Author's corner: Next chapter ready at somewhat fast speed. Not much to comment today.
P.S. this may seem rude and all but i will say it anyway. I'm someone that writes for comments so personally I kind of hate only receiving "Thanks for the chapter!" Comments. I understand you all like it but it bums me out only getting those comments when i put forth the effort (especally when i made the two previous chapters really funny hoping for funny comments in return but only got the comment i stated before.) Really want "real" comments so i know you all want to put it please don't, it just annoys me when i hope for ideas from everyone only to find that kind of comment.
Sry if its rude but its a pet peeve and it unmotivates me to only get that comment.
Enjoy!
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Mission: Kelha Terraforming Part two: OceanDifficulty5Kelha II terraforming project has reached a stage where we can proceed with large scale planet changes. Since the atmosphere has been formed in a primitive unstable and toxic form the next stage to make it thicker shall follow.
Request that crews possess at minimum large mining ship for the following.
Crews will scour the asteroid field in search of asteroid with high concentration of water. After discovering such the asteroids must be thrown in a crash course into the region of volcanoes previously erupted in the first stage.
Reward: 40000 credit to crew
Objective: Safely guide asteroids to crash onto the planet "Warning: native space monsters and bandits present in asteroid field. Suggested weapon and defensive upgrades to ship be taken."
Success: Aide in increasing Planet density and humidity level increases to satisfactory levels and whether patterns begin to appear. Job duration 2 weeks.
Failure: Team is killed, asteroid you drop hits camps or towns.
Mission Accepted
“Alright, your crew has been registered as one group that will aid in the second stage terraforming of Kelha II.” The young android receptionist said.
“Thanks for the help.” I told her. “Should we go dad?” I asked.
“Yeah, we need to figure out how to tow the asteroids now.” Dad said.
Yesterday after we returned home me and dad went to sleep but immediately jumped in this morning and went to register for the terraforming mission which we had just accepted.
“Oh if it's that then don’t worry, for terraforming, the station of the system funds the building and attachment of the towing lines and hooks.” the receptionist said then remembered something. “I forgot to ask, on this part there is an exception.” She said.
“Oh, what kind?” dad asked.
“Does your crew possess a dwarf fighter?” She asked.
“Yeah, I am one.” I reply.
“Great! Well, in that case you can have a choice in this, you can either have the station fund the hooks for your ship or ships or we can pay one of the dwarf fighter mechanics to build or aid in building a set of wings for your Robot.” She said.
As we hear this we look at each other.
“One moment please.” I say and take a step back.
“Going to consult the team?” Lia asked.
“Yeah, patch me through.” I tell her.
After a moment, with Lia being annoying and putting elevator music, the others voice appear.
“Did you need something Noah?” Jessica’s voice came through the communicator. Unlike the previously firm voice before now it was a bit softer.
“Yeah, we came and got the mission but we learned something.” I said and passed off the information to the others.
“I think we should go with your robot.” Alex called from his coms.
“Same here.” Hilda replied.
Havic was fast asleep so she didn’t answer and Lisa was offline but since the overall was already for it we accept it.
We nod and turn to the receptionist.
“We will like to request for someone to finish the wings for my robot.” I said.
“Alright, I shall contact someone to go over to your ship. From here you should wait until he is aborde then head down to the planet, you must meet the terraforming group so they know who they are working with as well as to show you where they need one impacted and to teach you how the job is done.” She said.
“Can you pass the location of where they are?” dad asked.
“Of course, since the accomplishment of the first stage they obtained their own base away from the main mining camps. Let me get the coordinates.” She said and after some typing Lia appeared.
“Got it!” She said and gave me the thumbs up.
“I guess that's all we needed, thank you for the help.” I said.
“Yes, oh right, you should be careful, there has been a recent rise in bandit activity. The area around the new outpost that was previously the bandit hideout has been claimed and can be used as a drop off and repair station. It's heavily guarded but still need to be careful. You should also be careful of the space life. Areas with large ice asteroids normally possess a number of space life.” She said.
I was intrigued by this but it's something we can search ourselves.
We leave and head to the ship. After passing through the airlock of the ship and removing the space helmets.
I breath a sigh and relax.
