Chapter 172 - New Arrivals

*( mood song: "Cage the Elephant - Trouble")

--- Back at the Base ---

Crabina was watching cartoons, but she was bored, her daddy had been away for quite some time.

Crabina: "hmm what to do... I'm bored..."

If Erik was around it would limit her cartoon time, during the first days she had watched so much, that she had fallen asleep during crafting class, her favorite class, she didn't even feel like watching cartoons anymore, and that puzzled her.

Crabina: "hmmm it was more fun when doing it secretly..."

Anhuka then knocked on the door: "sweety, what are you doing?"

Crabina: "not much... I'm bored mommy... when will daddy be back?"

Anhuka: "I'm not sure sweety... tell you what, wanna go for a walk outside? you spend too much time inside your room lately..."

Crabina quickly got out of her bathtub: "okay mommy, let's go!"

Anhuka smiled and got her spear and backpack.

They exited through the garage pool and first went for a walk on the kelp forest farm.

The clams and kelp were still rapidly growing, the clams still inside their cages.

Octopeople and crab men and women went around the site, collecting the algae and clams for further processing inside the city, being the staple food source.

After walking to the middle of the farm they also saw the enormous cages that now contained dozens of pigfish, they were strictly fed food waste and algae, making their meat rich in Omega3 fats.

Further, into the forest farm, there was a clearing where dozens of octopeople and crab people sat, the few sun rays that penetrated the ice created light rays in the area that illuminated the clearing.

Crabina: "wow... so pretty!"

Anhuka giggled: "it is indeed honey... that people of different races could just sit around and enjoy the day, not worried about food, shelter, or predators... just enjoying the day... this is all thanks to your daddy..."

Crabina: "what about lady Rose? daddy said she makes the things"

Anhuka frowned: "she just builds what Erik says, what's so amazing about that, anyone can manufacture things..."

Crabina: "oh? can you do it too mommy?"

Anhuka: "didn't you see the knife I made for your daddy? of course I can make things, I just take more time, she has those fake bodies she moves around everywhere, anyone could do the same like that..."

Crabina: "then why no one else does mommy?"

Anhuka: "...well... it's complicated, just take a nap, get some fresh water" sucking water in a deep breath "haaaah... nothing like some fresh water to clear your head"

As Anhuka laid down to take a nap, Crabina noticed something between the algae, it looked like a small shrimplike creature, barely thirty centimeters in length.

Crabina poked it with a spear: "what are you little thing?" she observed the creature ignore her and continue chewing on the algae, and now that she had noticed one, she could distinguish hundreds more around "they are... eating the algae?" she grabbed it with one of her claws and crushed it "we need those, I can't let you guys eat them!" starting to crush others.

Anhuka was startled awake: "what did you find sweety?"

Crabina showed one of the creatures to Anhuka: "they were eating our algae mommy!"

Anhuka grabbed the dead creature and tapped on his neck, talking on the base radio channel: "we might have a problem, some kind of creatures seem to be eating the algae forest"

A couple of seconds passed and an answer was heard.

Shana: *on my way*

Rose (bot): *be there in three*

Anhuka: "three what?"

Rose (bot) from behind: *three seconds of course~ show me the creatures*

Anhuka was surprised by the quick response, but quickly presented the dead creature to the bot.

Rose (bot) scanned the creature: *hmm I've seen a similar creature before, these are way bigger and... juveniles since their exoskeletons ain't completely formed...*

Crabina: "so it's bad?"

The bot nodded: *indeed, very bad, these things remain inside the ice frozen, and revive once the ice melts... I thought we had more time...*

Anhuka: "then-"

Shana came then at top speed: "where is the danger?!"

Rose (bot) showed her the creature.

Shana instantly relaxed: "just that small thing? we saw them sometimes, they usually leave quickly"

Rose (bot): *did they also eat the algae in the past?*

Shana shook her head: "no, they were eaten and repelled by the snakes.... wait..."

Rose (bot) nodded: *Indeed, without the snakes to repel them, these creatures can quickly multiply... each one can lay down hundreds of eggs if properly fed, and they aren't picky in what they eat either...*

Shana: "well, we can just kill them right?"

Rose (bot): *not can... we must kill them! if we hide and allow them to eat the forest and reproduce.... this entire area would be skimmed clean by them the next year.... they would grow in millions...*

Shana and Anhuka both got serious.

Anhuka: "I will relay the orders to the crab people"

Shana: "the army will start eliminating them too"

Rose (bot): *yes, we need to be fast*

Hundreds of bots and work drone spheres soon came from all over the base, construction site near the peak, and labs, crushing and shooting the small critters left and right.

The crab men and women scoured the area close to the ground, crushing all the critters they saw, while the octopeople swam all around the stems, killing any critters on sight.

Even Crabina was crushing critters left and right. Hours passed, and the sun was setting, but there always seemed to be more critters to kill.

Octopeople and crab people were getting more and more tired, and those exhausted kept falling to the farm floor.

