Steam Valley Girls: We Crashed Here .254b [NSFW]

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Note: I don't plan to write anything terribly explicit here, but I'm not going to filter it, either. Expect swearing, cussing, and frank discussions of the ugly implications.]

Day 1; Hour 0
From the journal of Angela DeSoto, castaway.
So, have you ever found yourself aboard an interstellar space-ship, traveling stupidly long distances on a pointlessly long journey, only to be rudely awakened from your cryo-pod in the middle of the night by the shrieking of alarm klaxxons? Dashed through the smoke and flames to arrive at an escape pod and spend hours tumbling through space, barely having boosted free of the ship before it tore itself apart, and landed hard on some rocky soil?

No? It can't be just me, I'm sure that experience has happened to thousands of thousands of people by now. Anyway, here I am. The name is Angela DeSoto, and fuck my life.

I landed along with the other escape pods that made it clear. They're supposed to connect to one another and seek out a safe landing spot together... There are three of us. That doesn't bode well. I'm the first out of my pod, and I nervously look around, wondering who's going to come out. My mind flashes to the possibilities; from the good (veteran settlers, grizzled and wise to the ways of the wild, ready to put down stakes and strike the earth of any planet,) to the bad (a couple of useless, whiny medieval nobles who were for some reason rescued from their dung-age planets instead of being shot as useless morons,) to the ugly (A couple of big, beefy man-convicts who'd just love to have a weedy teenaged fuck-doll as a slave.)

It's...



Two more weedy teenaged girls. At first, I felt relief flood over me, visions of two big, beefy guys holding me down and forcing themselves into me over and over until I passed out fading away. Then, I felt a wave of hopelessly; we're three teenaged girls lost on an uncharted planet!

We may be fucked. Maybe or maybe not literally, but either way, fucked.

So, time to explain who we are. I'll go first, since I already know me:

My name is Angela DeSoto. I chose it myself, since I have no idea what my mother's family name was. She was a whore, on an urban hive-world, and I an unwanted child, the result of the activities of that profession, which should tell you exactly how successful she was. (Successful prostitutes have birth-control implants. Or at least the clout to compel their clients to either wear a condom or accept an act that doesn't carry with it the risk of pregnancy.)

She took care of me for a few years, then got rid of me when I was seven. She said that I was old enough to take care of myself and she didn't need the hassle. Thanks for nothing, mom. I wound up on the streets and skyways, fighting and scrapping and even shooting for every scrap of food. Yeah, I'll admit it, I even spread my legs for credits a few times, but I always swore I wouldn't make that my life.

Some urchins make good - they fight for everything they can learn, read everything they can get their hands on, make a few big scores and break into the world of business with the seed money. I tried to do that... And I fucked it up. I got pinched at the age of 14, and I was given a few options, none of them fantastic.

Option A was that I could have my ovaries extracted and be otherwise sterilized (more on that in a minute,) and be conditioned for a life of some kind of menial service-sector job; mental conditioning so you'll happily count a rich person's money without so much as once thinking of taking so much as a credit for yourself, or so you can work long hours for subsistence pay without once thinking of agitating against the system or countenancing the idea of worker's rights, or even wind up working in a state- or corporate-sponsored brothel.

Fuck that, I thought, what's option B. Option B was to join the military: No forced sterilization, long-term training until 17 upon which time I'd be in for a five year rip plus the number of years spent training. Next.

Option C was death. I'd be taken into a chamber with a table with a pill and a gun. The pill would kill me quick and painlessly; the gun, even faster. To encourage me to take the pill or gun option, the collar around my neck would start to constrict after a minute, choking me to death. (I did mention I grew up on a not-nice place, didn't I?)

And then there was Option D. If you're thinking it's bad that Option D is lower on the totem pole than an execution-encouraged suicide, you're probably right. Option D was deep-space colonist training. I'd be taught a smattering of the skills people heading out to settle new worlds would need, and shipped off in a year.

After that, I asked to go in the military, but I was told that only the option I was now considering or the previous option was available: conditioning and military were off-limits to me, my last options were suicide or colonization. I asked if there was an option E, and I was told no. At that point, I told the judge telling me this that a choice between death and colonization was no choice at all, and she smiled an ugly smile and said "Well, how else would we get you street trash to stop choking the ranks of the military and go out to settle something else?" Then she took out the choking collar and grinned.

So, yeah. Fifteen years old, given a crash-course on mining, farming and construction; packed into a cryo tube to be deposited on some world with hundreds of other settlers. What a fucking railroad, right?

Let's meet Contestant B, shall we? Her name is Graciana Rodriguez, and I'm not sure how well she's going to hold up.

She was from a satellite world in the same star system I was born in. It was called a midworld - that doesn't mean "middle technology," it means "middle population." In other words, instead of being one choking, planet-sized city, it was cities and suburbs. She had good parents, a good upbringing, if somewhat socially starved, and few friends. She's two years older than me, and had a minor run-in with the law.

By which I mean, she tried to hack the central solar bank and got caught, around the same age I was. She was given a choice not quite as sadistic as the one I was given, but still, a choice between forced sterilization and service conditioning, the military, and deep space mining is not quite a great choice. She went with the mining and was immediately bound as an apprentice to the trade, doing a two-year stretch on a mining vessel. Her skin's the color of dark tea and she has a somewhat buff build - you know what I mean, not exactly muscle-girl territory or anything, but definitely more buff and tough than a weed like me? She's latina through-and-through, but even a tough latina miner-girl can be overwhelmed by all of this. She was on her way to an out-system mining gig, which is why she and I were on the same ship.

Now, onto what I mentioned earlier: Rodriguez and I are from the same star system. That means that we, like most every living human being in that system, were descended from genetic stock that universally had one specific type of modification - it was a planned system, you see. Both of us are female, as the humans where we came from understood it, which is not the same as how humans from other places understand it. It should be noted that where I came from, "male" was a concept taught and spread primarily as a concept to understand what humans were like outside our home system - you see, the founders of our planned system decided that civilization would be better without gender dimorphism. To that end, they had us engineered so that we're all functional hermaphrodites - a word I didn't even know until I was told it and had it defined for me. Which brings me to our third contestant:

Meet Mina Kaufmann. She wasn't from our star system, which means that unlike us, she does not. To say that this came as something of an horrific surprise to her would be an understatement. Then, after she got over her initial fear and abject surprise, she started poking our hips, prodding, groping, and I just barely managed to prevent her from sticking her fingers in me (I'm a bit too freaked out to let a girl three years older than me finger me at the moment, thank you,) asking us questions like how we were supposed to progenitate (who the hell even uses a word like that?!) young (she had to explain she meant 'make kids') if we didn't have any testes, or whether having a penis attached to our pubic mounds complicated vaginal childbirth; questions I was wholly unable to answer (I did mention that my education comes primarily from the school of hard knocks, right?) and which Graciana was too red in the face to answer.

