The Store is Open - Edited 11-8-2018

Before leaving my quarters, I had purchased a set of the following. Axel Grease, Grain alcohol, potato starch, and (my personal favorite) white phosphorus. The phosphorus and axel grease were the most expensive at a combined 10 EXP. I had also grabbed a ceramic ball, some springs, and a sheet of low-grade aluminum, all totaling the remainder of the 20 EXP. The bright side? There appeared to be enough grease, starch, and alcohol for more than one assembly, but only one of everything else.

Once in the science lab, I was able to get a vacuum chamber to assemble my “detonator” which consisted of placing the phosphorus into the ceramic ball, then sealing it by mixing some potato starch with the alcohol and then dehydrate it out. It was a fragile seal, but it would work. I then had to run over to engineering to create a cylinder to store my mixture with. My prototype looked like a can of soda. Inside was a spring tension switch holding the ceramic ball together inside of a slurry of grease, alcohol, and starch. A poor man’s napalm. And best of all, this only took a total of 45 minutes to complete. Most of that time was waiting on results from scanning the slush to ensure it would combust and stick before calling it complete. Now I knew the exact measurements needed, and I could build an incendiary napalm grenade in under three minutes.

Now I just needed to find a place to record the results of the experiment that wouldn’t hurt the ship. Using the terminal in the lab, Yama directed me towards a cargo hold that was empty except for an oversized container. It was perfect for my needs, and I wondered for a minute about how there was a full cargo hold that was empty and perfect for my needs. Then I remembered that this was a game, so this was probably explicitly generated for my needs.

“Yama full recording options. We want to ensure that we have thermal as well as basic visual records of this.” I ordered hoping that this would work.

“Recording when you are ready, Crewman.” Yama’s rasping voice came through my helmet. I sealed up.

“Full spectrum so we can also record the off gasses. I want to make sure that everything is recorded so we can market all of this properly.” I opened the container, ensuring it was empty, grabbed the cylinder and threw it into the back bulkhead.

Though I was prepared, I was not quite ready for what happened next. A flash was expected, but the fireball from the phosphorus igniting the vaporized alcohol was the surprise. It was only about 2 feet in diameter, so it wasn’t an “oh shit” moment, more of a “nice bonus” moment. The fireball resulted in all the goop igniting almost immediately, instead of expanding first then igniting as the original design was for. The heat was just over 450K, hotter than the standard ship suit would protect against. Success.

The gasses that came from the smoldering grease were toxic, but well within the tolerance of the ships purification systems, which also meant that if there were an accident, the DC teams wouldn’t need specialized gear on top of their standard kit.

The temperature then started to climb. It was gradual at first, then within ten seconds, it was over 1500K, almost 1600K and still rising. The cargo container then started to melt. I grabbed a cargo strap and tied myself down.

“Vent it,” I commanded. The air was immediately sucked out of the room, the force of the vacuum threatening to pull me off my feet. The fire went out. After a few seconds, the floor of the hold under the cargo container then opened, and then it fell into the oversized airlock which was already open on the other side, allowing for the deformed metal shell to be sucked out with the air.

Afterward, I returned to my quarters to review the data and check my messages at my terminal. Pressing the button on my terminal, I received an unexpected notice.

Crafting Experience Gained

Prototyping successfully created

Exp Rewards

65

Other Rewards

Schematics for phosphorescent napalm grenade

Data on phosphorescent napalm

Explosives and Demolitions Crafting Unlocked

I now knew how to create timed, remote detonated, proximity, and pressure mines as well as claymores and several different types of grenades.

Title Unlocked

Demolitions Expert

Title Cost

1500 EXP

Title Rewards

Explosives created grant an additional 5% EXP

Explosives created have an increased 1% radius

Explosives mods now available to unlock

15% increase in the chance of learning schematics from disabled explosives

I wasn’t going to be able to buy the title yet, but that was something I would want to look at in the future. We already knew there are aliens. If I was able to disassemble one of their bombs or missiles, we could understand how they were built and learn how to protect against them. That would be big.

I opened the store and looked at the cost for the pieces to make a claymore. 45 EXP. Thinking about the parts I immediately knew how to improve on the design. Making it more compact with a UV tether I could make the claymores pack even more of a punch and at the same time increase the explosive force and tighten the cone of damage all while making it more difficult to locate. I looked at the cost for these upgrades. 80EXP. I couldn’t afford that, yet.

I checked my messages and found a request for proof of concept on the new grenades. As I was about to reply, another notice came in asking for the same. Then a third, this one from someone I hadn’t sent an initial message to. It looks like improved explosives were something that had been discussed amongst the fire teams for a few days, so my advertising came at just the right time. I set up a rule with Yama’s help that would automatically reply to the requests for the incendiary… scratch that, the phosphorescent napalm grenades data. The reply contained the holovid with full spectrum analysis and a graph of the temperature increase of the goop. I ordered pieces for another eight grenades. That would cost me the last of my EXP gains for the day as well as tap out the last of the resources that I had bought. This time, my first stop was the fabricators in Engineering, then off to the labs to start building.

