Success! Mwhahahaha!

I couldn’t help but cackle to myself as the power line was plugged in and the first delicious drop of power was stored in my battery. It took a long while, and some finagling, but it finally got done! Setting up a solar panel disguised as a rock some two hundred feet from the entrance of my cave, set on the rocky slope above in order to hide it.

The hardest part was the damned wiring, to be honest. A shallow trench had to be dug then covered over with the power cable buried inside. It would hide it from prying eyes, but at the same time required the digger drone to do the work.

Thankfully the digger is able to narrow its rock-munching ultrasonic ability. So I didn’t end up with a full sized trench all the way there. Still, at this point there’s no real way to hide the cable inside the cave. It runs along the floor to one side of the short hallway into the cave.

Not that I mind, and my drones most roll or fly over it. But I could see such a thing becoming messy should I end up with more cables running all over the place. That image brings to mind Warhammer 40K’s Golden Throne, with all those cables and tubes all over the place.

Yes, even we of the future know and love WH40K. In fact it’s probably an even bigger enterprise now than before. And a xenophobics bible, if you want to get to the extreme of things.

Moving on! With the solar panel up and soaking up the light of two brilliant suns up in the sky, I’m waiting as the minutes pass to see just how much my net gain will be. I wasn’t able to simulate it properly due to lack of data, but that really isn’t my fault. The solar panel was rated for 5pu per 30 seconds at 1AU from the sun in the solar system.

That’s the same distance from the sun as the Earth is, by the way. Or about 8 light seconds, if you want to get technical. And I have no bloody way to tell just how far those two suns are away from this world. Sadly the chilled nature of this world doesn’t give me much confidence in that regard. Which sadly ends up becoming the truth.

[2.5pu per minute produced.]

Ugh. Only about one fourth of the efficiency. However, it goes a long way to reducing my fuel consumption. Actually, I could get a net gain once the second solar panel is done. I’m already producing it. I could also build a third with the resources I have on hand. But that’s it.

I only have so much raw silicon remaining, which is becoming a bottleneck. I can literally extract it out of the rock cubes my digger has produced, but that soaks up even more energy. And comes along with a slew of other materials I don’t need right now. Carbon is also now on the needs list too. Each solar panel I set out there needs a disguised skirt to hide it from preying eyes from the ground, after all.

Shit, back to those priorities. I’ll likely never have enough power or resources to do everything I want to do. But power is a must, so I’ll just have to grit my teeth and bear it for the moment.

With enough power, I could rule the world! Mwhahahaha…!

Okay, so I never noticed I had megalomaniac tendencies until now. Sadly part of it is truth however. With enough resources and power I could build fusion reactors and the like. Not to mention entire spaceships.

Ah, the glorious daydreams. Bah. Maybe I need to sleep it off. Need to finish all of this first though.

Back on task, I let one of the rover drones pull a brand spanking new and pristine solar panel out of the replicator, and it sets it aside the other two already on the ground. Out of the way, of course. Don’t want the damned things to get run over.

The solar panel cradle actually comes next, which is simply iron coated in carbon and aluminum. The last solar panel is the final piece before it can be assembled then carried out to be set up. I already have the digger out there digging another line from the first to the location I’ve picked out for the second.

Thankfully I don’t need a new cable run into the cave for each solar panel. Just enough wiring to connect them together. The cables are rated for like 5000pu per second of power running through them, which is actually not considered heavy-duty these days. But still far more than I can produce right now.

It may come as a surprise but we actually built the AI Pod to be as energy efficient as possible. Almost like a satellite in fact. Combined with the limitations of weight and mass, the Pods’ core systems can run on a 1pu per minute. At full strength with everything going at full power, the consumption is only 50pu per minute. The reactor is rated for 250pu per minute in comparison.

At that rate though the reactor would eat through fuel like a fat man scarfing donuts in an eating contest against a police officer. Thousands of units of hydrocarbons, hundreds of units of radioactive materials, or tens of units of helium3 fuel would be burned up per minute at that rate.

On another subject, who the hell put a design template for a freakin’ rubber ducky in the database?! I was looking through the database during the wait and came across this absurd and somewhat cute thing that totally doesn’t belong. Ugh. At least I didn’t come across a whoopie-cushion. Haven’t seen one of those since secondary education.

