Fan Fiction - Factorio Story - Chapters 1 through 8
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2014 9:08 pm
Full Story - PDF - here https://www.dropbox.com/s/vfogbfgzjdrhe ... y.pdf?dl=0
Chapter 1 – Lonely Outpost
It had been some time since the automatic alarm system had last pleaded for support at this distant outpost. But that was of little consolation since, per last reports, the biters had mangled and dismantled the only power line into this tiny enclave and had brought all functioning machines to a standstill.
For whatever reason, whether due to the noise, pollution or some other sensitivity, the native fauna was not interested in leaving operating machines in one piece. And, based on other investigations, it was probably to the best that the power succumbed so early in the assault. As single minded as the biters were in eliminating all perceived threats, they quickly lost their bezerking nature when the machines went silent.
Komás had bookmarked a pending research program with the goal of discovering a way to peacefully cope with the natives, but he had other priorities before he was willing to spend the lab time and resources on an outside chance at peace. Although, he was currently having second thoughts regarding his priorities as he approached the south wall of the outpost. Or, more accurately, what was left of the south wall.
With some, not unreasonable anxiety, Komás pushed forward towards the breach. The servomotors on his currently unreinforced exoskeleton, hummed as he danced around the remains of about two dozen baby biters, the "smaller" of the native specimens.
The wide open breach declared, like a billboard that Komás had more to worry about than baby biters. And, he suspected that there was more to discover than just a few of the babies' "big brothers."
Although the Outpost had been established early, Komás, recognizing the danger of a poorly defended outpost so far from the landing site, used most of his initial meager resources to provide a double wall and automated construction services to automate its repair. The auto-con system had just finished being adapted to the alien environment when he founded the outpost and Komás was able to craft 5 Con-bots with his suits Hyper-dimensional Portable Factory-Mark 6, or HPF-M6.
As he got closer to the breach, he was able to identify just how well the con-bots' durasteel chassis stood up to the biters' incisors. Not well at all.
Scattered next to the quickly deteriorating three big brother biters and an assortment of babies were what appeared to be the parts and pieces of several con-bots. It wasn't until Komás collected all of the DCV13s (Dimensional Condenser - v1.3) each bot carried that he was able to account for the loss of four Conbots. Although the biters missed damaging the DCV13s directly, the sudden loss of the carrier field destabilized the microwarp and made relocating the carried material, probably a wall section, all but impossible and very dangerous. Somewhere in the nearby solar system, several wall sections had suddenly appeared. 'At least it wasn't something expensive like mod armor mark 2 this time," Komás reminded himself yet again.
Passing through the wall, Komás noted the smooth grooves the biters teeth had carved into what was left of the double wall. "Even my vibrosteel tool can't compete with the biters," Komás admired. He would have known why by now except the biter's corpses didn't keep long enough to examine. Only their Alien pink "eggs" survived long enough to research. "And they were hard to collect" He clenched his leg in memory of the shock followed by the searing heat after his first run in with a bunch of babies ended with his leg carved up much like that wall. Fortunately, the Company had spared some expense in equipping him with mostly up to date nanotech biohealers for establishing a base on this "tranquil" planet and his leg was rejuvenated in time for him to practice with his newly adapted SMG on the baby biter nest. "And I had seen that as a challenge."
Stepping through the breach, Komás turned and activated his dimensional condenser and provided the necessary gestures to have the missing wall sections replaced. Unlike the pieced together devices he had planetside, Komás' DCV1 was the Company's product with a reasonable range and significant capacity. His gestures were quickly interpreted (there was even some anticipation programmed in) and "Wham! Murus ex nihilo!" Even after training on the Company's system for 7 years, he still got a rush of adrenaline every time he commanded such power and the recently relocated volume of air swept over him.
His euphoria drained as he turned and took in his surroundings. Perhaps, all those years ago, he should have said no.
Chapter 2 - Interview
“So you think you have what it takes?” said the excited old man from behind his desk. The young Komás thought the question rhetorical, but did his best to keep his impulsive sarcasm under wraps.