With the last three, each grenade now was taking me under two minutes each to assemble. That was about as fast as I could make it happen. Twenty-five minutes total to build these eight grenades. I checked the terminal to see if there were any requests for items, yet. The store was selling phosphorus grenades at 150 EXP each, and a standard incendiary grenade for 100 EXP. Napalm grenades weren’t even listed. I had decided that I would sell each of my new grenades for 50 EXP. It was a huge markup, but my idea needed massive infusions of EXP to work.

An hour later I had met up with some old friends, shared a beer, and was now 400 EXP richer with orders for another 20 as soon as I could build them. An hour and a half later, I had decided to stop making the napalm. I had completed the order for the 20 and sold the last seven that I had made on top of that. I had been making the items in batches of nine, which had run a total of 210 EXP for all the pieces. This turned into 1540 EXP at the end of my first day in the game. Upon entering my quarters for the end of the day, I checked my messages to ensure that I hadn’t missed any new orders that had come through during my trips to engineering and the labs.

Additional Levels Unlocked

You have gathered enough experience to advance to level 5.

I had ignored the level two and three alerts from earlier in the day so I could go directly to the store. I did the same again. I bought a hand-held terminal for 250 EXP so that I wouldn’t have to check in at my quarters or in the labs to get messages. I then purchased the drafting program I had seen earlier and installed it onto both my handheld as well as my personal terminal in my quarters. Then I noticed that the store charged me for both installations. Great, I just blew a week worth of daily EXP. I then ordered the plasteel I would need for the next phase of my plan.

I then decided to look a bit more at the upgrades for my quarters. My quarters were utilitarian. Rack, desk with the built-in terminal, food dispenser, a monitor that mimicked the outside view, puka, and head. The upgrades could increase the overall size of my quarters, for 5,000 EXP, add a shower to the head for 300 EXP, increase the size of my rack 200 EXP, change my footlocker to an attached wardrobe 100 EXP, add an additional footlocker 100 EXP, add another built-in closet 150 EXP, and even add other rooms for a variety of prices. Some of the compartments would save me time by making it, so I didn’t have to go to the engineering bays, science labs, mess hall, armory, and even the target ranges. Adding a room for weapon engineering would be 2700 EXP. Adding a closet with a weapon bench, on the other hand, would be 2200 EXP. Piecemeal room building seemed to be the way to go. I decided to set up the 100-cred meal plan and added a shower to my head without making any other changes to my quarters.

I decided to hit my rack for some shut-eye. I was starting to get a headache. As I laid there trying to sleep my mind was suddenly assaulted by a torrent of images. The pain had started as a small pressure at the base of my skull and my temples but now felt like my head was being crushed in a vice that was super-heated and covered in long spikes coated in chainsaw blades. Before I could even scream out in pain, it was over. I was covered in sweat, and could only let out a whimper before collapsing, unconscious.

The following morning, I woke up hung over. Not actually hung over but feeling like I spent a night celebrating too much and not sleeping enough. I noticed a puddle of blood-filled vomit on the floor next to my rack. I grabbed my morning meal and immediately felt better. I checked for the daily briefing.

TO: Crew of ARK-5

REPLY TO ATTN: Sol Fleet Carrier Group

SUBJECT: Daily Briefing Day 50

A habitable planet is within the range of additional sensors. All technical staff will be required to review data as it comes in. Overlord protocols will be in effect. Yellow Alert still in effect. Alien ship escort patterns have changed in the last 6 hours. Unknown reasons. There is still no communication. Patrols advised full awareness and constant vigilance.

Ship suit with fatigues is Uniform of the Day. Helmets required on. Face Masks optional under Neuro response safeties.

Weapons development teams are advised. You now have additional, successful, competition.

Looks like I was getting famous. I then checked my individual orders.

TO: Crewman Jax

REPLY TO ATTN: Yama

SUBJECT: Daily orders day 50

Report to medical, engineering, and science for follow up examinations. After, please report back to quarters to check for additional orders.

Well, looks like my morning was scheduled for me, again. But I was planning on heading to medical to begin, anyway.

The difference between this morning and yesterday was that the doctor in medical told me I looked like shit, then pulled samples. Of course, then she had me step into the chamber. After I got out, she then injected me with something that burned in my veins for a few seconds and told me to check back tomorrow. The science lab was similarly cold, but nothing different happened from yesterday.

By the time I made it to Engineering, my hangover was gone. The techs in Engineering tried to grill me on the structure, and I offered to sell them licensing for the Neural, which they wouldn’t buy because there was no knowledge of what most of the webbing did. They then called in Lt. Schneider so we could discuss what we were looking at. After about 15 minutes I noticed something.

“Hey, LT? Can you bring up a side by side with yesterday’s scan?”

“You see something? Never mind, I think I see what you do.” He replied, configuring a side by side.

“How much do you think they grew?” I asked. The area around the temples is what had caught my eye. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the change if I hadn’t had the pain last night before bunking down.

“Maybe a dozen microns? It’s difficult to say for sure by eyeballing it.” He typed up a few things on his terminal. “Okay, seven microns. Well, I estimated high. Let’s just say I was estimating both sides.”

