"Times like these you could really do with a beer." Said Elias as he sat down between one of the recruits and Mouse. Not getting any response he nudged the recruit with his elbow as he opened his ration pack and started eating.

"Not a beer drinker, eh?" He asked once he had their attention.

"No Sir, I mean yes Sir." The recruit looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. He eagerly turned his attention back to his meal, wolfing down the ration pack.

"Hungry?" Elias tried once again to engage him in conversation. He heard and ignored the titter from Mouse's direction.

"Yes Sir. Finished Sir." The recruit stood and looked uncomfortable as he snapped a salute. "Permission to leave Sir?"

"Of course." Sighed Elias, saluting back to reduce how awkward the situation had become.

"Maybe we should go have our dinner in the command tent?" Mouse offered as the rest of the recruits around them took more notice of Elias's presence and stopped talking as freely.

They stood and left, Mouse skillfully making it look to the group what they had planned all along. He waved over Slim on the way back to the command tent and all three entered together. Mouse handed his ration pack to Slim as they entered and fell to his knees in laughter.

"Priceless." He said, wiping food off his moustasche that he had coughed out in his excitement. "They're bad enough around me and Slim. You do realise you can't do that."

"What, sit and try and have a conversation?" Elias tried to defend himself.

"Exactly. You're their boss and their commander. Also a couple of them have a bit of hero worship for you." He was still chuckling as he explained.

"So I can't eat with them?" Elias slumped down into the nearest chair, he was hoping to break down the barrier between him and the recruits.

"Nope." Slim said. "There is a reason the officers have their own mess in most barracks. The rest of us need times to talk without worrying who might be listening."

Elias pondered over this last statement. He had always thought it was elitism and arrogance that meant the higher up managers and officers refused to eat with the others.

"Wait. The rest of us?" A glint formed in his eye. "You're head of logistics and personnel. You are both important too. If I have to eat in here then you do too."

"Is that a formal request from our boss?" Mouse had seen the look and decided to rile Elias up.

"Stop it Mouse." Slim said, seeing the frustration from Elias.

"Actually, yes. It is an order." Said Elias. "If I'm going to be the boss then you can bloody do what I say."

Prompting a smile from Slim and a fake look of shock from Mouse.

"Look, I need you both. I don't know what I'm doing and we need time to talk through things so we get it right. Also to fix things if we don't." Elias added, his voice a little softer.

They both nodded and joined him in seats around the table in the command tent.

"Right then, sounds like we have some work to do." Said Mouse, becoming serious for once. "Also, you know you mentioned a beer?" He pulled a crate over from the corner of the room. "Some of us plan ahead."

It was a small cooler. Just big enough for a couple of beers each. Mouse pulled them one each and cracked them open before passing round.

"Cheers." He said, clinking the bottles together before they drank.

They worked into the night planning. What was another night without much sleep? At least they would hit the ground running in the morning.

Dawn found all three back in the command tent. It had been a quiet night. Not surprising given the Hive would have cleared all opposition out of the nearby area and they had defeated all the local Swarm. Rested as well as they could be today was the beginning of a new stage.

Elias summoned the recruits, the two gaps where those injured were not present obvious to them all. Squad One and Five were one member down still.

"Morning platoon." Elias started, saluting at the group.

It was a pleasing sight to have them all salute back. While the security of companies was not strictly a military they were formed, run and functioned as one. It was an aspect that Elias had been switching between embracing and opposing since he had activated his Command skill. From the talk with Mouse and Slim it was clear that he needed to be more consistent and act like he was in charge at all times.

"We have two tasks this morning. First we need to salvage and clean up the Swarm killed yesterday. Squads one through three will be joining me as we start this task. Second we need to establish our base and set up the communication array. Squads four and five are with Mr Sinclaid focusing on this task. Ms Hui will be conducting one-on-one sessions with each of you through the day. Expect to be busy today. I want to be under a dome tonight but that depends on how hard we work." He looked over the group, waiting a moment before finishing.

"Let's go. break camp and meet at rally points in ten."

