Engineer’s Log Day 86.2

It’s been a long day of cleaning and preparing for my new “guests”. The base should more or less be in a presentable state now that I’ve cleaned up some of the garbage I’ve been staring at for months and saying I’ll hit it tomorrow. I can’t say I know anywhere close to enough to have all their needs met so they’ll have to be lenient with me.

After getting all my stuff prepared, I powered down my turrets and opened up the communication channels again. The original idea had been to check and see if there were any updates from Sarlunt. The reality of the situation is that every tech nerd on their side spammed my inbox with enough junk to cause my computer to crash three times before I managed to delete enough of it. I can’t say much though because like I’ve always said, turnabout is fair play.

It wasn’t all in vain though as my soon to be guests did send me a message through Sarlunt. She gave me her name and her son’s name, Darana and Bayfur Yantee. It also had some credentials listed which is cool butI have zero clue what any of those things mean. The fuck is an “Incottsor”?

Engineer’s Log Day 87

It occurred to me this morning that I was actually told when to expect my guests other than “around midday”. In a moment of decision paralysis, I opted to sit on a lawn chair on top of the wall instead of doing anything useful. Naturally I got little bored and eventually fell asleep. Nice little daytime nap you know? Well, it was until I felt some sharp stabs as the kid, Bayfur I guess, pounced onto my shoulders with his normal levels of glee and bit down. I’d say I handled it well but in reality, I flailed my arms about until I fell out of my chair. After my moment of panic, I was able to pull the kid off my back and go find his mom

I found Ms. Darana Yantee as she was wrapping up moving her stuff into the base. I don’t know how she found the room I’d cleared out for her on her own but more power to her I guess. As an aside, I know that I haven’t spent much time with them but man I always forget how big xythalaxns are and this one was no exception. Even if I’d had high heels on to add a few inches, she would still be at least half a foot taller than me.

Naturally, we exchanged greetings and I gave her a tour around the base to give her an idea about where everything was. She seems to already understand human common language and customs so that part actually went by pretty quickly. I showed her the sapling orchard, engineering central, and then gave an overview of what sorts of stuff we had before looping back around to the dining hall. Ran into a snag with the bedding situation where she was taller than anything I had but fortunately she brought a sleeping mat. Tomorrow, I'm thinking I’ll show her some of the basic base functions and see if we can also get her a proper mattress. I don’t know if I fully trust her but she seems nice enough.

I just need to make sure I don’t say the name wrong again. Yain-tee? Yawn-tee? Yuan-tee? Won-tee ... One Deaged.

Engineer’s Log Day 88

Today, I took Darana on my usual rounds and gave her the basics on how I keep the base running. I feel slightly embarrassed because a lot of stuff just isn’t in super great condition. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been keeping all the stuff I’ve been using consistently in good repair but I can only keep up with so much stuff on my own. As a result, there may be a few of the redundant systems that have fallen to the wayside. Because look, I’m in the middle of a forested mountainous area and if I need four wetsuits and 40 hours of oxygen in order to survive, I think I just take the L and perish.

It was both fun and a little sad when I showed her and Bayfur how our food machine worked. Most of our food is kept sealed up to prevent issues like mold or bacteria. End result is not the greatest food but it still tastes pretty decent. Kinda like fast food where it isn’t anything to write home about but you still enjoy it. Anyways, the kid tackled meal time with his usual excitement, practically bouncing off the walls and Darana seemed almost confused. I didn’t think much about it until later into the day when I caught Darana just scrolling through the menu. When I asked her what she was up to, she gave a little guilty jump.

Apparently, the war crime of a paste that they had tried feeding me in the cell was the main supplement for most of the colony. They apparently had some issues that cropped up while they were transporting the normal food and they ended up losing most of it. As a result, decent food is something of an expensive commodity that she hadn’t been able to really afford. She tried to be all nice about not eating too much of my nice foods. I told her to get whatever she wanted. Like, I have at least six months of prepped food for a base full of people who aren’t here anymore, I don’t give a flying fuck if she eats bacon with a side of bacon.

I know Sarlunt talked a little bit about trade so maybe I pull out some of the stored food and trade it for… something. Not a clue what I would trade it for though. Most of the luxury goods that they have probably aren’t designed for me and I can make anything basic I need using my printers. Maybe their printers can make higher quality material than mine but if they are responsible for spitting out that horrific paste, I wouldn’t bet on it.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Food bits aside, I also took today to show Darana around the med ward. I gave her a basic rundown on how to power the machines and gave her a few of the manuals for the various machines and the autodoc. Its actually so nice I’m actually able to get my hands on these things now that I have the master code for the base.