Okay, okay. Stay on task, me. So power, then resources. A reserve of fuel would be nice too. And some sort of defense system. Yeah, can’t forget about that.

Just because I haven’t seen any natives screaming for my blood doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Also I really should try to find the wreckage of the Clarke. If nothing else there may be survivors there… although I doubt it. Four heavily wounded crew members before the crash doesn’t generally translate to survivors of a crash.

And I don’t have any blood… damnit. I’m really tired of feeling depressed whenever I mentioned having a biological function I no longer have. Is this how those war vets who lose limbs feel? At least until they either a grown replacement or a bionic? Hmmm… maybe.

Let me store that thought for later. I may be able to build myself a body later, but for right now I have more to worry about. Yeah, probably a good idea.

So, the last solar panel piece finally comes rolling out of my replicator, which my rover drone grabs. Then I turn to working on the last one. The process is repetitive, but I don’t have anything else to do.

Which, I realize, is the problem. It’s a waiting game again. I’m short on power, on resources, and don’t have any other options. And I am not a machine. I cannot simply slug on and on repeatedly. I don’t have the mentality of a machine.

So what else is there to do? Watching a movie from my memory really seems a bit redundant at this point. I can recall every detail, frame-by-frame, simply by thinking about it. Ugh. The same problem is true for any video or book I’ve ever read. And there isn’t any new content saved in my memory. The AI wasn’t sentient, so it didn’t have to worry about that sort of thing.

That does bring to mind something I had thought about before. Meditation. Not something I’ve ever tried before, but hell it’s better than just going to sleep. All zen and that jazz. Maybe it’ll keep me from going totally insane.

Hmmm… how do I meditate? I don’t have any eyes to close, no lungs to breath deeply with, and no legs to cross. Ugh. Fuck this is going to be annoying.

Okay, so focus on nothing. Just let everything drift by. No thoughts, no thoughts. Shit, I’m still thinking! Okay, calm down. Try again… And again. Again!

+|+|+

Mundane Universe;

Sol System;

Terran Directorate Senate, New York City, Earth;

Sunday 26th, March, 2247;

22:02 UTC.

The senate was still in session when the emergency warning came. A session complete with politicking, backstabbing, whispered deals and poking fun at each senator's’ opponents. A session that had annoyed the ever living crap out of both the military and the civilian sector for hours now.

The emergency warning shattered all of that. The bright red hologram seems as if it were bleeding as it formed within the center of the chamber. A visual that not a single one of them wanted to see.

The Consul, the nominal leader of the Senate, almost gasped out loud. He manages to cover over it with a stiff cough though. Which is better than most.

After a moment, the red hologram disappears, replaced with a floating star map showing the latest up-to-date information of the large area of space the Directorate keeps a watch over. A roughly sphere shaped area some 550 light years in diameter. Of which a chunk has been bitten out of it, colored in black against red.

“That’s the Kretrix System.” One of the Senators’ mutters, his voice loud enough to be heard in the otherwise silent chamber. The Kretrix star system was under the control of the Xtrik Core, a race of insectoid humanoids that live in a highly caste-style society.

Ruled over by the Brood Queen and her Consorts, no one with even a bit of brains in their head wanted to get on their bad side. While not truly insects, the Xtrikian race as a whole are highly empathic toward one another. Some scientists even claim it to be psionic, although there’s no proof of that as of yet. Still, messing with one tends to be seen as messing with them all.

In this case however, one of the Xtrik Core worlds is being invaded. Located only a dozen or so light years away from the Breach, the U.T.M. already suspected that the Kretrix System would be one of the first targets. They’d even sent a diplomatic alert to the Xtrikian’s, offering a warning. It actually sucks that they were proven right.

The invasion actually came only minutes after the radiation wave caused by the Breach washed over the star system. The Senate has yet to receive any information on the effects of the radiation there, but not one of them didn’t expect it to come soon. But soon may still not be fast enough.

A number of long-range probes are already in the area though, so what the Senators do get to see is the invasion force itself. It was one of the massive black monstrosities. As big as a planet all by itself, it moved in a way that was decidedly organic and utterly sickening to look at even as it flew through space.

