A colony ship containing the dredges of society left the core worlds. Then disaster struck near a habitable world over a hundred years out. A strange gravitational anomaly pulled the ship in and the thick atmosphere did the rest. The escape pods were launched ahead of time and the same anomaly dispersed the pods all over the continent. Some were lucky enough to land in clusters of three. These are their stories.
I am going to play out a few games using a custom modpack and write about it. I have not played alpha 13, or even alpha 12 much, so expect a lot of people to die. It should be interesting though, especially since I am picking a random landing zone on the world for each group, and I don't reroll any of the characters.
Fay, Squirrel, and 11:
Day 1, Planet Arrakis, "A Grim Situation":
Four pods landed in a northern boreal forest, but one of them did not survive the impact. The first to emerge was Fay Humphrey, a middle-aged woman who actually volunteered to go on the colony ship after having a mid-life crisis. She used to run one of the largest corporations on her homeworld. She recovered immediately after she got on the ship, and panicked, but by then it was too late.
She got out, looked around and then sat on the pod to give herself time to take in the situation, which looked pretty bleak considering her complete lack of survival skills.
Stumbling out of his pod next came Nicholas 'Squirrel' Rothaga. He puked, wiped his mouth, then looked up. The pods had been launched minutes before the ship would enter the upper atmosphere.
Squirrel had been genetically engineered to fly a fighter in a war that ended over 250 years ago. Lacking a purpose he signed up to be modified yet again to fly the colony ship. He was engineered for one purpose only and it had just ended. His first thought was one of intense loss. He had been so fully connected to the ships systems that the disconnect quickly brought him to his knees as he sobbed and shook uncontrollably. The ship disintegrated in the heavy atmosphere as he mourned.
A third pod had landed nearby, but no one had emerged from it for almost an hour. Fay had finally gotten up and was taking a mental inventory of the supplies when she heard a rustle from the last pod. She slowly made her way over and cautiously looked inside, fearing what she may find.
Inside the pod, curled up in the seat, arms around her legs, was a woman close to her own age. The woman, only ever known as Test Subject 11, was rocking back and forth. She mumbled quietly to herself. She did not acknowledge Fays presence. 11 was doing the only thing she ever did. She waited for the voice of Mother to guide her through the next test.
Hours passed, and two suns began to rise. Their light was dim here in the cold northern forests and offered nothing but an intense glare off the frosted over grass and leaves. Fay had finally gotten around to gathering up the supplies. The pilot was asleep, exhausted by his grief; the other woman was asleep as well, still in the safety and confinement of the pod.
Fay forced herself to eat a ration packet as she thought through the situation. She quickly came to the realization that she would have to lead this unlikely band. But they were not employees and this was not a comfortable office. "Well...****."
Day 2-4, Arrakis, "It Could Be Worse.":
Fay had spent several hours just talking. She talked to and comforted the pilot, and she spent even longer just getting the other woman, who said her name was 11, to finally emerge from the pod and help gather supplies.
She had spotted a small one room granite home, long abandoned, at the edge of the forest. Unfortunately what rested up against the forest was a marsh. One corner of the home had collapsed and brackish water had seeped in and the entire room stank, and what she thought was some type of eel slithered out as she had first entered to look around.
They had no choice though, as there was no time to build a better shelter. They'd freeze before then. The cold was already beginning to seep into them, and she was pretty sure they were in the summer months here.
11 had found a pointy eared cat and had taken to calling it Ari. Fay had convinced her to begin gathering berries to extend their meager food supplies. Ari followed 11 around as she picked.
Once Squirrel had recovered a bit, he'd produced a large knife and began to carve a solid plan for food storage into the dirt. They'd discussed how to survive a winter here and the first priority was food storage and heat. So after scratching out a plan he began to tear down the pods and begin work on a wood addition to the home, and using the solar panels from the pods to get power to a heating/cooling system.
It felt good to have a plan but it had taken most of the day just to hash this out and collect enough wood. The next few days were spent successfully getting power going, and the addition built.