Did I mention she's a scientist? Because she totally is. She too is from a midworld, but she has some kind of genius-ditz autistic savant thing going on; without the autistic part. At the age of eight, she was academically on par with university students, and earned her first Bachelor's degree by the age of ten. This got the attention of some big imperial navy or another, and she was promptly recruited (it was not really optional, but they did pay her family a nice hardship bonus for losing their only daughter,) and sent to work in a lab. She's been there ever since, and was transferring to a new post when she was rudely awakened by the ship we were on tearing itself apart. She's now 18 years of age, give or take the years she spent in cryo before me and Graciana went into the big freeze.

So, yep. Here we are. Three girls, only one of whom as humanity in general would recognize them, from two different stars, on a moon orbiting a gas giant orbiting a third star entirely, crashed, lost, cast-away.

Fortunately, our datapads still have those survival manuals we were all issued; I am at least partly trained for this shit, what with having spent a year learning to operate a power pick, constructor-tool and genetically-modified foodstuffs, and we have the advantage of orbiting emergency satellites with hundred-year-lifespans, launched when our escape pods launched. Here is where we are.

This is the north:


Here's the middle, where we are:


And this is the south:


My 'Colonist' training tells me that this is a decent place; there's four steam geysers exposed, and if there's steam geysers out here, there's more in the mountain to our west. We're in a big, rocky valley, full of crags and outcrops and hills. It looks defensible, especially with some good walls around us. There's debris from our ship fallen all around.

Mina demands - demands - that our first priority be a research bench. Why in the fuck she'd want one here, of all places, eluded me, and she told me in no uncertain terms that I was too young and too ill-educated to understand what could be wrought with a research bench. Graciana put it in perspective: if I wanted to be eating within a week, I'd be smart to invest in a research bench in the hands of a midworld nerd who went on to become a navy scientist today. Mina explained that she could design a hydroponics table to fast-grow the potatoes that appear to be the only feed-stock our pods crashed with if she had a space to work.

I said I guess that made sense. Mina gets a table, me and Graciana get to take our picks and go to work... Joy.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 1, Hour 13
From the research logs of Dr. Mina Kaufmann, Ph.D. x10, PharmD, D.P.A., DBH, J.D., Dr.PH., D.M.A., D.M., Etc.

I am trappped on a terrible planet with two other castaways, (See preceding logs,) working in the most primitive conditions imaginable (on a bench under the sun,) and I am already making progress!

While those two unusual hermaphrodites (consult preceding logs, and their appended hypothetical ruminations,) run around, stockpiling scrap metal and building things - I can hear a frightful racket to my left as the short, youngest one erects a prefabricated geothermal generator in what I must admit is surprisingly good time - I am doing the work that will give us a chance - any chance - of survival!

I've already devised, after only a mere half a day, a means by which we can grow the "Potato" foodstuffs our survival pods had with them hydroponically, without need for soil. (It really is getting everywhere. I prefer thinking of natural terrain in terms of civil planning, not as something under my very own shoes. Ugh, I don't want to be here!) This will allow us to grow them indoors - that is, once we have doors. The young one assures me that she was trained in colony management and can handle erecting shelters, though we may have to spend a night or two on the ground. The very thought of makes me weep, to be honest; I miss my teddy.

Nevertheless, we shall persevere. We have no other option, except, perhaps, I suppose, using that pistol the little one - Angela, that's right, her name is Angela - is hoarding to commit suicide. I don't care for that option, and from the look of things, neither do they, so... Here we are. Like savages, living on the ground, attempting - hopefully not in vain - to defend ourselves against the outrageous slings of misfortune we find ourselves in.

I'll get back to work. Our primitive, organic digestive systems are wastefully inefficient! With the right modifications, the same systems in nutrient synthesizers which determine which parts of the input foodstuffs are edible (most of this "Potato" thing,) can extract that which is, well, not properly digested from that which we, ourselves, extract.

I won't tell them this. The very idea is making me squeamish, and I have seventeen Doctorates and acquire lesser degrees like most people acquire candy. Fortunately, the ground-work has already been laid, in the waste recyclers of our survival pods. If I can modify the prefabricated design of the nutrient processors, I can simply claim that the survival manifests in our datapads were issued with versions which incorporate field latrines. They need not know the real reason. I wish I could take an amnesiac after the fact so I need not know the real reason.

Such are the crosses I bear for science. And survival.

Day 2, Hour 8
Success! After a terrible night sleeping on the ground, I have successfully repurposed the escape pods' emergency waste recyclers for reuse in the nutrient paste dispensers, and all before my plebeian companions finished extracting the metal from the solid outcrop of ore we were lucky enough to land next to.

They asked me if I intended to do any physical labour while we were here. While privately, of course, I was thinking not if I can help it, I asked them if they wanted more powerful mining equipment that would go through solid rock faster.

That convinced them both, amazingly and thankfully enough. They're both back to work, and seem to be pleased at the power of SCIENCE to improve their lives. Hopefully they'll leave me be to invent the things that will keep us alive.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 1, Hour 16
From the Diary of Graciana Luisa Acosta Rodriguez
The hot day wears on, but I suspect it wears on Angela and Mina more than it wears upon me. Mina swears she can produce more efficient picks for us all to use, so I'm not giving her grief about not lifting a finger; yet, anyway. If she doesn't start pulling her own weight, I'll be cross... But then, we wouldn't be spread across the stars if scientists hadn't pulled far more than their own weight, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. She swore up and down this morning that the hydroponics table she designed would work, and Angela seemed to think it would.

So far, we've built a research table and that's it. We slept under the stars, on the ground, and it was miserable. I miss the mining vessels, honestly. Yes, they were dingy, dinged-up and cramped, and I was passed around by all the older women, warming their bunks and squirming under them while they used me... But it beat this, and I grew to enjoy it all. The work was hot, the showers hotter, and the food was plentiful. Sure, it wasn't the most mentally-challenging of work, and I was forbidden from working with computers until my apprenticeship was expired, but I do miss it.

Angela and I are going to gather the far-flung metal before we begin work on shelter. We've already got a steam generator running, though, so I don't anticipate it being long before we have some kind of structure erected. Angela and I are discussing what we should do - she favors digging into the mountain, and I agree, but Mina thinks that's silly. I wonder if she's yet realized that out here on the borderlands, there are very real threats from raiders and bandits, and that terrifies me.

Day 3, Hour 5:
Aaaargh! I'm such a pendejo! I knew I should have pushed for shelter sooner; it started raining after we went to sleep, and sister, a bedroll is not enough. I feel like a miserable pajillera for being so stupid, which is ironic because I had a good puñeta before I fell asleep. Angela did, too; Mina went to sleep before we did; I wonder if she did as well? I mean, obviously, she can't, but I wonder if she kneads her panocha. Do "normal" females from other stars do that - can they? I don't know. Not really the time to ask, either.

