The morning alarm that Ridge had set was sounding off in spurts of irritating beeps. Finally, after what seemed like ages, he sat up, letting the blanket fall off him. He quickly stretched his neck to the right and then to the left, and finally, after another set of beeps went off, he sighed and pressed down on the stop button, shaking his head. He widened his eyes and stood up to do a full-body stretch to get the blood pumping. Then, after a few repetitions of the same exercise, he walked into what could only be called an improvised bathroom.
The toilet looked relatively standard; instead of the typical shower and sink that he was used to, there were wooden buckets and water from the ship to wash up. The water on the planet still needed to be tested and treated, so for now it would have to suffice before they got all the plumbing to run water for showers and bathrooms.
Once finished with his morning routine, he changed back into his uniform and left his room. He, of course, walked down the same hallway as always; however, this time he noticed that the lighting was relatively brighter. They must have fixed the wiring, he thought to himself. Entering the main mess hall. There was already a small crowd of people getting their breakfast.
Maneuvering his way through the tables and to the counter to get food, many of the soldiers saluted quickly and moved out of his way to allow him to go first. Naturally, he gave them a salute back and took advantage of their concessions, which allowed him to quickly grab his food. Some benefits you just don't turn down.
The food itself didn't really consist of much organic or real food; it was mainly nutritional blocks and dried-out meats, vegetables, oats, and things of that nature that were easy to transport when moving through space. Being isolated from most of civilization for a good amount of time didn't do any good for foods like vegetables that haven't been processed into cubes. Randomly choosing a seat, he sat down and got to work quickly. There wasn't any sort of flavor to savor, unfortunately.
Cleaning up after himself, he then returned to his room to grab his helmet as well as any other trinkets he needed. Walking to the exit, he swiftly went through the multi-layer entrance to get back to work. When he got outside, the sights were very similar but yet different from yesterday.
A couple of planned structures were obviously still being built, like the laboratory in the distance and a water treatment plant not far from the main building; however, the previous empty frames of said structures were beginning to fill in with metal platings and whatever other materials were used, giving the outpost as a whole a more colony-like feeling.
The roads had also been finished and compacted, which was immensely helpful to transportation, as the foliage and long-grown grass would no longer be a hindrance. The sight of which gave Ridge a nice feeling of progress, and reaffirmed to him that they weren't just gonna waste away here; they would actually thrive.
The shadow of the ship was still ever present, of course, and looking up, Ridge decided that it would be his first destination for today, so he began walking away from the entrance of the base and made his way towards the elevator. Once on it, he pressed a few buttons on his wrist panel and began to elevate. A lot of supplies had already been moved down, but he wanted to give it one more quick check.
Eventually, the elevator made it all the way to the top, and Ridge stepped off. Almost everyone had already disembarked from the ship, so although it was quieter than expected, it was nothing too surprising. Following the familiar hallways, he walked his way down to the storage rooms where there were a couple of people moving things. Likely towards the elevator once they finished stacking materials; at any rate, it was much busier here than likely every other place on the ship.
Entering one of two storage rooms, he walked towards a panel that was standing up and began to access it.
'Password required'
Thinking for a moment, Ridge typed it in. "Access granted, please continue," a robot-like voice sounded out. Continuing, Ridge swiped through the materials and equipment while also downloading them to his wrist panel.
He wasn't actually too worried about making sure every single thing was there since that was someone else's job, but he at least wanted an idea of what they had. Finishing his mindless scrolling, he took note of everything at the back of his mind and began his return to the planet. He would only be in the way of the others up here if he stayed and messed around with the management panel even after he downloaded the information.
As it stood at this very moment, they had 1000 units of metal, 2000 units of wiring, 5600 units of food, and finally 4000 units of purified water in storage. The numbers were also quite good in his opinion, considering some were already used to build the base and a few other structures already.
These materials would all be used to build up some industry on the planet. In turn, this will create a greater stockpile that they can use to further expand the base or invest in other projects that are currently lacking resources, so it was a better alternative to just letting them sit in a stockpile.
The greater cause of concern was the food and water. With their current population of around 59 people, the food would last roughly 82 days and the water only 24 days.
Sighing and rubbing his head for a split second, he made his way down the elevator and back to the planet; usually, ships like theirs had portable water purifiers, but unluckily they seemed to have broken during what could only be described as the initial ambush, so he could hope the water treatment plant could be built quickly. While on the way down, he used his wrist panel to call up Yayha on the communicator.
'Connection Established'
"Sir, This is Yayha."
"I just got off the ship after checking the supplies, so other than that, how are things on the ship going? Any difficulties?" Ridge replied as he stepped off the elevator and began walking.
"Nope, everything seems to be going just fine, although there is a minor issue with the power on the ship. Naturally, right now we are at full power thanks to the nuclear reactor and solar panels, but I think it would be best to set the ship down somewhere to conserve energy and not increase the chances of there being even bigger problems with the power system later down the line that can't be fixed easily," Yayha said as he used his finger to scroll through the holographic images in front of him that displayed the data of the ship.
"Got it. Why don't you come down from the ship and find a few men to survey a landing spot that we can clear out? Remember, it shouldn't be far away from the base," Ridge said.
"Copy that, I'll move right away."
