It took him the whole of three days to repair what he could, though it would have taken far less time were he not injured. Still, he was glad to be sure that the ship’s systems wouldn’t all shut down and leave him without recourse.

Now, however, he got the opportunity to begin exploring the planet he’d landed on. Was it unwise, considering his state? Certainly. But he’d always been impatient, and he needed to get his mind off of his situation if he wished to preserve his sanity. Besides, who knew what secrets the planet held? The scans certainly hadn’t been thorough enough to reveal anything other than the conditions on the planet and the resources available on it.

So, he donned his armor, grabbed a rifle and some survey equipment, and set out to explore. He’d have to have the ship repurpose some probes into scout drones to aid him. If he was efficient about things he might yet manage to catalogue his region before rescue arrived. Or better yet, a colony ship.

He could imagine the faces of the new colonists as they first stepped off of their ships and onto the planet’s sunlight. Well, not quite ‘imagine’, considering that he’d made that face as he stepped off his own ship. The planet was breathtaking, and he’d never seen anything quite like it. Oh, he had no doubt that the Beralox had planets just like it, jewel-green with plant-life and brimming with lifeforms of all kinds, but he’d never been on any such world. The closest thing he knew to it was what few images of old Earth had been preserved.

Modern Earth was little more than sprawling cities separated by great expanses of black and grey. The planet had never quite recovered from the great war, and the Beralox didn’t appear keen to lend their terraforming expertise to their aid any time soon. So, of course, Manann was a breath of fresh air, literally. From the moment he stepped from his ship’s impact radius he was surrounded by greenery, greenery rustling in the air and with the movements of the native fauna, greenery tall and small.

Great trees and tiny grass, ferns, flowers, fungi. A new ecosystem full of animals. His survey equipment’s scanners were going wild, trying to scan everything around him, to catalogue every new lifeform in his surroundings, and he let them. He took his time as he trod through the land, took the time to appreciate the beauty that surrounded him, but remained alert through it all. He’d had alertness drilled into his mind more than enough during training to ensure he’d never forget to keep his eyes open and watching for threats no matter where he was.

Eventually, hours into his exploration of the planet, he found something truly interesting. The native life was beautiful, yes, but even it had not truly caught his interest. Instead, it was the irregular metallic structure he had found that drew him in. The scanners identified the material as an alloy of sorts, though of unknown composition, and it was clearly artificial.

From the shape it took it nearly seemed like a part of a ship, a very big ship. It was old, very much so, but it was not so old that it had begun to degrade. This begged the question, who had crashed onto the planet? And are they still present on it? More importantly, where had they landed?

If there were aliens on the planet, then his landing had most certainly been seen, and it was only a matter of time before someone chose to investigate the site. Only a matter of time until he was forced to interact with them. He wasn’t a trained diplomat, he wasn’t qualified to establish first contact, he wouldn’t be able to negotiate with an entirely new society.

There was also the question of their disposition. Were they friendly, would they welcome him with open arms without pretext of subjugating him? Would they approach cloaked in affability only to try to dominate, to subjugate him as the Beralox had done to all of humanity? Or perhaps they’d be hostile and would try to kill him from the very beginning.

Then, of course, there was the possibility of another spacefaring civilization knowing about the system. A possibility that the system wouldn’t be quite so safe for the rebellion as they’d figured it would be. Of course, it's not like he could send a message back to High Command, so he’d have to wait for rescue to arrive so they could port the message back.

“I have a feeling this will turn out to be one hell of a vacation...” He sighed as he began the trek back to his ship. The return journey was far faster, thanks to his suit’s navigation systems and the relative distance being rather short, as he’d been taking his time and exploring. The journey still gave him the time to plan out his next steps. As much as he wished to keep on exploring, his food supplies would only last him so long, especially with the destruction of the rear cargo bays, so he had to start thinking about establishing a ‘farm’ of sorts.

He also had to set up a perimeter around his ship, complete with turrets, fence, and sensors. This was imperative for his continued safety. He now found himself on an unexplored planet, and everything from the fauna to the flora could be out to get him, he could ill afford to take any chances.