Both of us head to the kitchen, our bodies here stayed a few days without eating and when we logged in we went directly to the mission registry so we were hungry. We each make some scrambled eggs then add some sausage and greens before adding a bit of salt and finished it and dropped it onto a plate and began eating.
We had purchased some carbonated drinks, not coke since this universe doesn’t have it, so we took some of the cold ones from the fridge and started to eat.
At that time Lisa entered having logged in.
“Morning Lisa!” I say and dad says the same.
“You two are already up, that smells nice.” She says.
“Want some?” Dad asked and she nodded.
He goes and gets a plate and splits half of his food with her. I hide my chuckle and keep eating and drinking. Then I remember something.
“Lisa, you mentioned your master, erg...Alphenor I think, did some research on the space creatures?” I asked.
“Yes he did but most of it was related to Psi. It’s already well known that all space creatures are shaped my sea creatures but adapted for space. Sir Alphenor studied the smallest one that hide inside pebbles about two centimeters in size. His research involves what happens to the creatures around here when their psionic gates are opened. The animals can naturally use it since they use it to move around the area but he found that after unlocking the few gates the smallest ones have they can move where previously they couldn’t the next generation was bigger and the one after that took a slightly fish like form. It was nearly four times the size and forced a mouth to eat other smaller creatures or minerals. The number of psionic gates increase within them every generation.” She explained and started to eat.
“We are going to be going to do the terraforming mission, we already got the mission, we heard that near asteroids with lots of water these animals appear.” I said.
“If it’s about that then we will probably be facing anything between a level 15 to 30 animal and it will probably look like a cookie cutter shark or an eel.” She explained.
“Are they weak to anything?” I asked.
“Well they are soft on the inside like fish but they grow inside rock and due to their natural use of Psi they compress a hard shell around them leaving only the space needed to bend their bodies.” she replied.
I looked at dad and he nodded.
“So blunt attacks or explosives. I think the sword you have for the robot is enough if you coat it in Psi.” Dad said.
“Hey Noah, a dwarf is knocking on the door! Should we let him in?” Alex’s voice called over the intercom.
“Ask what he is here for?” I said. Can’t be to careful.
A moment later Alex’s voice sounded again.
“Says he is here to build wings for your robot.” He said.
“Let him in, he was commissioned to do that for the terraforming mission.” I replied.
“Okay!” he said and the intercom turned off.
“So the station does that?” Lisa asked.
“Yeah, it was that or adding hooks and towing lines to the ship.” Dad replied.
“Yeah, its for the better I guess.” Lisa said and nodded.
I ate quickly and got up.
“I will go to the workshop and see the mechanic.” I said and left.
In the workshop I found the dwarf as he was looking through my robot. When he heard my footsteps he turned around.
“Oh! Devil’s beer kid! So it was you who I will build for!” The dwarf said and floated down until his feet attached to the ground. The ship has no gravity tech so we only use magnet boots inside.
As I examine this Dwarf and realize this was one of the twenty dwarfs that went to drink the Dwarf Smasher.
He walked over and stuck his hand out which I took and shook.
“Devil’s Beer?” I commented raising a brow.
“What else would you call it, the other name you guys gave it is a bit to degrading even if it’s perfectly fitting.” He said making us both laugh.
“So what do you think of the wings?” I asked.
I looked towards the half built wings on the table.
“Before we even start to talk about the wings you need to set up the robot to accept them or they will function at half, no, a quarter of their potential and lose a fucking large amount of Psi during the process.” He said.
“I need what done?” I asked.
“Well first the old feet propulsion has to go, we will change it, then we need to rewire the Psionic nerves around the shoulder blades and build a docking slot on them and on the legs near the waist. The wings on the back will be three extension rods that release the psi and when not active they fold into the main body which lowers parallel with the body. As for the ones on the legs it's similar but the turn on an axes for turning. The back wings you were making aren’t even a third complete but they follow the basic plans for this type of wing but I looked at the plans you were going to make. The model I just explained is about 3 to 4 times more efficient than your current one and since you weren’t doing anything besides upgrades to the psi containers it would be safe to say that the wings built with me guiding you will be 9 to 12 times better then anything you can make until you learn how to properly install them.” He said without cutting corners.
