fire that briefly threatened a secondary power line.

It was the minutes after the sound of a distant fire fight that were the worst. I just sat staring into the dark forest expecting pirates to burst from it in their hundreds. It was just darkness with the occasional howl of a Monkey. Then I felt better as I realised the mortaring had stopped. Had we had Won? This Time.

ooh continue please

Fourteen.

An hour or so later I heard voices and figures emerged from the darkness. I quickly counted them. All of my companions were all there and looked untouched. They carried a large amount of assorted weapons, armour and survival meals.

'It was easy, only one guard. He died quick and the rest soon after. Most of them didn't fire a shot back. We can go get the rest of the stuff and dispose of the bodies in the morning.' Said Cristobal. I saw he was lugging a new Light machine gun.

'Are you all ok?' I enquired.

Sissy looked up smiling.

'Yep not a scratch, didn't feel too good just shooting those sleeping men but they were out to kill us and no point in waking them all up and asking them if they wanted to surrender because they won't.'

'Is that the pirate thing, no surrender?'

'Yeah, unless unconscious, no surrender. If you surrender easily then whoever you are attacking are a whole lot harder to overcome.'

'We had better build our outpost bigger and more defended and we need more people. Maybe we should start buying and releasing slaves from the slaver ships? Ones that want to be free, that is, free to build a life here.'

'You serious?' Said Sissy.

'We could think it out and put it to a vote.' I replied.

In the morning a party went to recover as much usable material from the battle site and we started to build a few solar panels to further enhance our power supply. We also ran extra cables. We saw how easily mortar fire could cut them resulting in losing essential power. Not so bad in the case of the nutrient dispenser supply but dangerous if it was the juice to a bank of turrets.

Cristobal and Sissy got back to digging further into the hill whilst Lupe alternated between researching new gadgets and then attempting to build them. We had a few visitors at this time from another outpost a few dozen miles away. They stayed and chatted for a while. We talked of possible collaboration and trade but they were very reserved and we both gave little real information away. It was mainly just basic anti pirate talk. Just after they had left a vapour trail showed that a crash pod had landed behind a low hill. I quickly made my way to the crash site and found a man outside the pod. He was lying prone, battered but alive. I quickly gathered him up and brought him back home. I took him straight to the sickbay and Sissy took over.

I visited the sickbay later that day and our drop in guest was still unconscious. Sissy was administering some of our precious medicine.

'How's he doing?'

'OK, he will live. He does not seem to have any infections or bad wounds. It’s mainly heavy bruising and a twisted ankle. Not sure what use he will be though. Look at this'. She handed me a wallet. Inside was an electrocredit chip. It was registered to Count Frantz. This guy was a serious aristocrat. He would have been used to a life of luxury in the glitter worlds. He might be ok for hunting but what else?

'That's all we need another near useless mouth to feed.' I said as I exited the sickbay.

Over the next few days I worked in tandem with Cisernos on convincing Count Frantz to join us. He had told us of some shooting and adventuring experience so might be of some use as a guard if nothing else. On the third night of discussions and with the promise of a good room and a big gun Count Frantz joined our group.

Over the next month things went smoothly. We built another geo-thermal generator and had a sudden death to all our crops when blight hit them. Luckily we had a good crop in and the wild berry plants were in full fruit so we just replanted and carried on. Towards the end of the month we had a very odd day. I was out tending the young plants when there was a strange drop in pressure and a lot of the native creatures were spooked. All apart, that is, to the tortoises, they all went mad. Well mad as far as a large slow moving target gets. They came ambling from all directions and came in a bee line at me. I called to the others and we had a couple of hours of target practise. At the end of the massacre there were dozens of dead creatures all around the outpost. Tortoise stew was likely to be on the menu all that week.
It was as we were picking over the dead animals that a loud sudden boom overhead announced the arrival of  half a dozen assault pods heading straight for us.

This is starting to look a lot like Randy's storytelling.

Fifteen


The pods were down and open almost before we realised that we were being assaulted direct from space. The six pods quickly settled and six heavily armed pirates came out  firing from the hip. Lupe and myself were the nearest and we both hit the dirt as bullets zipped about. Some of the fire was from the pirates but most shots were from our fixed defences. The pirates were quickly overwhelmed, I did not even get a shot off. All the pirates were dead. They had landed smack in the crossfire zone of six fixed machine guns.

'I'm hit.'

I looked round to see Lupieri sitting up but holding a bleeding, limp arm. One of the pirates had managed to get in a shot and found a target.

'Ok Lupe, we will get you straight to sick bay and get you patched up. No more fiddling with gadgets for a few days for you.'

'The Counts been helping me, he's good with tech but don't let him near my clothes. He's seen my boots and thinks he should have them.' He said as we gently carried him to the sick bay.

We got a good haul of light armour and some weapons from the pirates. Once stripped the bodies were hauled away and we quickly buried them in the growing cemetery. We would need to devise some kind of crematorium to dispose of bodies if attacks like this were going to be the norm. I talked to the Count and he said he would start work on a few ideas whilst Lupieri was recovering. The next morning I went straight to the sickbay to check on Lupe and found a worried looking Sissy who was sitting at a small table as was checking our now small amount of meds.

She looked up. 'We need more supplies. We need to go on a major wood clearing exercise and see if we can sell it to a passing space trader.'

'Not been many of them recently and just the one slaver for a month or so.'

' Well, Lupe has not woken up yet to hear the bad news that we only have a few basics left for wound treatment and nothing now  for infection. Gotta keep that wound clean and good.'

I went to talk to Cirnernos about the timber idea and he suggested we have a joint effort of logging, him cutting and me carrying. I grudgingly agreed, he was a much quicker lumberjack than myself. He would also do the dealing when the time came. His liquid charm and loose tongue made him a good salesman. As we worked I attempted to get some background information out of him but he spotted the attempt and obfuscated with jokes and wild anecdotes. I didn't get much out of him but it did help get the arduous job of felling and lifting done.