He’d also need a source of water, as there was only so far that water purifiers could take him, and the ship’s generator needed it to run just as much as he did. Fortunately, he’d found a nice brook that he could siphon water off of. The bigger concern was food. Plants took time to grow, and he’d have to run some through a rapid domestication gene-mod program if he wished to have a feasible food-source. This took time, time during which he’d be eating into his stockpile or whatever animals he could hunt from the environment around him.

He got to work immediately upon his return to his ship. He had precious little time to waste and would be far slower than he would like to be due to his ongoing recovery, so he’d have to make good use of what time he had. So, he’d have to do his planning then and begin the manual labor early the next morning.

The next day began with the sound of power tools and violent swearing. By the second hour of his work, he’d acquired a newfound appreciation for the engineers and labor automata that normally set up their fortifications. He could not fathom why the prefab fortifications had to be so damned finicky, really, it should not be so difficult to get two fences to connect in such a way that they’d run power through each other. And manually digging the emplacements for the bases of each of the turrets? That was a fresh type of hell for him.

It took him six days and several repeated reinitiations to successfully establish his fortifications, and then he began his attempts to establish external hydroponics systems, which was yet another pain. A pain that was exacerbated by the knowledge that he’d have to wait several weeks for the domestication programs to finish so that he could actually plant his crops. That took another five days, as the technology needed gentle care, and he still had to take his time for his recovery. An additional day was then spent on establishing the water siphon and sensors, but he was done.

Now, it was time for a hunt. He’d noticed several species of large prey creatures that he’d like to hunt, and he didn’t intend to let that rest. So, he picked out a suitable rifle, a classic subsonic slug thrower, one with an inbuilt silencer, high caliber, and a long range, and set out. Kettle, Clotho, and Ripley followed close behind him as he set out on his hunt.

The three, like all combat hounds, could be quite stealthy, even with their size, so there was no risk of them alerting his prey. Though one had to ask the question of why someone had seen fit to give Kettle an optical camouflage implant, which was certainly not the least of those she’d been granted. Not that he was going to complain about having a hound that could easily sneak up on anyone, when she wanted to.

Once he’d found a trail, he allowed Ripley to take over the tracking, seeing as that is what he’d been trained for. Well, tracking fugitives rather than animals, but he figured that the skills transferred over. Ripley certainly hadn’t failed him, seeing as they soon sighted their prey. “Ripper, hold.” he commanded.

Their prey was a large six-legged mammal, thick with muscle. The creature’s belly lay low to the ground, and its long snout was being used to root through the detritus beneath a tree, searching for mushrooms. He doubted it was as defenseless and clueless as it seemed, the creature possessed a back full of quills and a thick tail that would no doubt be used offensively if needed.

It was likely an omnivore that would gladly feed upon his corpse if it could kill him, but he wouldn’t let it. If he was a good enough shot, it would never even know he had been near it. So, he took a knee, took aim, and took his shot, aiming for the kill. His shot took the beast through the head, and he watched it begin to thrash, though he waited for it to fall limp. The fact that some creatures would thrash even after death was something he’d learned early on, in a rather painful manner, and he had little desire to repeat that mistake.

“Retrieve.” He ordered his hounds, and the beasts burst into motion, closing the distance and latching onto the large creature’s tail and rear legs. The hounds slowly dragged the corpse towards him, and he laid out a tarp on which to transport it on their return to the ship. The butchering process turned out to be the more difficult of the hunt’s components, and he soon found himself with a few additional cuts from his own knife. Then again, he was a novice, he’d never had to butcher a creature before, only kill those that had started bothering their operations, so a few cuts were only to be expected, really.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

It mattered little, anyways, seeing as he’d gotten what he wanted in the end, which was food. The creature, which he’d decided, in his endless creativity, to bestow with the name “Quillbeast”, turned out to be good prey. The meat was rich, took well to spices, and required nothing in the way of special treatment. He’d certainly have to see if they could get the creature domesticated, once rescue arrived. If so, then it’d likely turn into a staple for whatever colony they set up on the planet.