Hearing exactly how different the upgrades actually are surprised me greatly. I didn’t think I would need to make something like a docking location on the back to hold them, I had expected to directly build it into the body but with the docking slot I can remove them and replace them with better wings. It made sense that it would be a much better system.
“Will this take long?” I asked.
I have been building the wings for a weak already and still wasn’t even close to finishing.
“A day or two.” He said making me stumble over myself and look at him in shock.
He simply smiled.
“You and your old man are legends with brewing beer but that doesn’t mean you outmatch a man that has fiddled with Dwarf fighter robot's since he was 15 years old.” The dwarf said.
I took a look and saw the few white hairs and estimated around 170 to 210 years. Dwarves, like in all games, have an estimated lifespan of around 300 years old and start looking old after 150. It would be considered middle age at this age range.
“If that is true then we can get started, the ship will be going down planetside so we can meet the terraformers before we come back to start moving the asteroids to crash onto the planet.” I explain.
“Perfect, not then I already checked your storage and there should be enough psionic nerve for this and the parts just need to be made. I’ve also uploaded the schematics to the wings I mentioned. If you want to see a virtual model you can access it on the console over there.” he said pointing at Jessica’s computer she uses to alter schematics.” He said then removed both his gloves and crack his knuckles and turned to the large boxes of parts.
He grinned and waved his hand. I could feel the psi leave from his hand and to my surprise, a large number of components started to fly out and started to start floating over the wings slowly building parts one by one.
I watch each part and make sure Lia is also recording each part’s construction.
Still…
“How can you control so much weight with external psi?” I asked.
“Bahaha! Boy, we are in a 0g zone! Has your brain turn to mush under the 0g’s? All I am doing is small push’s with the parts and making them float around!” He said and bellowed out a laugh.
I felt a bit embarrassed by having forgotten my own ship’s situation. We had magnet boots so we were always fixed to the floor so we have a sense of gravity with our feet on the ground.
“Dad, is everything ready?” I asked.
“Nothing really left to do on the station at the moment. We can proceed down to the planet.” He replied.
“Then get Alex to get us going, I’ll be in the workshop working on the wings.” I say.
“Okay!” Dad exclaims and the coms turn off.
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Moments later we hear the ship’s engines turning on full power.
After that was an uneventful descent after uploading the coordinates. As for the wings the dwarf promised in 1-2 days, if I say that I had reached 10% completion before it would currently be around 50% and he already reached around 30% completion on the two new wings that go around the leg.
It completely showed his utter confidence at construction and how much he has made over his long life. Something that got us by surprise was when we were getting near by planet. Even with the inertia dampeners we felt the ship shake before stopping.
“Alex! What was that?” I asked.
“Sorry, I forgot to work in the entrance into the atmosphere the planet has some now which I forgot to think about.” He said apologetic.
“Bah! You don’t need to worry about such a thing with the current stage. It’s only after the second stage that it becomes anything important!” The dwarf said without batting an eye or stopping to build but I noticed how the number of components he was pulling out was getting smaller as we approach the planet. The gravity was obviously starting to affect us so he was obviously not being able to use his full potential.
Still I saw something good, when we finally get a ship with a gravity generator I will make sure the cargo and my workshop be left out so that I can build much quicker.
“Guy’s we are arriving at the city, come check it out! It looks awesome!” Alex shouted through the intercom.
“Oh, first time seeing it, let's go see it!” The dwarf exclaimed and I nodded.
We both run out of the workshop and climb the stairs and soon reach the kitchen. It had the largest windows we could look through. Alex was circling the base and it surprised us when we saw.
The base was a place surrounded by a large Dome shield but inside there were four large structure domes. One in the middle was the largest and three spaced out forming a triangle. The one pointing east was made of glass and large metal supports and inside we could see a large plantation and large water tanks. Clearly this was a greenhouse where the vegetation and seal life were being bred.
The others were covered in much more metal and from above you couldn’t tell what it was. As for the rest of the space around them, it was about 80% empty dirt with whatever was taken up being used as a spaceship port which we were moving towards.
“They sure are extravagant.” Dad said.
“This is a small camp you know?” the dwarf explained.
We looked at him surprised and looked down.