Angela was still asleep when I got up. I'm hungry, too, but it can wait. We called down two more of those survival stockpiles before we went to bed, out in the wilderness, more or less centrally-located in the north and south parts of the canyon we're occupying. They're in a good place to collect things out there. Perhaps I'll harvest an agave while I'm out.

Day 3, Hour 17
I had an agave, and Angela did as well. Mira evidently ate some of the potatoes we've stockpiled near the landing site. She seems to be a machine - she just announced, with a small cackle, that she had invented blasting charges. I told her that miners and demolitions had been using those since the dawn of human civilization, and she clarified that she had engineered blasting charges that could be made out of nothing but locally-available metals.

That sounds useful. She seems to be a machine! One wonders what she's going to work on next.

Day 3, Hour 19
Carpets. Fresh from blasting charges, she made... Carpets. In three colors, no less. I'm not sure how much of an invention carpets are, but I'm impressed with how quickly she's working, anyway.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 4, Hour 19
From the research logs of Dr. Mina Kaufmann, Ph.D. x10, PharmD, D.P.A., DBH, J.D., Dr.PH., D.M.A., D.M., Etc.
This is surprisingly simple! Though admittedly the conditions are still horrifyingly primitive, getting as much of the necessary precursor research done as swiftly as possible has proven to be a wise idea. I've just completed research upon ancient techniques of cooling the barrels of rapid-fire machine guns; no doubt upon a world such as this, that will come in quite handy. The younger girls have begun work on a large series of walls, intended to secure our little outpost to only one direction. This indicates that clearly, they feel defense is a necessary precaution. I agree, and in fact, I intend to advocate a few booby traps leading to our defensive line, followed by a very large killbox for the eventuality of enemies breaching our first line of defense - first line, heh!

Day 5, Hour 4:
The girls and I are hungry, but we shall eat soon. I was up before they were, of course, as I bedded down. Once again I had to endure listening to them indulging themselves before bedtime. I considered asking them not to, but, well, that would be a little hypocritical of me. I just hope we can get some private rooms in the very near future! Then I wouldn't have to hear them and... Be... Tempted to... No! Anyway...

In other news, someone is passing through! My datapad receives information on her immediately; her surname is Lara. She was a medieval slave, who was apparently rescued from that existence by one of the various medieval-world uplift organizations which took her away from those who held her in bondage at gunpoint. Evidently, she became a space marine at some point after that, and during the course of what was undoubtedly a long and tedious career of hurting things and breaking people, she lost her arms and received augmented replacements.

She is quite old, at 54, and somewhat injured. I wonder how she came to be here, perhaps a survivor from our vessel, perhaps not. I'm inclined to say that her business is none of mine, but if we were to press her into service, she could be helpful. I wonder how suited she is to the manual labor that seems to be in our future, what with being so old. She seems uninterested in us, but after a quick confab, we decide to recruit her. By which I mean the girls are going to throw together a hut for her, drag her into it in shackles, and sweet-talk her into joining us in remaining here.

It hardly seems as if it could be a worse idea than letting her go unmolested... Though I hope any molestation the others do will be purely metaphorical, and not literal... There's no way of knowing what hormones wrought by the unknowable changes wrought upon their bodies will propel them to do, though thinking about it, if they were so inclined, I would seem to be a much more likely target for such affections than a... Very mature woman with cybernetic limbs and killing skills. Hrm... Well, my research continues apace, while the others throw together a shack in which to house Sgt. Lara against her will.

Day 5, Hour 6:
Oh dear.

I appear to have made a grievous blunder. I made some enquiries as to how to use fear to keep people in line, as it seemed that convincing Sgt. Lara to cooperate with us would be more easily accomplished by scaring her into believing we were terrifyingly effective murderers than that we are, in fact, three very frightened, hormonally-charged teenaged girls (although I do use the term with some ambiguity as regards Angela and Graciana, they do appear to present themselves predominantly - indeed, I would say, almost exclusively - female, or at least feminine,) that she should protect. I located information on the gibbet cage, a terrifyingly barbarous practice which originated on ancient Earth and continues to this day on some particularly nasty Medi-worlds, in which the corpse of a dead man (or in even more particularly heinous variations, the condemned man; or bits of an executed man who has been dismembered,) is prominently displayed in order to instill in all and sundry the fear of how barbaric the authorities will be if you cross them.

It's a simple enough device - a metal cage, welded together, and then welded shut when the corpse is installed. I designed one and shared it with the girls, proposing we use it to frighten Sgt. Lara into cooperation... And they promptly disassembled my research table for scrap! Said I'd done enough and it was time to get my hands dirty.

On the one hand, I am appalled and outraged by this, but on the other, I cannot help but wonder if they were right. A week ago (minus time in cryo,) I never would have considered something so barbarous. Perhaps the sun has addled me, or the rain; or perhaps the horrifying suggestion that here I am, alone with two younger girls who wouldn't even legally be allowed to get a tattoo or smoke where I came from as my only companions. With a sigh, I resolve myself to hurry up and join them, lifting the unfamiliar weight of the construction tool. It truly is a marvelous piece of engineering; it knows what to do to build what needs to be built, you simply have to control the settings, aim it properly, and so forth and so on.

But even so, it's still quite heavy, and my arms object. I am not used to such weight, I admit. Nevertheless, if we want to acquire the services of Sgt. Lara, we must assemble a room in which to convince her, swiftly. It's quite a large shack they've designed. Perhaps wastefully large, but so be it. They're already half done, and I must sprint to join them.

Day 5, Hour 14: Well, this is going better than expected. Sgt. Lara seems to be exhausted and injured quite badly. I had no weapon and she had a pistol, but she offered no resistance when I slapped the manacles on her arms and simply sighed, allowing me to lead her away. Rodriguez is going to claim her weapon now.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 8, Hour 2
From the Diary of Graciana Luisa Acosta Rodriguez
It's been more than a week on this miserable rock... Well, technically speaking, anyway. It's been miserable, I have a headache, I'm very hungry... But we've finally got a shack to call our own.



It's not much to look at at all, but it's better than sleeping out-of-doors, in a thunderstorm. That was why we built our beds in such a hurry, that we build them literally together.

It's hard. Literally - I'm hard - and figuratively. I can feel the heat of Mina and Angela's bodies next to mine. I can tell it's putting tension on them both - we all enjoy being so close, but under these circumstances...

I'm hardly a virgin, of course, and Angela... Is so very tempting. I almost wonder if she would kiss me, if I tried to kiss her... But I suspect Mina might complain. This is frustrating... I want a room of my own, and I want it very soon! We're trapped on this miserable planet, the one thing it has in abundance is space, I don't think a dozen square meters to call my own is much to ask for!

Before we go to sleep, we resolve that we have to get some sort of defenses in place first, before we do anything else. Angela's been working the hydroponics tables and seeing to our prisoner; Dr. Kaufmann and I will finish the walls... Perhaps if I have the energy when we're nearly done for the night, I'll ask if she'd be interested in a swift roll in the sand before we return.