“Sir, I graduated at the top of my class in astrogeology and had exemplary marks in all of my applied physics classes. I know what you’re looking for and I’m it.”
“Really? Perhaps you are, but let’s do a little more digging before we finalize our conclusion” Director Mubek chuckled with a smile. “What can you tell me about phase distortions?”
Komás thought “A textbook question?” but responded, “When talking about sublight transitions, phase distortion is the skip in time that seems to occur when an object, as viewed relative to another, crosses the c over 3 or one third the speed of light threshold. This phenomenon was first identified when pre-hyper vessels, returning to Earth were routinely routed incorrectly by Space Control. After the near miss of HLN Duchess and a local barge, an official inquisition was imposed in order to determine the cause of this close call. Fortunately for science, non-official sources also took note, and the principal of sublight phase distortion was determined. In short, the vessels were passing through an n-field, a wrinkle in time, if you will, and were reappearing some distance from their previously observed trajectory. To the travelers, there was a short pause in transmission from Earth, but they still received transmissions from other non-stationary vessels. Currently, there are at least three non-stationary broadcast satellites in use by Space Control for each incoming vessel, so there is no transmission lapse anymore.”
Komás fired back, “Since its discovery, phase distortions have been accounted for and haven’t been a problem. What is your interest?”
Director Mubek continued to smile and added a slight, “hmmm…” and nodded his head.
He continued, “Instead of thinking about the ‘problems’ with phase distortions as they relate to interplanetary vessels, what if we considered a more portable ‘potential’?”
“I’m sorry, Director, but I’m not connecting. How do you relate astrogation with any portable potential?” Komás responded.
Director Mubek’s eyes sparkled, “What would happen if you could produce a, “wrinkle in time” you called it, around any physical object at any given location? Take this pen, for instance. If I accelerated it up to 1/3 c, what would happen to it?”
Komás entertained the question as best he could, but he couldn’t help letting a bit of incredulity in, “It’d get pretty heavy, it would move pretty fast, and, since we’re talking about Phase Distortions, I imagine you’d lose track of it. Have you been losing quite a few pens recently?”
Mubek chuckled at the jest, but he felt he had enough to decide that Komás would be a good fit for the Company. “Why don’t you follow me down to the lab? I’d like to show you a few more of my missing “pens.”
----
Komás remembered his eyes going wide after his initial interview so many years ago. As he surveyed the ruins of the Outpost, his eyes were going just as wide but for a different reason.
Komás was surrounded by turret carcasses, ripped up belts and mangled mechanical arms. His eyes kept wandering to the mechanical arms, or ‘inserters,’ which were stuck in grotesque poses of anguish. The damage to the walls understated the biters’ ferocity towards machines by quite a bit. “The biters really don’t like us,” he mumbled.
From the automated reports, he ‘knew’ what was damaged, but seeing it was different. The biters’ shear hatred radiated from the destruction. And, not for the first time, Komás felt very alone.
He wished that the Company had solved the inertial problems that limited phase distortion to just non-biologics. “A few friends would go a long way to lighten this load.”
Following that thought, he reminded himself to bookmark another research project into overriding his DCV1’s biological safety system. “It’d be messy, but I think I’d like to phase shift some of these monsters if they get that close again.”
Just then, the automatic alarm system started blinking yellow pulling Komás back from planning the repairs of the Outpost. As he instinctively reached for his recently upgraded MPLAB (Multi-Particle Lethal Accelerator Boomstick), he called up the overhead map and cursed.
Komás, in a panic, quickly holstered his MPLAB and got his bearings. As he reopened the breach in the south wall, the auto alarm cycled from yellow to red and then started listing equipment items with a harsh red ‘X’ next to them.
“Even this is a bit too clever for these unthinking monsters! If the mainbase falls, I’m gonna have a tough time holding off their increasing assaults!” Komas thought as he raced back to what had become home on this increasingly hostile planet.
Chapter 3 – Big Blueser
For the 4 hours it took him to return from the Outpost at his current full exoskeleton speed, Komás had little he could do to respond to the onslaught of bad news. When he first arrived, Komás was pumped with adrenaline and carelessly engaged the first biters he found.