“This is the only camp so it will most likely evolve and grow as time goes by and probably become the capital of the world's government.” Jessica analysed. I knew she was probably speaking with information gained from her father.
“Aye lass, if you look at all the geographical scans, this location is in a location that is estimated to not flood later on and may offer a good starting point. Its usually a gamble but what isn’t in life.” He said shrugging and turning.
“I’ll go continue the robot with him, Dad… don’t fuck up when you meet the terraformers again.” I tell dad and he smiles wryly before I leave.
Jessica PoV
I giggle a bit as I watch Noah leave to follow the dwarf.
“Uncle, it feels like Noah is the captain instead of you.” I tell him.
“Heh, I wonder if you say out of observation or because you're interested in him.” Hilda says with a sly grin.
“Ma...Shut up hilda!” I say and turn away. Thankfully my face can’t blush since I am an android and not a flesh and blood organic race.
Still she laughs at my reaction and I can’t help pout.
“Should we go?” Uncle Noland asked.
“Shouldn’t we wake Havic up as well?” Lisa asked.
“She was up for a long time, let's let her rest for now.” Alex said with clear worry in his voice.
We all laugh but watch as we land in one of the docks. We do notice that there were quite a number of other ships or groups of ships on each dock which means other crews have already gotten ships.
“There are some rather smart people, quite a number of crews have already showing to have ships, still most are either fighter or mining ships from the looks of it. Unless they have a good level of gear on them I can see these guys dying really soon.” Uncle said with a serious expression.
To me it felt like his words had an underline meaning as if it didn’t mean the current mission and instead something further.
“Let’s go, we should look for the terraforming leaders and get more information from them.” Uncle said.
Alex reached the kitchen as we leave.
“I have already unlocked the hangar doors, there is no latters so we will have to leave through there.” he said.
“As expected really, lets go.” Uncle said and we went downstairs.
In the cargo Alex goes and presses a button and the door begins to lower.
“Olivia, leave a message with Baal so Havic doesn’t freak out when she wakes up if we aren’t here.” Uncle tells his AI.
“Of course sir.” She says and goes silent.
From there we leave and from outside Alex has Xeno close the hangar from the inside.
From there we ask where we can find the terraformer leaders and after explaining our connections we have a guard that was stationed on the docks to lead us inside. We head directly to the center dome and quickly discover that this was similar to a corporation with many people and machines.
We enter into the largest room that I can only compare to the nasa room that everyone is normally inside when launching rockets up. That said, the huge screens showed many different things such as atmospheric density and air purity, what is the predominant gas in the air and planet temperature.
In the far back was the terraforming leader we had escorted down and he was speaking with a crew of around fifteen.
As we approach he spots us and finishes his talk and dismisses the crew and walks over. The crew looks on as he approaches.
“Ah the Star Comet crew, its been a while.” He said with a smile and looked around.
“It sure has, a few months or so yet you set up such a large base.” Uncle says.
“Efficiency is the name of the game now a days. The Dwarf fighter boy, he didn’t come?” the terraformer asked.
“He is currently in our ship building the wings for his robot.” I explain.
“Ah, that is right, I received that news several hours ago. When I heard your crew was joining the stage terraforming I was rather excited, dwarf fighters are after all very versatile in space and our missions normally allow them to quickly gain one of the most important aspects of their robot's which is the wings for space flight. I expect a lot from your crew.” He said.
“You have many crews, ours is just another in the bunch.” uncle said.
“Do you know, of fifty crews only 3 have dwarf fighters.” the terraformer said.
I didn’t really know that, but why is he saying that now?
“Exactly why are you excited for dwarf fighters, especially newbies?” Hilda asked.
“Tasks like terraforming isn’t done by any experienced Dwarf fighter, the pro’s are battle hardened warriors, they are also the final trump card of the station, there is no situation where professional dwarf fighters working for the station would actually do work like terraforming so new dwarf fighters are the best option not only that they are the best at this. The gather the asteroids of decent size without letting it be too big you normally need to break apart the asteroids but ships can only fire large weapons but dwarf fighters can use precision tools like drills and also defend themselves much better in space against the wildlife.” He explained.
It makes sense, being able to freely move in space, focus on one thing and still nimble enough to fight and defend which regular ships can’t do dwarf fighters are really a good thing to have in space.