Several days later we had gathered over 1400 units of wood and took a much needed break from tree cutting. I decided to call a meeting to discuss the buying priorities and it was decided that medicine was first then slaves to offer freedom and settlement. Weapons and armour we now had and we could sell some if desperate. The only problem was that no ship had been detected in near space for some time and without that the goods we had were near worthless.

Lupieri still had not regained consciousness and our fears were confirmed when during a night storm screams were heard coming from the sick bay. I rushed from bed near naked and realizing so, quickly half stumbled into some homemade trousers. I rushed to the source of the terrified, anguished commotion. I flung open the door to see a crazed Lupeiri thrashing in his sick cot. He was frothing at the corners of his mouth and sweat covered his face, his hair a wild mess. Jagged lightning outlined his crazed form as he writhed and shouted out a wild incoherent ranting. I hurried to the medicine stock and was fumbling through boxes when a dishevelled Sissy ran into the room.

'He's delirious, a fever, he's real sick.' I gabbled.

'I was hoping to all against this, that wound is infected. All I can do is administer a shot of sedative and analgesics. We need better medicine.'

The next few days went very slowly and still no detection of a trader. Lupe slipped into a coma.

I was doing some tidying in the kitchen when Sissy quietly came up to me.

'Lupe just died.'

Absolutuely amazing. The only thread I request email updates on.

Sixteen.

Ciscernos helped me make a good strong coffin. We painted gaudy coloured swirls with the last of the paint Lupeiri had made and Cristobal and I dressed him in the clothes in which he had arrived. We quiffed his hair, shined his boots and nailed on the lid. We placed him into ground just under the first turret he had built. Sissy threw in a bunch of wild berry flowers and Cristobal a lump of the raw gold we had found. Lupe had always got excited when we found gold and liked to play around with any nuggets we found. The count had started the day by starting to argue that he should have been allowed to commandeer Lupieri's boots. I pointed out to him that thigh length silver platform boots were not the ideal hunting gear for our terrain. Cristobal overheard and told the count that if he didn't shut up he was out on the next slaver. I didn't object. It was a sad day that brought home just how hard it was to survive here. He was just a kid and the exploding ship didn't get him. The Pirates didn't get him. The snakes didn't get him. An infection got him. That age old killer that comes unseen and on a world such as this, as deadly as the most advanced technology.

A few hours after burying Lupe there was a bleeping from the comms console. Two ships had come into trading range. Both had ample stocks of medicine.

One of the ships was a slaver and had an slave by the name of Colin a forty six year old luddite who had a broad range of skills. We offered him an equal share and he was glad to take it. In fact he was near overjoyed at getting off the stinking slave ship.

We spent the next few weeks making a huge effort to get everything that was outside the cave dismantled and re-erected in the newly hewn out caverns that Cristobal and Sissy had been carving. The old shack had been a good start home but was cold, leaky and liable to catch fire under mortar attack. We hollowed out more rock and made a large new kitchen and dining area. We also laid out new cells and installed more alternate power lines into the cave entrance. A larger power cell store was also constructed. The count kept to the lab and we were glad he stayed there mostly. He had made a Tailors bench and a working crematorium so had been working hard. Nobody seemed to like him that much and he made little attempt to be friendly. He hunted every few days and was always civil but often curt and uninterested. He was obviously jealous of Lupe's skills and was often pouring over the notes that Lupieri had left in the lab.

Another pod crash brought a new patient to the sickbay. I was clearing rubble from a cave when Cristobal told me the news. I hurried to the sickbay. Sissy was bandaging a leg wound.

'He's out at the moment. I've checked him over and apart from banged up ribs and this leg he looks to be ok and he's lucky we now have lots of medicine, this time.'

'Sissy, don't give yourself a hard time over Lupe. We had no meds and no qualified medic, you did all you could. If it wasn't for you looking after us we would all have popped off from something or other by now.' I smiled at her.

'Thanks.' She said quietly with a long sigh. 'I miss him.'

'So do I Sissy, So do I. Who's this guy?' I said trying to lift the mood.

'Clarke, Commissioner, or ex- Commissioner as he is now. Fifty two, He's got cataracts in both eyes, oh and a very bad back.'

'Oh hell, not another one.'

We had been having intermittent power problems since moving into the caves.  A search was made for another vent and one was found one a mile or so away from home. We formed a chain to carry the needed construction materials to the site and constructed another geo thermal power unit. Once established we ran double cables back to the cave. We now had excess power. One morning Ciscernos said that he felt ill and went to sick bay. Sissy looked him over.

'It's plague, pretty sure it's plague.'

'That's bad. That's Very bad.' I stuttered.

'We can treat it. He has to be isolated and we need to monitor each other.'

'Ok, I'll go let everyone know, but lockdown for our wandering minstrel. He won't like that.'

'We can wave at him through the window but that's about all. We will have leave his food and meds outside the isolation room door. The less contact the better for us.'

We hadn't seen any local tribes people for some while but a large group of twenty odd turned up one morning and hovered just outside of gun range. We carried on as normal but kept an armed watch on them. They ambled around for a while then all of a sudden rushed one of the gun turrets. It was a massacre. Two lay wounded and we transferred them to the sickbay well away from Ciscernos. Seven lay dead and mangled in front of the turrets. The rest fled. As they disappeared into the jungle another pod crash landed a short way away from our potato patch. Inside was an almost uninjured Entrepreneur by the name of Jen. We were now eight. That night Cristobal complained of feeling unwell. Sissy confirmed Plague. We had a possible epidemic on our hands.

(http://i.imgur.com/4Spw6hk.png)

gotta hate plague

How did you piss off the locals?