“Crack-crack!” reported his weapon and two brother biters dropped. Within range were 2 more brother biters that had quickly stopped munching on the main iron ore feeder belt to take notice of this new threat. Komás had judged correctly that he could drop those two as well before they could engage. However, he neglected to review his ‘eyes from the sky’ before beginning the assault.
As he brought his weapon around, the wall to his right shifted and he let off a distracted shot. The brothers pounced into motion, barely touched by his first shot, and Komás had to put his full concentration into a leading shot which landed the majority of particles into their underbellies, dropping the lifeless pair to the ground and spraying Komás with biter goo and guts.
By this point, Komás had started his momentum away from the moving “wall.” As he wiped the slime from his visor he felt a force clamp to his leg and a sharp pain flashed through his system before the biohealers registered the state of emergency and flushed pain blockers into his neurotransmitters. With the shock of being overtaken so quickly, Komás again released another distracted shot which thankfully registered with a release to his leg.
With his quick release from pain, Komás’ eyes cleared and focused on the blue beast’s return glare, just as the monster lunged with a clamping bite to Komás’ torso. Like an oversized angry mousetrap, the beast’s jaws snapped down onto Komás’ exoskeleton with enough force to pop Komás’ ribcage and deform the durosteel frame causing a different shock that the biohealers were unable to block.
As with all the biter varieties he’d “experienced,” the biters’ power came from the snapping of their jaws. Once engaged, their bite was unable to sustain any significant clamping pressure and they recoiled to snap down again. Komás tolerated some patience with his scientific side while he observed their mechanics against a wall, but not when it was against his body.
As the newly named Big Blueser recoiled to snap again, Komás levelled his boomstick and released a point blank blast into the monster’s mouth.
Thankfully, the shot threw the biter’s aim off and he snapped wide. Predictably though, considering the need for protecting an offensive system that was used to thrash against all sorts of refined mechanical devices and walls, the biter’s mouth was well armored and resisted significant damage from the MPLAB’s durasteel jacketed copper slugs.
Still moving away, Komás levelled 2 more shots at the monster’s center of mass. He noted some purple goo leaking from the side belly, but was not encouraged.
“I need to get to those trees.” Komás thought as he released another pair of quick shots.
His exoskeleton was working at its limit but wasn’t quite able to keep him ahead of the blue mass that smoothly lunged towards him. Seeing no recourse, Komás turned and produced two more clouds of particles that seemed to bounce right off of the Blueser’s hide.
The monster leapt forward for another bite and, in desperation, Komás threw up his left arm to deflect the monster’s bite.
Already filled with numbing pain blockers, he was able to distance himself from the broken limb being held in place by the fractured and bent remnants of his exoskeletons arm cage. With little hesitation, Komás fired two more blasts up at the beast while it was mangling his arm and scored a hit to the back of its left ear.
The beast staggered and Komás was able to drive home another shot into the goo spattered area of the biter’s head causing the beast’s mass to collapse like a bag of sand.
Komás quickly queued up his overhead map and confirmed that the nearest pack of biters had not responded to any of the commotion. He then went to key in the microwarp address for a repair pack and realized his sickening dilemma.
Although advanced for a prototype, the DCV1 still had several limitations that the Company had not felt the need to iron out before its first field mission. One of those limitations was the small number of addresses, 10 in this case, associated to the “gesture” package. For the rest of the addresses, the user had to simply access the library with the touchpad – that had previously been mounted to Komás’ left arm. “10 slots ought to be enough for anybody,” he remembered Director Mubek saying in response to the limitation.
“Great, there go all of my repair packs, turrets, grenades and spare particle ammo. But at least I still have - what? –spare ore, some wood and 2 wood chests, two types of conveyor belts, a burner inserter– oh and a stone furnace! Maybe I can convince them to jump into the furnace while it’s cooking!” Severely injured and close to a breakdown, Komás brought himself out of it by remembering those who depended on him and forced himself to steady his breathing.