It got even worse as it met up with the habitable planet in question within the Kretrix System. Black tendrils bulged out of its girth only to push down into the atmosphere. Then the ground beneath started to heave as if it were a rumpled bedsheet when the tentacles hit the earth; throwing up craggy mountains and vast plumes of volcanic material as the planet itself quaked in orbit. Obscured at that point and too far distant to see any details, the visuals the senators are left with are enough to make them swallow in fear.

“Oh my god…” One cannot help but mutter, to the acceptance of them all. Probably the only sentence ever approved unanimously in the history of the Directorate. Sadly that says a lot.

+|+|+

Om…. Om… Okay, I’m pulling your leg. The meditation thing is harder than it sounds. That doesn’t mean I was unsuccessful though. Just not in the way I had imagined.

[User has learned the Standby I ability!]

See, told you. And from personal experience, the Standby ability is rather… interesting. Just to say. It’s different from when I’m sleeping, and yet I don’t have to be conscious to be on Standby either. Just aware. Like, zoning. Or maybe stoned. Nah, that’s too extreme.

[Ability: Standby, level I. Zen, nothingness, selflessness, oneness;; all come from the same place and all end at the same destination. The Standby ability is the non-organic version of Meditation, where all things are one thing and that one thing is you. Enhances mental fortitude while remaining aware of the User’s surroundings. Higher levels increase efficiency and reduces energy consumption.]

See, told you. But now this system is really starting to get snarky. First it was religion, and now some priest-like monk thing? No thanks, really not my cup of tea. I just don’t want to go insane.

Still, the ability definitely comes in handy. I got to zone out without wasting a moment while the third solar panel was built and put into place. With 7.5pu per minute coming in, I actually have a profit on power at the moment. So maybe I can actually charge my damned battery for once.

Anyone ever try to run a comm unit with a hand-cranked generator without a battery? Better get to cranking, boys! Yeah. It felt just like that. No fun at all.

Now that I have power taken care of, the next thing on my list is defenses. Specifically something to shoot with. But I also have options for traps and shit. Which I may get into later.

I really wish I could build an armed drone, but I’d have to basically build one of those from scratch. No such schematics for either the drones’ chassis or a weapon. In fact we purposefully restricted any sort of military design just in the one-in-forever-and-ever chance that the AI ended up going rogue. Which has promptly come to bite me in the ass, ugh.

Still, limited options means I need something smart. A turret is just the sort of thing that comes to mind. Especially a pop-out turret.

Okay, so maybe it really isn’t smart. Nor is it my own design. In fact the base template is for a self-defense non-lethal turret. An airgun, actually. Which makes it all the worse. Which is also why I’m tinkering with the damned schematic.

The ONLY, read that, ONLY lethal design in the database is a rifle template that uses 9mm bullets. The sort of old and archaic thing that came from before the dawn of the Terran Directorate. It is also on a turret, but is only of a single shot variety.

Well, the weapon itself is pretty much a classic. And all the parts can be built easily. But still, the damned thing is a pop-gun in comparison to what the U.T.M. uses. Where are the lasers?! The lasers damnit!

Okay, enough with getting sidetracked. Thankfully as an engineer I can build something that throws slugs rather easily. Don’t even need gunpowder in fact. Heh heh. And I have just enough rare earth materials to make it. Or in this case big ass semiconductors that’ll act like magnets which power is pushed through them.

That’s right boys and girls, I’m building me a fucking railgun. Sadly it is sucking up all of my available gold and the tiny bit of platinum, but beggars can’t be choosers. I’d rather be safe now and broke than to have wealth and end up dead. So you see the conundrum, right?

Thankfully the simulations I’ve run shows that I can use solid iron pellets for shells with the railgun. Far cheaper than using titanium, but both range and damage potential suffers badly. Especially if the specs are as high as I’ve simulated. Cause the shell will basically burn up in the air after being fired due to friction heating after about 2000 feet or so. Still wouldn’t want to be in the way of that super-heated gas cloud traveling faster than the speed of sound after that distance, but it won’t likely kill anything.

Maybe…

Heh. So, that’s what is next on the list. I already have the digger drone out there digging out the pit for it. All that’s left is fabrication.

Which is another waiting game. The pop-up ‘box’ the turret is mounted in is actually the easiest part to get out of the replicator. It’s basically just solid iron and aluminum with two flapping doors on top. The rest of the design is more complex.

