Engineer’s Audio Log Day 3
Today’s been a productive but quiet day. After waking up in my delightfully soft bed, I had myself a nice bowl of cereal and was able to have a peaceful stretch before limping off to the infirmary to deal with my many small cuts that I reopened while stretching. For the record, I’m kidding about that last part. I’ve already cleaned my wounds and am trying to avoid irritating them anymore.
I was able to make some good headway on the shield generators. Got 2 out of the 8 total I’ll need built and in working shape. They’re sittin’ in the workshop right now waiting to be installed. Initially, I was a little concerned about how I’d get them on top of the walls since these suckers are big enough to be unwieldy and heavy enough to need multiple people to move them. Originally, we just used manpower to build it and then hauled it up to the top of the walls with ropes. You know, the manly way our ancestors did. On my own, I think I can maybe tip them on their side and slowly waddle them along the ground but that doesn’t really help me get them up 10 feet of wall. Kinda doable if I wanna make some 30 ft ramps I guess.
My initial thought had been that I just print the parts and move them up to the top of the walls before I assemble them but I don’t quite care for that idea. If I weren’t in any danger that’s probably what I would sprung for personally but the situation just doesn’t allow for that. Doing it that way would leave me up there waaaay too long and there’s a very real chance I’m spotted and shot at before I’m done. Unfortunately, I’m on a low lead diet and I just can’t afford to take in any more.
Second thought was that I might be able to use the tractor we brought along for farming but that’s probably the loudest thing in the base and likely to be pretty obvious so I kinda tossed that idea to the curb.
Plan I ended on was that I could raid the warehouse and snag one of the forklifts living there. Now, I wasn’t technically certified to operate them so obviously I had to make do and, you know, make myself a certificate. After messing around in a photo editor for about 20 minutes, I can now say I am the proud owner of a definitely legit document stating skills my pro box moving skills. I’ve hung it up near the workstation and it keeps making me chuckle every time I walk past.
On a more serious note, the forklifts fit the bill for what I’m looking for pretty well since it is both significantly smaller and quieter. The one thing I’m concerned about is that while I can get my stuff to the wall plenty fine, the grass and dirt might cause it to sink a bit and get shaky when I extend it up. Spent a bit of time working on designs for a stabilizing frame to keep things from falling over before I realized I’m overthinking and can just throw a pallet down and spread the weight out like that.
At the moment, I’m thinking that I’ll make all my shields in the workshop before deploying them all on the same day. It’ll leave things a bit crunched for space by the end of it all but I figure it’ll help to minimize the time I’m exposing myself to any watching eyes.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 4
About the same as yesterday, I don’t have much to add on. I woke up, showered, and ate and then it was building generators from there. Not much to add.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 5
Did the same as the last two days so I’ve been doing a bit of thinking. Let’s say everything goes to plan and I manage to get all my toys installed before anyone notices I’m here. Then what? They see I’m here and they wanna take a chunk out of me so they pull out whatever crispied the older shield generators and just walk in? What do I do if they do it again? The thought I’ve been kinda playing with is that I could set up some turrets. It’s a bit more extreme than I’d like but if it comes down to me or them, I’m choosing me.
Concerning the design, I’m at a bit of a deadend since while I do have some turret designs, they’re of the railgun variety and those get screwed by whatever they did to us in the forest. It's getting dark outside so I’ll have to kill the power pretty soon here but tomorrow I’m thinking I take a break from my crafting and see if I can’t get into anyone else’s computers. I know for a fact Steve brought an excessive number of blueprints so if I can get into his account I should be set.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 6.1
I am Hackerman and there’s nobody around to tell me otherwise. What grand feat of hacking must I have done to earn such a name you may be asking yourself? Rest assured, it was truly an impressive feat and by that I mean I kicked down Command’s door, stole a roster of all the names with their associated accounts, and then went through each trying out 5 variants of the word password until a few let me in.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Sadly, my high level tactics didn’t get me into Steve’s account which is a crying shame since it would mean it was a one and done. Fortunately, my failure there didn’t mean I was out of options. If I could get into any of the IT’s accounts, I could just elevate myself to a team leader and let myself into Steve’s account. I ended up stonewalled in regard to hacking IT which is a bit of a shame since it would have saved me a few hours of annoyance but it is what it is. Really all I needed was someone higher up the chain of command from me and Steve and able to see our accounts.
