Topics - rrooster

Mistakes Were Made, a short story

   There once were three psychopaths that crashlanded on the remote rock of Angetenar I. The group consisted of Clara, a Glitterworld-surgeon-turned-miner, Guide, the resident researcher and cook and finally Zuri, an all-round useful settler to have around. The crashlanding left the survivors with no supplies other than the clothes on their backs, but they soon found their surroundings to be rich in resources. With no means of contacting the outside world, the three decided to establish a more permanent colony. They called it Marble Mountain. Luckily the forced landing took place during springtime and once the decision to stay had been made the colony building progressed with unexpected speed. In the first days and weeks the lot managed to mine deep into the mountain and among other small successes found underground caverns containing strange human-sized cryptosleep caskets. Once sufficient space had been cleared inside, the increasingly optimistic psychopaths proceeded to building the colony's outside defensive perimeter.
   During the early days, they had to fend off two small sorties by the local tribes and pirate bands, who were clearly not happy with their new neighbours. As a result of the early victories the colony netted a rifle, a revolver, a pickaxe and three decaying bodies to line the entry to the base with. They also managed to capture one pirate and locked him up until a decision on his fate was made. Some time passed, and with the outer granite wall almost complete a wild Mechanoid Centipede dropped from the sky right inside the unfinished and turretless killbox. The trade beacon that must have attracted it had only just been built. As all three colonists happened to be nearby, their first reaction was to run inside. But the psychopaths they were, they quickly changed their minds and went to melee attack the centipede. The Mechanoid didn't even get a shot off before being pummeled to death. Great success!

   While all this was taking place, a thunderstorm had started wildfires around the surrounding lands. The colonists could smell burning wood, but thought nothing off it as no fire was near enough to be an imminent threat. Well, not until five space soldiers rushed the entrance only moments after the Great Centipede of the Sky had been slain. What Clara, Guide and Zuri didn't know was that a wildfire had somehow creeped into a long-forgotten structure, that was partially open to the elements, containing similar cryptosleep caskets as were found inside their base. The fire had caused the caskets to initiate emergency shutdown procedures and a squad of space soldiers were let loose on the unsuspecting planet. The soldiers were clearly pissed off and swiftly proceeded to the nearest settlement, which happened to be the upstart Marble Mountain.
   Upon the soldiers' arrival, the first reaction of the surprised colonists was again to run inside, but natural instinct won and they started attacking the nearest soldier instead. With the majority of the soldiers oddly preoccupied with destroying walls rather than skulls, the colonists successfully rushed the nearest one and managed to kill him in close combat. A proper automatic rifle was obtained. The other soldiers finally took notice and started to advance towards the defenders.
   The pickaxe-wielding Guide was the first casualty for the colonists as his left leg was blown off by incoming fire. Clara and Zuri rushed Guide inside and into a makeshift hospital bed. While Zuri guarded the door, Clara did her best to stop Guide's bleeding, a tough job without any medicine. Guide remained incapacitated even after the treatment and was of no use in defending their new home. As luck would have it, only one of the remaining four soldiers decided to follow and attack the front door. With a cunning move Zuri let the attacker inside and together with Clara they proceeded to take shots at the charging assailant. However, the soldier managed to get a shot off himself and took out Zuri with his stun gun. Only a moment later Clara applied revolver stock to skull and the soldier was down. Clara quickly locked the soldier into a corridor where he had the previously-captured pirate to compare notes with.
   As if on cue, another soldier started dismantling the front door and Clara decided to repeat the earlier procedure, even as her two comrades lie unconscious. So Clara let the soldier in and retreated behind a wall to take measured shots from. As she started to aim, the soldier appeared to be rushing her so she switched tactics and began running towards the soldier to get the first punch in. However, the soldier took aim with his FLAMETHROWER and sprayed Clara with fire, incapacitating and setting her ablaze. With all three Marble Mountainers unconscious, the remaining three soldiers continued to destroy the killbox outside, all while the fire started by the flamethrower consumed the wiring, workstations and consoles inside the base. To make matters worse, the one-legged and happily unconscious Guide had caught on fire as well.

   Just as all seemed lost, Zuri woke up from her stun-gunned dream and doused the flames that were engulfing Clara and Guide. There was nothing to be done about the bigger blaze consuming everything else around her. Close to breaking down mentally, Zuri decided to roll the dice and rushed through the flames to the still intact cryptosleep caskets. In her crazed mind she had decided to open the caskets to see if salvation lay within. What followed was seven additional combat-ready soldiers jumping out of the caskets in unison and Zuri getting gut-punched into another installment of sleepytime. Then, in a scene straight out of Braveheart, the two factions of soldiers met among the half-destroyed defences and together continued the destruction rather than choosing to fight each other. Bummer.
   So, the colony lay nearly ruined, with all three psychopaths incapacitated inside the burning base. A total of ten soldiers continued to wreak havoc, destroying and burning everything. They also killed the pirate that had gone crazy inside the prison corridor. In a final glimmer of hope, infighting broke out among the soldiers, but things quickly calmed down after Henry, a combat engineer, was shot and killed. Maybe Henry was being a dick or maybe he had cracked. We will never know. Eventually though, the soldiers began to crack en masse. Some just wandered off in daze, some fought and killed each other.

   Of the colonists, Clara died first. With multiple burns and gunshot wounds, she ended up starving to death while laying unconscious on her makeshift bed. Some time later, Guide and Zuri followed suit almost in tandem, also dying of starvation, though Guide had started developing infections due to his extensive injuries. Zuri had been the last best hope of the colony as she had only relatively minor injuries, but she never came to after being punched following her opening the cursed caskets.

   The final scene is of the remaining four space soldiers, disoriented, wandering the haunted halls of Marble Mountain, the rimworld colony that never came to be because of unattended wildfire half way across a mountain range.

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It is rumored that upon learning of her fate, Zuri's brothers, psychopaths likewise, have sworn to take revenge on space soldiers everywhere.

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An overview of the already doomed Marble Mountain colony. The space soldiers originated from the cryptosleep caskets located on the top left-hand corner of the map. That building is not connected to the colony, there is a natural marble wall separating the solar generators from the structure housing the caskets.

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Topics - rrooster

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Stories / Mistakes Were Made, a short story