“Look down here,” I said, drawing his attention to the area by my neural jack. The webbing there was still about the same length, but it was about twice as dense. “Can you do an overlay with the two? Let’s keep today's scan a ‘white’ while rendering yesterdays in black.”

The lieutenant then merged the two images. There were hundreds of new threads.

“That explains my migraine,” I muttered to myself.

More tests then followed, and I was dismissed. I walked to one of the fabrication stations and inserted my plasteel block. I then brought out my handheld terminal and started to design two separate stocks for my Taishi Ci. About 45 minutes later, my brick was cut up, and I had two different stocks to work with. There was a lot of material left over. I then planned and built a weapons maintenance kit for my battle rifle. It had everything I needed except for the gun oil.

I returned to my quarters and was given the completion rewards for my daily orders, and for building three item prototypes. 175 EXP richer I looked in the store and bought the gun oil. I also purchased a weapons mat and some rags and started to disassemble my rifle. Thoroughly cleaned and with a new bump stock installed I bought 30 rounds and made my way to the gunnery range so I could test the new stock.

Approaching the hatch to “Marine Country” I realized that I was not considered one of them at this time. Yea, I had been through Marine boot camp outside, before the mission, and I had done a full tour. But since I was accepted for the expedition, I transferred to the Navy. As such, the game had me birthed with the Navy, on fore portion of the ship. Stopping at the hatch, I made sure that my uniform was unwrinkled, and my gig line was straight. I then knocked on the hatch before opening it and announced myself.

“Crewman Jax, requesting permission to use the gunnery range,” I said smartly.

“Shit, Jax? When the hell did you get plugged in? A couple of days before we were plugged in, we heard you got blown the fuck up.” The voice was familiar. The helmet popped open to reveal my old fireteam lead.

“Mother fucker! Janssens?” Well, I knew at least if it’s up to him I’ll be able to head to the range whenever I needed. “Shit, man, I was ready to deal with some greenhorn. I’m hoping to use the range so I can test out a new stock I made. Permission to pass?”

“Make any spares? You can pass either way, but since you blew up, we haven’t had any engineers worth a shit. Wait, are those new grenades your doing?” He was sporting a shit eating grin now. I could tell he was thinking of all the new toys I could help him with.

“Not just that, but I also built a Taishi Ci maintenance kit, and am selling them for half the cost of what you can buy in the EXP store. I also have some ideas for smoke, flashbang, frag, and standard incendiary grenades. Soon I may even prototype a claymore.” Watching the greed in his eyes, I couldn’t help but break into a grin myself.

Janssens face mask closed briefly.

“Show me,” Janssens responded when his facemask opened a few seconds later. He must have radioed to one of his squaddies as another rifleman approached the hatch.

“Sergeant, Corporal Lebowski was in the middle of stripping his weapon, so we swapped.” The new rifleman reported.

“No worries, private,” Janssens said. He then nodded for me to follow him.

The walk was quick. Less than three minutes later we were in the gunnery range. Janssens checked out a loaded magazine from the Master at Arms, the only Navy person assigned behind the semi-imaginary line that separated the Marines from everyone else on board.

Janssens loaded his Taishi Ci and fired single fire, burst fire, and then full auto down range before I passed him my battle rifle. He charged my rifle, then shot down range again, repeating single fire, burst fire, and then full auto again.

“Shit, your design takes out a whole lot of the kick.” Janssens was genuinely surprised as he handed me my rifle back. I grinned, loaded a fresh clip then fired down range, single fire and a couple of bursts.

“Damn, I didn’t think it would be that nice. All I gotta do is put some more padding on the stock, and this will be ready to go.” I was pleased. “Wanna see something else great? This one’s on me.” I grabbed the spare stock from my utility belt as well as my tools, then motioned to his battle rifle.

A few other Marines had come to the range for their daily target practice and noticed the kit and stocks. I had an audience.

“This stock is good for single and burst fire only. You should notice a considerable stability increase beyond the stock I have on mine, but if you go full auto, it won’t be anywhere near what I have.”

Janssens grabbed his rifle, then grabbed another magazine from MA. He then approached the fire line and sent three bursts down range, all rounds in each burst hit within a ¼ inch from each other.

“Well, hot damn! I’ll be keeping this!” Janssens was ecstatic. Suddenly the crowd all started to shout their requests for pricing at me.

“Hold up, everyone, hold up!” Janssens shouted. The crowd quieted down. He then motioned to me.

“For those of you who don’t know me, the name is Crewman Jax. As you have seen, thanks to Sgt. Janssens, I make rifle mods. As some of you have also heard, I also make grenades. The stocks for the BRs are good only for the Taishi Ci’s. Costs are 25 EXP per stock, 50 EXP for a phosphorescent napalm grenade. Realize the grenades are single-use consumable items. I am also selling Taishi Ci specific weapons maintenance kits for 125 EXP. Most of that cost is due to gun oil. I plan on having additional maintenance kits made in the future.” I then gave them my contact ID and left the gun range. Janssens walked me to the hatch leading to the fore of the ship.

