Xeno Core

Despite the incomplete docking accommodations, the three large wedge shaped Tserri warships huddle around the station, pressurized tubes extending through the vacuum.

From this range it is impossible to miss the heavy damage they had sustained. Armor plates melted into useless slag, bubbled and warped under strains of extreme heat. Entire sections of the outer hulls are dead, all the systems within fried.

Tollek sits wearily in the war room with officers Vren and Gelly Drop. Before them on the main display are long lists of supplies available on Kalibern Station as well as daily requirements of basic resources.

"Even if we supplement their needs from the Resurgent, they will run out of air in six days, water in eleven, and food by tomorrow at this time," Vren states in measured tones. "We lack the reserve proteins to sustain them for any length of time, Jim."

"Most pressin' is food. We can rig up purifiers to let 'em reuse old air and water," Gelly adds, "but even that's no goin' to help 'em if they've nothin' to eat."

A few quick keystrokes and Jim pulls up blueprints for the station on another screen. Tapping on the control pad allows him to highlight power conduits currently installed, as well as planned points of future expansions. "Now I'll add the draw from," he checks the lists on the main screen and sighs. "Two hundred and fifty-seven additional residents, under war time power rationing." The display goes red, then black as the proposed power usage far exceeds the production capabilities of the incomplete station.

"These numbers include the supplies the furballs brought?" A quick glance at Vren and Gelly winces. "Sorry, 'mate, but yer a hairy lot. I notice yer graphic there has no trace 'o the Tserri dynamos."

"Good catch, Gel." Tollek's scowl loosens slightly as he begins plotting new improvised circuits into the power use model. Running it with the new values, the three officers watch as it continues running, with only flashing red lights occasionally indicating potential hazardous overuse.

Standing to get a better view, Vren spends a few moments studying the new pathways. "We could improve the efficiency of the generators if they're extracted from their current vessels. Installing them directly into the grid would give us nearly ten percent more to work with."

Jim shakes his head. "I thought of that too, but that still leaves us wiring the ships in anyway. There just isn't room for them all inside the station, even hot bunking it. The plans called for eighty residents, with room to grow."

"None of them are civilians, Jim. First give them vacuum suits, then they will work to stay alive."

"Give nothin'," Gelly exclaims. "That many suits, even the mark twos, would mean tearin' the station apart for components."

Tollek swears quietly before running some more simulations. "I don't like it. The power core we got from Wollen doesn't have the kick we need." He pauses and looks at the ceiling, directly into the hidden camera mounted there. "But Denn's core does. We can run the Resurgent on the weaker core, and transfer you into Kalibern, Mos. With you giving the systems here the same boost that's kept the ship running, these people might be able to survive."

His purple and silver armor creaking as he stands, Vren stops at the exit to the war room. "They should be assembled in the main building by now. Time to go find out who's in charge of that pack." He snaps the helmet into position and walks off the command deck.

Jim and Gelly listen as his footsteps recede into the distance before the Weapons Operative stands as well. He walks over to a cabinet built into the wall. Opening it with a security code, he grabs a long metallic gun of a type I'm not familiar with. Files identify it as a SAm15, a weapon specialized for crowd control. It emits bursts of short-wave energy, designed to shut down muscle control in its targets.

"Better go give him some back up," he says as he closes the arms locker. Running to catch up, he leaves Jim alone in the war room.

"A deathworld," he says into the silence. He sits there staring blankly at the displays before grunting and turning them off. "Maybe more than one."

"Sir? My people use that term as well. In our explorations several have been discovered."

He nods, clearly not surprised. "They come in different types. Drone worlds are among the deadliest we've found."

Glass gardens, silver seas, drone worlds, plague worlds, and worlds split open, spilling their molten guts into space. The long extinct ancients left many dangers behind in their zeal to destroy themselves.

"I have to take the Resurgent out there. Find the threat and see how bad it really is," he says morosely as he stands and shakes the fog from his head. "We could use you, when we go."

If offered the choice between an obvious suicide mission or trying to feed starving people with only limited supplies of grains and fruit, I'd think the answer is clear. The choice isn't mine, however, and I remain silent, not wishing to add to the officer's guilt.

"Nothing gained from stalling," states the Ship-Father as he walks over to the command chair in the center of the deck. He presses the release, and the thin panel slides aside. "Let's get this over with. Maybe this is a bad idea, but it won't be me that deals with the consequences. End override protocol 633-Primus-94-Red." He then pulls me out, swapping me for a clear crystalline orb that had been in a familiar pouch at his side.

He holds me in one hand, raising me level to his face. "I never really liked you, Mos, but you were useful. I've gotten used to you, I guess," he says, walking slowly down the corridor.

The trip into the station is a blur, my senses still reeling from the sudden lack of input. Clicking open a panel hidden in the war room of the station, Tollek installs me into the new system. Relief floods me, as well as streams of data. I'm no longer blind.

Kalibern is vast, in comparison to the Resurgent, though my perceptions of it are much more limited. Most of the cameras are not installed, or are improperly hooked up, sending strangely distorted images requiring much interpretation to be useful. Empty chambers and cramped tunnels fill most of the screens in the room.

The central screen displays the view from the main building. The massed bodies of the four-armed refugees heave and surge under the attentions of Operatives Vren and Gelly. Dunc Wollen and Spen Dondrik stand on either side of the pair, SAm33s raised above the heads of the crowd.

Several twitching Tserri lay on the decking between the two groups, testament to the effectiveness of Gelly's rifle.

Stepping forward, Vren issues a series of sharp barks, commands the desperate survivors of the Third War Fleet are eager to obey. They break into small groups and begin dragging food and water stores from the three maimed warships, piling them under Gelly's watchful gaze.

Crates containing the nests of feathered creatures from which hissing noises emit are stacked to one side. Over fifty of the small creatures are assembled together, where Marta has just parked a small cart.

Assorted blades and blasters are also placed to one side, where Operative Dondrik attempts to keep an inventory of the growing stacks of weaponry. An enlarged armory will need to be dug out somewhere.

Personal electronic equipment, tablets, tools, and entertainment devices are being brought to Tulson, who seems to be in high spirits. Teah explains the uses of the exotic devices as they're brought to the workshop.

Mar Lummer has his hands on all of it, with crewmembers reporting back with each load carried off the ships. Tserri are interviewed by more of his people, many refugees even signing up in order to be more useful. Precise logs are filed, containing details of which family groups each item belonged to, in order that they may be credited against coming need.

Uhgun leads a crew of armored recruits in efforts to excavate new chambers, while other crewmembers haul the rock to the surface, to be used to fashion more dwellings using the most damaged wedge as the basic structure. There are plans to rebuild the other two, to be kept as defenders of the station and planet.

Simplified suits in Imperium black and yellow are being printed out by Terla Parc, with eager four-armed helpers learning to assemble them. With so many busy workers running up and down the halls for parts that temporary depots are springing up. Nooks that would otherwise be full of plants instead hold small shops ran by harried Tserri trying to make their lives better.

Many of the previous plans have had to be adjusted. The dome erected over Bestera Minor, meant to be temporary, is being reinforced. When all the water ice is added to the growing system, the enclosure will be used as a sort of farmstead, with the feathered sbah allowed to roam freely. I'm told they reproduce quickly and are able to eat a wide variety of things.

Tollek awaits only an inbound shuttle from Centra Base, with crew to take over operations.