'Connection Terminated'
Seeing Caroline, the chief engineer, who at this point was swamped with work, Ridge quickly made his way over to her and let out a short greeting, "Caroline."
Quickly turning she gave a salute and replied, "Sir, progress has been going great, the main base building is nearly finished all the piping for sewage waste has for the most part been taken care of and the only thing we need to do now is build up the water plant so that showers and sinks can be used without wasting water from the ship," she reported while also giving him a small smile.
"I like the sound of that," he said, smiling back, "I'll leave you to it then, I am just going to take a few men to work on the road to the deposit so we can get started on that as well."
Caroline nodded and got back to messing around with her wrist panel and contacting some of the other engineers on her team.
Seeing her so engrossed in her work, he quickly went to round up a few men as laborers and some soldiers as well. It would be best to be protected while they worked to cut down foliage and trees in the south, where the deposit lay.
Grabbing his own weapon and sword, along with the other two soldiers, he and the group made their way down the rough road to the south, which had luckily been cleared by a couple of versatile vehicles called PGT-7 Trailblazers. Its full designation was the Coro Federation Pioneer Grade-Tractor, the seven of course being its design iteration. Most ships had at least a couple of these in storage. They were probably one of the most versatile vehicles that the Federation had ever designed. It is roughly 12–15 meters long, 5–6 meters wide, and stands about 6 meters tall on its heavy tracked chassis.
With a sloped blade in front, it was capable of easily pushing soil and debris; it also featured a set of hydraulic arms that acted as interchangeable tools. These tools were claws to move objects and saws to cut down trees, as well as hooks to pierce harder ground, usually rock.
Furthermore, with smaller, more compact nuclear reactors, they often operated for weeks without needing to "refuel," which was perfect for newly established colonies that didn't have great energy infrastructure built yet. The reactors, from what Ridge knew, were designed "down" from the colossal class ships of the Federation. Similar in theory to the core on the battleship as well. The higher-ups didn't see the use of building out new reactor designs when they could just dumb the holy grail down.
It was only around a five-minute walk, and they eventually made it to the edge of the base that had been cleared, and on the edge sat the two empty machines. Ridge himself quickly got in one of them with a group of two others. They typically needed a crew of three to operate them.
The soldiers simply stood by and kept an eye out for any threats, and the other men dragged over as labor followed behind to clear the road of debris mostly; after all, they couldn't exactly carry the large trees on this planet without the machine.
With two PGT-7 Trailblazers, they had made such rapid progress that Caroline, who had just finished the plans for the mining project and the water project, took a little while to get to them. But eventually, with another soldier she took with her just in case for protection, she managed to follow the path of where they had cleared and found Ridge sitting on a rock taking a break. Less for himself and more for the others following behind them.
"Commander, I managed to get some of my engineers together who weren't already busy, and we managed to make a sufficient plan that we think will take the least amount of resources."
"Oh? Show me," Ridge replied.
"By our estimations, it'll take around 40 units of metal and around 100 units of wiring to build the water treatment plant; for the mining outpost, it will take 300 units of metal and 800 units of wiring. Luckily, we can also use the local wood from the trees around here when building, which cuts down the resources necessary to build by quite a bit," Caroline said, while holding up a holographic image being projected from her wrist panel.
Ridge rubbed his chin to contemplate before finally replying, "Ok, let's do it. We'll continue clearing this path, and then eventually we'll redirect some of our labor forces to help build these facilities. I would also like to bring up the necessity of a refinery to smelt and shape the minerals from their raw form."
"Yes, of course. We had already thought of that problem and made additional plans for it, which will use around 400 units of metals and 280 units of wiring. Though I do have to ask if you would still like the shipyard-like building to be built on the battleship?" she replied.
"Alright, perfect. I knew you wouldn't forget about that. As for the second thing you mentioned about the shipyard, I think it'll be best to forget about it for now. Thinking about it now, it's just a waste of resources," he smiled. "Oh, and also on your way back to the base, make sure to send up some more laborers. I imagine the engineer you sent ahead to construct the outpost by the deposits will need some more."
"No problem, and I will, sir," Caroline said, nodding, then giving him a salute.
Ridge gave a simple nod back and got into the machine to work. It didn't take very long at all for Caroline to get back to the Base, and soon enough, there were at least an extra ten hands to work on clearing the path straight towards the vein.
As the group was continuing forward, Ridge made sure to monitor them whenever he stopped the group for breaks, and on one of those breaks, while he was watching a group of men move foliage, he noticed a group of scientists, or rather two of them, both without their masks, quickly moving towards them. Ridge, seeing their masks off, asked with slight urgency in his voice. "What are you guys doing? Why are you? Why do you have your masks off?"
One of the scientists quickly replied, "We managed to finish the research necessary to verify that the air is safe, and as you can see, we no longer need our masks."
Hearing this, he also reached up to the side of his helmet with slight hesitation in his movements and pressed a button, which immediately opened his mask. Taking in a deep breath, he felt nothing, which in this case was a good thing. "Well then, that's great news."
The others who had noticed the scientists without masks had gathered around, and as soon as Ridge took his mask off, they quickly followed suit. Although their suits obviously didn't contain stale air, it felt stale. For the first time in a while, they could feel wind blowing through their hair, and the sense of freedom that came with it was immeasurable.
Perhaps life here wouldn't be so bad was a thought that seemed to come into everyone's mind.