On the third day, they had a visitor. She introduced herself as town councilman of Rest Stop At The Cliff. It was a funny name for a town, 11 thought, but she kept that to herself. Her name was Erisen Irioth and she was a very old but still beautiful, and strong woman. She had on a large pack and carried a large and deadly looking steel mace as if it weighed nothing. The reason for the mace quickly became apparent as Erisen, Fay, and Squirrel talked with her over a quick meal.
Rest Stop was not only the people inhabiting the north. Far northwest of here was Rest Stop, but not far south from that was The Dark Swords, a marooned band of space pirates who were just as happy to become rimworld pirates. They raided Rest Stop regularly.
"If I found you so easily, so can they," Erisen explained. "We cannot take anyone else into our community, but we can gather strength through trade."
She stayed that night and left early the next day to return to her people. Squirrel had a sinking feeling that The Dark Swords were already here and waiting to strike. He left the food situation in the hands of Fay and 11 and tried to put together a plan for defense.
They all watched the suns set that night with a palpable unease.
Day 5-8, Arrakis, "Trial By Fire.":
Early the next day Squirrel's intuition was proven right as he saw off in the distance a pair of what could only be The Dark Swords by the black swords painted onto the front of their fur jackets. The one on the left spotted him and they stared at each other for a long minute until the enemy winked and dived back into the forest on the other end of the winding marshlands. Squirrel guessed that they would try to circle around.
He grabbed up his knife, sent 11 back inside the shelter, and got fay to bring the rifle. They took up positions behind some rubble as the suns began to set, and waited.
Hours passed, until Squirrel in his impatience stuck his head up. The bullet whizzed past his right ear before he even heard the gunshot. They were still far off he thought. He ducked back down and got Fays attention.
"Crawl back inside the house and take up position in the rubble in the corner," he whispered.
Fay nodded and crawled off. At the same time Squirrel crawled off to another pile of rubble, bringing him closer to the shooter, he sat there, knife in hand. Another hour passed until at last one of the Dark Swords walked past the rubble pile. He flung himself toward the man and plunged his knife deep into his side and twisted. He then took a quick step so he was now standing behind the man.
The Dark Sword pirate tried to swing his rifle back behind him but Squirrel grabbed the barrel and jerked it back. Squirrel, rifle in hand now, took a few quick steps back and raised it at the man.
He didn't get to the trigger in time though as an arrow stabbed deep into the back his thigh. A shot was heard coming from the house and only a dozen steps from Squirrel was a shrill cry of pain. The man he'd stabbed turned to face Squirrel, he'd ripped the dagger out of his chest and raising it high above him he launched himself at Squirrel.
Squirrel raised the rifle and shot the pirate right in the face. Adrenaline still pumping through him he ran towards the screams coming from a stand of tall pines. He found the other pirate with two fingers blown off and a bullet wound in his stomach. Squirrel didn't hesitate. He shot him point blank and then began stripping the body.
Fay came up behind Squirrel, her rifle still raised. "I killed that man."
"There will be more...I need you to be strong, and We need to teach 11 to use the pistol."
"We are going to die here aren't we," Fay answered with indifference, still in shock over how quickly this world had turned her into a killer.
Squirrel didn't answer except to say, "Go look in on 11."
Squirrel finished stripping the bodies and storing the extra rifle, then he dumped both corpses into the marsh. Fay was able to take the arrow out and clean the wound, he'd limp for a while but lying in bed was not an option right now.
The next two days were quiet, and they took advantage of it by adding a storage room inside the house with the extra wood they had. He also rigged up a crude turret and connected it one his ports he had built into his skin, he sat down and activated the computer built into the back of his neck and did some quick programming. It felt good to connect again, to anything.
On the third night, while they were sleeping 11 woke up suddenly. Back in her old life, you always had to be alert for the next test. Many times her hypertension had saved her life from Mothers cruelty. She missed Mother...