He had decided to play around with hounds a bit and later take the opportunity to update his ship’s logs when he received a ping from the ship, a notice that one of the drones had returned and had found something. The ship’s communications systems were still non-functional, having decided to break down while he was in surgery, so the drones had to return anytime they wished to report something, which wasn’t very optimal, but it was better than nothing. He hadn’t expected them to find anything so promptly, seeing as they’d only gotten online a few days prior, but sometimes his expectations were exceeded.

Fortunately, this time was not one of those times. The drone had found something, certainly, but it was merely another remnant of whatever ship had crashed onto the planet previously. To be more specific, the scans figured it was a piece of a thruster or afterburner belonging to a battleship-class vessel. Which, while alarming, confirmed that the previous part had not been a fluke.

It also meant that a rather large population of alien soldiers had likely crashed onto the planet, assuming that they had a similar size to humans and tried to pack as many troops as possible onto their ships. If they had survived their crash, then they would most likely also have survived the wilderness, and he’d eventually have to deal with them. He’d expected that to be a possibility, and it was one that he was ill-prepared for, but he’d try to make the best of it, if he got the chance.

In the meantime, he would have to begin preparations to battle technologically advanced foes, as that was a possibility. Typically, their strategy for fighting well-equipped opponents armed with equal or superior technology would be to apply liberal amounts of heavy weaponry with the express purpose of obliterating enemy fortifications, armor, and masses of infantry. No such thing was possible here.

He did not have heavy weaponry, no armored vehicles or spaceship guns, the Wisp’s own guns had been destroyed in the landing. He also did not have the advantage, superior military tactics, as he was a lone man, a captain without a company. Should his worst fears come true, he would have to resort to stealth, traps, and guerrilla warfare. Except guerrilla warfare was infeasible due to his dependency on the Wisp, he would likely die without it. So, he would need to make taking it from him infeasible and begin making a contingency for if it should occur.

He would double the number of turrets around the perimeter to a nice even ten, set up a shield generator, and see if he couldn’t get some dormant mines buried about the perimeter, to be awakened when needed. As for his contingency, he could work on setting up some hidden outposts with a foundry. And he might as well see if he couldn’t find a source of mineral materials before he ran out of materials for the foundry to work with, which meant he’d have to have it build some extraction drones to exploit that source.

He was quickly finding himself wishing he had greater numbers. Many hands make light work, and the work was getting very heavy. Plans made, he sighed and stood from his place in the bridge’s command chair and strode back to his quarters. He’d taken his time to clean up the ship while he performed what repairs he could, and seen to it that his leg got a proper send-off via the incinerator, so his ship was currently as clean as he could make it, and as comfortable and desolate as always.

Once more he strode into his quarters and found his hounds waiting, and once more he collapsed upon the couch, tired. “What do you think about going spelunking tomorrow, girl?” He asked Kettle, though he knew that the hound couldn’t really understand him. The beast merely tilted her head at him, cybernetic eyes shining with orange light, before barking at him. “Guess we’re going spelunking, then.”

The next day, he departed towards a cavern that one of his drones had detected, it had found several others, but this one was particularly rich in minerals, and close to the ship. It was a good thing they’d landed so close to a mountain. He’d scout out the cavern a bit, set up one of the recently manufactured comms relays, and wait for his mechanized workforce to be complete. Then he’d have the extraction drones carve a hole into the cavern and the builder drones would set up a new foundry and generator, and he could build himself an outpost and start manufacturing new drones and equipment from there.

He’d decided to only take Kettle on this excursion, as she was the smartest of his hounds and actually capable of climbing, thanks to her cybernetic paws, and using several scanner modes that would come in useful, like infrared. So much of the runt was mechanical that he sometimes wondered if the organic parts were actually there or merely a semblance to make it look like he hadn’t been given a robot. A very well-programmed robot. Well, if Kettle really was a robot, he figured they ought to have made her a bit brighter, perhaps a bit more capable of speech.

Not that speech would have made her any more useful for this excursion, he merely had her along for her ability to share her vision with his helmet, but he really did miss having conversations. There was only so long a man could go with his only communication with others being the occasional survey report before he started going a bit mad. Still, that wouldn’t last long. With luck, he’d be back among friends and comrades soon.