Without access to repair packs, Komas, as prompted by the holographic self-help system, disabled his left arm cage’s servomotors and used a nearby tree to brace the bent cage while he forced it back into a somewhat “straight” configuration. At least straight enough to allow his broken and mangled forearm to be reset and give the biohealers a chance to repair what was left. Even with ideal conditions, he didn’t expect the use of his arm for another week. But, as the alarm system continued to remind him with new red X’s, he wasn’t ready to concern himself with what may or may not happen in a week.
For the next half hour, Komás worked his way around the East side of the campus, carefully avoiding any pack of biters over 2 and all biter groups that were within sight of a Blueser. He had a plan, but he needed to reach the storage chests at area C, a little to his south.
Unfortunately, area C storage was currently the feeding ground of a lonely Blue who didn’t look interested in having his meal of metal and gears interrupted. Komás was running out of time and needed to act expeditiously. Fortunately, a distraction presented itself.
A lonely turret had been left intact on the perimeter. Having spent its ammo on the initial assault, the dormant turret no longer presented a target for the biters’ insatiable hatred of machines and was left alone. Komás knew the turret, even with ample ammo (which he no longer had) would not do much against that blue hide. His hope was in getting behind the Blueser to take advantage of its weak spot.
To that end, Komás gestured into place a wood chest and filled it first with the microwarp addresses for wood and then the rest of his SMG ammo from his military grade autoloader system. He then gestured into place the burner inserter between the chest and turret. Crouching down low, Komás gave his exoskeleton the mental command to run on silent and then gestured the last unit of his wood supply into the inserter.
In a controlled but unbalanced hurry, the one armed Komás dashed back to the north while the pre-ignition system on the inserter identified the fuel source and started the digestion process. In seconds, the inserter shifted into motion as its arm smoothly glided to the chest and accessed the chest’s library.
As intended, the inserter identified the wood fuel supply and, with programmed self-interest, fed itself another unit of fuel, giving Komás a little more time to circle around before the fireworks began.
Komás reached his ambush position and turned to see the mechanical arm feed the first clip of SMG ammo into the turret. With unstoppable purpose and an increasing humming, the turret chassis gracefully rose and turned towards the Big Blueser.
The loud humming from the turret was soon broken by a rapid staccato as the bullets went streaming towards the biter. Without any hesitation, the blueser faced the machine and charged with a lithe tenacity. Although the beast’s hide resisted most of the projectiles, Komás noted a few speckles of purple goo leaking from the lower belly.
With the biter fully engaged, Komás moved quickly in from the side before the turret spent all of the ammo.
It turned out ammo was not on the critical path. In one quick biter snap, the turret chassis crumpled and it’s humming immediately ceased.
“Crack!” Komás triggered a hurried blast into the rear of the Big Blueser. While half of the accelerated particles from his boomstick bounced off of the ridiculously resilient blue hide, some found their way into the softer patch behind the monster’s ear. With considerable relief to Komás, the Big Blueser staggered forward and then fully dropped to the ground on top of the crumpled turret.
“I’m getting good at this,” Komás said to himself with short lived enthusiasm.
As if to highlight his desperation, several plumes of fire jetted into the sky to the southwest of his position. He knew what had happened, but the cold and ruthless alarm system reminded him of his continuing failure anyhow.
X Refinery S1-5 – System Loss Identified
X Pipe Run L13-4E – Function has ceased – Shutoff valve engaged
X Refinery S1-3 – System Failure Identified
X Refinery S1-1– System Loss Identified
X Pipe Run L04-3N – Function has ceased – Shutoff valve malfunction
X Pipe Run L04-2N – Function has ceased – Shutoff valve engaged
X Pipe Run…
Komás stopped reading after noting the complete loss of Liquid Storage S2. “It’ll take days to replace all of that Petrol.” But, with the loss of the refineries, he didn’t have days, maybe a few hours, before the electric generators would starve from the loss of solid fuel and shut down. And, he needed that power in order to remove the rest of the 5 dozen or so beasts that were populating his base and getting dangerously close to the heart of his research center.