She grabbed a granite rock from the pile near her bed and tip toed outside. She sneaked around to the back of the house and saw the intruder quietly emerge from a bush and approach the back wall of the house. Without fear she walked right up to him, they looked at each other for a quick moment, then a shot range out...
Day 9-10, Planet Arrakis, "tsiwT tolP":
Fay rounded the corner of the house and saw a young man dead, his entire face caved in, and a bloody block of granite sitting next to the corpse. 11 shrugged and said, "We should plant some stuff, I'm tired of raspberries."
"Are...are you hurt, I heard a shot," Fay asked.
"Nah," 11 said as she followed Squirrels instructions and began stripping the corpse. Afterwards they hauled the corpse a hundred yards and tossed it into the marsh.
On the way back to the living quarters of the house they spotted Squirrel, scouting out the perimeter. "We should do watches from now on."
Fay nodded, "I'll take first watch, I wouldn't be able to sleep anyways." Fay then whispered, "There is something terribly off about 11. She said she didn't get shot but I saw a hole in her shirt the size of a bullet. She wasn't bleeding either."
Squirrel was silent a few moments then whispered back, "I've seen her kind before...On Prius back in the core systems they have massive science facilities, because they double as prisons as well. The only thing that surprises me is that they sent her at all. Usually they just snuff out the useless subjects."
"How do you know all this?"
"Where do you think I got these?" Squirrel pointed out the more than a dozen finger sized ports all over his chest and head. "I volunteered though and wasn't in the prison. Her...they've probably had her there for most of her life. They break people there, the kind of breaking you don't come back from. Chances are her genetics were altered too, making her a subhuman now, at best."
At dawn Squirrel spotted a plump woman wading through the swamp. She wasn't wearing the symbol of the Dark Swords, but he kept his knife out anyways and made his way over to the edge of the swamp to meet her.
She climbed out of the water and immediately put her arms up, "I saw the glint off your solar panels from miles off. Is it just you here? I'm trying to find my sister."
"Turn around and keep your arms up," Squirrel patted her down and found nothing but a shoddy steel knife and three days of food.
Squirrel led her into the living quarters and used some power cables to tied her hands behind her. Then he woke up Fay and 11.
When 11 came out of her room, the woman rushed over to her.
"I can't believe I actually found you!" She exclaimed.
11 just stared blankly at the woman.
Fay asked, "Who are you?"
"My name is Dafo, and this is my sister, Sarah," she explained, pointing toward 11. "I rescued her from a research facility. You can't hide from them on any of the core worlds though, so I sold everything I owned, got us fake id chips and we booked passage on the colony ship."
Squirrel cut in, "If you want to stay with your sister you will have to contribute...can you shoot?"
Dafo brightened, "Shooting is my specialty. I saw you've been mining too, I can help with that as well."
Squirrel and Fay both looked at the easily 300 pound woman before them and exchanged a look of doubt.
Fay spoke with authority, "If we let you stay, you would be responsible for her."
"Of course." Dafo said immediately.
"I mean it, she caved a mans head in last night with a rock, it looked like she'd hit his face with that rock dozens of times. If she hurts any of us, both of you are gone."
Dafo gave it a little more thought this time, then nodded. Fay untied her hands.
Squirrel chimed in, "We have a lot of work to do if we are going to survive the coming winter and the pirates."
"Pirates?" Dafo asked.
Fay, Squirrel, and 11 went back to work. Dafo followed 11 out with a slow waddle.
Fay thought Dafo would only be dead weight, but she did have to respect her dedication to her family. She tried to picture Dafo hiking all the way here on her own, and with barely any food and only a small shoddy knife.
Day 11, Planet Arrakis, "Buggy":
They buried Dafo the next day. Another young man from the Dark Swords came. Dafo sensed that the group had little faith in her, so while the rest of the group took positions near the turret at the front of the house, she grabbed up a rifle and headed to the back.
Her aim was true, she hit him dead center, but it wasn't enough to stop him. He charged at Dafo and stabbed at her arms. She tried to knock him away with the rifle but a strong cut got her wrist right down to the bone and she dropped the it.
