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The Nebula (dropped)
Volume 2 Rebuilding Chapter 1 Power, Shield and Life

Volume 2 Rebuilding Chapter 1 Power, Shield and Life

There were complaints that Gunner and some crew had lost their personality only becoming "yes sir" characters well i fixed that problem (was already planning to make the reconstruction arc a place to focus not only on Noah. Also this is the first chapter of the reconstruction arc and most chapters will be shorter than the first volume since there is less to speak of since I will focus on a few systems repairs per chapter as the base gets back up on its feet and begins growing when more workers and players come down.

I am hoping for feedback (both good and bad) to help me make my work better any comments like that would help

Also Wingsolution the first of my Bday presents XD happy birthday

***

Gunner POV

After we took the base and returned with the last of the captives i proceeded to have some fun cracking those suits of theirs open. It was fun checking out the coding of some old model power suits, my race having a weak bone structure needs them to simply walk like a normal person, so it was interesting to say the least.

As i was checking one of the suits that fella Ernest came over.

Ernest: hey Gunner we got some work can you help?

Gunner: depends on the work.

Ernest: we found the central generator of the base, it was in the cave complex, Noah asked us to go fix it up.

Gunner: what's the problem with 'em?

Ernest: they overloaded and these guys never repaired the damage.

Hearing that pissed me off. An overload is an easy repair since it usually only some old wires that burst. Even with my helmet on when i looked at the prisoners they shrank in fear as if they could feel my anger.

Gunner: fine, get a team together so we can go get it done, also send someone to the life support machines to check its conditions and to pull any remaining air back into the tanks and fix any leaks that might have and have them filled up with the remaining tanks that were found.

??? : Um sir if i may.

I look at the prisoners an indicator shows who connected to the chat.

Gunner: what do you want brat.

??? : Um i just want to say that the base has a dome shield i was wondering if you wanted to know that.

My eyes lit up hearing that as my anger was swept away. Why was i so excited, Dome shields are special large scale city wide shield used on planets with little to no atmosphere. They are one of the important equipment needed on a planet like this. I quickly lift the guy who said that and put him on his feet with his arms still tied up.

(Dome shields look something like these…

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/0/03/Atlantis_shield.JPG/revision/20080501144804)

Gunner: your taking me to the generator now, Ernest get your team working i won’t go this shield is more important to get working.

Ernest: sure thing.

He goes off and i call 5 workers bot, 10 repair bot and 5 human guards and 5 combat droids.

Gunner: the rest of you make a prison out of one of the warehouses and get the remaining prisoners in there i don’t want any of them inside the carrier unless they are being questioned.

Soon there was heavy movement in the base as a few warehouses were emptied and some prisoners were placed inside.

Gunner taking the helpful man and a team of bots headed inside the cave compound. It didn’t take long to find the generator. The room it was in as circular around 15 meter radius and 10 meters high with the generator at the center of the room and control panels and consoles all around the room.

Repair Bot: *beep beep* high energy zone detected, necessary shutdown of all generator functions

Gunner "so power is running through here, must be why few systems are barely working with the reserve power generator" permission granted, also search the panels controls for all information involved in working the shields including output and energy consumption.

The robots moved around the corner of the room so as to avoid drawing the electricity from the shields and headed to the panels. I headed to one myself because I wanted to personally see the coding on this thing and maybe even improve the shields coding. I plug in a cable from my helmet into the panel, it obviously asks for passwords and scans but as any good hacker who doesn’t have one you break in. so side stepping the password, which triggers the security system I go leisurely redirecting it while rewriting the codes at inhuman speed.

(A.N. Though he isn’t human anyway)

Soon enough I rewrote the passwords and security codes to allow anyone and any droid belonging to Noah’s group to access all systems in the base. The password and scans appear again and I put the new password and it scans my iris. After gaining access into the system I begin going over the codes. It was a corrupted mess, so I looked it over a bit and began remaking the codes for it. Halfway through my work the generator goes off and the lights get brighter and many other machines get energy and start up.

Gunner: ”damn it must draw one hell of an energy charge to keep it running no wonder so few lights were working.”

Repair Droid: *beep beep* orders completed all information is being downloaded to your suits main frame.

After he said that many screens begin popping up. Energy consumption, shield size and the most important structure data. The last one was really important as it was a detailed manual of the shields construction detailing the wiring and all.

Gunner: ready structure data and repair the shield generator to working conditions.

They begin working instantly and I turn back and continue making the new coding but now I take a break to read the info it has some basic codes that are essential to the shield. After going through them all I continue on the long task ahead.