To be honest, I didn’t quite expect to get into nearly as many accounts as I did but I suppose you don’t need that strong of a password when your only real threats are the people you’re working with and relying on. Most accounts weren’t super helpful in my quest to Build a Better Turret but I was able to get into a Dr. Andy Weir’s account. This one in particular is relevant since he was in charge of one of the greenhouses and means he’d worked with us a few times. This meant his account was set up to talk with my team’s accounts.
Time for a happy dance.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 6.2
The happy dance was premature. It’s been an hour and I’ve still no blueprints to show. Weir’s account did mean was able to jump over to see Steve’s stuff but that’s about where the good news ends. While I can see the files exist, I can’t make heads or tails of them because apparently Steve is a paranoid bastard and encrypted his stuff. Fuck you Steve, you’re making my life entirely too complicated. Who are you even protecting your stuff from?
Sigh
Luckily, even though I can't read the names of the files, I was still able to copy them over. A quick test has the designs as still usable so small blessings I guess. I’m unsure how useful this endeavor has actually been for me since Steve had several thousand files and I don’t have a good way to sort through any of them.
I checked a handful of the bigger files in a vain hope of finding something useful but no dice.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 6.3
I’ve poked around more and was able to start to get a feel for why these may have been encrypted because I’ve some very pointed questions for Steve when I next see them. I feel like I’d understand if it were for entertainment like board games and that sort of stuff but that’s not the case. Who needs the blueprints for 43 washing machines? Sociopath behavior.
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 7
I spent today bouncing between assembling the shield generators and getting an alternative plan together. I can’t exactly be patrolling the walls at all times but if I set up some motion cameras and hook ‘em up to my datapad, it should be fine enough. Setting them up to notify me whenever anyone is getting too close isn’t an egregious task and I should be able to knock it out by tomorrow evening even with my attention split as it is.
I’m a little concerned that the xythalaxns may clue in and just trigger it at all hours of the night to try and abuse my sleep schedule but it’ll work as a decent stand in until I can get something better set up.
They can’t hurt me worse than my sleep schedule in college did now can they?
Engineer’s Audio Log Day 8
I take everything I said back, Steve is an absolute saint! I may not have my files’ real names but I do have access to the tags and in this regard Steve came through. He marked each and every single one of however many thousands of files with a few tags each. Technically speaking, this means I’ll be taking his recommendations on everything but that’s sooooo much better than just blindly stumbling through until I find what I need.
In the time since I made this discovery, I’ve been working on labeling and organizing handy files to have at hand and moving them into my own personal records. My concern for Steve’s well being has grown though because those 43 washing machines were just scratching the surface. There’s a lot of odd stuff in there.
Oh, I was able to find a turret blueprint though. A few actually. Took a bit of time to go through each and I ended up choosing a design that sort of looks like an old school gatling gun. They’ve been pretty clearly updated with more modern tech so I’m sure it’ll be fine in terms of functionality.
There was also a missile turret that’d caught my eye. I'm thinking I’ll set one or two up on each side of the base so I don’t end up having my wall knocked over by a tank. Now, I don’t really think they have anything that heavy but it never hurts to be safe. That is definitely the only reason I’m doing it and not because I think it’d be really cool to have. Definitely.
I’ll set it up as a second line of defense after I’ve gotten the base secured. I’m even less keen to get shot at while carrying heavy ordinance.
Engineer’s Log Day 9
Got into a bit of a fight over my trash today. A fuzzy, brown green critter, a little bit bigger than a raccoon, had made its way into the base and into my trash. I discovered his unasked for intrusion when he started hissing at me from inside the dumpster. It had a shorty bushy tail, a possumy face, and a wide sort of stance normally reserved for bugs. As you can imagine, I let out a very high pitched and manly shriek before tactically retreating inside. Fortunately, my natural alpha predator aura of superiority scared him off before my valiant return. Completely unrelated, I decided to prioritize getting the motion cameras set up today.
Being serious for a moment though, if that had been a xythalaxn, I would have been in some serious trouble. I’d kinda wanted to wait to set up the motion cameras until I had a shield to defend myself but I don’t think it's a wise idea to wait. Better to take a smaller risk now of being spotted than to be caught flatfooted.