With over a hundred and fifty Swarm to salvage it was hard and messy work to complete the salvaging. They had decided to centre the settlement halfway between the edge of the Crust and the ziggurat. Mouse took the carrier to this area and had his troops unload the building materials they needed while Elias had his teams clear the inside of the ziggurat. They were then able to set a mobile base of operations moving the carrier to the larger piles of Swarm bodies and salvaging the valuable parts before moving the remains off onto the Crust. There were a few grubs that had appeared through the night, feeding on the remains. These were picked off by recruits as they approached with a couple of spotters left on the carrier roof on guard as they worked. It was boring repetitive but necessary work. As the day went by the crates emptied by Mouse were steadily filled with Swarm parts. As well as this Elias was collecting a small pile of minor Shards found within the heads and upper torso of the larger Swarm.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Every twenty minutes or so one of the recruits would be called in by Slim as another was released back to the group. Since they were not on a simple mission where they could leave and return to base she wanted to debrief the recruits. It was difficult to describe how he could tell but Elias noticed that as they returned they seemed more content. They worked through the morning and in to the afternoon, cycling breaks in the back of the carrier rather than return before finishing the job. They circled their way out and round the ziggurat as they worked so found themselves where they started the day before as they reached the last group of Swarm to salvage.

Meanwhile Mouse had the nine recruits working on forming the foundations and frame of their first building. He had insisted that the injured member was not left out which was why there was a single recruit sitting nearby on a deck-chair watching the group.

"Someone get Ginge a sunhat or umbrella. We don't want him to get burns alongside the other injuries." Mouse shouted at his workgroup. He had picked the nickname for the recruit's red hair, standing out against the browns and black most of them had..

They all ignored his comment, used to the jokes and laughter that he felt were necessary to punctuate their day.

"He's fine boss, he'll be in the shade once we get this building finished." Ty replied. He enjoyed working with Mouse, happy to join the banter much more than the horrors of the day before.

Like the larger group they worked hard, only taking short breaks. They had cleared the topsoil of a five by five metre area into which foundations had been laid. This was the most important stage as it would allow the tower to continue to grow as the settlement expanded. They had no construction crew and Mouse had only limited experience in the practical side of building. However, he did have the blueprints and instructions from the galactic web that he had downloaded to his console before they left Porta. Once he was satisfied that they had a solid base the basic and modular building itself went up quickly.

"If it makes you feel any better, size isn't everything." Ty patted Mouse on the back as they stood back to look at the finished structure.

"Piss off." Replied Mouse, having run out of witty replies.

To be fair to him it was the third similar comment that Ty had made and he didn't want to repeat one of his earlier comebacks. The building was finished the base taking over the entire five by five grid. Each of the preformed wall units slotted together and fixed into the standard metal frame that was in turn fixed to the foundations. They could remove and adjust them at a later date if needed. The one metre wide panels came from a stack that was meant to form all four buildings, separate from the workshop building materials that were still unpacked in the trailer. One side of the structure had a door in place of two of the panels. The roof was made of similar panels that were one metre squared. Only the outer two of these panels were visible as rising from the centre of the roof was another floor. This was what drew the comparison with the nearby ziggurat.

A small balcony ran the edge of the upper level mimicking the stepped appearance. The top of the building was five metres in height, half that of the ziggurat and it was much smaller in terms of footprint. Crucially though it had the appropriate height to install the Crystal holding equipment and communications array. This dish and antennae covered device took up one of the four edges of the balcony which had a single door leading out of the upper level to give access. It was just waiting for Elias to come and install the Crystal and activate the devices.

Knowing the outer limit that the dome from the activated Crystal would cover the recruits were now setting camp. The dome would initally cover an area with a ten metre diameter and was at the centre of their camp. Since they had started fifteen metres from the ziggurat there was a limit to the size of camp. Initially they planned a twenty metre squared space. While the dome would protect the central building and a small area around it a defensive wall similar to that they had while travelling would surround them to add another layer of protection. Using what was available Mouse had the recruits use their energy weapons to carve blocks out of the ziggurat to build the wall. Each face of the lower level of the ziggurat supplied enough for a five metre stretch of their wall meaning there was a gaping hole in the ziggurat by the time they were finished.

The ziggurat was built from a material that the Swarm excreted as they processed the Crust. It was not normally worth harvesting as it was easier to harvest the organic reagents from the Swarm and then place the processed Crust from a settlement in molds to make blocks that way. Instead Mouse was instructing the recruits to cut the ziggurat faces into blocks that were approximately one metre by half a metre. The blocks were quite uniform in depth at about a foot deep. This made them perfect for building the outer wall with.

The command tent had been moved down to the clearing early in the day and set up for Slim to conduct her interviews. She had also worked through, wanting to cover the entire group of twenty-five recruits before she finished. While she had been aware of the construction that was going on she was pretty shocked to exit the tent and find a big gaping hole in the side of the ziggurat. Inner walls and a room had been exposed looking like someone had taken a big bite out of the side.