Day 10, Hour 4
Look at this. This is our defense, our fort, if you will.



It isn't much, but it has truly expansive walls. The idea is that anyone who attempts to breach our perimeter will be forced to break down the door, whereupon we will trigger the explosive charges remotely and blast the pendejos straight to Hell. Crazy Kaufmann came up with it, and I must say... I am duly impressed. We simply need complete the firebreaks, and we're good.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 10, 14:00
From the logs of Sgt. Annabelle C. Lara [Ret], TMCMC.
I suppose I'll start keeping my logs in terms of days since these whelps I find myself surrounded in landed. Honestly, I'm not sure how long I've been wandering on this miserable ball of sand anyway. My datapad died awhile back, and it was the small one with the clever fingers who put it back in working order.

When Dr. Kaufmann - it's incredible to believe that young woman - no, that little girl  - is technically a Lieutenant in the Terran Military Coalition - grabbed me, I was just about beat. Done for. I was tired of everything, tired of wandering, tired of endless sands and idiots hunkering down, tired of ducking bandits - that's where I got the rifle hole in my side I was nursing when she clapped those damn manacles on my wrists - and generally, tired.

Well, I've had a few days of rest now. After I started to heal up some, they started trying to talk me into joining them. At first I wasn't sure, then I was just stringing them along until I felt good enough to make a run for it, and then I was just stringing them along because I'm an old woman, damnit, I've earned the right to be crotchety and not get out of bed if I don't damn well want to!

Well, back in the Corps, I learned that the most precious commodity in the galaxy was rack time, but there's a limit to how much you can take, and after I spent a few days pretending not to be convinced just so I could laze about in bed, I decided to stop being a stubborn old jackass and muck in. So when the little one - Angela - came in, I just said "Alright, I'm in. What do I do."

She handed me back my C-Tool (Constructor Tool for those not versed in the parlance,) and flashed my datapad with their plans. So, now I'm off to get to work. First up: If I want to sleep in a warm bed tonight, I've got to build it today.

Day 10, 22:00
I've decided to prioritize repairs and hauling - someone's got to, and thanks to all the augs in my body, visible and invisible, arthritis can go suck my dick! Or rather, suck one of the girls' - I can't believe it. Sure, in the Corps, the little girls quickly turn into vulgar battleaxes quite glad to tell people to do things which are anatomically impossible, either for themselves or for the person they're telling it to do, but some demented, genetic tailor genetically equipped those girls - and, from the sounds of it, their entire star system - with cocks!

That's crazy. The old woman in me is telling me to shun it. The young Marine I once was is cursing the galaxy that I never took shore leave there. Anyway, it's late, but good news; a cargo pod full o' metal fell out of the sky north of the walls. Time to go grab it.

Day 12, 23:00
Well, this is something! Some wandering guy named Dickson showed up. My datapad shows him as a Navy Scientist, but not TMC - looks like he belonged to the Orion Arm Confederacy. OAC and TMC have history, but... Well, it's history. My first thought was to go and recruit him, but Angela and Graciana freaked out.

Turns out they don't have men where they come from at all, and they're terrified of the idea. Angela started going off about how he could hold them down and rape them. Sure, girls their age could wind up as joytoys for a 21-year-old man, but we don't even know what he's like. Dr. Kaufmann seemed nervous, too - then again, she is just a teenaged girl, like the others. I'm sure the idea's crossed her mind, too.

I tell 'em I'd strangle 'im to death with my metal hands if he tried anything, but they're not convinced. I guess I can't blame them for being skittish, so I agreed to grab him and throw him in the jail room while we discuss what to do with him.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 14, Hour 4
From the journal of Angela DeSoto, castaway.
It's just raining men on us! Literally. It terrifies me.

First there was that wandering scientist who moved through the area, then another - a male Navy Scientist, like the last one - fell out of the sky in an escape pod. He's badly injured, on the ground, and my first thought was to leave him there. The one we have in our first prison cell is bad enough, but two?

They're so strange - no breasts at all, no hips, and these two are broad as quite buff women, but Anna tells me they're scrawny by the standards of strong men. Mira brought up some anatomical drawings, and Anna's datapad had some, um, graphic trideographs on it. They scare me - with those dangly things beneath their cocks, and no vaginas whatsoever.

I mean, I get that before humans came to the star system I was in, we were divided into two genders, and this is that other gender that I've never seen before... But I really, really don't want to be at the mercy of something without a cunny, that doesn't know - that can't know - what it's like to be on the bottom. Graciana feels the same way.

Dr. Mira said maybe it was programmed into us, but even if it was... I want nothing to do with these 'men'. I'd just as soon send them on their way at gunpoint. Even so... Well, it would be heartless to just let him die out there in the rain. We're throwing together an extension to the shack, so we can heal this one that fell from the sky.

Day 15, Hour 15:
There's a trader here. Jennifer Rutabag -  thank god, a rescue! We can get the hell off this rock! I'm running straight to the commpanel, but Anna just sighs. "They won't take us," she wearily told me as I got on the radio.




FUCK THEM ALL!
"At life support capacity and we don't have any cryo-bunks," they said. LIARS! They're lying liars who lie!

I screamed at the bitch on the other end of the radio for hours. She feigned sadness, but when I begged and pleaded - even promised to do anything she wanted - she still said no. Anna kind of squeezed my shoulder and pushed me aside, gave her a list of who we were and our current conditions. She told the woman I was just a scared teenager and she shouldn't hold it against me, and the woman promised to send word to our families.

I don't have a family. I don't have anyone who would care. They blackmailed me into taking this trip on pain of death. I hate everything! I stomped out in a huff and shot a squirrel to death. When I got back, I learned that Anna had asked the woman for some supplies, and she dropped 125 units of food - half her cargo - on us.

Maybe she really did feel bad.

Day 16, Hour 20
ShitfuckdamncuntlickercocksuckermotherfuckerDAMNIT!

RAIDERS!

I started hyperventilating, but it was just one injured male oaf with a pistol. Anna told me to relax and stop fretting. I can't imagine how she means for me to relax, but... Well, we go back to work.

Day 18, Hour 17
The oaf is still standing around. Another trade ship arrived - Ratlord Interplanetary, a farming ship. Again, we asked to be picked up. This one said he would take us offworld - for 5 million credits. We don't have so much as a single one to our name, and this time Anna got furious, fucking laying into him for having the carriage and means to take castaways and trying to extort money. He told her to call someone who cared. She spent a good hour cursing into the comm console before giving up.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 17, 15:00
From the research logs of Dr. Mina Kaufmann, Ph.D. x10, PharmD, D.P.A., DBH, J.D., Dr.PH., D.M.A., D.M., Etc.

Well...

