Chapter 35. Prepare for Hell

The Pup rocked and alarms blared. Apparently, the Lacertine faction had opened fire on us as we flew near to their camps.

I strapped myself into the bench on the left side wall of the Pup and looked at Tiff, “What the hell?! The dungeon hasn’t initiated. Why are they firing at us?”

“There is no rule that says they must wait for the dungeon to initiate. The fewer participants when it starts, the higher their odds of winning!” she shouted.

“Captain, I am pulling the Pup back to a safe distance to avoid further damage. Everyone brace for landing,” Elvis said.

“Do it! Just be sure we have plenty of distance between them and us for now!” I shouted.

The Pup made a narrow turn and the engine spun up as the booster shot us away from the Lacertine encampment. Within five minutes we had travelled several miles and were ready to land.

The surface of the Moon was barren. There were no naturally defensible positions outside of craters and large hills. Elvis picked an open valley and landed the Pup. It wasn’t the smoothest landing he had made.

“Captain, the Pup has taken a marginal amount of damage, mostly to the bottom side of the Hull. Repairs are estimated at 22 hours. During that time the Pup will be grounded. A-gangers are starting on the repairs now,” Elvis said.

I walked down the rear ramp of the Pup and looked around. This moon, like the grind station, had an atmosphere. It made sense. Why would the Coeus go through all the trouble of creating a death dungeon and have everyone suffocate immediately?

I had learned from Tiff that most biological species in the universe came from planets with an atmosphere similar to that of Earth. There were of course outliers, but those species generally didn’t invest heavily in expansion, or they only wanted planets deemed less than desirable by other species.

I always thought aliens would be different. They would breathe through some device or have no arms and legs and float around. The truth was surprising: Other than some basic physical differences, our bodies worked in very similar ways. We all had to breathe, we all had to eat.

I wondered what the home planets of the other factions looked like. I had only seen a big grey rock, and a big red moon. I’m sure that the Coeus could create a dungeon anywhere, but these first few levels would get straight to the point. Go here, kill everyone, survive, or die.

“Okay everyone, lets get started!” I said as everyone piled out of the Pup.

Elvis had already started unloading the Rover with a large telescoping arm that extended up out of the top of the Pup. Once the Rover was unloaded, the arm disappeared into a compartment and pulled out something I had seen before, but not this size and not this advanced.

“Hey, is that a 3-D printer?” I asked.

Tiff was standing beside me watching as everything was unloaded, “Yes, sort of. It's more advanced than the ones you had on Earth. Do you see that tube running back to the top of the Pup? There is a polycarbonate mixture that is held in tanks inside the hull of the Pup. Elvis will use that to build the structure. It should only take an hour or so."

“CooI. I knew Elvis said he would have it done but that is fast.”

Tiff looked at me, holding her hands behind her back, “We will need to reinforce our position and plan a watch and reconnaissance schedule. We need all the time we can get, Captain.”

As Elvis continued controlling the build of our base, the rest of the crew continued unpacking supplies. There were crates full of food, water, ammo, and weapons; everything that we thought we might need. Once the dungeon was initiated, we weren’t sure If the Pup would be able to come back and resupply us so we had to have enough to survive now.

Elvis had fabricated rations for us. They were very similar to MREs so they wouldn’t be the tastiest things we ever ate, but they would provide us the nutrition we needed to sustain us over the next 7-10 days. Water was a different story. Everyone had a portable atmospheric water generator. It was a small flat box with a cylindrical tank attached. The machine would draw in air, cool it to below its dewpoint, and convert that to drinkable water. We had similar machines on Earth before the drop, but they were clunky and not reliable. The ones Elvis made us were ridiculously efficient, which was great because getting water here would be a problem.

By the time we had unpacked everything from the Pup, Elvis had almost completed our Hab structure. It was a long grey rectangle with a rounded roof. It was approximately 40 feet long and 20 feet wide. It wasn’t a work of architectural genius, but it would serve its purpose. There was a door on each end and that was it. We would put our cots inside and put our tables and computers in there. It was simple and functional, and it was all we needed to get the job done.

The Rover, or “Rover” as everyone had started affectionately calling it, was ready. Elvis had retrofitted a turret gun to the top so we would have some firepower. Rover could hold all 8 of us, not comfortably but it could handle it. The vehicle was about the size of a 4-door Jeep Wrangler. It had big, meaty all-terrain tires, 4-wheel drive, and was fully electric. The cab was fully enclosed and the turret station on top could hold two passengers as well. Needless to say, I felt good about our wheels.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Let's take 15 and grab something to eat, then we can get settled inside,” I said to the team as I walked over to open one of the MRE crates.

I waited for everyone to walk over and gave them each one of the MRE boxes. The boxes were shrink-wrapped in a grey foil and unmarked. I hadn’t given Elvis any insight into making them; CJ handled all of that while I was recovering from my injuries.

As I opened the MRE I found myself wishing I was a little more involved. It had the necessities but as awesome as Elvis was, he still didn’t understand the human tongue.

“Well, this should be interesting,” I said as I looked at the food.