"Mouse what have you done?" The answer was pretty obvious but she had to ask.

"Improvised." He said with a characteristic grin on his face.

They both looked towards Elias who was approaching quickly after parking up the carrier in its designated spot.

"I thought we were going to use the roof panels for the other buildings to make the wall?" He said as he reached Mouse and Slim.

"He improvised." Slim copied Mouse but with a tone of resignation in her voice.

"It might have damaged the panels if we used them, and there was a suitable substitute present." Said Mouse.

"You know they build out of dried drone shit?" Slim asked him, hands on hips as she gave an unapproving look.

"And how is that different from us harvesting glands from the Swarm to use on the same base product. Then ending with something almost identical as a final result?" Mouse countered.

"Guys. Its free, nearby and we need to deal with it somehow." Elias butted in. "Maybe next time, if you're going to change from the plan give us a heads up?" He added.

Mouse nodded apologetically.

"Yeah. I probably should have done that." He agreed.

"I suppose its a good idea. It is free, unlike those roof panels. Better not to damage them." Slim added consiliatorily before switching her tone back. "But if you try and make me a house out of it, I will not be impressed."

"Why? Would it be a shit house?" Mouse asked, the cheeky grin back on his face. "Get it, shit house."

"Shut up Mouse." Slim said shooting daggers at him with her eyes. He stuck out his tongue before ignoring her and turning back to Elias.

"Are you ready?" He said. "She is when you are." With the widest grin he had shown so far he moved to one side dramatically like he was unveiling the building behind him.

Elias couldn't help but joining him in grinning.

"Yes. Ready and waiting. Shall we?"

The trio all left the gaping hole in the ziggurat and approached the square building that represented their future. It was gleaming orange as the setting sun reflected off its shiny metallic surface. The carrier that had brought them this far visible just behind and recruits busy setting camp and helping finish the defensive wall rushing back and forth across in front of their destination. In his hand for the first time since he had acquired it from the lawyer back on Porta and passed it to Slim Elias held the carry case that contained the Crystal. He had brought it out from the locked compartment as he left the troop carrier.

None of them had ever done or seen this before so they were all nervous as they climbed the ladder that led up from the ground floor to the smaller room above. The device that released and controlled the power of the Crystal was quite simple. It was a rectangular metal box which opened as Elias entered his biometric identification and approved via his neural link. Inside was a smaller glass structure with a metal clasp at the top and bottom. He placed the carry case on the floor and opened it carefully. Apparently until it was activated the Crystal was near indestructible but he didn't want to take any chances on something he had only read on the galactic web.

He gingerly picked up the Crystal that glowed a bright pink as the skin of his fingers made contact with its surface. There was a heady weight to the room as he lifted the Crystal from the box, energy thrumming through his fingers removing the fatigue of the day. Back at the glass container it was obvious how the Crystal fit in the clips so Elias pushed it in place. He heard a satisfying click and slowly moved his hands away. With the Crystal staying in place he pushed the door closed.

"Done." He said to the others who had been holding their breath.

Immediately a series of notifications appeared on his neural interface.

New settlement detected.

Ownership confirmed.

Default settings activated. Please review settlement interface to adjust.

He heard two sighs of relief and glanced over to see Mouse hugging Slim who had a silent tear running down her cheek. At the same time there was a pink glow coming from the box containing the Crystal. The glow pulsed and grew as they watched first the size of his head, then his entire body. He watched as it doubled in size again and again eventually passing the small group watching it. Once inside the growing field of energy Elias felt the changes immediately. An unnoticed weight lifted from his shoulders as the gravity on Carus was reduced to that on Earth. His breathing became easier as the oxygen level was increased to Earth standard from the reduced level present on Carus.

They heard the cheers and whoops of joy from outside as the field expanded out to reach its maximum and stabilise.

"What's next? Do we need to activate the comms array?" Elias asked.

"Yeah, lets let the planet know we are here and mean business." Mouse cheered. They both rushed towards the door, jostling to be the first to open it and get outside where they could connect the communication array.

"Great idea boys. But first things first, we need to name the settlement." Slim interjected. They stopped to look at her.

"Yeah, that's probably a better idea." Elias said.

"Yeah, better than connecting to Porta to introduce ourselves without one." Mouse added.

"So. What's the name?" Elias looked at them both, this had been their dream for a lot longer.

"Libertas." They both said in sync.