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 instead buckets of presumably wood from the ship 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.
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 naturally pressed a few buttons on his wrist panel and began to elevate. A lot of supplies had already been moved down, but he decided it would be in his best interest to be meticulous about these kinds of things and wanted to go check for himself to ensure things were orderly.
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.
The materials themselves, like metal, wiring, etc., all numbered roughly the same, with about two thousand units left of each. This was also accounting for the consumption of said materials for the construction projects currently in progress. To be counted so evenly, it was clear that the engineers had a good idea of how much they needed when building, which Ridge appreciated greatly.
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.
As for the food and water that they had on the ship, he had already counted them while they were in space before landing, and it all came to around fifty-six hundred units of food and four thousand units of purified water. The food is enough to last the entire population around a year or so, and the water for around half a year. Within that time, they should be able to finish a purifying plant for the water on this planet, so long as the mining operation goes well.
Smacking his head, Ridge also thought of the fact that they needed a refinery and a workshop to purify and melt down the ores into usable metal, and then to shape that metal into tools or just walls for the base.
All of which would push back the water project for sure. Sighing and rubbing his head for a split second, he made his way down the elevator and back to the planet. While on the way down, he used his wrist panel to call up Yayha on the communicator.
'Connection Established'
"Sir, This is Yayha."
"I am aware. 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 purifier station 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.
Ridge Naturally wasn't offended and got to work himself. He rounded 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 machines they brought down from the ship.
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 two empty machines that were used to cut foliage and the massive trees. Ridge himself quickly got in one of them, and someone else got in the other, and after powering up, they activated the blade and began cutting a path further south.
The soldiers simply stood by and kept an eye out for any threats, and the other men dragged over as labor simply pushed away the foliage and trees so that the road would be visible, even if it was simply dirt for now, though they had to use a smaller handheld machine to cut the trees into pieces to actually move them effectively.
Because they had made such rapid progress, 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 resting.
"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 1500 units of metals and around 1000 units of wiring to build the water treatment plant, as well as the mining shaft. 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 just start building up the mineshaft. I would also like to bring up the necessity of a refinery to smelt and shape the minerals."
"Yes, of course. We had already thought of that problem and made additional plans for it, which would use around five hundred units of metals and two hundred units of wiring," Caroline replied.
"Alright, perfect, I know you wouldn't forget about that," he smiled, "Oh, and also on your way back to the base, make sure to send up some more laborers, I would imagine that this road can take priority for right now."
"No problem, sir," Caroline said, nodding.
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 a path straight towards the vein, as well as an extra machine that could be used to move the massive trees out of the way at a faster pace.
As the group was continuing forward, Ridge made sure to monitor them whenever he took his small 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 didn't necessarily have stale air in a certain sense, it felt like it was stale, so having fresh air with wind blowing through their hair simply gave him a feeling of fulfillment. Perhaps life here wouldn't be so bad.