Quote from: skullywag on December 07, 2014, 04:02:55 PM
How did you piss off the locals?

Probably an already hostile tribe that prepared for an attack, instead of immediately.

Man, this is great. Gotta love stories.

count one more reader to the growing list of fans/supporters :)

This is grand. You should consider drafting a novel out of this.
You have talent man. Keep it up. :)

Thanks Guys. New episode soon.

Seventeen

The night proved to be busy with both Cristobal and our new guest Clarke both complaining of feeling unwell. They were both given the best meds we had and had then been isolated. Cristobal grumbled that it was only a cold and that he would feel better in the morning. He wasn't, he was infected with the plague, as was Clarke. Later in the day Count Frantz joined the sick list. Sissy was taxed in looking after all of them so I helped where I could in delivering meals and meds as doled out by Sissy.

For several days there had been no improvement in any of the patient's conditions. Thankfully in that time we had just a couple of maddened animals to deal with and the machine guns dealt swift justice to incursions of the perimeter. The two tribesmen we had captured wounded we now found to be stubborn as hell and just grunted insults and spat at as we delivered food. There was no point in trying to get them to be co-operative for the time being and didn't need more people running about the place with plague in the house.

The time passed and hours went quick with so many more jobs needing doing by fewer bodies. The plague ran its course with no more of us getting infected. Cisneros was the first down and the first up. He was declared fit to go when Sissy discovered that he had developed immunity to the plague. Without the powerful medicine the insidious virus would likely have killed him. The others recovered in a few days in a like fashion with Cristobal emerging very grumpily.

'Some Cold.' I said.

'Bit worse than a cold but nothing to put me out. I need some fresh air. Walter, you look pretty whacked old son.' He grinned at me.

'Yeah, well I've been doing the job of three these last few days.'

'Not mining though?' He raised an eyebrow at me.

'No not mining.' I Laughed.

A few days after all had been declared free of plague we had another sudden airborne drop of pirates. Fourteen fell almost on top of us. The turrets spat hot lead and pirate bodies were smashed and torn. Screams echoed into the jungle. Within a few minutes all the pirates were dead without one of us stepping outside. There was one left injured. He was transferred to the cells and we picked over the dropped weapons and armour. We were now pretty well kitted out and had spare weapons to sell to passing traders. The new prisoner was called Kelsey another damned Minstrel, sixty three years old and could have been Cisneros's long lost brother. He wasn't. He was a doctor of sorts though so we would have to work on him. We needed more medical help.

Keeping on top of food production is the most urgent  of our problems. We are always on the brink of a day of hunger and are at times resorting to picking the berry bushes. We laid out two new patches for food and I asked the count if he could look into the problem. In a few days he came up with a system of hydroponics and we started to prepare caves for growing inside under lights.

Kelsey developed a liver infection and Sissy has tried under his direction to treat it. She is enjoying talking to the Minstrel; she does like the musical types it seems, although Cisneros annoys her at times. Mind you he annoys all of us at times. Jen is a good all rounder and has recovered well from her pod crash. She was invaluable when the plague struck doing all sorts of odd jobs. She even found time to build a few more of Lupe's turrets. We are having another major tree cutting exercise to clear ground for more turrets and to get a cash crop from the wood. Medicine is again top of the shopping list. The count has figured out a way to get better nutrient content from our dispenser which should help our food situation. We were all out digging potato fields and foraging on the berry plots for most of this week.  At least we can start on the hydroponics soon. The caves are slowly getting hewn out of the rock. Most of it hard granite or marble.

It was Jen who recruited Kelsey the Minstrel to our group. He is to take one of the rooms we have recently carved in the deepest part of the complex.  We had grown considerably from the worn out shack of those early weeks.  We were now a functioning outpost.  It felt good. It felt a little less fearful. I knew that could change in seconds though and that thought made one feel always on edge. I was forever scanning the sky or finding myself staring and waiting for the twitch of a machine gun as it sought out a threat.

Kelsey was still very ill and had been transferred to the sick bay complaining of stomach pains and Sissy administered shots. He was a sick man and needed complete bed rest. Later that week the signs of blight were on our new crop and we lost the lot overnight so it was back to planting on near empty bellies. At least our first small hydro room is up and running. Hopefully a second bigger room would ready soon. Our two tribesmen were still holding out but at least we now knew names. Trobo was a twenty seven year old archer and Taro was a fifteen year old. Chief of the tribe and a right little shit.  As terrible teenagers go he was top of the class. He whined, stamped his feet and was as sullen and as attractive as a year old turd. We were working on Trobo though as she had shown a few signs of cooperation over the past few days.  She seemed to spend most of her days just pacing the room.  It was as I was looking at her through the cell door that a sudden psychic jolt made me stagger and I gripped onto the door frame. I sank to my knees with hammer blows of pain striking my very being. Jen came rushing up.

'Another ship part has crashed just next to thermal plant 3.' She said breathlessly.

Eighteen.

We called an immediate meeting and decided to send a sniper and guard to investigate, and try and entice the probable Scythers and Centipedes to attack our defences. It was as we discussed our operation that a strange and tragic event occurred. The first indication of further trouble was the spitting sound of a turret soon joined by another on the east side of the compound. We rushed to weapons and doors and saw that a large party of about twenty five pirates had advanced un-noticed and had taken defensive positions in some rocks. They were concentrating fire on two targets. One was the turrets; the other though was a group of four visitors from Strength's plain. They had obviously wandered in without knowing that the pirates were there and had been hi-jacked. They were pinned against our dump wall to the south and exchanging fire with the pirates. Thankfully there was no sign of Scythers or Centipedes and the psychic irritation was currently low. We tried as best we could to help by picking off a couple of pirates at long range with sniper rifles but the overwhelming firepower of the pirates soon took their toll. Two of the visitors from Strengths plain tried to make a run for it but were cruelly shot in the back. The young woman who had been killed so callously looked very much like my Sarah when she was young. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. Enraged I crept forward with my R-4 and found a position where I had a good view if any pirates tried to rush the gap between the turrets. A few seconds later there was a shout and the pirates did indeed rush the gap. The pirates were firing in all directions. Projectiles ricocheted from the rocks and clanged against turrets. The Turret by the graveyard was smoking but still firing. I fired at the mass and saw bodies fall. Shock and fear was evident on those faces.  Soon it was over and a pile of bloodied corpses littered the ground. Some had fled. There were fourteen dead and Parker who is a miner and Steve, a drone are now lightly injured prisoners in our brig. We now have power armour for a couple of us and armour vests for all. We each have a good choice of weapons.

