Chapter 36 – Changing Weather

Mk23 -IRJ Droplet – Class 7 – Carpe Victoria (Wrecked)

Sector - Unknown

Planet - Unknown

12th November 2342 (BSST)

It’s been another four months stranded here. At first, I was planning on updating the log every month or so, but what more can I say?

“Yep, still alive. See you next week?” Bah, I’ve never been one to waste words and that seems mightily pointless to me.

So, why am I updating you right now?

Well, I’m a little injured right now. Noting major just a slight sprain. How I hear no one ask?

Well, little old me thought I was agile and skilled enough to vault a fallen tree and land on a slippery slope without any consequences. If I’d been in the suit, then it would have been fine, but I’ve been trying to use it less and less. The suit is a powerful tool designed to have almost constant maintenance and repairs. It’s been a year and a half r so and its had no spick and span polishing or diagnostics. Heck it hasn’t even had a good clean since I arrived. I’m trying to preserve It’s use for when I really need it.

What else?

Well, it’s been a bit of time now, so an update is probably in order no? Just after the last update I was moping around for a bit, discovering the camp was quite a blow to me apparently. The excitement of discovering another human settlement had been so high that the massive low that followed put me away for a time. When I managed to crawl from the slums to start work again I focused on building up the cam again. I’ve now got metal versions of most of the tools and enough raw metal to help repair the suit if need be. Yay!

The only other major change has been with the weather, at the last log it was clear that the planet was slowly warming up again. The snow had already begun to melt creating muddy patched and slippery slopes. Well as the planet heats up the weather has gotten less and less friendly.

First there was the horrible heat, then a rather temperate pleasant temperature spoiled only by the bugs and creatures that striped the life off the trees ready for the cold, cold winter to set in. And set in it did freezing everything. Now I guess it’d be spring, a rainy spring.

During that first month after the last update the world sat still for a few beautiful moments. In my depression it seemed to present the life to me, beautiful flowers bloomed, a gift from the world perhaps. Birdsong filled the air and the sweet smell of nectar and greenery wafted through the camp alleviating the industrial smell my camp had seemed to acquire.

This blooming life however was tamped down by the rains that followed it. The calm before the storm as it were.

Once the eye had passed me by however it had gotten worse, a lot worse. Rain tipped down by the bucketful from dawn till dusk, never stopping. The only change to the monotonous drumming of the rain on my roof was the ultra-hard slamming when the rainfall increased.

The streams and rivers, already bulging from the meltwater burst their banks soaking the floor in water that never seemed to end. The sloping ground turned into either waterfalls or waterslides that seemed determined to sweep me down towards the beaches. Beaches that were getting pummelled by the constant water flow.

I had ventured down one morning as the light filtered through the pouring rain to see the shore. Well what remained of the shore. The sand had been so washed out that the crashing waves seemed to carry enough water that the shoreline looked like an emulsion, no boundary between land and sea, just an ever-wetter sand that slowly, almost imperceptibly turned to a sea. In the forests the trees marked out secure points though the flowing water that turned the leaves into islands and safe havens for the ants and bugs ran around and through the anchored soil slowly leaching it away.

Once the rains had gotten underway the winds followed suit, battering and blowing away all that wasn’t secured. Seemingly gale force winds assaulted my little shack with unabating fury, howling at me, screaming its fury at me.

As, the rain lashed away like a whip taking out chunks of the walls instead of chucks of my flesh the wind tore through the camp ripping away supplies and scattering my hard-fought progress all over the place. My time was spent recovering my items and bringing them within the walls each morning to try and keep my progress, the already small camp felt much too small now that my logs, ropes, charcoal, and materials were all crowding me in.

On those few quiet moments when I examined the walls I felt the danger starting to encroach on me. it was a full-time job repairing the walls for the nights attack. I felt like the castellan of a medieval castle under siege, repelling wave after wave of soldiers and just hoping to endure.

If it continued much longer I would perhaps have no shack in which to brave the elements. Then where would I be. As if the wind and rain wasn’t enough the gods seemed to throw down their spite as well as the thunderstorms kicked off. Lightning lit up the sky throughout the day and night in a never ceasing bombardment whilst the rolling thunder provided the background track. It was the perfect setting for a story, a story beginning:

“On a dark and stormy night…”

It had never been more apt than right now, but unlike in the stories this never seemed to slack, not lessening even the slightest.

The ground was now treacherous to move on at all times, I was liable to slip over even in the suit, and slip I did, constantly. Falling over time and time again as I was trying to at least get something done. The monjolo had broken from the surge of water and so too had the water purification. Luckily, I wouldn’t be needing it as the falling rain was enough for all my uses.

The forge had filled with water, and when it was overflowing it could have been a - rather crude - water feature.

The furnaces had collapsed long ago, and I’d have to rebuild and re-fire them when the summer came around again.

Like the coming of spring on earth animals seemed to be turning up despite the horrific weather. There were more birds and flighty life than I’d seen yet, they had flown from somewhere else. Probably migratory, I wondered where they had come from. What other lands might exist, what peoples might inhabit them, though from what I could see they were across an ocean that I’d not spotted any land masses in.

Since sitting in the hut listening to the drumming rain was quite boring, I headed down to the beach more and more often as the weeks passed. As I sat watching the water I noticed more and more life, seal like creatures had pulled themselves out of the water on a small outcropping rock, it looked jagged and rough enough to be seriously painful but each to their own I guess. Whilst observing them I saw them catch a whole variety of fish for meals, the water had to be teeming with them. The advanced eyesight I had made nature watching a pleasure instead of a boring activity.

At one point I had spotted a fin cutting through the water, the sounds and frantic scrambling of the seals had caught my eye and as I scanned the water looking for what had upset them I saw the fin cutting through the water. I made a mental note to avoid the sea for the time being. I thought it a valid idea. Humans are primarily land creatures and so the idea of fighting in the water gave me shivers. With nothing to push off against humans are relatively helpless and water was a prime example of that. Slow moving, helpless thrashing bodies ready for the picking of a top tier predator like that.

As I was reminiscing over the various creatures a slash of lighting lit up the darkening sky and the rolling thunderous roar hid the snarling shriek deep within its depths.