“Thanks. Let me know when you have other bits for me.” Janssens said with a wicked grin.

I took his offered his hand.

“Will do. I’m going to work on a lighter more durable case next, for the rifles, but I really am looking forward to some ideas on a lighter weight body armor, then possible sights.”

Within a minute of having left Marine Country, I already had over a dozen orders. By the time I made it to my quarters, there were over fifty.

I activated the console in my room. This was good. Some of these requests were for stocks and maintenance kits. 60 kit requests so far, 38 stock requests. Twelve more grenade requests. Time to get to work.

I first build out the grenades; then I built out the stocks. I had to portion out the weapons kits as I didn’t have enough EXP to buy the oil for them all at the same time. At the end of the day, on the other hand, I was up of 6300 EXP with all orders sold and delivered. I splurged and bought a room and geared it up as a weapons engineering room. Now I wouldn’t have to keep running back to the tech area to prototype out my designs.

I felt another stab of pain in my temple, this time it wasn’t debilitating. This time I could see images for armor designs, probably the same from last night that had flooded my mind. I opened the EXP shop and did some calculations.

A carbon fiber weave would be 800 EXP for enough to make a ship suit. Kevlar coating the design would be another 250 EXP. A rubberized spray to keep out radiation would be 50 EXP. A computerized cooling and circulation unit was 200 EXP. Magnetic attachment points like the utility belts had on them were 10 EXP each. Silicon covered wiring with connection points for each hand, the boots, and the helmet would total 150 EXP. A vacuum sealed gel liner for automatic puncture sealing would run another 200 EXP. An oxygen scrubber was fortunately only 80 EXP, and the compressed air was 40 EXP. Lastly, I needed to build a helmet that would work with the new armor, from a style point of view.

I started with a liner containing the same combination of materials from the armor. Due to the size needed, the cost was roughly 1/10th of the body. I then looked over the colored glass plates with a built-in screen. I chose a red one for 100 EXP. A paper-thin lead sheet was 2 EXP. Tungsten coated ceramic plated were next at 275 EXP. Then a comms suite for 500 EXP. Lastly, I chose an Mk-I scanner package for 1000 EXP.

Using the scanner that was part of my engineering kit, I took a full body scan to get my dimensions and fed them into my drafting program. I then spent the next 3 hours getting everything in place and ensuring that all the measurements were correct. I then hit the “buy” button, and all the materials were delivered to my quarters. I immediately placed them in the fabricator and ran my assembly program. The helmet for the suit was queued up while the suit itself was being stitched together. An hour later it was complete, and I tried it on. The suit fit like a second skin. Waiting for the helmet to complete, I snapped it into place. I knew that with the headgear equipped the that this would be a serious piece of tech. I scanned it with my toolkit and looked at the specs.

Duty Uniform MK-II

Custom Built by Danni Jax

Vacuum Protection

Full

Armor

None

Additional Air

180:00:00

Resistances

Ballistic

5,000

Blunt

800

Stabbing

250

Slashing

250

Energy

500

Concussive

Immune when sealed

Heat

500K

Cold

125K

Toxic

100% Sealed

Radiation

1,100 SV/hr.

I’d lost some of my cold resistance, but the rest was one hell of an upgrade. I stripped off the ship suit and took a nice long shower. The new ship suit looked like it was knitted from a very finely threaded nylon cable, matching my preferred color scheme of black and red. The gloves had an input array that could be used to connect to some of the more advanced targeting systems available in the EXP Store.

The helmet was black with a small antenna protruding from the back-right side, by the ear. The bump from additional electronics barely noticeable. Above the faceplate was a series of tiny lenses used for monitoring different EM bandwidths, as well as a standard camera for recording images. Instead of a solid red tinted glass faceplate, there were four “eyes.” Each eye contained two concentric circles that lit up in a menacing red glow over a matte black shell.

There was no white from highlights on either the suit or the helmet.

Before going to bed, I checked my console for new orders.

Crafting Experience Gained

Prototyping successfully created

Exp Rewards

250

Other Rewards

Schematics for Ship Suit MK-II

Schematics for Recon Helmet MK-VI

I decided to spend some of my EXP and bought a Warrant Officers rank for 4000 EXP.

Name:

Jax,

Danni

Rank:

WO-1

Titles Available

Crewman; Engineer; Host

Equipped:

Crewman

Experience

91

To Next Level

1500

Rate:

Engineer

Modifications

Sindri Foundries Left Arm; Hephaestus Industries Right Leg

Enhancements

Advanced Neural Weave (Prototype)

Skillsets

Engineering; Rifleman; Sentry; Hidden; Hidden; Hidden; Hidden

Specialization

None

Strength

14 (11)

Stamina

12

Health

11

Agility

12 (8)

Manual Dexterity

13 (17)

Intelligence

15

Concentration

11

Learning

18

Equipment:

Duty Uniform MK-II; Recon Helm MK-VI; Engineering Kit MK-I; Utility Belt;

Tasihi Ci Battle Rifle (Modified); Magazine 1; Rounds 30/30

More messages were waiting in my queue. People wanted to know what weapon mods I had available. I guess us potentially hitting a new planet tomorrow was putting people on edge. I set up automatic response rules for this type of inquiry as well, then hit my rack.