The retractable stand is next, which will house the motors and servos along with a long piston to raise and lower the gun. Oh, and a battery. Kind of important there. Then the ammo box, which will store one hundred and twenty solid iron shells. Probably more like twenty to start, cause those will take a little while to replicate individually.

The gun is the most complex, but even it is fairly simple. At least in comparison to say, a laser. The only movable parts within the gun unit is the ammo loader. The rest of it is practically solid-state and welded together. It is also air cooled.

I really would have used liquid cooling, but I don’t have any easy access to water or other coolants right now. As it stands the air cooling would let the railgun fire only four times in a minute. Pretty decent, but basically a sniper rifle instead of an automatic rifle. Ugh.

Liquid cooling would let me fire the thing upwards to sixteen times a minute. A huge improvement. Trying that without water though would turn it into slag. Which I’d promptly have to re-smelt and pray that anyone coming at me at that point gives me enough time to build a new one. Totally doubt it.

Okay, the last bits are the fiddly stuff. The control unit and the power and control lines to the turret. All stuff that’ll need to be buried to keep it out of sight. Oh, and making the shells. More repetitive and boring crap there.

While waiting for the turret to come out, I turn my thoughts to my new home. It’s a lovely cave, for sure. But it is small, and annoying close to the surface. I’m definitely going to need a lot more space here soon.

I also need a lot more resources. I’m starting to run low on several things now. I really need to find a good deposit of ores nearby. Actually, I haven’t really looked since I moved in, so I might as well do that now.

Turning up the power to the sensor array is a blast, by the way. At higher levels than what I’ve been using I can see the hairs on the legs of a bloody flea. If there was a flea around, anyway. But you get the idea.

It really is a trip though. At just 25 percent power, my range has bloomed to almost five miles in radius. I’m not actually using it that far though. Instead, I’ve turned to geomagnetic imaging and high-powered radar in order to look down and into the mountain I’m hiding within.

What is shows is a lot of rock. Rock, rock. Oh, more rock. An interesting crevasse there, I’ll have to keep that in mind if I dig toward the east. Oh, finally!

Copper ore. Iron ore. Tin. A smattering of diamonds at the heart of the mountain. Looks like it used to be a volcano. Maybe I can make it my secret lair~ Heh.

Got gems and other such things too. Deeper down is gold and titanium. Lead too. Well, not really titanium. It’s ilmenite. An ore, but basically the same thing. In fact, I’m not even going to bother naming all the ores and stuff. I know what they are, but my nano furnace just doesn’t care. All it cares about is what it can extract from it.

In fact I’ve already started throwing those rock cubes one by one into my furnace while building stuff. That’s given me some carbon and iron and silicon and other trace minerals. Not very much, but hey it’s efficient. I could use it to eat through the whole planet if i wanted, even though it’d take a couple billion years to get through all that mass.

That’s another thing on my to-do list, shit. Building an external, and bigger furnace, that is. I could up the productivity by producing more nanites, but I don’t have enough materials to do so right now. Which is annoying. Each nanite is very small, microscopic in fact, but each one still takes a specific amount of materials to build. And building billions of them can be very expensive.

Bah. That wasn’t something I had to worry about as an Engineer before. Oh, how I miss Earth right now. If nothing else I didn’t have to worry about resources or money for projects while working at Research and Exploration. The AI Pod project was the longest and most difficult assignment I’d been a part of, but before that I built a whole bunch of things.

Parts for ships, parts for colonies. Sensor arrays, robots. Industrial scale replicators. Power systems of all sorts. Mainly plasma or fusion. Ahh, good days. Building things is really exciting for me.

Still, the one good thing is that I don’t have a boss. Haha. No one to tell me what to do, or when to do it. I just have to survive here long enough to get into my own projects. That’d be nice.

Okay, enough time going down memory lane. I got a gun to build and some defenses to set up. Then an external Drone Dome to build. And no, I did not choose the name for myself, damnit.

But with that oddly named piece of machinery, I’ll be able to control six additional drones. Which will really get things boogying around here. Just not all at once. Still have to balance the drones with my power supplies. And solar panels aren’t going to cut it after night falls.

I really need to find a source of fuel.