Elvis had done his best to represent the major food groups. There was protein in the form of a meat paste in my MRE while some of the others contained a sort of meat patty similar to Spam. There were carbohydrates in the form of a dense cube of bread, like cornbread but super dense and dry. Some sort of apple sauce-type substance, and what looked like a potato cube. The food was either super bland or, in the case of the meat option, terribly salty. The one saving grace was a cookie; after all, we needed some sugar, right? Each MRE had a different kind of cookie, and they were actually delicious.

I poked at the MRE as I sat on a box that had been pulled out of the Pup, “Elvis, we are going to need to discuss these MREs when this is over."

“Elvis is warrior, not chef! Have SR-CJ handle it if you are not happy with it!” Elvis said, obviously a little perturbed at my apparent dislike of the MRE.

“Sorry, Elvis. These will work. Thanks for the effort,” I said as a glob of apple sauce plopped back into the small tray.

Everyone else had similar reactions, but this would have to sustain us for the next several days so we all ate and got back to work without another complaint. It seemed Elvis was getting a bit touchy lately and we didn’t want to exacerbate his bad mood.

Once the Hab structure was complete, we moved in all the equipment. We set up the workstation and then I gathered the group to discuss the next steps.

“Jax, Matty, I need you two to set up the external cameras and motion sensors. Based on what happened on our flight in we can’t take any chances on another faction deciding to thin the herd before the initiation of the Dungeon. We have a few days, and I would like to do some recon as well, but we can discuss that after we have set our defenses.”

“Got it, Cap. We can get that knocked out in a few hours,” Jax said.

I looked at Claire and Loren, those two stuck pretty close together since coming to the Bloodhound, “Can you two set up the workstation and coordinate a watch schedule? I’d Like to do 6-hour shifts, with 4 groups. We can do you two, Jax and Matty, Red and CJ, Me and Tiff. We can start once we are done with the setup. All good?”

“No problem, Captain. The workstation won’t be complete and online until Jax and Matty finish. We will get the shift schedule complete by then," Claire said.

“Claire, you were an accountant pre-drop right?” I asked.

“Yeah, I worked at a firm for about 5 years.”

“Okay, once this is done we need to discuss your role on the Bloodhound. You’re good with numbers so I would like you to handle logistics onboard and preparation for missions. It won't hurt to take some of the load off Elvis, and a Human touch will go a long way,” I said.

She looked up at me surprised, “Sure, that would be great, Captain. I was hoping we would start putting some structure to all of this.”

“I'm kind of learning on the fly here, but we have to start acting like a real crew if we are going to be successful. Elvis does a lot for us, but his attention is needed elsewhere. Right, Elvis?” I asked.

Elvis wasn’t on the surface with us. We had all been fitted with an internal comms unit. It was the size of a small bead and when inserted in our ear it took hold and provided a secure comms channel for the entire team, including Elvis. When we used the open channel, we could talk to each other just like we were standing in a room together.

“Elvis is running at max capacity right now, Captain. Any assistance will allow Elvis to focus on ship upgrades and expansion,” he said.

“Upgrades and expansion?” I asked.

“Yes, since everyone except SR-CJ will be off the ship for several days, Elvis will be utilizing the parts from the absorbed ship to upgrade the Bloodhound. SR-CJ will be sequestered to the bridge during that time. Worst case scenario, we have a small hull breach and he dies. The risk is outweighed by the reward, Captain.”

“Wh-What the fuck?!” CJ chimed in, “did that douchebag AI just say I could die?!”

“Elvis, please ensure that SR-CJ is unharmed. He is imperative to our success down here,” I said, not willing to bite on Elvis’s obvious attempt to rile CJ up.

“Andy, I swear you better not let that psycho kill me!” CJ shouted.

“But killing is what I do best, SR-Cock Jockey…” Elvis said.

“SEE! I knew you put that on my uniform on purpose! Andy, did you hear th-"

“Enough you two, stay focused! Elvis take all the necessary precautions and stop trying to piss off CJ!” I said.

“Understood, Captain," Elvis replied.

The preparations were just about complete. Our Forward operating base, or FOB, was looking good. We all felt like we were as prepared as we could be without any more information. Now all that was left was to do was some recon over the next few days. We would try to get an idea of where each faction was camped and what their general defensive and offensive capabilities were. We needed to get an idea of their levels as well to know if the odds were stacked against us.

That was the plan before the announcement populated everyone’s interfaces:

Attention Participants,

All participating factions have arrived to this level, therefore the initiation for the level one dungeon will begin in 4 hours. Please ready your factions and prepare for battle. The following rules will apply in this dungeon:

1. No orbital support allowed.

2. Interface mini-maps will unlock with progress or by finding maps.

3. Elimination of an entire faction will net your faction 1 full level on top of experience gained.

4. Faction keys must be looted to progress.

5. The Coeus relay station at the center of the battleground can be accessed once 5 keys are inserted.

6. The first team to activate the relay station will progress to level 2.

As a reminder, the Lacertine faction will not operate as 4 separate teams. This team has been consolidated into 1 large faction to ensure they do not have access to multiple keys unfairly.

There are loot boxes and power-ups hidden throughout the level. These items are consumable and cannot be taken from the level. Once used, they will cease to exist.

Good luck participants, and may the best faction proceed.

That was it. We had 4 hours until all hell would break loose. We had 4 hours to prepare for hell.