A new dawn

Started by CharlieC, November 01, 2014, 04:10:21 PM

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CharlieC

A New Dawn.

Rimworld alpha 7 vanilla story.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CharlieC

#1
Two.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





CharlieC

#2
Three.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We both looked at the boy with raised eyebrows.











Coenmcj

I'm enjoying the read, please do continue.

' "
Although I've noticed the forum is disagreeing with whatever it is you're using to mark talking apostrophe's and quotation marks seem to be working fine for me so I'm unsure what is going on there.
Moderator on discord.gg/rimworld come join us! We don't bite

CharlieC

#4
Thank you. I will be writing this one till it ends as have some time off at the moment. I write in Microsoft word and cut and paste as writing large blocks of text is difficult for me with the forums white text on black due to eyesight / colour blindness problems. Not sure why that would display incorrectly for others though - looks fine here.  UK English keyboard settings maybe ???

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

CharlieC

#5
Four.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

skullywag

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

The speech mark problem is word. It doesn't use normal " it uses left and right aligned versions for each end of the speech. Not sure how you fix that bar not using word or use single apostrophes. unless the forum has a "paste from word" button that some wysiwygs have.
Skullywag modded to death.
I'd never met an iterator I liked....until Zhentar saved me.
Why Unity5, WHY do you forsake me?

CharlieC

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

Thorin

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

As for the story, great read indeed.
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming "WOW, what a ride!"

CharlieC

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

New episode shortly.

CharlieC

#10
Five.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Better build a bigger prison.' Grinned Lupieri.

Screenshot of colony taken just after this story point.






skullywag

I actually giggled at the pig not reacting to the shot bit. Nice touch.
Skullywag modded to death.
I'd never met an iterator I liked....until Zhentar saved me.
Why Unity5, WHY do you forsake me?

CharlieC

Six

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'It works.' Said a fascinated Lupieri.

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

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

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

'What's going on?' He shouted.

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

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

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

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




CharlieC

#13
Seven

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


CharlieC

#14
Eight.

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

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

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

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

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

'Sure.' He replied.

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

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

'Another pirate?' Enquired Cristobal.

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

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

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

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

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

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