That was bad. It was terrifying, in fact. This big lumbering oaf ran up to the walls and started kicking the door in. I wanted to set off the charges, but Sgt. Lara said that would be stupid, and ran out towards the wall. We followed her - we could hear him kicking the wall. She hissed to us: she was going to open the door he was kicking in, and simply start beating him in the face. We'd run out the other door, get behind him, and beat him up.

It seemed ridiculous, really. Three teenaged girls, only one of us who looks any good in the fight, and one old woman. Then I saw her arm split apart and a meter-long cermaic-carbide blade emerge from it.

I suppose mechanical augmentation has its... Advantages. We performed her plan, as expected. I suspect that however spry she may appear to be, Sgt. Lara has lost quite a lot of her edge since her prime. Frankly, it's the only way I can imagine that huge oaf didn't wind up skewered in an instant. Nevertheless, we fought - I realized later that I had siezed up a nearby saguaro to swing - OUCH - and he died on her blades eventually.

I was horrified, and so were the others, except Anna. She was simply... Contemptuous. I asked if it wasn't better that we would have captured him alive, and she shook her head. Raider like him, dumb oaf like that? She said that had he survived the battle with a grevious wound and neither Angela nor Graciana had executed him out of simple fear of men, she would have done it herself.

She took his pistol, and threw the body in the grave. None of us wanted to do it.

Day 17, 19:00
Another cargo pod fell, this one disgorging food. Angela wanted to retrieve it, but Graciana pointed out that we were already farming far more than we needed. She's right: the opportunity cost of gathering it is higher than the benefit of having it.

Day 18, 11:00
Another pod, another load of rations. Not worth it. Our new domiciles are almost complete, however! I can't wait to move in to mine.

Day 18, 22:00
Thank the gods! Our rooms are finally complete, and I claim the one nearest to the mountain. Now I can finally pleasure myself without worrying that it will spur one of the hermaphrodite girls into making an unwanted advance - or perhaps the advance would be wanted. I'm not sure at this point. I'm somewhat afraid to approach the subject, as in truth I have never had a lover, and have been wrestling with the question of whether or not I am in fact homosexual, or not. I'm still not sure, but I'm not sure that taking a compromise solution is the healthiest course of action at this point.

To say nothing of the worry of getting pregnant. Clearly, their offshoot of humanity reproduces. Would they be capable of impregnating me? If they did, would the child be like them? More to the point, do I want to become gravid? I don't know the answer to the first two, but I know the answer to the last question: No!

I've always hated the idea of children, honestly, to say nothing of swelling up with a parasite that may, someday, become a human. The idea of it, the sickness and the infirmity, repulse me. I deeply regret not having had my ovaries extracted and frozen, but I simply found myself too busy with my research when I turned 17 and lawfully could elect to do so, and hadn't made time since. Perhaps I'm simply rationalizing reasons against making an approach to one (or both) of them because I'm afraid of what I might learn, both about myself and about them.

At least now I can enjoy some privacy in a nice, 9m^2 one-story attached dwelling of my own.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 19, 07:00
From the logs of Sgt. Annabelle C. Lara [Ret], TMCMC.
The girls seem optimistic. Having nine square meters to call their own seems to have lifted their spirits considerably.

I'd like to encourage them, but I know better. Being optimistic is called taunting Murphy. The truth is, out here, anything can happen. You could have a run of good luck, and then ten blights in a row. Or raiders, psychotic animals, more raiders, then a dozen drop-pods full of well-equipped settlers drop out of the sky on your head to join your colony.

Murphy's a real son-of-a-bitch.

Anyway, no sooner had I risen from my bunk this morning than we heard news that a ship had arrived - a combat trader, Vololva Arms. They had an M-24 Rifle, a Lee-Enfield, and a T-24 Incendiary Launcher.

They were also desperately in need of rations, and willing to pay a price. Since we'd been harvesting surplus, and a lot of it, we sold them as much as they had money for, then bought the rifles with their own money. Like hell I'd spend money to acquire a T-24. The damn things are Murphy projectors, and the only thing worse is lobbing Molotov cocktails at a guy in front of your own fortifications.

Sure, they can be powerful. In the right hands, I've seen a T-24 devastate an entire squad. It's true that while most folks these days who are expecting combat won't break just because they come under fire, everybody breaks if they get lit on fire... But I've also seen a T-24 completely fail to do anything useful, in the right hands. In the wrong hands, I've seen the damn things burn down entire towns - friendly towns!

Don't get me wrong, they're great on the offensive. On the defensive, though, they're only marginally better than frag grenades and Molotov cocktails.

I've got the girl, DeSoto, working on her social skills. She was already the self-appointed warden around here, but she's not exactly a social animal. Then again, neither am I, but while I may not be too old a dog to learn new tricks, I'm an old enough dog that I don't want to. Besides, maybe she'll get to know them and not be so afraid of men so much.

Day 19, 15:00
I...

I...

I find myself at a loss for words. I'm not sure if I'm apocalyptically angry or not.

A ship arrived. Cranktown West Traders. They were a slave ship. Normally, I'd have ignored it. It didn't occur to me the others wouldn't.

Before I knew what was happening, a slave-beam had grabbed up both our Navy Scientists and hauled them off-world... And a pair of pods dropped onto our beacon, with DeSoto running towards them, smiling and saying that they were free, now; free to join our new colony.

They're both women. Why did this surprise me? She sold two men into slavery without a second thought in order to rescue two women.

Let's meet the new girls. First up is Inara Montoya. She's a thirty-six year old former Marine, like me, TMCMC like me. She was captured while in service when the Navy pukes dropped an op in the shitter and was not looking forward to being sold to one of the TMC's enemies for interrogation. She's from an urbworld originally, an urchin scrapper like DeSoto, and appears to be some kind of vaugely Indo-Asian-Latina mix. She's kind of hot, and frankly I wonder how she managed to serve, let alone make a career out of it, with breasts as large as she has. She evidently wasn't destined to be an urbworld urchin, she was thrown out at a relatively old age for revealing her homosexuality to her parents. Figures. Some things never change.

And then there's Li Lee. It's said that everybody in the galaxy knows either a Li or a Lee, given that they're the single most common Human given name and family name in the galaxy. I guess eventually somebody in a Lee family had to crack wise and name their daughter Li. She's an urbworld urchin as well - interestingly, from the same urbworld as Sgt. Montoya. Instead of taking the military rip in lieu of prison or conditioning, though, she managed to do fairly well for herself until the Law started to close in. She fled offworld and joined a pirate gang instead. She's an Aug, too, but she's a newer vintage, with real-feel, lifelike limbs... I'm kind of envious; when I was serving, they told me to choose between the blades or the sexy feel, and I went with the dangerous black myomer. She's got both.

She's also an insatiable devourer of celebrity news, which is going to lead to bitter disappointment out here. I asked her how a pirate wound up enslaved. It turned out her crew was unable to pay their debts, so they hocked the new girl instead. Figures.

We're giving them the old cells as quarters. If they want carpets tonight, they can put 'em down today. In other activities, we're hauling in the metal that fell.