The Store is Open - Original

Before leaving my quarters, I had purchased a set of the following. Axel Grease, Grain alcohol, potato starch and (my personal favorite) white phosphorus. The phosphorus and axel grease were the most expensive at a combined 10 EXP. I had also grabbed a ceramic ball, some springs, and a sheet of low grade aluminum, all totaling the remainder of the 20 EXP. The bright side? There appeared to be enough grease, starch, and alcohol for more than one assembly, but only one of everything else.

Once in the science lab, I was able to get a vacuum chamber to assemble my “detonator” which consisted of placing the phosphorus into the ceramic ball, then sealing it by mixing some potato starch with the alcohol, and then dehydrate it out. It was a fragile seal, but it would work. I then had to run over to engineering to create a cylinder to store my mixture with. My prototype looked like a can of soda. Inside was a spring tension switch holding the ceramic ball together inside of a mixture of grease, alcohol, and starch. A poor man’s napalm. And best of all, this only took a total of 45 minutes to complete. Most of that time was waiting on results from scanning the slush to ensure it would combust and stick before calling it complete. Now I knew the exact measurements needed and I could build an incendiary napalm grenade in under three minutes.

Now I just needed to find a place to record the results of the experiment that wouldn’t hurt the ship. Using the terminal in the lab, Yama directed me towards a cargo hold that was empty except for an oversized container. It was perfect for my needs, and I wondered for a minute about how there was a full cargo hold that was empty and perfect for my needs. Then I remembered I was in a game, so this was probably generated specifically for my needs.

“Yama full recording options. We want to ensure that we have thermal as well as standard visual records of this.” I ordered hoping that this would work.

“Recording when you are ready, Crewman.” Yama’s rasping voice came through my helmet. I sealed up.

“Full spectrum so we can also record the off gasses. I want to make sure that everything is recorded so we can market all of this properly.” I opened the container, ensuring it was empty, grabbed the cylinder and threw it into the back bulkhead.

I was not ready for everything that happened. A flash was expected, but the fireball from the phosphorus igniting the evaporated alcohol was the surprise. It was only about 2 feet in diameter, so it wasn’t a “oh shit” moment, more of a “nice bonus” moment. The fireball resulted in all the goop igniting almost immediately, instead of expanding first then igniting as the original design was for. The heat was just over 450K, so hotter than the standard ship suit would protect against. Success. The gasses that came from the burning grease were toxic, but well within the tolerance of the ships purification systems, which also meant that if there was an accident, the DC teams wouldn’t need specialized gear on top of their standard kit.

The temperature then started to climb. It was gradual at first, then within ten seconds it was over 1500K, almost 1600K and still rising. The cargo container then started to melt. I grabbed a cargo strap and tied myself down.

“Vent it.” I commanded. The air was immediately sucked out of the room, the force of the vacuum threatening to pull me off my feet. The fire went out. After a few seconds, the floor of the hold under the cargo container then opened and the container fell into the oversized airlock which was already opened on the other side, allowing for the container to be sucked out with the air.

Afterwards I returned to my quarters to review the data and check my messages at my terminal. Pressing the button on my terminal I received an unexpected reward.

Crafting Experience Gained

Prototyping successfully created

Exp Rewards

65

Other Rewards

Schematics for phosphorescent napalm grenade

Data on phosphorescent napalm

Explosives and Demolitions Crafting Unlocked

In now knew how to create timed, remote detonated, proximity, and pressure mines as well as claymores and several different types of grenades.

Title Unlocked

Demolitions Expert

Title Cost

1500 EXP

Title Rewards

Explosives created grant an additional 5% EXP

Explosives created have an increased 1% radius

Explosives mods now available to unlock

15% increase in chance of learning schematics from disabled explosives

I wasn’t going to be able to buy the title yet, but that was something I would want to look at in the future. We already knew there are aliens. If I was able to disassemble one of their bombs or missiles, we could know how they were built and how to protect against them. That would be big.

I opened the store and looked at the cost for the pieces to make a claymore. 45 EXP. Thinking about the pieces I immediately knew how to improve on the design. Making it more compact with a UV tether I could make the claymores pack even more of a punch and at the same time increase the explosive force and tighten the cone of damage all while making it more difficult to locate. I looked at the cost for these upgrades. 80EXP. I couldn’t afford that, yet.

I checked my messages and found a request for proof of concept on the new grenades. As I was about to reply, another message came in asking for proof. Then a third, this one from someone I hadn’t sent an initial message to. It looks like improved explosives were something that had been discussed amongst the fire teams for a few days, so my message came at just the right time. I set up a rule with Yamas help that would automatically reply to the requests for the incendiary… scratch that, the phosphorescent napalm grenades data. The reply contained the holovid with full spectrum analysis, and a graph of the temperature increase of the goop. I ordered pieces for another eight grenades. That would cost me the last of my EXP gains for the day as well as tap out the last of the resources that I had bought. This time, my first stop was the fabricators in Engineering, then off to the labs to start building.