Ernest POV

*a bit after Gunner went to look at the shields*

I had made a small team with some mechanics and techs as well as getting Basil with a few bots as guards and we processed to the engine room. The corridors had many lights but many were poorly lit so we went slowly as we walked we used the maps not to get lost and to see where we were going. After about 30 minutes of walking we were getting near the engine room since we could hear it when the lights started getting stronger.

Basil: what the…did something happen to increase the power?!

Ernest: …maybe it’s Gunner he said something about a shield generator and dome shields but I didn’t get it.

Basil: …you serious…you don’t know what a dome shield is?

Ernest: nope why?

Basil: ever watch a sci-fi movie where there are cities with huge shields over it?

Ernest: yes and…oh I get it. The generators was supposed to be overloaded but I think it might have been drawing power from the reserve engine still.

Basil: that must have been a hell of a large amount of power to leave the base almost in the dark.

Ernest: that’s why we need the main engine.

As we finish talking we walk into the room. It was a large cave chamber 15 meters high and 4 times larger than the engine room on the carrier. The main engine was 3 times larger and took up a bit over half the room and it had many catwalks going into its interior. On the right side was a smaller engine the size of the carrier’s engine and it was working full blast.

Ernest: alright guys to secure our power here on the planet we need the main engine working, its essentially that this gets working or we will be living in the suits for as long as we take to fix this engine.

As I finished my short motivation speech we had the worker bots drop the large boxes on their back. Inside were a large number of spare parts for repairs and one had tools for welding and cutting. There were 6 workers each with their own box, 3 were spare parts, 2 were tools and 1 was a box filled with batteries we would need to replace inside the engine.

As soon as everything was unpacked the repairs began immediately. The engine was in good condition besides many burnt wires, there wasn’t many structural damage and just wiring and a few data chips were brunt from the overload. This was something that would take quite a few hours to handle and we even had to send someone back up to find a power core big enough for the engine because the one here was toast.

Jonas POV

*few minutes after Ernest had left to the engine room*

I sighed to myself as I walk through the cave complex in the dark with only a few repair bots carrier spare parts and the air tanks.

Ernest had asked me to go to the life support and begin repairs and to fill the tank up with air and be ready for the engines to get back up. Though I felt a bit lazy at the time after he made it an order I couldn’t really deny that…old pain in the ass even in the military he was like this if we didn’t comply with this requests.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Anyway I found the room relatively quick it was near the cave entrance. It was an 8 meter high room circular with a 10 meter radius. The room had 4 air tanks and various types of filters that would convert tainted air into breathable one and pressurize the area. I had heard that the place had a dome shield which will hold the air but I’m worried that this amount of air won’t be enough…not my problem if we need more I guess getting some from the smaller ships.

Adam: alright unpack the boxes and let’s do a check of the systems also close all escape valves of the life support so the air won’t leak out. Primary objective is to search for broken pipes where air might leak from and repair it.

All the bots complied and began the search. I went to the main console and turn it on with my suits battery since it wasn’t turning on. I did a system check and found no irregularities in them but a few repair droids found leak zones and began repairing by welding them shut. While they closed it I made sure to shut any and all exits for all the tanks and good thing I do because as they finish slowly closing which consumes a lot of my battery the power starts up again and the lights get bright and all the machines including the life support starts up.

I look around surprised but if figured it might be one of the guys that are in the cave repairing some kind of system so I turn my attention back to my own repairs.

Gunner POV

After 2 long hours of constant coding I finally finished the new codes for the shield engine. Comparing the usual readings from the records that I found in the control panel the new code should have just as much power with at least 5% reduction in power consumption and let me tell you 5% might not seem much but this thing pulls in enough power to power the base two times over.

Finally done I find a chair and sit down while stretching, the man I brought with me was still there guarded by the bots.

Gunner: so why did you decide to tell us about this

I nod towards the generator.

Prisoner: well I thought that you might have more use for it then us, most of the qualified personnel died a few years ago after going crazy, the rest of us resisted after seeing them like that and kept each other company.

Gunner: hmm didn’t you guys try to learn about the tech down here.

Prisoner: a few did but we were miners to begin with at best we knew some basic level of mining gear repairs and mining. The smarter men died out first because they couldn’t handle the stress.

Gunner: …

I just stare at the man. He doesn’t seem to be lying since lying about something like this would be hard especially in the situation they were in.

Ernest: hey Gunner you there are you busy?