She tried to run away, but he was on her the whole way, repeatedly stabbing at her. Fay had come around to the back and a quick shot to the stomach sent the raider to the ground at last. Even then he was close enough to stab Dafo several times in the feet and legs and brought Dafo down as well. Squirrel came around with 11 in tow and the three of them got Dafo over to a bed.
Squirrel went back out to drag the incapacitated raider inside and tied him down to a bed in a seperate room, then went back to the living quarters to check on Dafo.
Fay tried her best to stop the bleeding, but it was a futile gesture. Even if she had stopped the bleeding, there was just too much internal damage.
11looked at the corpse for a minute, but shed no tears. She called to Ari and they went to forage some food.
A day later subject 11 went berserk and Fay had to shoot to stop her. Another day and 11 was up again on another rampage, dying from multiple infections. Fay, with almost zero medical training, did her best but in the end 11 died.
It drove Fay over the edge and Squirrel had to stop her by force and afterwards got her into a bed. The fight with Fay left him confined to a bed as well and during the next 24 hours, all three of them were dead from infection.
Right before Fay died though a wanderer came through the area. She cast her greedy eyes about the house, especially the freezer stocked with food and medicine. Kristina decided to move in.
Ari wandered over to the front of the house where blood covered everything in sight. Ari purred and licked at it.
Day 11-16, Planet Arrakis, "Kristina's Rise":
Kristina made herself at home, gorged herself on raspberries, and cleaned the place up. Almost the entire area was covered in blood. The next day she buried all the corpses into a set of pre-dug graves. She ended up having to dig six more graves the day after that just to get all the bodies in.
On her third day, as she was going over a map of ore sites, a sharp piercing pain entered her head. She recognized it from the news back home. It had to be a psychic attack. She tried desperately to find the source and walked the home in ever-increasing circles, but found nothing.
Before long she began to talk to herself out loud, scream randomly, and slamming her head against walls. Eventually she broke down completely, and wandered about in a daze of pain and exhaustion.
After three days of this a woman named Wilkensen wandered into the area and found Kristina curled up next to a heater in the house, shaking and thrashing about. Unfortunately Wilkensen had long ago gone mad herself, having wandered the continent alone for so long, but she still tried sooth Kristina, even as the psychic attack began to tear at her already fragile mental state.
For days both women were bed-ridden, until finally the psychic attack subsided. That day another visitor came by, named Eryl, and seeing the condition of the other two, tried to talk them out of their brief bout of insanity.
Snow began to fall that day...winter had arrived at last.
In between caring for the two women, she inspected the house more carefully. One room was clearly for prisoners, and inside was a day old corpse. Also surrounding the house were several other corpses, frozen in their moment of death by the cold. When she'd asked Wilkensen and Kristina about that they said they didn't remember much about the last few days.
The turrets she'd spotted around the place all had bullet holes and dings in them. Eryl was regretting coming here more and more. She was safer wandering the wilderness. She would decide after the other two women were well enough to talk.
Day 17-25, Planet Arrakis, "Ghosts":
Madness came to the new residents here. A madness born out of fear, paranoia, and greed. Winter dragged on and the food supplies dwindled.
Wilkensen had managed well. The rest wandered about now, oblivious to the cold and the still constant raids by The Dark Swords.
As the days dragged on he did his best. He'd gotten the women into beds and fed them regularly, and tried to bandage up their wounds as best as he could.
He could feel himself slipping into oblivion though after the food ran out. He hadn't eaten for two days now. Some part of him was waiting for the women to pass. Maybe he could hurry that along, he thought.
...Kristina, finally able to walk again, put on a couple layers of clothes and stepped outside. It was bitterly cold.
She didn't notice when Wilkensen had softly approached from behind and knocked her over the head with the butt of his rifle. She stumbled back in surprise and pain, and then she hit her again right in her face. Again and again until she fell to the ground, her face so bludgeoned that she wasn't even recognizable anymore.
