The removal of helmets and having fresh air to breathe had a rather large, unattended effect on the working pace of the men; in fact, they seemed to have at least doubled the pace of their work. Ridge wasn't gonna complain; the quicker they got this done, the better.
The scientists who had come over earlier to tell them the news had already made their way back to the base to let everyone else know. So without distractions, the crew took the rest of the day to finally reach what could be considered the final stretch before they got to the deposit, where a makeshift wall was already being put up by one of the eight engineers from Caroline's team.
Of course, said wall was primarily made from wood and didn't look great, but it was an engineer who made and designed it, not an architect. So it would be used for its function and not its look.
The sky was also already turning dark, but because they had used small light devices to line the side of the dirt road, Ridge honestly wasn't too worried, not to mention that they were using two relatively loud machines, which should be more than enough to ward off anything hiding in the dark; at least he hoped so.
"Let's work through the night, boys; we have more than enough light. I can even see the wall at the site," Ridge shouted atop the machine he was on. The men didn't necessarily cheer, but they picked up the pace and continued working. Using his wrist panel to send a signal out to the base, Ridge simply left a message that they would be out late in case something happened.
The message was sent and received, so he quickly got back to work using the machine to move and help cut the rather large trees in the way. Something that Ridge had also noticed, now that his helmet was gone, was an almost sweet sort of smell in the air. He was hoping it was mostly flowers that emitted that scent. Nothing was picked up on his suit's sensors, nor when the scientists had tested the air on more sophisticated machines, so time would tell if it was dangerous.
One hour turned to two, then three, and so on. Finally, they had managed to move the last tree and flatten and clear the last patch of road to connect to the gate of what can only be described as a new outpost.
"Nice work, let's head on back, hop on, it'll be faster," Ridge said after a quick inspection of their work. As he was waiting for the men to hop on, there was an incoming transmission on his panel. Accepting it, he saw Yayha 's face pop up.
"Sir," he said while saluting, "At ease, Yayha, what's the call for?" Ridge inquired.
"It's a bit of a late discovery, but we managed to find around 15 more plasma-type weapons on the ship. I'm not sure how we missed them during our cleanup operations, but they are in decent condition and still usable. The biggest downside is that we didn't find any more ammunition," Yayha said with a slightly disappointed tone in his voice.
"Great!" Ridge exclaimed, "I didn't actually expect us to still have those weapons intact, so no matter what, finding an extra 15 or so is great news. Good work; we can manufacture ammunition down the line."
Nodding, Yayha continued, "Also, we will officially begin landing operations, so as a notice, you may hear some of the ships' weapons going off to simply clear out the trees and foliage when we land."
"Understood, we'll be heading back shortly from the mining outpost. Make sure you aren't causing any damage to the main base when shelling the surface. As a side note, make sure you don't overdo it either. We may still have a decent stockpile of ammunition for the ship, but it's limited," Ridge replied after taking a moment to process the information. "Yes, sir! Yayha, out."
Nodding, Ridge ended the transmission and took another glance to make sure everyone was holding on to something and finally began to make his way back to the base.
Using an open comms channel for the area with his suit, Ridge also made sure to let the others know that they would be hearing shelling from the ship. "This is Commander Ridge. For my own convenience, I have opened this comms channel to let you all know that in a few minutes, most likely, you will hear the booms of weapons being fired from our ship. It is clearing out an area for it to land in the quickest way possible; don't be alarmed." Ending the transmission, and almost as if it was timed, the booming sounds were quickly heard by the workers and Ridge himself, who was in the vehicle.
With his reminder, nobody questioned the booming sounds in the background, overpowering even the sound of the vehicles. For a time span of ten minutes, it continued, and the crew admired it as if they were fireworks being let off. When it finally stopped, some even complained about losing a source of entertainment on the way back. Ridge could only smirk and shake his head at this.
With the road carved out, on their way back, he also made sure to use the machine's multi-tool system, which included a compactor, to essentially harden the road and reinforce it in a way, making it more solid. The total drive back took around 25 minutes, and finally the two tractors made it back to base. This time there was no longer a shadow covering it, and instead the sunlight from the nearest star was shining on the base.
Having seen the base outside of the dark for the first time, Ridge wasn't amazed or anything crazy, but he did feel like, for the first time, the base itself was much more welcoming to come back to.