Gunner: I already finished on my part; I had the repair bots do a check of the generator and repair anything that was wrong while I had to remake the coding of the shields, how was it for you?

Ernest: a big pain in the ass that’s how it was, every last fucking wire was burnt along with the power core. The thing was already heavy as is on this planet we also had to fit it into a tiny space like this.

Gunner: who did you send to check the life support?

Erenst: Jonas let me call him.

I waited as he searched for him then soon I could hear the receiver on his end connect.

Jonas: yo guys whats up?

Gunner: cut the chit chat brat, how was the life support

Jonas: damn so harsh you send me here with just some robots to a leaking life support and still insult me it hurts man.

He fakes the crying.

Ernest: quit your bitching and just get on with it I’m tired and I want this to reach my bed already so we need these systems working so, GET ON WITH IT!!!

His yell makes me jump in my seat and I couldn’t imagine what the brat on the other side of the line felt like.

Jonas: hahahaha I love it when you react like this!

Ernest: GET ON WITH IT OR ILL STRANGLE YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS WHEN I FIND YOU!!!

Jonas: he…heh ok, on my side there was several leaks from the pipes between the filtration tanks and air tanks

His voice got smaller as he talked which showed how serious Ernest is.

Ernest: and how were the repairs?!

Jonas: they were either replaced or welded shut tightly we ran tests with some of the remaining air in the tanks before filling them with the spare air tanks we found in the ware houses.

Jonas: good, now to connect to everyone quickly…ok *cough cough* attention everyone the main power generator will be turning on once on all electric functions to the base will be returned. Begining in 1 minute the power will go out momentarily as the reserve engine is shut down and the main goes online.

The chat closes after that disconnecting everyone. Like he said at exactly the count of 60 all lights started up again getting stronger as the engine started all its functions.

Gunner: hey Ernest how long before the engine is going strong enough for the shields to go online. I don’t want to start it up with the power to weak.

Ernest: both you and Jonas should wait about 30 minutes we changed all the batteries inside the engine so it has to charge a bit there are around 30 batteries and 10 of them are small craft batteries. Normal batteries have around 10-15 energy cells these have around 50-60 it will take a while.

Gunner: got it…you heard that brat no turning the life support on before the shield is completely deployed and that is when I say it.

Jonas: yes sir

He says that in a mechanical tone like some robot. As the batteries charge up more and more the base “wakes up” as more power starts flowing.

Noah POV

After hearing Ernest’s announcement I smiled and was watching as the power returned. I was asking some questions to some old miners. They seemed shocked at how quickly we fixing the base but I knew this was just a start but power is the basic of any survival.

As the power returned to the streets of the base, the lights turned on and the ones that were on got stronger and lit the base up.

Prisoner: amazing…the power is back.

He started crying, he probably though it was impossible but I don’t blame him none of them are specialists and most of those who were died a long time ago. I guess I was right again about how to get them to help, must have been hard to live on this planet without much power.

A quick call and I found out that the shield generator was sucking up a lot of power from the reserve power generator and if it was turned off after the overload of the main generator they would have had energy to spare.

As power returned some small robots activated as well and started charging, they were maintenance droids and as they got changed enough they got up and began cleaning and repairing the streets of the base, my guess is to return it to its former look which must have been a clean iron roads but now was rusty and broken. At least it will be cleaner now but who cares.

About 40 minutes later we all received a call from Gunner

Gunner: alright folk’s the power generators batteries are charged enough here goes the shields.

A few second after the channel cuts off we feel some vibrations and all around the town far into the desert of the planet as well as at the center of town some pillars appear. From the center pillar a light started radiating from the tip and then it shot a beam of light up. As it reached its peak its spread out and gave the illusion of an aurora boreal from earths North Pole. They spread out until they landed just in front of all the other pillars around the base finally closing the base out from the rest of the desert tundra.

Gunner: alright people let me just say this shield is like the carrier shields it will block what we place as enemies and it will always keep air inside it, it goes underground as well and not just around the surface so no worries about leaking from down there.

Jonas: NOW PEOPLE LETS GET SOME ATMOSPHERE IN HERE!!!

As Jonas yells like it’s some party call the vents around town begin releasing large amounts of breathable air increasing the pressure in the dome.

A small meter appears in my helmet which measures the air pressure and seems if the atmosphere is suitable for breathing. It keeps rising from 10, then 20% and so on. Once it reaches 80% I see my crew outside pull the helmet off and breath in their first breaths in the base they now call home.

I turn back to the prisoner

Noah: still want to return to space when you have a chance down here now.

He shakes his head while crying.

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