A fog had descended over her mind so she barely noticed when Wilkensen dragged her threw the snow to the kitchen.
I am going to play out a few games using a custom modpack and write about it. I have not played alpha 13, or even alpha 12 much, so expect a lot of people to die. It should be interesting though, especially since I am picking a random landing zone on the world for each group, and I don't reroll any of the characters.
Fay, Squirrel, and 11:
Day 1, Planet Arrakis, "A Grim Situation":
Four pods landed in a northern boreal forest, but one of them did not survive the impact. The first to emerge was Fay Humphrey, a middle-aged woman who actually volunteered to go on the colony ship after having a mid-life crisis. She used to run one of the largest corporations on her homeworld. She recovered immediately after she got on the ship, and panicked, but by then it was too late.
She got out, looked around and then sat on the pod to give herself time to take in the situation, which looked pretty bleak considering her complete lack of survival skills.
Stumbling out of his pod next came Nicholas 'Squirrel' Rothaga. He puked, wiped his mouth, then looked up. The pods had been launched minutes before the ship would enter the upper atmosphere.
Squirrel had been genetically engineered to fly a fighter in a war that ended over 250 years ago. Lacking a purpose he signed up to be modified yet again to fly the colony ship. He was engineered for one purpose only and it had just ended. His first thought was one of intense loss. He had been so fully connected to the ships systems that the disconnect quickly brought him to his knees as he sobbed and shook uncontrollably. The ship disintegrated in the heavy atmosphere as he mourned.
A third pod had landed nearby, but no one had emerged from it for almost an hour. Fay had finally gotten up and was taking a mental inventory of the supplies when she heard a rustle from the last pod. She slowly made her way over and cautiously looked inside, fearing what she may find.
Inside the pod, curled up in the seat, arms around her legs, was a woman close to her own age. The woman, only ever known as Test Subject 11, was rocking back and forth. She mumbled quietly to herself. She did not acknowledge Fays presence. 11 was doing the only thing she ever did. She waited for the voice of Mother to guide her through the next test.
Hours passed, and two suns began to rise. Their light was dim here in the cold northern forests and offered nothing but an intense glare off the frosted over grass and leaves. Fay had finally gotten around to gathering up the supplies. The pilot was asleep, exhausted by his grief; the other woman was asleep as well, still in the safety and confinement of the pod.
Fay forced herself to eat a ration packet as she thought through the situation. She quickly came to the realization that she would have to lead this unlikely band. But they were not employees and this was not a comfortable office. "Well...****."
Day 2-4, Arrakis, "It Could Be Worse.":
Fay had spent several hours just talking. She talked to and comforted the pilot, and she spent even longer just getting the other woman, who said her name was 11, to finally emerge from the pod and help gather supplies.
She had spotted a small one room granite home, long abandoned, at the edge of the forest. Unfortunately what rested up against the forest was a marsh. One corner of the home had collapsed and brackish water had seeped in and the entire room stank, and what she thought was some type of eel slithered out as she had first entered to look around.
They had no choice though, as there was no time to build a better shelter. They'd freeze before then. The cold was already beginning to seep into them, and she was pretty sure they were in the summer months here.
11 had found a pointy eared cat and had taken to calling it Ari. Fay had convinced her to begin gathering berries to extend their meager food supplies. Ari followed 11 around as she picked.
Once Squirrel had recovered a bit, he'd produced a large knife and began to carve a solid plan for food storage into the dirt. They'd discussed how to survive a winter here and the first priority was food storage and heat. So after scratching out a plan he began to tear down the pods and begin work on a wood addition to the home, and using the solar panels from the pods to get power to a heating/cooling system.
It felt good to have a plan but it had taken most of the day just to hash this out and collect enough wood. The next few days were spent successfully getting power going, and the addition built.