With the last three, each grenade now was taking me under two minutes each to assemble. That was about as fast as I could make it happen. Twenty-five minutes total to build these eight grenades. I checked the terminal to see if there were any requests for items, yet. The store was selling phosphorus grenades at 150 EXP each, and basic incendiary grenades for 100 EXP. Napalm grenades weren’t even listed. I had decided that I would sell each of the grenades for 50 EXP. It was a huge markup, but my plan needed a large infusion of EXP to work.

An hour later I had met up with some old friends, shared a beer, and was now 400 EXP richer with orders for another 20 as soon as I could build them. An hour and a half later, I had decided to stop building the napalm. I had completed the order for the 20 and sold the last seven that I had made on top of that. I had been making the items in batches of nine, which had run a total of 210 EXP for all the pieces. This turned into 1540 EXP at the end of my first day in game. Upon entering my quarters for the end of the day, I checked my messages to ensure that I hadn’t missed any new orders that had come through during my trips to engineering and the labs.

Additional Levels Unlocked

You have gathered enough experience to advance to level 5.

I had ignored the level two and three alerts from earlier in the day, so I could go directly to the store. I did the same again. I bought a hand-held terminal for 250 EXP so that I wouldn’t have to check in at my quarters or in the labs to get messages. I then bought the drafting program I had seen earlier and installed it onto both my handheld as well as my personal terminal in my quarters. Then I noticed that the store charged me for both installations. Great, I just blew a week worth of daily EXP. I then ordered the plasteel I would need for the next phase of my plan.

I then decided to look a bit more at the upgrades for my quarters. My quarters were utilitarian. Rack, desk with built-in terminal, food dispenser, a monitor that mimicked the outside view, puka, and head. The upgrades could increase the overall size of my quarters, for 5,000 EXP, add a shower to the head for 300 EXP, increase the size of my rack 200 EXP, change my puka to a guckle 100 EXP, add an additional puka 100 EXP, add a guckle 150 EXP, and even add additional rooms for a variety of prices. Some of the rooms would save me time by making it so I didn’t have to go to the engineering tech bays, science labs, mess hall, armory, and even target ranges. Adding a room for weapons engineering would be 2700 EXP. Adding a closet with a weapons bench, on the other hand would be 2200 EXP. Piece meal room building seemed to be the way to go. I decided to set up the 100-cred meal plan and added a shower to my head without making any other changes to my quarters.

I decided to hit my rack for some shut eye. I was starting to get a headache. As I laid there trying to sleep my mind was suddenly assaulted by a torrent of images. The headache, for a small pressure at the base of my skull and my temples, now felt like my skull was being crushed in a vice that was super-heated and covered in long spikes coated in chainsaw blades. Before I could even scream out in pain, it was over. I was covered in sweat, and could only let out a whimper before collapsing, unconscious.

The following morning, I woke up hung over. Not actually hung over but feeling like I spent a night celebrating too much and not sleeping enough. I noticed a puddle of blood filled vomit on floor next to my rack. I grabbed my morning meal and immediately felt better. I checked for the daily briefing.

TO: Crew of ARK-5

REPLY TO ATTN OF: Sol Fleet Carrier Group

SUBJECT: Daily Briefing Day 50

Habitable planet is in range of additional sensors. All technical staff will be required to review data as it comes in. Overlord protocols will be in effect. Yellow Alert still in effect. Alien ship escort patterns have changed in the last 6 hours. Unknown reasons. Still no communication. Patrols advised full awareness and constant vigilance.

Ship suits with fatigues is Uniform of the Day. Helmets required on. Face Masks optional under Neuro response safeties.

Weapons development teams be advised. You now have additional, successful, competition.

Looks like I was getting famous. I then checked my individual orders.

TO: Crewman Jax

REPLY TO ATTN OF: Yama

SUBJECT: Daily orders day 50

Report to medical, engineering, and science for follow up examinations. After, please report back to quarters to check for additional orders.

Well, looks like my morning was scheduled for me, again. But I was planning on heading to medical to begin, anyway.

The difference between this morning and yesterday was that the doctor in medical told me I looked like shit, then pulled samples. And had me step into the chamber. After I got out, she then injected me with something that burned in my veins for a few seconds and told me to check back tomorrow. The science lab was similarly cold, and nothing different happened from yesterday.

By the time I made it to Engineering, my hangover was gone. The techs in Engineering tried to grill me on the structure, and I offered to sell them licensing for the neural, which they wouldn’t buy because there was no knowledge of what most of the webbing did. They then called in Lt. Schneider, so we could discuss what we were looking at. After about 15 minutes I noticed something.

“Hey, LT? Can you bring up a side by side with yesterday’s scan?”

“You see something? Never mind, I think I see what you do.” He replied, configuring a side by side.

“How much do you think they grew?” I asked. The area around the temples is what had caught my eye. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the change if I hadn’t had the pain last night before bunking down.

“Maybe a dozen microns? It’s difficult to say for sure by eyeballing it.” He typed up a few things on his tablet. “Okay, seven microns. Well, I estimated high. Let’s just say I was estimating both sides.”