Day 20, 10:00
Another slave ship, Sylvester Shipping, is in orbit. We had to tear down the walls to the sleeping quarters to re-found them on metal, which is a pain... Oh, and a drop of food landed right inside our camp! That's... Handy. Worth picking up, anyway.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 21, 3:00 PM
From the scrolls of Li Lee
I have been tardy in my obligation to record my thoughts and endeavors, and for this I offer apology. I had not realized until now that keeping a journal, log, diary, or other form of written record was fast becoming a social norm in this new society I find myself in.

In hours since the break of dawn, relatively little has transpired. We aroused from our slumber, continue our work to make this colony a more tolerable place to live. At noon-time, however, we heard an awful sound; one of the local grazers, termed "Muffalo" by our datapads, began attempting forcible entry to the colonny. The old soldier refused to allow the excitable girls to detonate the explosive charges, and instead we went out with rifles, pistols, and our natural weapons to deal with it.

I have not yet been entrusted with a firearm, and I do not blame them for not trusting me so readily, as in my life until this point I have been a murderess, a cutthroat, cutpurse, jackdaw, pirate, bootlegger, and other forms of unsavory criminal. I find that, curiously, many of those I find myself with shared similar early lives; I was the only one to pursue a life of predation until enslavement, however.

We dispatched the beast with little trouble, between the two Marines using rifles and my arm-blades, and we threw its carcass into an open-pit grave after ascertaining that none of us had the skills or inclination to skin it and harvest the meat from its body. I find this somewhat disappointing, as I would expect the beast to taste quite nice when appropriately cooked... But I'm not willing to carve its corpse to get at it. Perhaps a professional hunter, butcher, or farmer will arrive at some point.

But I digress. The excitement is over, none of us are injured, we must return to work if we are to hew a life from the rock and soil of this world. I must confess, I find this preferable to the unsavory ends the slavers no doubt had in mind.

Day 21, 7:00 PM
Two things of interest have occurred. Firstly, our communications system has picked up on the arrival of a new vessel; Artyom Ranksky, a gunrunner. I have dealt with Artyom in the past. An ethnically Russian conglomerate, they would cheerfully rescue any of us and call us sister, were any of us Russian. As we are not, they will not lift a finger to aid us without financial compensation. DeSoto may try to speak with them.

The other interesting thing is that the moon we are living on has orbited its gas giant in such a way as to cause an eclipse. This is of little concern to us, as none of our power is solar-generated. Indeed, I find the stars and the eclipsed gas giant in the sky to be quite beautiful; a glowing penumbra of blue around a swirling sky-mother.

Though I have little, if any, prior artistic talent, I believe the sight would inspire me to paint, but I have no brushes, no canvas, and no easel.

Day 21, 8:00 PM
Interesting things have transpired. DeSoto traded the vast majority of our food stores to Artyom Ranksky - at a premium price - and then traded some of their own money back to them for an R-4 Pulse Rifle. As the best shot with most recent military experience, the other slave I was rescued with, Montoya, laid claim to the R-4, discarding the bolt-action rifle. I laid claim to it, and none objected.

I've never held a rifle like this before, but I like the weight of it in my arms. The old woman has another bolt-action rifle: hers a more recent, military model with a scope, but she nevertheless showed me how to work the action on it. I like the feel of the wood furniture on this weapon, the rough handling of the bolt. Fortunately, the survival pods we landed in are manufacturing ammunition out of small quantities of metal.

Day 22, 10:00 AM
It appears another trading vessel has arrived, another slave-trader, the Brown Bear Export Company. Again, DeSoto rushed to the console. There was a woman on the ship, but the old soldier grabbed her hand before she could send the purchase order. They had a conversation; this new woman was older than Annabelle herself. She was a vatgrown soldier who had turned to a life of pit-fighting. A true sociopath, Anna warned against recruiting her.

I thought there was going to be trouble, but there was not. Although DeSoto and Rodriguez place no value whatsoever on the lives of men, they don't place automatic value on the lives of women, judging them on their own merits. I approve of this outlook, I believe. Men are, in my experience, nothing but trouble; it was a man who sold me out and forced me to run back on my homeworld, and it was a man on that pirate crew who sold me to the slavers to pay off their debts.

We shall not be recruiting an aged, sociopathic pit fighter. DeSoto did, however, sell them the larger share of our food supplies. This worries me only slightly, for I have seen with my own eyes the rapidity with which new foodstuffs can be grown, thanks to the hydroponics table the young scientist engineered.

[ShadowDragon8685]

D23, 02:00
From the reports of Sgt. Inara Montoya, TMCMC
At 02:00 on the morning of the twenty-third day since the foundation of this settlement, another trade vessel made contact.

Lartmech Arnprior, slavers. They offered to buy any prisoners (we have none,) and to sell us prisoners they had (they have three.) DeSoto, Angela, has been acting as the colony spokesperson so far, and went to the console. She sold off most of our food and a great deal of our metal to acquire enough money to buy the two slaves she was interested in - a female assassin and another former pirate.

Lara, Sgt. Annabelle [Ret] and I shared dismay over this. Sgt. Lara grilled DeSoto over her choice; DeSoto defended her actions by claiming that they would be useful, and neither of them were pit fighters. DeSoto misunderstood Sgt. Lara's objections to the last sociopath to be an objection specifically to former pit fighters, and believed that 'sociopath' was a word for pit fighter.

I interviewed the new colonists.

Shepherd, Mabel; 41F
Mabel Shepherd began her life as a medi-world slave-girl. One of the many orgs that runs around to those types of places, freeing slaves at gunpoint and taking on refugees freely, pulled her off-world. Unfortunately, she's a xenophobe, openly hostile to those she considers foreigners, and she considers all of us foreigners, except Sgt. Lara, who is from the same planet. After she was rescued, she couldn't stand the new societies she found, and drew to the fringes with a group of former slaves from her old Medi-world. They became an outlaw gang that stole a ship and went pirate. Evidently, they attacked the slavers, and Shepherd was captured in the fighting, with the rest killed.

From her own accounts, the slavers abused her endlessly - sexually, physically, emotionally, mentally. I have concerns about her stability; she seems torn between gratitude for the rescue and hatred of us as foreigners.

Hahn, Ilona; 18F
Ilona Hahn is... Oh, fuck me, and I'll take the rip for using profanity in my official logs.

Hahn was a vatgrown soldier who was seemingly defective. She didn't grow at an accelerated rate, but all of the gene-tweaks and necessary modifications remained in place. Instead, they spent a long time training her to be a perfect assassin. According to this datapad, she has nearly superhuman acumen in combat, both at range and in melee.

They stripped out the parts of her brain that let her feel... Well, pretty much anything emotional. If I were a religious woman, I'd say she has no soul. Being smarter than that, I'll say she has no sense of emotional connection to other human beings. We just are to her, we're things; things to protect and defend if her allies, things to slaughter mercilessly if not.