Now, however, he found himself beneath stalactites covered by bioluminescent mosses, glowing gently in the dark. He and Kettle were surrounded on all sides by stalagmites, fungi, and the myriad creatures that lurked in the cavern’s darkness, beasts that slither, scuttle, crawl, and squirm. Particularly interesting were the native rodents, as tall as his forearms are long when on their back legs, the rodents had, for whatever reason, turned out to be very much friendly. Currently one of them rode upon his shoulders and three stood on Kettle’s back, chittering softly among each other.

He did not know why they were so friendly, but this whole segment of the cavern had been interesting enough to justify the detour from the mostly desolate main caves. He’d have to see to it that this segment was kept preserved, if only for the rodents’ sake. The four disembarked as soon as he and Kettle returned to the main caverns, seemingly wanting nothing to do with whatever hid there. He and Kettle, however, kept walking on, ever closer to the largest concentration of minerals.

Soon, they found themselves just before that section of cavern, and he started setting up the comms relay, drilling it into the ground with the power tool he’d brought along for just that purpose. He worked in a reverie, boring several holes into the ground, one for each of the comms relay’s legs, but eventually broke out of it at the sound of a growl. Kettle was growling so loud that she had overshadowed his drill, and he wasted no time to drop to his knee and bring his rifle to bear.

He’d picked a different weapon this time, as he had no intention of stealth. A MAC, Magnetic Accelerator Carbine. This obviously named Terran original was a staple of planetary defense forces on every human colony. The weapon itself was actually a variant configuration of the Modular Magnetic Accelerator Weapon, or MAW, for short. The MAW had been designed to fit nearly every battlefield role with just a change of parts and could pack a punch in any form it took. The exception was any role that required fully automatic fire, as that tended to melt the weapon’s barrel due to the heat generated by the projectile when accelerating.

That particular aspect of it, the impressive firepower that all magnetic accelerator weapons shared, was both their greatest strength, and their greatest weakness. In urban and voirborne environments, magnetic accelerator weapons had to be tuned to specific outputs and limited constantly unless you wanted to blow a hole in any walls you were pointing at, which could mean civilian casualties in Urban environments, or depressurization in spaceships and stations. You did not want either.

In this case the overpenetration mattered little, so long as he managed to kill the charging insectoid monstrosity, which he did. A single pull of the trigger resulted in a piece of metal tearing the insect apart from one end to the next, as magnetic accelerators tended to do. Magnetic accelerators, in all of their variants, were listed among the deadliest weapons of the modern age for a very good reason. If you got hit by a shot from one, you were guaranteed to die… Unless you were equipped with a personal energy shield.

Fortunately for him, the gigantic bug had not come with a personal energy shield, so he wouldn’t have to resort to the standard tactic for dealing with shielded enemies, or opponents you didn’t necessarily want to kill, that being melee combat. With his enemy dealt with in a rather anticlimactic manner, he returned to the completion of his work.

Those minerals were not going to extract themselves, and the automata that would extract them would need guidance. Also, he sure as hell wasn’t about to search for the source of the insectoid menace, not in person. He figured that he’d just send a drone down to check things out later, instead of risking the loss of his life at the mandibles of a bunch of insects. Assuming there were more of them.

No, he’d not risk that. He had happily finished the relay’s installation and departed the cavern system with all of his limbs intact and untouched by giant insects and he would avoid having to enter it again until his drones had confirmed that the insect he killed was the last one, or alternatively, until the chamber the insect originated from had been thoroughly cleansed with a generous quantity of incendiary explosives.

He could stand normal insects, but insects that stood as tall as he did could not be tolerated. Unless they were sapient and he had assurances that they would not attempt to eat him. He’d had more than enough of that on Santigar.

Indeed, he would be the first to admit that that campaign had left him with a particular fear of the larger insects that would likely never leave him, so he was quite glad to be back on board his ship, and away from the overgrown pests. Now if only he could get all his work done so he could rest easy…