Nearly giddy from finding the last battery needed for my ticket off the planet I had spent nearly a month on, I made my way back to my coffin where I had stored the other batteries to have close by for today. On the way I refined my plan with Cai just a bit more.

"You're certain that if I wait three weeks my ribs will heal enough that I won't have anymore pain when I move?" I asked him. He was trying to get me to slow down a bit and give my broken ribs a chance to heal a bit before I sent my message and went after the Queen.

"I am. All data I have collected on your body strongly supports this course of action," he affirmed. "Additionally, the extra time spent will serve us well as I will have time to teach you more about how to destabilize the batteries safely enough for you to avoid injuring yourself catastrophically as well as allowing you yet more time to familiarize yourself with the nuances of swordplay."

"Okay, you're making sense I guess," I admitted, "but mostly for the bomb-building. I don't want to screw anything up cause I went to fast and touched the wrong part or cut the wires out of order."

"These batteries contain a plasmic mixture that was chosen for its stability under high pressure environments much like the inside of the battery casing. This mixture is able to contain an extremely high level of charge that is used to power any and all systems within the AEP, including the internal shielding that protects occupants from the extreme pressure of high gravitational forces that they would be subjected to."

"Is that your way of telling me that these things don't have wires?" I asked as I set the damn thing down with the others.

"Precisely," Cai answered.

"You could have just said that then," I pointed out, making my way over to where the water and food rested just outside my shelter. I'd still never seen any animals beyond Scourge and they didn't eat whatever went into these really dense cubes of food I had been sent with and managed to scavenge from the remains of other coffins. I still saw the bodies of the people that hadn't made it in them in my dreams, all of them demanding answers.

"Anyway, if I'm going to be spending three more weeks here trying to heal up then I'd probably be able to find a few more batteries then right?" I asked changing the direction of the conversation.

"You would, but I must confess that I do not understand your sudden interest in finding them now that you have achieved your minimum requirements," Cai said.

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"I figure that if I'm going to here longer than I expected then I'd better do something productive with my time and if we had a few extra batteries laying around then I'd be able to practice making the bombs with dry runs and guarentee that we have some on hand in case the others use all their juice sending the message," I told him.

"An interesting idea and one that speaks to preparation," Cai agreed. "Good luck in your continued search then."

Twenty-two days later I opened my eyes and sat up, ready to face what I hoped would be my last day on this planet and the start of hopefully an adventure that would see me setting the stage for the humans who came after me to write their names in the history of the stars. Okay maybe I was losing it a bit after a month and a half without talking to other real people but I hadn't named any rocks. Yet. Maybe. You can't prove anything.

Regardless, I made my way outside and started smearing the goo I had gathered from my coffin's life support system onto the exposed ends of the wires that touched the parts of the batteries I had prepared that would let them pass their charges into the comms box and then send my message to the waiting Warden ships. If all went well, I'd have at least five batteries that wouldn't be drained so much that they'd be useless as bombs against the Scourge Queen.

"Are we ready for this Cai?" I asked my invisible buddy.

"I believe we are, Rickshaw," he agreed with me. "Do you wish to change any part of the contents of your message?"

"No," was all I had to say on that matter. I really didn't see any reason to send more than 'Come get me after the giant explsion that kills the Queen and makes all the Scourge stop moving!' Seemed like something short enough to make it all the way to the Wardens and would tell them everything they need to know about what to expect. Whatever Cai actually sent would be longer and more formal, I'm sure but the message would get across anyway.

"Beginning to transmit message," Cai told me. "Catastrophic failure in power source in ten seconds."

While I mentally counted down, Cai updated me further with the success of our message being sent to the Warden ships floating in space and waiting for the completion or total failure of the mission they had tasked us with.

As my count hit zero, sparks flew from the comms box that sat on the ground in front of me and passed the signal and power through to the coffin before sending it into space. Those sparks were it. I had forced too much power through the device too fast and now it was dead and I had no way to send more messages and updates to the Wardens until they came for me. Now I just needed my still intact batteries to make into bombs and I'd be set.

"Alright Cai lay it on me," I said. "How many batteries are still live enough to turn into bombs?"

"I am detecting seven that still possess a registerable charge," he answered. "Six of them have a charge strong enough to cause a sufficent explosion after destabalizing the plasmic matrix enough to become bombs."

"Perfect," I said making my way toward them. "That puts us at ten bombs right?"

"Indeed. Do you think that you will be able to carry all of them?" he asked in return.

"I hope so, otherwise I spent the last two weeks learning to weave grass for nothing," I said while pulling the gunked wires off the live batteries.