Dismounting and jumping onto the ground, he went back to the base and resumed what could only be described as daily life.
A day passed by and then another; soon enough, a full week had passed by with Ridge's daily life consisting of waking up, eating, laboring away to build the water treatment plant, and, of course, exercising with the group of 24 soldiers to keep them in tip top ship. During this period of time, he had also rendezvoused with Yayha, and they had handed out the extra 15 plasma rifles.
Something else to note as well was that during this time the commander of the Tung frigate, Becke, had, for the most part, stabilized in his condition thanks to the help of the newly built clinic within the main base. Not to mention the three doctors/scientists who tended to his wounds and made sure he didn't die from his wounds.
Officer Reno had also begun to open up to the crew more and more, and finally, after that entire week of mundane tasks, she had approached Ridge, who was at the very moment resting outside the laboratory that now looked complete on the outside. The only thing that was needed for it to be completed was the interior wiring and whatever else was requested by its "owners."
"Sir, now that I know for sure Becke is okay, I would like to talk to you about how we got here in the first place, if you have the time, of course," she said somewhat hesitantly.
Getting up and wiping his sweat with a piece of cloth, Ridge nodded and gestured to her to follow him.
They walked to the outskirts of the camp, where a trench was being slowly dug out to surround the camp. It was the first step to building a wall around the camp to ensure they could defend it much more effectively, though as of right now they were waiting on the mining outpost to start producing metals to build the wall with. It was more a long-term project.
"Well, then let's hear it," Ridge said as they finished their short walk to a more secluded part of the camp, though still in the eyesight of others just in case.
"I had heard from some of the others during their breaks, and when eating, about how you guys got here, and in fact, it was almost identical to us. We had been on our assigned patrol mission when, out of nowhere, the ship underwent some distress, and for us inside we could only feel violent shaking.
As you would expect, the ship got torn apart with that kind of turbulence, and finally, when we got our bearings, we noticed a part of our crew had begun to attack others. With such a small crew, we had to retreat and lost quite a few men and women during said retreat. The commander was almost one of them. Luckily, I was able to administer some kind of medicine to keep him alive, though, to be exact, I don't know what it was.
Knowing the commander quite closely, I was aware he had a secret room within his personal quarters, typically used to hide good food or a gift he got when he was off duty visiting family. Unfortunately, by the time I had managed to get to his quarters, everyone else volunteered to stay back, and being injured myself during that initial turbulence, I agreed and hid myself and the commander. Bringing us to the present day, where you guys managed to find us," she exhaustingly said while clearing her throat after finishing.
With such a story put in front of him, of course Ridge believed her, but to be quite realistic, he noticed nothing new within that information that could help their situation.
"I understand, thank you for opening up. At the very least, you and your commander, when he wakes up, are completely welcome here. In fact, I would encourage it, after all we are on an alien planet," he finally told her after a moment of contemplation.
"Of course, sir, it's only protocol that we get folded under you having lost our own ship. Thank you once again for saving us," Reno replied solemnly before saluting and returning to work at the base.
Watching her leave, Ridge raised his wrist and stopped the recording of his wrist panel. Taking the audio file, he saved it and closed the folder labeled "Transported."
Within this folder was basically all the information he could gather to somehow explain how this entire thing started in the first place. Being organized with this information would be immensely helpful in the future; he was sure of it.
During the week that he had been working, the water treatment plant had also been completed, meaning after all this time the base would now have clean water to drink, cook, and wash with.
This was one of the greatest quality-of-life changes that Ridge greatly appreciated. It also meant that they had basically unlimited water so long as they didn't somehow dry out the entire planet of its water, which was of course impossible. Another change that had taken place was the calendar. When they were first transported and landed on this planet, it was 15 N.E., and it was the 21st of the second month.
Normally, within a year, there were 12 months, and they were simply labeled as the first month, second month, and so on. Each month had 30 days within it, and having observed the eerily similar day and night cycle on this planet, Ridge just opted to keep the same timekeeping system.
As for why it was significant, to be exact, it just helped to keep track of projects and also gave Ridge a better idea as to how long they would have before, say, the food ran out.
Now at the main building entrance, Ridge also began to contemplate the issue of food and decided to go consult with one of the scientists to see if they could find a solution. One problem was solved, and yet another popped up. Ridge sighed to himself as he made his way over.