We concreted our plans to attack the crashed ship and Jen, the volunteered sniper and Cristobal her bodyguard prepared to sniff out our quarry.

'We are going to take this nice and easy and smooth.'  Cristobal said. He was tucking a large pistol into his belt. On his left leg he wore a short sword and carried a light machine gun. He was dressed in a power armour suit. Jen was also in power armour and carried a M-24 sniper rifle.

'Sure, we get just close enough to get in a few shots and then ski-daddle when we know what the opposition is.' Jen Confirmed.

'As soon as your back here we will start a barrage of mortar shells on them and later creep back with an attack party. Let's see if we can pick them off whist EMP stunned.' I said.

I watched them as they crept off into the jungle, I found I was getting that same odd feeling of wanting to go and stay at the same time.

'Take care you two.' I muttered to myself as they disappeared into the green.

They were back within the hour grinning and talking excitedly.

'There are two Scythers and two Centipedes. One Centipede has an Inferno cannon, one a Heavy charge blaster. There are two charge lance Scythers.' Cristobal reported.

'Ok, boys and girls, to the mortars, Sissy you hate the mortar duty so do you want to be the General? General dogsbody, that is.' I smiled at her.

'Sure. I'll get sick bay ready just in case of accidents with explosives.' She said hurrying off to the medical room.

We took positions at our battery of mortars and let rip for the rest of the day to wear them down and try inflicting a bit of damage. The plan was to attack them after a nights rest. It was very early and raining hard in a heavy gale as we headed out to attempt to destroy the mechanoid invaders. We had discussed attack and it was a good feeling when everyone volunteered to be part of the attack party. We needed three to stay behind to fire EMP shells to try disabling the mechanoids and allowing us time to damage them without getting hit by their fearsome weaponry. Sissy was one as we needed a doctor, Count Frantz much to his annoyance was another and Cristobal the third. The rest of us dressed in the best of the armour and chose whichever weaponry we preferred, going mainly for sniper rifles, R-4's and Machine Guns. We advanced to positions behind rocks which blocked us from the monsters and split into a pincer both sides of the outcrop. Our snipers took long range pot shots for a while with a few hits on a centipede and then a EMP shell got a good hit on all four as they grouped together. We stepped forward and let rip with everything. Very soon a centipede was dead and a Scyther was down. The other Scyther was just out of range and behind a centipede that was looking to wake but taking lots of shots. I crept forward looking to get a shot in on the Scyther with my R-4 and got to just within range. I lifted the rifle and steadied myself, took a deep breath and pressed the trigger. The head of the robot disintegrated in a shower of sparks. I heard shouts behind me. Warning shouts. I looked towards the remaining centipede. Its fearsome blaster was aiming straight at me. I scrambled over rocks trying to get away from that tube of death as I heard the splatter of the gun. I only remember the earth coming up to meet me as a searing pain coursed through me almost stopping my breathing. I fell. I screamed. I felt blood and dirt in my mouth. In front of my face on the sand was my boot. My naked leg, knee down was still in it.

o lawd

Nooooooo

I really like this story and one of the reason i just registered on this forum is to express how interesting it is to read your creation :) Please, keep writing this, I'm looking forward to find out what will your colonists decide to do with the situation.

Thank you. New episode in a few days. Hopefully that is as I'm a bit busy. I have not even looked at A8 for more than a glance. I will post a screenshot or two of the colony as it is, soon.

Nineteen.

I awoke in a cot in the sick bay. I looked around and saw I was the only occupant. It was quiet for a few minutes and then I heard the whistle and crump of an incoming mortar shell. It landed somewhere south of the vegetable patch, I guessed.  I then heard the pops as several of our own mortars fired. I lay back listening to the flurry of pops counting the shells as they launched. Our salvo was eight shells. We were getting two in return. I tried to figure out what was happening. It was obviously another pirate attack and from the lack of people in the outpost caves all were needed outside. I looked down and groaned. My leg had been amputated at the knee. A stump ended where my left leg used to be. I next awoke with a jolt. A tired Sissy was giving me a shot.

'Easy Walt. You lost a lot of blood but not too much. We will get you a leg of some sort as soon as we get a trader with something.' She smiled at me and yawned.

'Thank you, I'm a fool. What was I doing? I forgot how deadly it is out there.'

'It can happen any time to any of us Walter. It was brave. You killed it. It might have killed me later. So thank you.' She gave a little wave as she exited the sick bay.

I learnt from Cristobal who brought dinner that I had been out for three days and in that time a band of twenty odd pirates had landed to the south and were pounding incendiary shells into us. We had returned a lot of fire since but they had got a good position behind a large hill and were difficult to hit. There were too many for a frontal attack this time. The plan was to gradually wear them down and let them run out of food triggering an attack. It would be foolish to attack our formidable defences. The food was a simple meal of chips and fried snake, someone was still able to find time to cook for the others.