Her first kill was at the age of ten. To test her, they used her as bait to lure a pedophile, and instructed her to let him have his way with her until it seemed he was either going to kill her or let her go, and then terminate her. She was able to describe, in details that made my stomach lurch, everything he did to her over a three day period, until he came back to her with a knife. At the time, she was bound spread-eagled and bleeding profusely. She slipped her bonds, disarmed him and put the knife through his kidney, paralyzing him silently with pain. He went down, she ripped out the knife, cut his throat to the spine and wrenched his head back to ensure he drained out and died expediently. Then she searched his house for a medkit, rendered first aid to herself, and followed through with extraction procedures.

Any normal woman would have been in therapy after something like that, for the rest of her life. To her, it was Tuesday through Thursday. When I asked her about what she feels about being here, she seemed a little confused by the idea that her feelings were in any way relevant, then she settled on the word "immaterial." She is here, she was bought and paid for, so she serves the person who bought her...

The wholly emotionless killing machine's only loyalty is to the terrified teenager, and to exacerbate the situation, she utterly refuses to do anything except fight; fighting people, animals, or fires. DeSoto's spirits are up, at least.

Day 23, 17:00
A local grazer (Muffalo) evidently took exception to our settlement and attacked the walls. Sgt. Lara, Hahn, and the xenophobic pirate, Shepherd, were on hand. They evidently slaughtered the beast in melee. Hahn and Sgt. Lara are injured.

Day 24, 15:00
Another local animal (Boomrat) took exception to our settlement and began attacking the walls. Lee and Sgt. Lara took care of it with their rifles, but upon death it exploded like an incendiary grenade, and extinguishing the fires it so lit proved to be a challenge.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 25, Hour 1
From the journal of Angela DeSoto, castaway.
Well, this is just fucking lovely. A trader arrived; a guns dealer. They had some metal (we're desperately low,) and weapons to trade; an R-4 Charge Rifle, a pissant handgun, and an M-24. I sold all of our food to afford the metal, the R-4, and the pistol, because we still had some people unarmed.

Ilona gets the rifle, of course. She swept it up and immediately began checking it to see if it was in perfect working order - it was. Anna started to yell at me about selling all of our food, but then a solar flare hit, and I smiled. I said I knew that was going to happen (I didn't,) which meant the paste dispensers wouldn't work anyway, and we'd be growing a lot more food anyway.

Then she yelled at me, asking me how in the hell I expected to grow hydroponic food with no lights. I, um... Well, fuck. I almost thought she was going to hit me, but she didn't. I guess buying Ilona's freedom paid off.

I feel safe. I paid for Ilona to come here, and now she'll protect me if anyone tries to hit me, or worse. She's really beautiful, too... Hmmm. But for now, I think we need to start harvesting berries and agave and stuff. Fortunately, there's a lot of it inside our borders. I tell everyone to stop hauling (any food stock that goes into the stockpile is automatically shoveled into the nutrient paste dispenser and can't be gotten back out!) and just harvest the stuff.

I, um...

I fucked up bad. But in my defense, we'd be in trouble with or without the food I sold off, since, yanno, Eclipse!

Day 25, Hour 18
Oh, thank god. The eclipse is over, we can grow again. Graciana yells for everyone to haul everything we've cut to the stockpiles.

After we woke up, Rodriguez, Lee and I had some paste together. They're still annoyed at me, but it all worked out, so I don't think they're furious.

Day 26, Hour 6
Awh fuck. Raiders - three of them. Two grenadiers and a pistoleer. I reckoned we should wait until they got close and light off the bombs, but Anna sprang into action, rallying our shooters to go out and take them out at a range with the long rifles. She told us to build some equipment racks, and she took everybody with something more than a pistol - that is, herself, Ilona, Li, and Inara - and went out to confront the bandits.

Someone named Sheckley is coming by - a Navy Scientist. Well, we know what to do, and we start throwing up a shack for her, while the others pass her on their way to fight.

The fight went well.



I have my concerns about Ilona, though. She isn't liking being hungry, not at all.

Anyway, we sent Shepherd out to grab Sheckley. She didn't mind commandeering her; I think she thinks we're going to put her in irons and make her work for us as a slave... I'm not going to disabuse her of that notion until after Ilona's back, fed and rested. Frankly, I'm appalled that a former slave would be so eager to enslave another woman.

We're not going to enslave her. We're just going to drag her back here in irons, feed her and heal her, and wait for her to make the obvious, correct choice as regards whether to stay with us or head on out before we let her out of irons...

Okay, yeah, even to me that sounds a bit assholish, but it's better than just letting her walk on by alone, in the middle of a driving thunderstorm and injured.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Day 27, 03:00
From the research logs of Dr. Mina Kaufmann, Ph.D. x10, PharmD, D.P.A., DBH, J.D., Dr.PH., D.M.A., D.M., Etc.

I'm growing quite proficient at the arts of construction. While I would have considered such labors beneath me quite some time ago, well, they are quite important to our survival these days... And honestly... It's kind of fun! Certainly not as manual as I had feared, though there is much of that. You simply program what you intend to construct into your C-Tool, affirm a good grip, watch your targeting reticule, and "shoot" it into existence!

You do have to take quite a lot of care to get it right, of course; it's useless to build the outside of an object whilst having not constructed the vital middle bits, but when you've started to get a handle on what you're doing, well, it's quite enjoyable. The science that went into making these things is extraordinary; the science that ruggedized them for this sort of heavy use with minimal maintenance? That was true genius.

No sooner had we all bedded down, however, than an escape pod landed, practically on our door! Another survivor from our ship, and a woman, thankfully, but in poor condition. We leapt from our beds to build another shack that can be expanded into a proper room later, so we can drag her there.

The soldier woman with the deliciously large and alluringly bouncy breasts brought her in and put her into bed... These are quite the fascinating new specimens, I wonder how they will fit in with our colony.

Luzia Sheckley, PhD, etc.
I am quite surprised - and, admittedly, rather gladdened - to meet another woman of science on this world. I had been glad of the possibility of meeting men of science, but, well, Angela's fear of the male of the species robbed me of that chance.

Luzia was from a medi-world, where she lived as the spoiled offspring of some useless nobility, until an uplift ship arrived. This uplift shift was Navy, and a Navy uplift ship is more along the lines of a colonial conquest. The local nobility were, of course, informed that they were no longer in charge. During the process of this uplift, Luzia received an intelligence test, and it was discovered that she had a brain which was beyond compare - nearly as potent as mine! This was far beyond the level at which entry to the Navy Research Corps became obligatory instead of merely voluntary, and she was conscripted and educated.

She's a 33 year old human female, and from what I understand, she's been a castaway on this miserable rock for two of those years. Poor woman... But now she's with us!

Our next rescuee, however.... I have... Qualms about.