Using the DCV1’s receiver - mounted to his right arm - Komás collected the microwarp address from the storage chest in area C and assigned it to one of the available gesture spots. “I hope these work.”
Chapter 1 – Lonely Outpost
It had been some time since the automatic alarm system had last pleaded for support at this distant outpost. But that was of little consolation since, per last reports, the biters had mangled and dismantled the only power line into this tiny enclave and had brought all functioning machines to a standstill.
For whatever reason, whether due to the noise, pollution or some other sensitivity, the native fauna was not interested in leaving operating machines in one piece. And, based on other investigations, it was probably to the best that the power succumbed so early in the assault. As single minded as the biters were in eliminating all perceived threats, they quickly lost their bezerking nature when the machines went silent.
Komás had bookmarked a pending research program with the goal of discovering a way to peacefully cope with the natives, but he had other priorities before he was willing to spend the lab time and resources on an outside chance at peace. Although, he was currently having second thoughts regarding his priorities as he approached the south wall of the outpost. Or, more accurately, what was left of the south wall.
With some, not unreasonable anxiety, Komás pushed forward towards the breach. The servomotors on his currently unreinforced exoskeleton, hummed as he danced around the remains of about two dozen baby biters, the "smaller" of the native specimens.
The wide open breach declared, like a billboard that Komás had more to worry about than baby biters. And, he suspected that there was more to discover than just a few of the babies' "big brothers."
Although the Outpost had been established early, Komás, recognizing the danger of a poorly defended outpost so far from the landing site, used most of his initial meager resources to provide a double wall and automated construction services to automate its repair. The auto-con system had just finished being adapted to the alien environment when he founded the outpost and Komás was able to craft 5 Con-bots with his suits Hyper-dimensional Portable Factory-Mark 6, or HPF-M6.
As he got closer to the breach, he was able to identify just how well the con-bots' durasteel chassis stood up to the biters' incisors. Not well at all.
Scattered next to the quickly deteriorating three big brother biters and an assortment of babies were what appeared to be the parts and pieces of several con-bots. It wasn't until Komás collected all of the DCV13s (Dimensional Condenser - v1.3) each bot carried that he was able to account for the loss of four Conbots. Although the biters missed damaging the DCV13s directly, the sudden loss of the carrier field destabilized the microwarp and made relocating the carried material, probably a wall section, all but impossible and very dangerous. Somewhere in the nearby solar system, several wall sections had suddenly appeared. 'At least it wasn't something expensive like mod armor mark 2 this time," Komás reminded himself yet again.
Passing through the wall, Komás noted the smooth grooves the biters teeth had carved into what was left of the double wall. "Even my vibrosteel tool can't compete with the biters," Komás admired. He would have known why by now except the biter's corpses didn't keep long enough to examine. Only their Alien pink "eggs" survived long enough to research. "And they were hard to collect" He clenched his leg in memory of the shock followed by the searing heat after his first run in with a bunch of babies ended with his leg carved up much like that wall. Fortunately, the Company had spared some expense in equipping him with mostly up to date nanotech biohealers for establishing a base on this "tranquil" planet and his leg was rejuvenated in time for him to practice with his newly adapted SMG on the baby biter nest. "And I had seen that as a challenge."
Stepping through the breach, Komás turned and activated his dimensional condenser and provided the necessary gestures to have the missing wall sections replaced. Unlike the pieced together devices he had planetside, Komás' DCV1 was the Company's product with a reasonable range and significant capacity. His gestures were quickly interpreted (there was even some anticipation programmed in) and "Wham! Murus ex nihilo!" Even after training on the Company's system for 7 years, he still got a rush of adrenaline every time he commanded such power and the recently relocated volume of air swept over him.
His euphoria drained as he turned and took in his surroundings. Perhaps, all those years ago, he should have said no.
Chapter 2 - Interview
“So you think you have what it takes?” said the excited old man from behind his desk. The young Komás thought the question rhetorical, but did his best to keep his impulsive sarcasm under wraps.
“Sir, I graduated at the top of my class in astrogeology and had exemplary marks in all of my applied physics classes. I know what you’re looking for and I’m it.”