“Look down here.” I said, drawing his attention to the area by my neural jack. The webbing there was still about the same length, but it was about twice as dense. “Can you do an overlay with the two? Let’s keep todays scan a ‘white’ while keeping yesterdays ‘black’.”

The lieutenant then merged the two images. There were hundreds of new threads.

“That explains the migraine.” I muttered to myself.

More tests then followed, and I was dismissed. I walked to one of the fabrication stations and inserted my plasteel block. I then brought out my handheld terminal and started to design two separate stocks for my Taishi Ci. About 45 minutes later, my brick was cut up and I had two separate stocks to work with. There was a lot of material left over. I then planned and built a weapons maintenance kit for my battle rifle. It had everything I needed except for the gun oil.

I returned to my quarters and was given the completion rewards for my daily orders, and for building three item prototypes. 175 EXP richer I looked in the store and bought the gun oil. I also bought a weapons mat and some rags and started to disassemble my rifle. Fully cleaned and a new bump stock installed I bought 30 rounds and made my way to the gunnery range, so I could test the new stock.

Approaching the hatch to “Marine Country” I realized that I was not considered one of them at this time. Yea, I had been through boot camp outside, before the mission, and I had done a full tour. But the game had me birthed with the Navy, on fore portion of the ship. Stopping at the hatch, I made sure that my uniform was unwrinkled, and my gig line was straight. I then knocked on the hatch before opening it and announced myself.

“Crewman Jax, requesting permission to use the gunnery range.” I said smartly.

“Shit, Jax? When the hell did you get plugged in? A couple of days before we were plugged in, we heard you got blown the fuck up.” The voice was familiar. The helmet popped open to reveal my old fireteam lead.

“Mother fucking Janssens?” Well, I knew at least if it was up to him I’d be able to head to the range whenever I needed. “Shit, man, I was ready to deal with some green horn. I’m hoping to use the range, so I can test out a new stock I made. Permission to pass?”

“Make any spares? You can pass either way, but since you blew up we haven’t had any engineers worth a shit. Wait, were the new grenades your doing?” He was sporting a shit eating grin now. I could tell he was thinking of all the new toys I could help him with.

“Not just that, but I also have built a Taishi Ci maintenance kit, and am selling them for half the cost of what you can buy in the EXP store. I also have some ideas for smoke, flashbang, frag, and standard incendiary grenades. Soon I may even prototype a claymore.” Watching the greed in his eyes, I couldn’t help but break into a grin myself.

Janssens face mask closed briefly.

“Show me.” Janssens responded when his facemask opened a few seconds later. He must have radioed to one of his squaddies as another rifleman approached the hatch.

“Sergeant, Corporal Lebowski was in the middle of stripping his weapon, so we swapped.” The new rifleman reported.

“No worries, private.” Janssens said. He then nodded for me to follow him. The walk was quick. Less than three minutes later we were in the gunnery range. Janssens checked out a loaded magazine from the Master at Arms, the only Navy person assigned behind the semi-imaginary line that separated the Marines from everyone else on board.

Janssens loaded his Taishi Ci, and fired single fire, burst fire, and then full auto down range before I passed him my battle rifle. He loaded my rifle, then fired down range again, repeating single fire, burst fire, and then full auto again.

“Shit, your design takes out a whole lot of the kick.” Janssens was genuinely surprised as he handed me my rifle back. I grinned, loaded a fresh clip then fired down range, single fire and a couple of bursts.

“Damn, I didn’t think it would be that nice. All I gotta do is put some more padding on the stock and this will be ready to go.” I was pleased. “Wanna see something else great? This one’s on me.” I grabbed the spare stock from my utility belt as well as my tools, then motioned to his battle rifle.

A few other marines had come to the range for their daily target practice and noticed the kit and stocks. I had an audience.

“This stock is good for single and burst fire only. You should notice a considerable stability increase beyond the stock I have on mine, but if you go full auto, it won’t be anywhere near what I have.”

Janssens grabbed his rifle, then grabbed another magazine from MA. He then approached the fire line and sent three bursts down range, all rounds in each burst hit within a ¼ inch from each other.

“Well, hot damn! I’ll be keeping this!” Janssens was ecstatic. Suddenly the crowd all started to shout their requests for pricing at me.

“Hold up, everyone, hold up!” Janssens shouted. The crowd quieted down. He then motioned to me.

“Okay, everyone. My name is Crewman Jax. As you have seen, thanks to Sgt. Janssens, I make rifle mods. As some of you have also heard, I also make grenades. The stocks for the BRs are good only for the Taishi Ci’s. Costs are 25 EXP for a stock, 50 EXP for a phosphorescent napalm grenade. Realize the grenades are single use consumable items. I am also selling Taishi Ci specific weapons maintenance kits for 125 EXP. Most of that cost is due to gun oil. I plan on having additional maintenance kits made in the future.” I then gave them my contact ID and left the gun range. Janssens walked me to the hatch leading to the fore of the ship.

“Thanks. Let me know when you have other bits for me.” Janssens said with a wicked grin.