I look at Lisa and the terraformer does as well.
“An elf is just as good as a Dwarf fighter and you only need a space suit to move in space but I also know your own affinity isn’t towards fighting which makes the dwarf fighter boy more important for your crew.” The terraformer said and Lisa nodded understanding what he meant.
“So mind telling us the details of the mission?” Uncle asked.
“Of course, come this way.” He said and led us to one of the computers. From it he looked up at the huge screen up at the front where one of the screens opened up showing a revolving planet and several dozen red dots and about six or seven green ones.
“After extensive geological research we found many locations that we would need to hit. The impact rage for each red dot is within a margin of around 100 kilometers around them. About a third of these are volcanoes while the rest are locations we discovered that had aquifers underground. In all these areas there is several dozen Kelha II worm tunnels running through it. The impact from an asteroid will undoubtable cause enough seismic tremors underground enough to crack the rocks making the water start to leak into the tunnels and start to spread below the surface.” He explained.
“Wouldn’t this also cause the current residents to go extinct?” I asked.
“Not completely, the current atmosphere can already support them above ground and they also realized it and in a number of places they have begun to crop up.” The terraformer said.
“What is the actual state of development of the atmosphere?” Uncle asked.
“We normally compare the atmosphere to earth during the 20th century before the planetary heating. Through our scans, when taking earth as 100%, the current atmosphere would be around 5%. It lacks humidity and water on the planet as well as heat. The water filled asteroids crashing to earth would cause high friction and slowly eat the planet as well as releasing the water inside. This will also cause a portion of the water to break up the oxygen and hydrogen and return to pure elements. As more oxygen fills the atmosphere it will slowly form an ozone layer and eventually cause other effects to the planet such as global warming and eventually the effect we want which is a planetary storm where rain will fall filling the oceans.” He explained.
The other crew was also listening and the leader came over.
“Sir, the objective is to hit those marks correct? How do we aim?” He asked.
“You are towing them, you have plenty of time to change the trajectory we will also provide your AI’s with the calculations of how to estimate the entry and angle that would allow the asteroids to survive best and so on.” He said.
The leader nodded as did uncle.
“There are several other things we need to set up, it will be a while and we will be sending someone to upload a program on your ship’s scanners to be able to identify water content in asteroids. Once that is done you can all head out and start.” He said then called one of the assistance and told her to prepare the trajectory information.
After a while we all received the information we had nothing left to do but return to the ship and after a few hours someone came to upgrade the scanners.
That done we leave the terraformers base since we had nothing left to do here. By the time we reached the old bandit base that was now an official outpost and moved above the asteroid field no longer hidden. By then more than a day had passed and I was in the workshop watching how amazing the four wings were. They were already complete and I was watching the dwarf teaching Noah the upgrades to his robot. I think they were rearranging the nerves and it’s supposed to become twice as effective.
At my own table I looked at the weapons. I turn on my console and start opening the schematics for one of the plasma sniper rifles we got at the bandit base. The power was relatively weak compared to the railgun but the durability was greater and it was stronger than the normal sniper.
I was thankful that the computer, along with Vivi’s help, I could calculate if any upgrades I did to the weapon parts on the schematics would work and by how much the improvement would offer the weapon.
Besides that I already have a number of small tools and attachments I made together with Noah.
I think I have spent a long time with him here, it really is easier to talk with him about technology than normal stuff since he understands that better than me.
Still right now I can’t bother him.
As I finish doing one kind upgrade to stabilize the plasma for longer range, it works so I leave it as that and look through all the schematics we got from the bandits and I find a small drone one.
“Didn’t know there was a drone schematics here!” I commented.
As I examine it I find it’s a scout model. It has scanning capabilities and is perfect for any scouter or long range shooter since they have a good precision aiming. For androids, the AI in a scouter model would work like a satellite that will improve the AI’s spotter function for us.
I was rather tempted but I needed to ask Noah to make it for me.
I guess I have to wait, he is rather against making Lia one and seeing him make one for Vivi will make it bad for the others. I guess waiting is fine.
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Wing plan for mech
http://img09.deviantart.net/dea7/i/2015/156/8/9/lizardman_4wings_by_mechamastermind-d8w2q8q.jpg