“Really? Perhaps you are, but let’s do a little more digging before we finalize our conclusion” Director Mubek chuckled with a smile. “What can you tell me about phase distortions?”
Komás thought “A textbook question?” but responded, “When talking about sublight transitions, phase distortion is the skip in time that seems to occur when an object, as viewed relative to another, crosses the c over 3 or one third the speed of light threshold. This phenomenon was first identified when pre-hyper vessels, returning to Earth were routinely routed incorrectly by Space Control. After the near miss of HLN Duchess and a local barge, an official inquisition was imposed in order to determine the cause of this close call. Fortunately for science, non-official sources also took note, and the principal of sublight phase distortion was determined. In short, the vessels were passing through an n-field, a wrinkle in time, if you will, and were reappearing some distance from their previously observed trajectory. To the travelers, there was a short pause in transmission from Earth, but they still received transmissions from other non-stationary vessels. Currently, there are at least three non-stationary broadcast satellites in use by Space Control for each incoming vessel, so there is no transmission lapse anymore.”
Komás fired back, “Since its discovery, phase distortions have been accounted for and haven’t been a problem. What is your interest?”
Director Mubek continued to smile and added a slight, “hmmm…” and nodded his head.
He continued, “Instead of thinking about the ‘problems’ with phase distortions as they relate to interplanetary vessels, what if we considered a more portable ‘potential’?”
“I’m sorry, Director, but I’m not connecting. How do you relate astrogation with any portable potential?” Komás responded.
Director Mubek’s eyes sparkled, “What would happen if you could produce a, “wrinkle in time” you called it, around any physical object at any given location? Take this pen, for instance. If I accelerated it up to 1/3 c, what would happen to it?”
Komás entertained the question as best he could, but he couldn’t help letting a bit of incredulity in, “It’d get pretty heavy, it would move pretty fast, and, since we’re talking about Phase Distortions, I imagine you’d lose track of it. Have you been losing quite a few pens recently?”
Mubek chuckled at the jest, but he felt he had enough to decide that Komás would be a good fit for the Company. “Why don’t you follow me down to the lab? I’d like to show you a few more of my missing “pens.”
----
Komás remembered his eyes going wide after his initial interview so many years ago. As he surveyed the ruins of the Outpost, his eyes were going just as wide but for a different reason.
Komás was surrounded by turret carcasses, ripped up belts and mangled mechanical arms. His eyes kept wandering to the mechanical arms, or ‘inserters,’ which were stuck in grotesque poses of anguish. The damage to the walls understated the biters’ ferocity towards machines by quite a bit. “The biters really don’t like us,” he mumbled.
From the automated reports, he ‘knew’ what was damaged, but seeing it was different. The biters’ shear hatred radiated from the destruction. And, not for the first time, Komás felt very alone.
He wished that the Company had solved the inertial problems that limited phase distortion to just non-biologics. “A few friends would go a long way to lighten this load.”
Following that thought, he reminded himself to bookmark another research project into overriding his DCV1’s biological safety system. “It’d be messy, but I think I’d like to phase shift some of these monsters if they get that close again.”
Just then, the automatic alarm system started blinking yellow pulling Komás back from planning the repairs of the Outpost. As he instinctively reached for his recently upgraded MPLAB (Multi-Particle Lethal Accelerator Boomstick), he called up the overhead map and cursed.
Komás, in a panic, quickly holstered his MPLAB and got his bearings. As he reopened the breach in the south wall, the auto alarm cycled from yellow to red and then started listing equipment items with a harsh red ‘X’ next to them.
“Even this is a bit too clever for these unthinking monsters! If the mainbase falls, I’m gonna have a tough time holding off their increasing assaults!” Komas thought as he raced back to what had become home on this increasingly hostile planet.
Chapter 3 – Big Blueser
For the 4 hours it took him to return from the Outpost at his current full exoskeleton speed, Komás had little he could do to respond to the onslaught of bad news. When he first arrived, Komás was pumped with adrenaline and carelessly engaged the first biters he found.