On the third day, they had a visitor. She introduced herself as town councilman of Rest Stop At The Cliff. It was a funny name for a town, 11 thought, but she kept that to herself. Her name was Erisen Irioth and she was a very old but still beautiful, and strong woman. She had on a large pack and carried a large and deadly looking steel mace as if it weighed nothing. The reason for the mace quickly became apparent as Erisen, Fay, and Squirrel talked with her over a quick meal.
Rest Stop was not only the people inhabiting the north. Far northwest of here was Rest Stop, but not far south from that was The Dark Swords, a marooned band of space pirates who were just as happy to become rimworld pirates. They raided Rest Stop regularly.
"If I found you so easily, so can they," Erisen explained. "We cannot take anyone else into our community, but we can gather strength through trade."
She stayed that night and left early the next day to return to her people. Squirrel had a sinking feeling that The Dark Swords were already here and waiting to strike. He left the food situation in the hands of Fay and 11 and tried to put together a plan for defense.
They all watched the suns set that night with a palpable unease.
Day 5-8, Arrakis, "Trial By Fire.":
Early the next day Squirrel's intuition was proven right as he saw off in the distance a pair of what could only be The Dark Swords by the black swords painted onto the front of their fur jackets. The one on the left spotted him and they stared at each other for a long minute until the enemy winked and dived back into the forest on the other end of the winding marshlands. Squirrel guessed that they would try to circle around.
He grabbed up his knife, sent 11 back inside the shelter, and got fay to bring the rifle. They took up positions behind some rubble as the suns began to set, and waited.
Hours passed, until Squirrel in his impatience stuck his head up. The bullet whizzed past his right ear before he even heard the gunshot. They were still far off he thought. He ducked back down and got Fays attention.
"Crawl back inside the house and take up position in the rubble in the corner," he whispered.
Fay nodded and crawled off. At the same time Squirrel crawled off to another pile of rubble, bringing him closer to the shooter, he sat there, knife in hand. Another hour passed until at last one of the Dark Swords walked past the rubble pile. He flung himself toward the man and plunged his knife deep into his side and twisted. He then took a quick step so he was now standing behind the man.
The Dark Sword pirate tried to swing his rifle back behind him but Squirrel grabbed the barrel and jerked it back. Squirrel, rifle in hand now, took a few quick steps back and raised it at the man.
He didn't get to the trigger in time though as an arrow stabbed deep into the back his thigh. A shot was heard coming from the house and only a dozen steps from Squirrel was a shrill cry of pain. The man he'd stabbed turned to face Squirrel, he'd ripped the dagger out of his chest and raising it high above him he launched himself at Squirrel.
Squirrel raised the rifle and shot the pirate right in the face. Adrenaline still pumping through him he ran towards the screams coming from a stand of tall pines. He found the other pirate with two fingers blown off and a bullet wound in his stomach. Squirrel didn't hesitate. He shot him point blank and then began stripping the body.
Fay came up behind Squirrel, her rifle still raised. "I killed that man."
"There will be more...I need you to be strong, and We need to teach 11 to use the pistol."
"We are going to die here aren't we," Fay answered with indifference, still in shock over how quickly this world had turned her into a killer.
Squirrel didn't answer except to say, "Go look in on 11."
Squirrel finished stripping the bodies and storing the extra rifle, then he dumped both corpses into the marsh. Fay was able to take the arrow out and clean the wound, he'd limp for a while but lying in bed was not an option right now.
The next two days were quiet, and they took advantage of it by adding a storage room inside the house with the extra wood they had. He also rigged up a crude turret and connected it one his ports he had built into his skin, he sat down and activated the computer built into the back of his neck and did some quick programming. It felt good to connect again, to anything.
On the third night, while they were sleeping 11 woke up suddenly. Back in her old life, you always had to be alert for the next test. Many times her hypertension had saved her life from Mothers cruelty. She missed Mother...
She grabbed a granite rock from the pile near her bed and tip toed outside. She sneaked around to the back of the house and saw the intruder quietly emerge from a bush and approach the back wall of the house. Without fear she walked right up to him, they looked at each other for a quick moment, then a shot range out...