After six days we scored a direct hit on a damaged enemy mortar and destroyed it,  a short while later the pirates attacked our defences and were cut to shreds, whilst only destroying two fixed turrets and damaging another. These were soon fixed and the task of sorting the dropped items and ransacking the enemy camp started. It took five days for all the usable items to be transferred to our stockpile. We had a lot of ammo and clothes to sell but no trader had been in near space to buy it. My leg had to wait. I had been in the sickbay for several weeks and was getting very bored. I had made all manner of lists to entertain myself.  I made lists of our 'Clan' members. We now numbered fourteen as several more pirates had been converted from acts of desperation to colony builders and slaves released. It was because of this that we had had to build more rooms and runmore cable. All this has meant more exploration for ore so Cristobal is happy.

I have developed sleeping sickness and seem to do little but sleep eighteen or more hours a day with no energy. I feel terrible and with the amputation, useless. I can be of no help unless we get a leg for me. I sleep. I eat. I sleep. I eat. Mainly I sleep.

It is a week later and I still have the sickness and still no leg. We had a strange accident and alas the Count is dead. He was out hunting and was cornered by a mad boar and a mad cobra. He fought well but only had a pistol which was his odd but favourite hunting weapon. Sissy told me that by the time help came he was already dead. He was buried next to Lupe. We have also had another pirate raid of thirty cut throats which was easily dealt with. A lot of us have good power armour and heavy weapons. I keep my R-4 next to my bed. Just in case. We have recruited a few more ex pirates, Steele, Parker and Gizmo. So far there have not been any loyalty problems from those that so recently were pirates. A rebellion from within has always been at the back of my mind ever since we have been recruiting swashbucklers. A mutiny would be a disaster for all. The last few days have been ones of battle field clear up. Cristobal brought me a nice pair of EMP grenades as a present.

January the first today and Sissy and a few others came in with a large long shipping crate. Inside was a brand new bionic leg. It must have cost a great deal. I tried to be humble but was overwhelmed by the gesture.

'A wooden one would have been fine.' I said meekly as possible whilst beaming.

On January twelfth I was declared fit and left sick bay. On January thirteenth seven of us came down with malaria. I was back in sick bay.

(http://i.imgur.com/yKvWY3h.png)

another brother who builds in the mountains.  i like the look of your bases considerably more, my men learn to see in the dark hahah

This is the base as it stands. Note: this is a Alpha 7 vanilla game.

(http://i.imgur.com/cfrQsB9.png)

Twenty

The malaria spread no further but with Kelsey our main doctor very ill in bed the medical bay was full to overflowing. Sissy was also stricken so medical duties were being undertaken by nurse Cisneros and his helper Jen. They were both enthusiastic but poor medics. They accidentally gave Trobo the sick tribesman a triple dose of something and he spent a night hallucinating and screaming gibberish in the cell next to the medical bay. We had a sudden flurry of activity when several of the guys brought in Lynx minus his left leg. I winced as I saw the reddened raw stump. He had been caught down near Geo thermal three when a group of pirate's suddenly dropped in. They got Lynx before he knew what was happening and started an attack on the base. The auto guns soon finished them off and Lynx was brought in with two injured pirate prisoners. We would need another leg from the traders. Lynx was given morphine and was soon asleep in his own room. The days passed and we were all still pretty ill on the ward but it was Hogan and Doc Kelsey who were the biggest worry as neither seemed to be responding to treatment. We have been woefully short of trained medics. Having our best one delirious was something we could ill afford. Cisneros was doing his best but he was no Doctor. We did however have plenty of medical supplies and a few days later a trader had a simple prosthetic leg for Lynx. We would need at least Sissy back fit before attempting to fit it.

A night later Hogan died. He was found dead when Cisneros went to give him a shot. I thought I was feeling better but on seeing Hogan I suddenly wasn't so sure. My head ached and my blood felt like it was made of ice. I had been ill for two weeks on top of the weeks of waiting for my own leg. I just wanted to be out of the caves. I wanted to be under the stars. Free to wander and breath fresh air. The walls of the caves seemed to want to crush me at times and the oppressive cramped conditions depressed me considerably. That night Doctor Kelsey also died. Loosing Doc Kelsey was a big blow to all. He was popular and good at his job. He had likely worn himself away trying to heal us.

A few days later I was definitely feeling better and felt that I would not be long before I would be free of the malaria. Sissy also was looking and feeling a lot better. We were discussing one of Lupe’s spaceship plans that he had left in the lab. I had been studying them for some days. They were in a big snake skin leather bound folder. Amongst the various sketches and drawing were plans for a crude space ship. It looked almost workable but I am no engineer.

'The kid was a crazy guy but he had a very good brain. This looks very simple with all the right parts. We need to get some of the more technical types to take a look at these plans. See if there is anything in them.' I said.

'Walt, the chances are that Lupe was just filling his time up when making these plans. They are probably just drawings or stuff we can't make or buy.'

'Maybe so but it won't hurt asking about.'

As I looked at the plans there was a sudden burst of gunfire as all the turrets seemed to open up at once. I looked up and could see Sissy craning her neck as if to use it as an antenna to pick up more of what was happening.

'Rush attack, tribe's people; only our turrets are firing.' She said.

'It will be another massacre.' I sighed.

'Why do they insist of rushing the guns?' Sissy pondered.

'I'm glad they do. If they were more organised or used modern weapons we would probably have not got this far.'

Cristobal came in a few minutes later with the toll.

'There are about twenty tribe's people dead out there. They are scattered all around the guns. We got three injured tribesmen in the cells and a crap load of tribal weapons. None of us got as much as a scratch.' He grinned and gave me a rather spangled piece of cloth. 'One of them was dressed in this. Thought you would look good in it Walter.' He Laughed before quickly walking out the door.