“Crack-crack!” reported his weapon and two brother biters dropped. Within range were 2 more brother biters that had quickly stopped munching on the main iron ore feeder belt to take notice of this new threat. Komás had judged correctly that he could drop those two as well before they could engage. However, he neglected to review his ‘eyes from the sky’ before beginning the assault.
As he brought his weapon around, the wall to his right shifted and he let off a distracted shot. The brothers pounced into motion, barely touched by his first shot, and Komás had to put his full concentration into a leading shot which landed the majority of particles into their underbellies, dropping the lifeless pair to the ground and spraying Komás with biter goo and guts.
By this point, Komás had started his momentum away from the moving “wall.” As he wiped the slime from his visor he felt a force clamp to his leg and a sharp pain flashed through his system before the biohealers registered the state of emergency and flushed pain blockers into his neurotransmitters. With the shock of being overtaken so quickly, Komás again released another distracted shot which thankfully registered with a release to his leg.
With his quick release from pain, Komás’ eyes cleared and focused on the blue beast’s return glare, just as the monster lunged with a clamping bite to Komás’ torso. Like an oversized angry mousetrap, the beast’s jaws snapped down onto Komás’ exoskeleton with enough force to pop Komás’ ribcage and deform the durosteel frame causing a different shock that the biohealers were unable to block.
As with all the biter varieties he’d “experienced,” the biters’ power came from the snapping of their jaws. Once engaged, their bite was unable to sustain any significant clamping pressure and they recoiled to snap down again. Komás tolerated some patience with his scientific side while he observed their mechanics against a wall, but not when it was against his body.
As the newly named Big Blueser recoiled to snap again, Komás levelled his boomstick and released a point blank blast into the monster’s mouth.
Thankfully, the shot threw the biter’s aim off and he snapped wide. Predictably though, considering the need for protecting an offensive system that was used to thrash against all sorts of refined mechanical devices and walls, the biter’s mouth was well armored and resisted significant damage from the MPLAB’s durasteel jacketed copper slugs.
Still moving away, Komás levelled 2 more shots at the monster’s center of mass. He noted some purple goo leaking from the side belly, but was not encouraged.
“I need to get to those trees.” Komás thought as he released another pair of quick shots.
His exoskeleton was working at its limit but wasn’t quite able to keep him ahead of the blue mass that smoothly lunged towards him. Seeing no recourse, Komás turned and produced two more clouds of particles that seemed to bounce right off of the Blueser’s hide.
The monster leapt forward for another bite and, in desperation, Komás threw up his left arm to deflect the monster’s bite.
Already filled with numbing pain blockers, he was able to distance himself from the broken limb being held in place by the fractured and bent remnants of his exoskeletons arm cage. With little hesitation, Komás fired two more blasts up at the beast while it was mangling his arm and scored a hit to the back of its left ear.
The beast staggered and Komás was able to drive home another shot into the goo spattered area of the biter’s head causing the beast’s mass to collapse like a bag of sand.
Komás quickly queued up his overhead map and confirmed that the nearest pack of biters had not responded to any of the commotion. He then went to key in the microwarp address for a repair pack and realized his sickening dilemma.
Although advanced for a prototype, the DCV1 still had several limitations that the Company had not felt the need to iron out before its first field mission. One of those limitations was the small number of addresses, 10 in this case, associated to the “gesture” package. For the rest of the addresses, the user had to simply access the library with the touchpad – that had previously been mounted to Komás’ left arm. “10 slots ought to be enough for anybody,” he remembered Director Mubek saying in response to the limitation.
“Great, there go all of my repair packs, turrets, grenades and spare particle ammo. But at least I still have - what? –spare ore, some wood and 2 wood chests, two types of conveyor belts, a burner inserter– oh and a stone furnace! Maybe I can convince them to jump into the furnace while it’s cooking!” Severely injured and close to a breakdown, Komás brought himself out of it by remembering those who depended on him and forced himself to steady his breathing.
