Engineer’s Audio Log Day 2.1
To be 100% honest, I thought waking up after being blown up was the worst I was going to experience. Today, nature conspired to prove me wrong when I woke up with the sun beaming directly into my eyes, a crick in my back from a particularly tenacious rock that I can’t seem to stretch out, and this planet’s version of mosquitoes mugging for all my blood. Of all the things for convergent evolution to create, why did it have to be these bastards again? Make some tasty crabs instead or something!
The only nice thing I can say about last night was that the stream makes a nice blurbling sound but I don’t know if I’d trade that for the ability to sleep in my bed. Speaking of, the water here is pretty decent. The stream is clear with just a lil bit of moss on the sides to let me know that it's safe to drink. Nice, cool and convenient!
After my assertive jog here yesterday evening, I’d resolved to get a fire set up, stay up through the night, and move out in the morning when I can actually see where to put my feet. After everything was said and done, I can easily say that I’ve failed all three of these objectives.
As it would turn out, I used up all of my “fire starter” yesterday. It might be argued I could have been a bit more moderate when I was coating the tree in a very appropriate amount of fire and explosives but I need you to understand something. The bug panther made both man and monkey brain scared and frankly who am I to argue with a unanimous vote like that.
On the sleep angle… well…. I’d intended to stay up all night originally given I didn’t want to get bug panthered in my sleep but my inability to rub sticks together until they caught fire left me without any light. The starry darkness mixed with a very pleasant breeze meant the fear of death didn’t quite stick around as long as I would have hoped and once my adrenaline faded I was out like a light.
So that brings us to my last objective of moving out. Technically speaking this goal isn’t an abject failure since I am moving again but I’m moving back towards where I came from yesterday. I’d love to head straight home but my compass is still on the fritz so I’d be wandering generally south at best. Fortunately, I have tossed together something of a plan.
My destruction caused quite a mess yesterday and a bit of smoke is still visible even from all the way out here. Smoke can be seen for quite a distance and my hope right now is that someone will visit looking for survivors. Human or xythalaxn, it doesn’t really matter to me. In the event it's my people, I can hitch a ride back with them and I’m out of here, easy peasy. If it's the xythalaxns, things are a bit more complicated.
In theory, the plan is simple. I hide and let them pass by me, make note of the direction they came from, and then follow it back once my compass is working properly again. The crux of the issue though is in the execution of the first task, hiding. I need to hide from them and I know for a fact they have more than a few tools, natural and crafted both, that’ll let them find me a lot easier. The two I’m most concerned about are their noses and thermal vision though.
If all I needed to avoid was some thermal imaging, I could probably just hang far enough back, avoid their detection, then follow them home after they gave up. No problem there. I’m a lot more concerned about their ability to sniff me out. If the info packet we got from Command when we first landed wasn’t all propaganda, xythalaxns actually have pretty powerful noses. From what I read, the strength of their sniffers varies from xythalaxn to xythalaxn but those on the higher end are able to track their prey down by scent alone. My concern is that if they bring one of their bloodhound fellas, they’ll track me to my general location and then just scout me out with their thermal sights. I don’t foresee myself outrunning them if they get a lock on my position so what that means is I’m going to have to be a lot more proactive in my plans.
Currently, I’m playing around with the idea that involves a distraction and a whole lot of mud.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 2.2
I might be a genius.
Check that, I definitely am a genius. Initially, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do for a distraction but we’ve figured it out. Original thought was a Rube Goldberg device with a whole bunch of swinging ropes, bowling balls, one of those wind up clapping monkeys but I ended up settling on just using my datapad and setting an alarm. I don’t super love the idea of throwing it away but the sucker doesn’t actually do anything to me right now and I can probably just get a new one issued when I get back to the base. I mean worst case scenario they make me walk back out here to get it and I kinda don’t see them asking me that considering the circumstances.