I took his offered his hand. “Will do. I’m going to work on a lighter more durable case next, for the rifles, but I really am looking forward to some ideas on a lighter weight body armor, then possible sights.”

Within a minute of having left Marine Country I already had over a dozen orders. By the time I made it to my quarters there were over fifty.

I activated the console in my room. This was good. Some of these requests were for stocks and maintenance kits. 60 kit requests so far, 38 stock requests. Twelve more grenade requests. Time to get to work. I first build out the grenades, then I built out the stocks. I had to portion out the weapons kits as I didn’t have enough EXP to buy the oil for them all at the same time. At the end of the day, on the other hand I was up of 6300 EXP with all orders sold and delivered. I splurged and bought a room and geared it up as a weapons engineering room. Now I wouldn’t have to keep running back to the tech area to prototype out my designs.

I felt another stab of pain in my temple, this time it wasn’t debilitating. This time I could see images of an armor design, probably the same from last night that had flooded my mind. I opened the EXP shop and did some calculations. A carbon fiber weave would be 800 EXP for enough to make a ship suit. Kevlar coating the weave would be another 250 EXP. A rubberized spray to keep out radiation would be 50 EXP. A computerized cooling and circulation unit was 200 EXP. Magnetic attachment points like the utility belts had on them were 10 EXP each. Silicon covered wiring with connection points for each hand, the boots, and the helmet would total 150 EXP. A vacuum sealed gel liner for automatic puncture sealing would run another 200 EXP. An oxygen scrubber was fortunately only 80 EXP, and the compressed air was 40 EXP. Lastly, I needed to build a helmet that would work with the new armor, from a style point of view.

I started with a liner containing the same combination of materials from the armor. Due to the size needed, the cost was roughly 1/10th of the body. I then looked over the tinted glass plates with a built-in screen. I chose a red one for 100 EXP. A paper-thin lead sheet was 2 EXP. Tungsten coated ceramic plated were next at 275 EXP. Then a comms suite for 500 EXP. Lastly, I chose a MK1 scanner package for 1000 EXP.

Using the scanner that was part of my engineering kit, I took a full body scan to get my dimensions and fed them into my drafting program. I then spent the next 3 hours getting everything in place and ensuring that all the measurements were correct. I then hit the “buy” button, and all the materials were delivered to my quarters. I immediately placed them in the fabricator and ran my assembly program. The helmet for the suit was queued up while the suit itself was being stitched together. An hour later it was complete, and I tried it on. The suit fit like a second skin. Waiting for the helmet to complete, I snapped it into place. I knew that with the helmet equipped the that this would be a serious piece of tech. I scanned it with my toolkit and looked at the specs.

Duty Uniform MK-II

Custom Built by Danni Jax

Vacuum Protection

Full

Armor

None

Additional Air

180:00:00

Resistances

Ballistic

5,000

Blunt

800

Stabbing

250

Slashing

250

Energy

500

Concussive

Immune when sealed

Heat

500K

Cold

125K

Toxic

100% Sealed

Radiation

1,100 SV/hr

I’d lose some of my cold resistance, but the rest was one hell of a win. I stripped off the ship suit and took a nice long shower. The new ship suit looked like it was knitted from a very fine threaded nylon cable, matching my preferred color scheme of black and red. The gloves had an input array that could be used to connect to some of the more advanced targeting systems available in the EXP Store.

The helmet was black with a small antenna protruding from the back-right side, by the ear. The bump from additional electronics barely noticeable. Above the faceplate was a series of tiny lenses used for monitoring different EM bandwidths, as well as a standard camera for recording images. Instead of a solid red tinted glass face plate, there were four “eyes”. Each eye contained two concentric circles that lit up in a menacing red glow over a matte black shell.

There was no white from highlights on either the suit or the helmet.

Before going to bed, I checked my console for new orders.

Crafting Experience Gained

Prototyping successfully created

Exp Rewards

250

Other Rewards

Schematics for Ship Suit MK-II

Schematics for Recon Helmet MK-VI

I decided to spend some of my EXP and bought a Warrant Officers rank for 4000 EXP.

Name:

Jax,

Danni

Rank:

WO-1

Titles Available

Crewman; Engineer; Host

Equipped:

Crewman

Experience

91

To Next Level

1500

Rate:

Engineer

Modifications

Sindri Foundries Left Arm; Haephestus Indrustries Right Leg

Enhancements

Advanced Neural Weave (Prototype)

Skillsets

Engineering; Rifleman; Sentry; Hidden; Hidden; Hidden; Hidden

Specialization

None

Strength

14 (11)

Stamina

12

Health

11

Agility

12 (8)

Manual Dexterity

13 (17)

Intelligence

15

Concentration

11

Learning

18

Equipment:

Duty Uniform MK-II; Revon Helm MK-VI; Engineering Kit MK-I; Utility Belt;

Tasihi Ci Battle Rifle (Modified); Magazine 1; Rounds 30/30

There were more messages waiting in my queue. People wanting to know what weapon mods I had available. I guess us potentially hitting a new planet tomorrow was putting people on edge. I set up automatic response rules for this type of inquiry as well, then hit my rack.