I recovered well enough to leave sickbay a few days later and was very happy to be back doing light duties to build my strength back up. The other malaria stricken colonists  also started to recover and leave the medical bay and soon we got to fix a new leg for Lynx. He was back working but at reduced movement within a few days. As we were both getting used to new legs we had taken to the relatively easy job of gathering berries from the wild bushes growing around the base. We were out gathering when a group of twenty pirates suddenly dropped in pods almost on top of the vegetable patch. The pirates were between us and the base. I ducked down behind a rock and peered over the top.

I could see the pirates start to rush the guns and some falling. The next thing I saw was Lynx who had gotten up and was blasting away at the pirates with an Uzi machine pistol.  A group of pirates saw him and suddenly rushed him. Lynx went down in a flurry of legs and arms. All of a sudden they were gone.

They had kidnapped Lynx.

shit

Twenty One

The kidnapping had been a great shock to everyone and for a few days we had not wandered far from the nearest turrets. Lynx had not been around for long and had spent most of the time in sick bay waiting for a new leg. He had been a cheerful man and I had made friends with him during the days we picked berries together. The fact we both had lost a left leg on this world meant that we had forged a kind of kinship. Now I had little hope of ever seeing him again and that was a sad empty feeling. It was at times like this that my mind wandered and I wondered if my wife Sarah still hoped to see me again.

Two slaves, Testsuya and Vudojir joined us this week and a few days later we gained two empaths; Vavara and Greene. They made a great fuss of scouring our past battlefields looking for missed bodies to dispose of. As we had gone through a period where our medical provisions had stressed beyond breaking it was good to get two people who were medically trained. They suggested we enlarge the 'Hospital' as they now called it and install more beds. This may prove wise if we suffer another epidemic or a heavy raid.

As I write it is a time of building, cleaning and growing. We now have a lot more people and that means we can do more but we also need more room. We actually need lot more room. We also need more food and a back up store for the frequent times of crop failure. We still have our captured tribe's people from long ago, Carro and Trobo. We also have one other tribal addition named Berro. None of the tribes' people look to ever convert to our cause. What was our cause? It was something I had been thinking on for some time and conferred with a few of the older hands. I told them that I wanted to hold a base meeting.

We held the meeting to which all were requested to attend on a wet, windy night after dinner. I was called to chair the meeting with Cristobal and Sissy beside me. It was a natural choice as we were the longest resident members of Home. The canteen had been converted into a temporary meeting room with a table at one end and rows of chairs facing it. I sat rather nervously and waited for the room to fill. Soon the whole base was looking at me expectantly.

'I thought it was a good time to hold a meeting to discuss our plans and to give a pocket review of the past year.' I looked up to see all in the room were quite and attentive. This unnerved me for a second as I had expected some distraction as this was the first time we had all been in the same room together.
'As you all know I was forced to spend rather too long doing no physical work of help. I used as much of time as possible to compile a short account of our year here and of some possible plans for the future. As some of you know I was once a scribe for the empire and now I am scribe for Home.' I paused for a second and looked slowly around the room at all the faces watching me. I let a gentle smile flicker at my lips.
'We number fourteen. We have four known enemies. The Pirate bands; The Ash knifes, The Deep Armadillos, The Rifle Party and then there is the tribe of Koala. They all hate us pretty much the same.' At this statement a cheer went up from Cisneros and a few others joined in.
I Continued. 'We have suffered fourteen raids and have lost four from our family of Home. We have built a good base but likely we need a bigger, better base. More rooms, more guns, more food, more, more, more.' There was a murmur in the room.
'Or we go home.' There was a stunned silence.

'Go home? You mean, like, off planet?' Jen asked incredulously.

'Yes Jen, go home. Me return to my home, you return to your home. Eventually we can all return to our homes.' There was a breakout of babbling, talking and some sobbing. It took me some time to quieten the room. 'We have what I think are workable plans for a basic Space ship. We can build a series of small ships to take us out of here. We may need quite a few ships built one after another. I think we can leave here if we put in a huge amount of work. We have checked and they are brilliant, concise and buildable by us'. A commotion of talking, questions and doubts were voiced all at once. I waited for the blabber to subside and outlined the plan I had worked on whilst incapacitated. 'Our other option is to stay and at some point die. The attacks are getting heavier and more deadly. Yes, we are getting bigger and more able to withstand repeated attacks but if we suffer a concerted attack by co operating pirate bands and it happens with the power out we would be doomed. I suggest we have a vote in a few days. Let us all have a good think. That is unless there are other suggestions from the floor?'

'Can't we just get so big that nothing could hurt us too bad?'  Parker shouted out. He was a surly but hard working odd jobber.

'We could try but all empires fall.' I answered. 'We might live a few years but soon the exploitable resources here would start to fail. Already it is much harder to catch the native animals and we have to go a long way for Boar meat now. We are digging further into the hills to find metals and it's a damnable, hard life.'

A few days later the vote passed 11-3 and we started to plan the building of a spaceship. The S.S Lupe.

yeet

Tynan, wouldnt it be cool to let us write this stuff ingame....well, let *him* write this stuff inagme (im terrible), give him a note taker type thing so he can make notes while he plays. This game was about creating stories after all. Have them shareable somehow.

Also Charlie...dont ever stop, I could read this stuff all day.

I love this, and i like the path the story is taking...

Twist ending the Ships engines don't fire hahaha :D

Quote from: skullywag on December 23, 2014, 02:26:06 PM
Tynan, wouldnt it be cool to let us write this stuff ingame....well, let *him* write this stuff inagme (im terrible), give him a note taker type thing so he can make notes while he plays. This game was about creating stories after all. Have them shareable somehow.

Also Charlie...dont ever stop, I could read this stuff all day.

On both accounts, I agree wholeheartedly.

This is great story, can't wait for the next part! Keep going Charlie!

Twenty Two.