Laira Lawson
Even my exemplary mind boggles trying to imagine this woman's life story. She was a vatgrown soldier... Who somehow grew up to be a medieval lord. At 62 years old, she's quite aged, and insists she's too good to do any manual labor. At the same time, when questioned about the vaunted social skills of Medi-world lords, those skills that allow them to negotiate courtly intrigue, she informs us all that she never developed any, and ruled a fiefdom of the sword by the simple virtue of having had an R-4 charge rifle and the ability to rally thousands of fighting men into head-on charges at her enemies.

So, she won't work, and she won't even deign to tend to prisoners and chat up traders to get a good deal. The only things she will deign to do are research (and I believe I have that more than adequately covered,) and shoot/hit people, which Angela's pet murderess and the bounty of pirates and marines we currently enjoy have covered...

Well. I ran some numbers, crunched some permutations, evaluated, scientifically, how this woman can be of best use and integration with our colony... And determined that she will very quickly begin to be more of a drain on our resources than her aptitude for combat will provide. To my great surprise... Everyone seems to agree with me.

It seems that none of us like the idea of a crabby old bitch lording over us with a gun, even though half of us are probably better warriors than she is. Ilona asked Angela if she should execute her now, but Angela said not to. I do believe she intends to sell the useless nob into slavery... I voiced this possibility, and the reactions to it ranged from pleased to ambivalent.

Well, well. It seems nobody likes a useless, arrogant old noble in our midst. Obviously, of course, this is simply heinous, but... Well, it's the best, the most logical and rational choice in our current predicament, so I cannot find the energy to raise a moral objection....



She called me a peon and demanded I rub her feet during my interview of her. Half-way through, she exposed herself and demanded I service her orally. Despite her being bedridden and having just been rescued from a terrible crash! No, I don't have any qualms about selling this loathesome old bitch into slavery. I'm thinking of giftwrapping her for the slavers.

Day 29, Hour 12
Another wanderer! Well, I'm not complaining. We quickly erect an additional shack. This one's name is Wilcox, she appears to have been a military commissar.

Angela's pet murderess runs out to collect her, and again, I get the honors of interviewing her.

Tabitha Wilcox
To my great surprise, I find that I have an unusual amount in common with Ms. Wilcox. We come from the same world! She, like me, was rather, well, a nerd as a child, absorbed in games and electronics and uncaring of people. She grew up to join the military, and somehow she became a commissar, rooting out cowardice and treason.

She's a bit of a targeted sociopath, I'll admit. She seems wholly unable to empathize with men, and freely admitted that she found it to be great fun to shoot fleeing men in the back, or to execute bound men for crimes against the military, but when it came to me, at least, she seemed jovial and warm enough - at least as warm as a life-long nerd can be.

Apparently, she too is a survivor from the vessel which brought me here. She landed elsewhere and has been wandering, though. She was nearly insensate when brought in, but some water, paste, and time in a warm bed has done her good.

We parted on good terms. I half imagined she might do what Lawson did, and that I would comply - if for no other reason than to spite Lawson, who no doubt would be listening in through the adjoining wall... I'm not sure if I'm disappointed that she didn't!

[ShadowDragon8685]

D30, 22:00
The Journal of Ilona Hahn
Angela told me that everyone on this colony was keeping a journal.
She asked me to keep one.
I am doing so.

The others mine for more metal, and a trade vessel has arrived. It claims to be a combat supplier.

D31, 07:00
An eclipse has begun.
Angela asked me what I thought of it. I explained to her the tactical implications of an eclipse: in the wild, all is dark, so all parties will be equally hindered by the darkness, whereas within the bounds of our settlement, areas of light cast by our lanterns will disadvantage those who take cover within them, while those in darkness will benefit from the concealment thereof.

I do not believe that was the answer she wished for, as she seemed to express disapproval. I did not press the issue.

D32, 05:00
Graciana has convinced Wilcox to join us. No doubt constructing a domicile for her will soon be a priority for the others. I remain on watch.

D33 04:00
A crazed boomrat attempted to gain entry to our fortifications. I baited it into the kill-box, on the concrete kill pad, and kicked it to death. It exploded and covered me in flames. I panicked, until Lara knocked me down and extinguished the flames. Then we finished putting the fires out.

D33, 23:00
Raiders have landed. They are three snipers and two pistoleers. Baiting them into the killbox and igniting the explosives would be the most expedient course of action.

D34, H10:00
A slave-trader arrived. They had a male oaf and a female pit brawler. Pursuant to Annabelle's earlier admonition against pit brawlers, Angela did not purchase her. She sold Lawson, the noble, and half our copious reserves of food for all of the credits the slave-ship had on hand. This is a sum of money comparable to what I would charge for an easy assassination assignment.

[ShadowDragon8685]

D34H22
The Logs of Commissar Wilcox, Tabitha, TMC [Formerly]
Well, that was fun. After listening to those teenaged girls talk to me for ages, I let them talk me into joining their little colony. It's not like I've anything better to do, really.

Not long after, a pack of bandits arrived on our doorstep, three snipers with M-24 rifles, and two with handguns. I arrived to a discussion of whether or not to blow the charges and kill them remotely, but it was decided that we could use more prisoners, so the decision was made to open the doors and catch them by surprise, in a sudden brawl.

I've never been much of a brawler, but we fought nontheless. After we corrected the friendly fire problem of the auto-turret behind us shooting at us, we overcame the raiders with numbers and power. These pirates and marines are quite effective in CQB, but nothing like the power of that assassin. Even the augmented fighters with their blades were nothing compared to the grace and strength with which she sliced the enemy up with a mere knife.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone or anything so beautiful as when she skillfully danced around behind a massive oaf and severed his spine. I think he may still have been alive and conscious when we threw him into the grave and pitched dirt in atop him. More regrettable are the women who were in the raiding party; the battle was chaotic, we weren't able to take any of them alive, more's the pity.

I've never executed a woman before. 20 years as a Commissar and I always found a way around of it. None of these were, strictly speaking, executions, as it was the middle of a pitched battle, but still, it is regrettable. We could have recruited them. Still, no use crying over spilt blood. They did come to murder us, after all.

D35H16
Nothing terribly interesting is going on. We're preparing to begin erecting a second geothermal generator as the first is at capacity. A cargo pod full of food fell from the sky; as we have far more than adequate food supply, it's simply not worth the time it would take to retrieve it.

D36H8
The kid successfully recruited Sheckley, the scientist. Not bad work. Sheckley's not bad herself, though it seems she'll be fairly useless here.

D36H17
We got a trader; Janisen Industries. Industrial ship. There was another orbiting from before; DeSoto sold off most of our food, the spare pistol and both M-24 rifles to buy their full cargoes of metal.

I wouldn't have authorized that, but I'm not in charge here. I'm not entirely sure what command structure we have here, if any.

D37H0
The second geothermal plant is up, we've paved a firebreak around it and the conduit connecting it to the mains... That was a rough few days of work, but it was a job well done.