Day 9-10, Planet Arrakis, "tsiwT tolP":
Fay rounded the corner of the house and saw a young man dead, his entire face caved in, and a bloody block of granite sitting next to the corpse. 11 shrugged and said, "We should plant some stuff, I'm tired of raspberries."
"Are...are you hurt, I heard a shot," Fay asked.
"Nah," 11 said as she followed Squirrels instructions and began stripping the corpse. Afterwards they hauled the corpse a hundred yards and tossed it into the marsh.
On the way back to the living quarters of the house they spotted Squirrel, scouting out the perimeter. "We should do watches from now on."
Fay nodded, "I'll take first watch, I wouldn't be able to sleep anyways." Fay then whispered, "There is something terribly off about 11. She said she didn't get shot but I saw a hole in her shirt the size of a bullet. She wasn't bleeding either."
Squirrel was silent a few moments then whispered back, "I've seen her kind before...On Prius back in the core systems they have massive science facilities, because they double as prisons as well. The only thing that surprises me is that they sent her at all. Usually they just snuff out the useless subjects."
"How do you know all this?"
"Where do you think I got these?" Squirrel pointed out the more than a dozen finger sized ports all over his chest and head. "I volunteered though and wasn't in the prison. Her...they've probably had her there for most of her life. They break people there, the kind of breaking you don't come back from. Chances are her genetics were altered too, making her a subhuman now, at best."
At dawn Squirrel spotted a plump woman wading through the swamp. She wasn't wearing the symbol of the Dark Swords, but he kept his knife out anyways and made his way over to the edge of the swamp to meet her.
She climbed out of the water and immediately put her arms up, "I saw the glint off your solar panels from miles off. Is it just you here? I'm trying to find my sister."
"Turn around and keep your arms up," Squirrel patted her down and found nothing but a shoddy steel knife and three days of food.
Squirrel led her into the living quarters and used some power cables to tied her hands behind her. Then he woke up Fay and 11.
When 11 came out of her room, the woman rushed over to her.
"I can't believe I actually found you!" She exclaimed.
11 just stared blankly at the woman.
Fay asked, "Who are you?"
"My name is Dafo, and this is my sister, Sarah," she explained, pointing toward 11. "I rescued her from a research facility. You can't hide from them on any of the core worlds though, so I sold everything I owned, got us fake id chips and we booked passage on the colony ship."
Squirrel cut in, "If you want to stay with your sister you will have to contribute...can you shoot?"
Dafo brightened, "Shooting is my specialty. I saw you've been mining too, I can help with that as well."
Squirrel and Fay both looked at the easily 300 pound woman before them and exchanged a look of doubt.
Fay spoke with authority, "If we let you stay, you would be responsible for her."
"Of course." Dafo said immediately.
"I mean it, she caved a mans head in last night with a rock, it looked like she'd hit his face with that rock dozens of times. If she hurts any of us, both of you are gone."
Dafo gave it a little more thought this time, then nodded. Fay untied her hands.
Squirrel chimed in, "We have a lot of work to do if we are going to survive the coming winter and the pirates."
"Pirates?" Dafo asked.
Fay, Squirrel, and 11 went back to work. Dafo followed 11 out with a slow waddle.
Fay thought Dafo would only be dead weight, but she did have to respect her dedication to her family. She tried to picture Dafo hiking all the way here on her own, and with barely any food and only a small shoddy knife.
Day 11, Planet Arrakis, "Buggy":
They buried Dafo the next day. Another young man from the Dark Swords came. Dafo sensed that the group had little faith in her, so while the rest of the group took positions near the turret at the front of the house, she grabbed up a rifle and headed to the back.
Her aim was true, she hit him dead center, but it wasn't enough to stop him. He charged at Dafo and stabbed at her arms. She tried to knock him away with the rifle but a strong cut got her wrist right down to the bone and she dropped the it.