Without access to repair packs, Komas, as prompted by the holographic self-help system, disabled his left arm cage’s servomotors and used a nearby tree to brace the bent cage while he forced it back into a somewhat “straight” configuration. At least straight enough to allow his broken and mangled forearm to be reset and give the biohealers a chance to repair what was left. Even with ideal conditions, he didn’t expect the use of his arm for another week. But, as the alarm system continued to remind him with new red X’s, he wasn’t ready to concern himself with what may or may not happen in a week.
For the next half hour, Komás worked his way around the East side of the campus, carefully avoiding any pack of biters over 2 and all biter groups that were within sight of a Blueser. He had a plan, but he needed to reach the storage chests at area C, a little to his south.
Unfortunately, area C storage was currently the feeding ground of a lonely Blue who didn’t look interested in having his meal of metal and gears interrupted. Komás was running out of time and needed to act expeditiously. Fortunately, a distraction presented itself.
A lonely turret had been left intact on the perimeter. Having spent its ammo on the initial assault, the dormant turret no longer presented a target for the biters’ insatiable hatred of machines and was left alone. Komás knew the turret, even with ample ammo (which he no longer had) would not do much against that blue hide. His hope was in getting behind the Blueser to take advantage of its weak spot.
To that end, Komás gestured into place a wood chest and filled it first with the microwarp addresses for wood and then the rest of his SMG ammo from his military grade autoloader system. He then gestured into place the burner inserter between the chest and turret. Crouching down low, Komás gave his exoskeleton the mental command to run on silent and then gestured the last unit of his wood supply into the inserter.
In a controlled but unbalanced hurry, the one armed Komás dashed back to the north while the pre-ignition system on the inserter identified the fuel source and started the digestion process. In seconds, the inserter shifted into motion as its arm smoothly glided to the chest and accessed the chest’s library.
As intended, the inserter identified the wood fuel supply and, with programmed self-interest, fed itself another unit of fuel, giving Komás a little more time to circle around before the fireworks began.
Komás reached his ambush position and turned to see the mechanical arm feed the first clip of SMG ammo into the turret. With unstoppable purpose and an increasing humming, the turret chassis gracefully rose and turned towards the Big Blueser.
The loud humming from the turret was soon broken by a rapid staccato as the bullets went streaming towards the biter. Without any hesitation, the blueser faced the machine and charged with a lithe tenacity. Although the beast’s hide resisted most of the projectiles, Komás noted a few speckles of purple goo leaking from the lower belly.
With the biter fully engaged, Komás moved quickly in from the side before the turret spent all of the ammo.
It turned out ammo was not on the critical path. In one quick biter snap, the turret chassis crumpled and it’s humming immediately ceased.
“Crack!” Komás triggered a hurried blast into the rear of the Big Blueser. While half of the accelerated particles from his boomstick bounced off of the ridiculously resilient blue hide, some found their way into the softer patch behind the monster’s ear. With considerable relief to Komás, the Big Blueser staggered forward and then fully dropped to the ground on top of the crumpled turret.
“I’m getting good at this,” Komás said to himself with short lived enthusiasm.
As if to highlight his desperation, several plumes of fire jetted into the sky to the southwest of his position. He knew what had happened, but the cold and ruthless alarm system reminded him of his continuing failure anyhow.
X Refinery S1-5 – System Loss Identified
X Pipe Run L13-4E – Function has ceased – Shutoff valve engaged
X Refinery S1-3 – System Failure Identified
X Refinery S1-1– System Loss Identified
X Pipe Run L04-3N – Function has ceased – Shutoff valve malfunction
X Pipe Run L04-2N – Function has ceased – Shutoff valve engaged
X Pipe Run…
Komás stopped reading after noting the complete loss of Liquid Storage S2. “It’ll take days to replace all of that Petrol.” But, with the loss of the refineries, he didn’t have days, maybe a few hours, before the electric generators would starve from the loss of solid fuel and shut down. And, he needed that power in order to remove the rest of the 5 dozen or so beasts that were populating his base and getting dangerously close to the heart of his research center.
Using the DCV1’s receiver - mounted to his right arm - Komás collected the microwarp address from the storage chest in area C and assigned it to one of the available gesture spots. “I hope these work.”