We formed a core group of eight who were to be the builders of the S.S. Lupe. We had two scientists translating Lupieri's plans into modules that we could manufacture. Two haulers were designated to bring needed materials to the site and take away the cut trees and rock debris from the proposed launch area. Four constructors were to actually make the ship and put it together. We calculated that we would need to procure a great deal of plas steel and other metals from space traders or try to find it in the hills surrounding the base. A proposal for an all out effort to gather tradable goods was proposed and acted on. We scoured the various battlefields for items that could be sold for good profit. All spare weapons and clothes were gathered and readied for sale. We cut many, many trees and kept on cutting them. We mined for more metal and luckily found a good deposit of silver worth several thousands. Our food supply was stable now and we even had a small surplus to sell.

On March the fourth Trobo the tribal shaman was finally recruited by the empath Greene. Boy, those guys could convince you of anything. They tended to get very emotional when anyone was hurt and were popular with the colonists as they were good listeners to those needing a shoulder to cry on. All empaths are excellent mediators and ours easily sorted out the petty squabbles that broke out from time to time amongst the colonists. It was during one of the more heated discussions that we had another small pirate raid that dropped in pods. They dropped again straight on the stockpile and all were quickly wiped out or made prisoner with no casualties to ourselves. We didn't even notice them until the turrets started up.  By the time that the attack was over no one could remember the cause of the argument. It was definitely evident that we were becoming a little stir crazy. On May the first the main structural beam for the S.S. Lupe was finished. We celebrated with a Roast Boar feast. May the twelfth saw another tribal convert in the shape of Berro who was convinced to join by Jen. We now number twenty- three colonists.

The summer was quiet and we were able to get on with our mission to get off planet. We had built another geo thermal plant and planted a wider range of crops in order to make exotic clothing to sell to traders. We were also able to strengthen our defences with more turrets and mortars. Our walls looked to be a weak point so we also increased the depth of rocks that we had used to create our perimeter wall. It was as we built a section of this wall that we suffered our heaviest attack yet. It started with the familiar whoosh of overhead pods as they swooped down. The pods cracked open on top of our stockpile and disgorged four centipedes and three scythers. As before our faithful turrets put up a murderous hail of lead and within seconds two of the scythers were down. The third one also quickly disappeared in a wall of flame and spitting sparks but not before shooting Greene with a lance. One of the centipedes was firing molten lumps of flame and had set fire to several turrets and solar panels before it too exploded in gouts of smoke and flame. The remaining centipedes now were firing blindly in all directions and chaos reigned. The concentrated fire from those of us who were able to get a good shot combined with the deadly wall of fire from the turrets soon disabled the remaining monsters. We were lucky to survive the battle with no more injuries to ourselves. Greene was taken to sick bay and treated for burns and a bad arm wound. It was likely that we would need to amputate.

The clear up of the battle took several days and we had needed to rebuild nine turrets, four solar panels and many yards of wiring. Luckily the battle was well away from the space ship project and no harm had come to it. We had recovered a good deal of metals and a mini gun from the invaders. Cristobal snatched up the mini gun. He looked ridiculous with it. He could only just lift it. When he first tried to fire it from the hip he span round like a top spraying bullets in all directions. He was told in no uncertain terms to go play with it out in the bush. It took him a week to be able to fire short burst with anything like accuracy. I hoped to be nowhere near him if he decided to use it in action. I decided I would try to talk him out of using it.

'That thing is a danger to everyone except what you are firing at.' I shouted to him from behind a large rock.

'It's a great feeling Walt. The power of this thing is awesome. It's something else.'

'Yeah true but if we get in the normal close encounter your likely to kill one of us with it.' I pointed out.

'I'll keep practising; think I nearly have the hang of it. I'm going to go hunt some boar.' He grinned at me as he threw the huge gun over his shoulder and walked off into the jungle.

The shipbuilding went on and soon we had a computer control centre. It was built out of the remains of electronics recovered from one of the crashed ancient ship parts. Every cloud having a silver lining and all that, well I remember there was some old time saying that went something like that. We were still very short of plas steel and all efforts were being made to get more from either mining or the traders. So far we had not found any deposits from mining but had bought a small amount from traders. It was very expensive and many trees bought only a little plas steel. We had found more ore deposits and some silver and we now hoped to exploit these in due course.

It was on Friday, June thirteenth that they brought Parker in minus his right leg. Cristobal had accidentally shot it off whilst hunting snakes. We took the mini gun off him.

You should really consider a writer career.
This is gold.
Don't let us down!!!  ;D

That last sentence made me chortle. Rimworld and its hunting, sometimes more dangerous than raids.

Twenty Three.

As the weeks passed the S.S Lupe grew in size. After the three sleep pods were installed work progressed quickly. The computer brain of the ship was completed and the work on the engines and power delivery was progressing steadily. Work was then held up as the plas steel stocks ran out. Every trader that passed in near space was quizzed on getting more supplies of the precious ore to us. We had built up large stocks of goods to exchange. The stockpile was full and cluttered. It had been waiting for a suitable trader for so long that it was thick with grass and had jungle weeds growing through it. Tendrils of vines squeezed their way through a mountain of cloth cowboy hats and green moss covered the piled up chopped logs. Weapons were greased and boxed in boar fat ready for export and clothes were neatly stacked under fat smeared cloth covers to help keep out the rotting effect of the jungle.

There had been a great deal of argument and discussion on who was to take the first three births on the S.S Lupe. There had been suggestions of holding a blind lottery. A favoured lottery based on time in the colony or leaving in the order we arrived. We had considered age, disability, mental state and usefulness to the colony as being used in a points system. No system was a clear favourite and in the end our four empaths were charged with finding the most ethical solution. They locked themselves away after spending a week questioning everyone in the community about a whole host of views. After a few days of quiet discussion they had come to a decision. Our first three passengers would be decided by vote. Each member of the colony would vote for the three colonists that they thought deserved the ticket to get off world.  Each named member would get three votes and the top three scorers would be the chosen. The vote would take place immediately to prevent bribery, threats and politics from polluting the result. Three pebbles were given to everyone. On the surface of each pebble each colonist wrote a name and then the pebbles were put in a large wooden bowl. I found incredibly difficult to choose and ran all the people of home through my head. I finally decided on those that first arrived should be first to leave. I chose Cristobal, Sissy and Cisneros.