She tried to run away, but he was on her the whole way, repeatedly stabbing at her. Fay had come around to the back and a quick shot to the stomach sent the raider to the ground at last. Even then he was close enough to stab Dafo several times in the feet and legs and brought Dafo down as well. Squirrel came around with 11 in tow and the three of them got Dafo over to a bed.
Squirrel went back out to drag the incapacitated raider inside and tied him down to a bed in a seperate room, then went back to the living quarters to check on Dafo.
Fay tried her best to stop the bleeding, but it was a futile gesture. Even if she had stopped the bleeding, there was just too much internal damage.
11looked at the corpse for a minute, but shed no tears. She called to Ari and they went to forage some food.
A day later subject 11 went berserk and Fay had to shoot to stop her. Another day and 11 was up again on another rampage, dying from multiple infections. Fay, with almost zero medical training, did her best but in the end 11 died.
It drove Fay over the edge and Squirrel had to stop her by force and afterwards got her into a bed. The fight with Fay left him confined to a bed as well and during the next 24 hours, all three of them were dead from infection.
Right before Fay died though a wanderer came through the area. She cast her greedy eyes about the house, especially the freezer stocked with food and medicine. Kristina decided to move in.
Ari wandered over to the front of the house where blood covered everything in sight. Ari purred and licked at it.
Day 11-16, Planet Arrakis, "Kristina's Rise":
Kristina made herself at home, gorged herself on raspberries, and cleaned the place up. Almost the entire area was covered in blood. The next day she buried all the corpses into a set of pre-dug graves. She ended up having to dig six more graves the day after that just to get all the bodies in.
On her third day, as she was going over a map of ore sites, a sharp piercing pain entered her head. She recognized it from the news back home. It had to be a psychic attack. She tried desperately to find the source and walked the home in ever-increasing circles, but found nothing.
Before long she began to talk to herself out loud, scream randomly, and slamming her head against walls. Eventually she broke down completely, and wandered about in a daze of pain and exhaustion.
After three days of this a woman named Wilkensen wandered into the area and found Kristina curled up next to a heater in the house, shaking and thrashing about. Unfortunately Wilkensen had long ago gone mad herself, having wandered the continent alone for so long, but she still tried sooth Kristina, even as the psychic attack began to tear at her already fragile mental state.
For days both women were bed-ridden, until finally the psychic attack subsided. That day another visitor came by, named Eryl, and seeing the condition of the other two, tried to talk them out of their brief bout of insanity.
Snow began to fall that day...winter had arrived at last.
In between caring for the two women, she inspected the house more carefully. One room was clearly for prisoners, and inside was a day old corpse. Also surrounding the house were several other corpses, frozen in their moment of death by the cold. When she'd asked Wilkensen and Kristina about that they said they didn't remember much about the last few days.
The turrets she'd spotted around the place all had bullet holes and dings in them. Eryl was regretting coming here more and more. She was safer wandering the wilderness. She would decide after the other two women were well enough to talk.
Day 17-25, Planet Arrakis, "Ghosts":
Madness came to the new residents here. A madness born out of fear, paranoia, and greed. Winter dragged on and the food supplies dwindled.
Wilkensen had managed well. The rest wandered about now, oblivious to the cold and the still constant raids by The Dark Swords.
As the days dragged on he did his best. He'd gotten the women into beds and fed them regularly, and tried to bandage up their wounds as best as he could.
He could feel himself slipping into oblivion though after the food ran out. He hadn't eaten for two days now. Some part of him was waiting for the women to pass. Maybe he could hurry that along, he thought.
...Kristina, finally able to walk again, put on a couple layers of clothes and stepped outside. It was bitterly cold.
She didn't notice when Wilkensen had softly approached from behind and knocked her over the head with the butt of his rifle. She stumbled back in surprise and pain, and then she hit her again right in her face. Again and again until she fell to the ground, her face so bludgeoned that she wasn't even recognizable anymore.
A fog had descended over her mind so she barely noticed when Wilkensen dragged her threw the snow to the kitchen.