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To further compound my genius, I’m slathering myself in mud. This might not sound particularly intelligent but rest assured it’s a very high IQ play on my part and a tried and true method tested by bodybuilders in the past. Thermal vision works by detecting infrared radiation aka heat and people tend to put out a lot of heat. Fortunately for me though, if you put some insulating matter between you and whoever may be watching you, they won’t see anything. Technically speaking, this does mean if you have a nice enough christmas sweater with perfect insulation you can disappear from sight. Kinda. Not really but the thought is funny. I’m hoping that the mud will also help block them from sniffing me out right away but I’m not trying to bet on it. The mud only really needs to hide me until they’re distracted and I’ve made my grand escape.
Alright. I’mma grab the memory chip from the datapad before I get too much more messy so I can bring my files back to the base with me. All that's left now is to see if anyone shows up. Hopefully, this is my last recording and I meet up with everyone else peachy keen.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 2.3
It is not in fact peachy keen. It’s durian deranged is what it is. The whole thing stinks and makes me feel crazy.
It ended up being the xythalaxns that showed up to try and collect me in the end. I heard them while they were still a bit out fortunately and was able to set the alarm and scuttle away from the scene of the crime without incident. Three of them prowled into the campsite and started looking around. I had a heart stopping moment where it looked like one of them might come my direction but fortunately my alarm went off and all three went to check that.
After giving them a minute or so, I made a break in more or less a straight line back the way they had come from. I had my second near heart attack for the day after about 15 minutes of running when one of their shuttles zoomed past overhead. If you haven’t ever had to stress about whether or not you were spotted, I highly recommend it as it does absolute wonders at spiking your existential dread and anxiety. Lady Luck swooped in again though and I made it past undetected.
After about 3 more hours of jogging, I hit the edge of the xythalaxn’s settlement. Up until now, I hadn’t really taken a look at it but it was cool I guess. Some farming stuff around the outside of some gnarly looking walls but I wasn’t exactly sticking around to see the details. I oriented myself and ran for my base.
What I arrived back too wasn’t what I was hoping for at all. The walls were scorched at several intervals suspiciously where I had installed the shield generators, there was a hole in the wall, and the whole place was quiet. I slipped in through the hole and am currently hiding out in my workshop where the power seems to be off.
Nobody is here and frankly I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do. I figured I’d be safe if I managed to meet back up with everyone but they’ve up and pulled a Roanoke and disappeared without leaving so much as a map. All the shuttles are just gone…
I… I need a minute to collect my thoughts here.
I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 2.4
Took a bit of time to get a handle on the situation at the base and I gotta say, shit is fucked. Main generator seems to be completely fried with some of the pieces even fused into the wall. I’ll give it a more thorough look through once I’m in a bit of a better position to see what I can’t salvage from it but I’m not hopeful I’ll get much out of that at the moment.
The circuit breakers, absolute champions they are, really pulled their weight today. They held the line against whatever happened and kept most of the damage localized at the cost of their lives. If I’d lost the 3D printer, my computers, and all the food in storage I might as well have thrown myself to the literal wolves two blocks because I don’t see a way forward for me without those three.
The two back up generators seemed to be in decent condition and with just a bit of finagling I was able to get power back to the rest of the base. After testing a few thing, I decided to turn them both back off for now since it's getting late and I don’t want to accidently announce my presence to my ornery neighbors with all the lights.
Tomorrow, I’m gonna start working on getting my shield generators up and running again. Good fences make for good neighbors and I intend to be a very good neighbor by that metric. Recalibration is gonna be a massive pain in the ass but most of the legwork was completed from the first time I set ‘em up. Since the walls weren’t made for me to run a second set of cords through them, I’ll probably just run them to the outside. It’ll look really janky but I’m the only one here and I can live with that.
I’ll probably need to set some automated defenses to act as a deterrent since I don’t exactly have the manpower to patrol the wall. Ugh… I really hope I have something saved for that and I won’t need to program that from scratch.
Sigh
Welp, no use stressin’ over things. I’m gonna go see if I can’t find and eat a streak ration, take a shower, and then crawl into bed.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 2.5
I should have taken a shower while the generators were still on. That shower had no right to be anywhere near as cold as it was.