After, I left her working through the manuals as I went about my daily maintenance work with Bayfur. I swear to you I was only gone for like 3 days no matter what the state of my garden may tell you. It’s like the weeds knew I got grabbed and are trying to make up for lost time. Jokes on them though because I have Bayfur and he has been helping me wack some of them back. Speaking of him, the kid has been having an absolute grand old time as of late. He brings a sort of vibrancy to the place and it's just nice to have him around again.

Engineer’s Log Day 90

Darana finished the manuals earlier today, just a little after breakfast. She asked if she could run a test check up on me to make sure she knew how to use the various machines and to also get a general idea of my health. I told her I’m a bit of a busy guy but should be able to schedule her in sometime after morning chores. She gave me an expression that I can only assume to be the xythalaxn version of the raised eyebrow.

When I showed up in the med bay later in the day, she had all the machines set up and ready. All I had to do was stick my arm in this and that and wait for her to do a few scans on me. While the scans were in progress, we chatted for a little bit discussing random things. I was telling her about one of my college stories when she asked if she could try the blood test features on the autodoc. Now, I’m a bit of a bitch when it comes to needles and began telling her as much when she hit a button and the machine stuck me. Naturally, I yelled at a highish pitch because doctors are supposed to warn you well ahead of time so you can avoid the appointment and they most certainly aren’t supposed to give you surprise blood withdrawals. It’s. Just. Wrong. She didn’t even seem remorseful either!

According to her, my blood content was a little off in a few categories and my diet could stand to see some correction but apparently my arm was doing really well. I’m glad to get some professional verification because I’d just removed the splint from my arm when enough time had passed and the machine was telling me it was ok. Technically I could have still had fractures but today has removed the last of those doubts!

Engineer’s Log Day 91

Seeing Darana finish the manuals yesterday brought a brief but sudden desire to do something “properly productive” with my time. I decided to finally go through Steve’s machine and get all the files out unscrambled. Now that I can see the names of stuff, a whole new world of interesting stuff to throw at the xythalaxn base has been unlocked. Frankly, I’m the most excited to find bumper kart schematics.

On a more serious note, I also took some time to go through Command’s notes about “the incident” and a few things actually make a little less sense now. The base had gotten hit by the same thing that we did out in the forest and with the arrival of injured groups they’d assumed the worst. Makes sense so far but they only targeted my team. Apparently, the other two groups were still doing their thing when they were evacuated. If they were going to try and fight us, why only hit one group? It just doesn’t quite make sense. Since communications are back open again, I shot a few messages off to Sarlunt with a few questions.

Maybe since we’re technically allies now, he’ll tell me how he fucked with my stuff. I’m not holding out hope for that though.

Engineer’s Log Day 92.1

I can’t believe I agreed to let that woman stay in the base. First, she sticks me with a needle and now she’s after my food. She caught me pretty early today when I was getting out my normal cereal. It’s an important meal and what you eat can impact how you feel the rest of the day. I’d like to think that my usual breakfast gives me a sense of hope, wonder, and a nice little sugar high.

Now, there could be an argument made that my choices are “suboptimal” or “actively detrimental to my health” which may or may not have some basis in facts but that's mostly fine. However, a recommendation to the audience at home, if your friendly neighborhood xenobiologist asks “what are you eating?”, if your answer is miniature Oreos in milk with a brisk mug of coffee... lie to her.

I made the mistake of being honest and told her the truth. After spending a moment trying to find what I was eating, she pulled up the health statistics for my meal and her eyes got real big. According to her, my meal can put down several small forest creatures. I let her know that I was fortunately not a forest critter and that I’d eaten worse in college. She didn’t seem to like that answer and told me I should have “sOmE fRuItS aNd PrOtEiN” for a better breakfast. Now, I’m a reasonable person but a man has to take a stand for something he believes in. Oreos for breakfast are my god-given right! I’ll not have my breakfast ritual stopped for some measly thing like personal health and Darana can’t do anything to stop that!

Engineer’s Log Day 92.2

It’s about 30 minutes since the last log and while I know what I said earlier, it is no longer true. She can and will stop me. She’s stolen the box of cereal I already had out and somehow locked the ones in the dispenser behind a password. One that I can’t circumvent using the master key. Attempts at diplomacy have fallen through as apparently my desire for good food as the diplomat does not supercede her orders as resident doctor and expert of health. I tried using puppy dog eyes on her completely forgetting that she already literally has a puppy and is immune to such tactics. I got laughed out of the cafeteria.

Just because she’s right, doesn’t mean she has to actually be good to my health. Let me rot away! Honestly, first with the poking of needles and now the stealing of oreos. This woman was sent as an elaborate ruse to get me off the planet. What a menace!