The empaths calculated and verified the result and declared to a hushed audience in the converted canteen that Cristobal, Sissy and I were to leave. I sat stunned unable to speak or hardly move. I could see Cristobal high fiving the other miners. Sissy was in floods of tears and saying sorry and apologizing to everyone in earshot. Some of the gathered were clapping and others were complaining a little too loudly. A few were trying to garner support for a re-run or explaining why they should get a birth. The voices drained away and I felt everything inside mentally shift as a new hope built within me. Was it possible? Would I have a new chance to find my Sarah and re-gain my old life? Would I really leave this hell hole? I walked through the crowd with some colonists clapping my back and others wanting to shake hands.  I even got a kiss from a couple of the younger female colonists. I made my way outside through the warren of tunnels and walked towards the ship. Its bulk gleamed in the starlight. A small hunched figure was sitting on a rock staring at the ship. It was Cisneros.

'Two votes out, must have told a couple of jokes a few too many times I guess.' He sighed turning towards me.

'You will get on the next ship for sure and it's only a few deliveries of plas steel away. We have the electronics and steel for the next ship.' I offered, feeling pretty bad. I wanted to give him my place on the S.S. Lupe but only for a second or two and then I thought of my Sarah.

'Yeah maybe, it's a fresh vote though so if I work on a few more jokes make more people like me I'll get enough votes to get a pod.' He said eagerly.

'I would maybe go light on new jokes or jokes at all to be honest and maybe a few less songs.' I said patting his leg and winking at him.

'I wish you well Walter, you deserve to go. You were the first and you have been a de facto leader. They will miss you and envy you but they have learned from you. Just try and lighten up a little.' He grinned at me and offered his hand and we shook.

'I wish you well too Minstrel.'

The weeks passed with little work being done on the S.S. Lupe. We were still waiting for a trader with a good supply of the rare and almost magical plas steel. We had plenty of metal ore stored and so we started the skeleton of the S.S. Berro. This ship was named after a tribal who had been with us for a few months. He had died during a skirmish with the local tribes. A large group of tribesmen had gathered to the south of home near to a geo thermal plant and looked to be preparing for another suicidal frontal attack. Berro had been working in the cotton fields and ignoring all pleas from other colonists he had foolishly gone out to the tribe and attempted to mediate. They had replied to his compassionate offer of friendship with a volley of arrows and pila's whilst screaming curses at him. The tribesmen then threw themselves at our machine gun defences. Very soon they were dead, dying, unconscious or fleeing the area. We placed four tribe people into the cells and went to find Berro. His battered, pierced body was recovered from behind a rock outcrop and he was buried next to our other fallen comrades. A few hours after the burial we had notification that a near space trader was carrying plas steel and would soon be in transfer range. We took delivery of a very large amount of the curious metal. Our calculations showed that there was enough to complete the first space ship. As the plas steel was delivered a mortar shell exploding in the potato patch signalled the start of another large pirate raid.

The pirates had taken up a siege position about half a mile away to the south and were peppering us with a combination of incendiary and explosive mortar fire. Mortar parties were formed and soon a defensive barrage of shells was exploding on top of the raiders. We kept up a good rate of fire all day and all night using a shift system. This concentrated fire had a huge demoralising effect on the raiders. Within a day they had started to fight amongst themselves and we had heard a few fire fights breaking out. Yet again a group of visitors from Strengths plain decided to call and ended up in a vicious gun battle with the pirates. All the visitors were tragically soon killed. After a few more hours of artillery the pirates had had enough and they rushed the guns. There was a short, vicious massacre in front of the turrets, death was dealt at close range. We threw six injured pirates into the cells. The area of their encampment was littered with food packages and all sorts of weapons and armour. We recovered several power suits and R-4 rifles along with piles of lesser spoils.

The plas steel we had bought was incorporated into the ship over the course of a few days and nights of constant work. After a week of tests the ship was declared ready to leave. I spent my last few days saying my goodbyes and counting down the hours. I went to Lupe's old quarters and found his folder of drawings. I decided that if I did reach civilization I would try and get something done with them. He was maybe going to be a legendary Artist yet.

The day of the launch was bright and clear. A few clouds scudded across the sky. The whole colony was gathered as we made our way to the pods. A few people shouted out farewells and a few shouted humorous obscenities. The atmosphere was light and jovial. I shook hands and hugged. Tears were fought. We were strapped into the pods. As the lid started to close I heard a thunderous clap, the pod swayed violently and I felt a huge psychic wave of horror flow over my mind. A few yards from the S.S. Lupe a huge piece of ancient ship had suddenly crashed landed from the heavens. In the smoke and flames I could just see the outlines of dozens of centipedes and Scythers as they exploded from the crashed fuselage. The pod lid snapped shut to the sound of screaming and gunfire.

I slept.


The End.

damn

The S.S. Lupe with Walter, Sissy and Cristobal in the pods as the ship part crashes!

(http://i.imgur.com/5aVdKqB.png)

And then....

(http://i.imgur.com/7xsvknb.png)

So did the colonists get mullered?

Damn good story. Hope you do one (or some) for A8.

Post a comment if you cry every time.

This was a damn good story, I am so glad I came across this! I've really enjoyed reading through this. Thank you for taking the time to write this, it was very well done and offers a very nice, touching and personal feel to the game. Bravo! :) *gives standing ovation*