A new dawn

[skullywag]

Nooooooo

[Dive]

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

[CharlieC]

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

[CharlieC]

Nineteen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[litlbear]

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

[CharlieC]

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

[CharlieC]

Twenty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'It will be another massacre.' I sighed.

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

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

Cristobal came in a few minutes later with the toll.

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

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

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

They had kidnapped Lynx.

[litlbear]

shit

[CharlieC]

Twenty One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[litlbear]

yeet

[skullywag]

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

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

[dartasan]

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

Twist ending the Ships engines don't fire hahaha

[Coenmcj]

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

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

On both accounts, I agree wholeheartedly.

[Element4ry]

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

[CharlieC]

Twenty Two.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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