Crabina came next to a bit standing in the middle of all the fighting.

Crabina: "aunty Rose, is it over yet?"

Rose (bot): *...I'm afraid not, more and more keep coming from the ice... we can only try that... HEAR MY COMMAND! CARRY ALL LIVESTOCK ANIMALS INSIDE THE CRAB PEOPLE CITY ALONG WITH AS MANY ALGAE PLANTS AS YOU CAN UPROOT! OCTOPEOPLE RELEASE AS MUCH POISON AS YOU CAN OVER THE FOREST!*

Shana answered on the radio: *crazy... that will kill most of the forests' new growth, there needs to be another way...*

Rose (bot): *well... this will be enough to rebuild, we will bomb the entire place and rebuild...*

Shana: *...can you ask Erik? maybe he can think of something...*

Rose (bot): *hah! so you wanna bet everything on a random crazy plan? sure, why the hell not...*

--- Back on the Submarine ---

Erik was sweating, but having fun as he restored broken power conduits, and pieces of the plasma oven fabricators.

Erik: "so how does it exactly work again 2137?"

AI 2137: *sigh... as I said, it uses vibration, pressure, and heat to move atoms to their desired position, this could easily make lonsdaleite tools for example, and many other materials you humans don't even have names for, ultra heavy elements and metals like those found on white dwarf stars for an example...*

Erik rolled his eyes: "yeah, but how do I make this-"

Rose then entered the room: "Erik, we have a problem"

Erik's face paled: "what?! is Molly okay? did something happen to Sarah?! did those creatures get inside the facilities again?!"

Rose: "Nah, none of those"

Erik: "oh... what is it then? come on can't be worse right?"

Rose: "No it's nothing bad, just creating some security protocols you see, if some creatures that were frozen in the ice unfroze and started eating the kelp farmland, my idea would be taking some samples for rebuilding, and annihilating the place with torpedoes and poison, what do you think?"

Erik: "... so, you wanted a second opinion right?"

Rose: "yes, and I need it now"

Erik shrugged: "your plan is viable but also terrible as you would starve your citizens, a way easier solution, would be to lure the threat away, and destroy it far from any valuable lives or infrastructure"

Rose: "...what?"

Erik: "...you CAN destroy them, but you don't wanna destroy the farm right? lure them away and destroy them then"

Rose: "how?"

Erik: "I don't know, some meat maybe? or maybe the sound of a predator, and if that doesn't work then make a sound so loud they will have to go away~"

Rose was surprised: "that's... quite a good idea... thanks"

Erik: "mh hmm, anytime... are those creatures attacking perchance?"

Rose: "no, of course not, safety protocols remember? just some safety protocols..."

Erik: "I see..."

--- Northern Base ---

Rose (bot): *I have a solution*

Shana was now beside the bot: "Erik?"

Rose (bot): *...yes, it was his idea..., first, we will drag those critters away, and then we'll destroy them*

Shana: "what shall we do?"

Rose (bot): *bring all the food waste, organs, and useless bits of food you can find, we will lure them to the sand field near the crab city*

Twenty minutes later, most of the critters could be seen swimming in the direction of the sand plains, where an eight meter pile of guts and useless body parts was being swarmed by thousands of them. In the open space, it was way easier to target the critters too, and their corpses and guts were just added to the pile, everything covered in poison for good measure.

Bots then appeared carrying big speakers, in both the sand field and the kelp farms, those on the farm played the sounds of predators like the sea snakes that used to inhabit the forest, and those on the sand planes played the sounds of dying animals.

The results were apparent, as almost all of the critters quickly moved to the sand plains.

Rose (bot) muttered: *hmm it's working...*

Anhuka's face turned serious: "it's a plan made by Erik, of course it would work..."

Rose (bot): *sigh... I miss my army...*

Anhuka: "what?"

Rose (bot): *...sigh... nothing, nothing at all... let's pick up the corpses, their survival traits seem to be quite good, no need to waste good DNA*

Rose observed how the thousands of critters pieces were collected all over the sand plains, muttering to herself.

Rose (bot): *...my army...*

-- away in space --

Spaceship AI: *Captain, come to the deck*

Sarah had been taking a nap, but she quickly came to the deck.

Sarah: "what is-.... wow..."

In the distance, they could see a sun orbited by just two planets, one grey and rocky, and a huge oceanic world with ice over its poles, and even more amazingly, it was completely surrounded by huge pieces of floating debris, from spaceships of different designs, to huge spheres the size of small moons.

Sarah: "what even happened here..."

Spaceship AI: *It seems a battle was fought very long ago*

Sarah: "it seems like that... but... we are still far away, which means... both that world and the debris around it are massive..."

Spaceship AI: *at our current speed we will reach the planet in four days*

Sarah: "how far are we from the planet? and what's our current speed?"

Spaceship AI: *We seem to be eighteen million kilometers from the planet, and our current speed is 180000Km/h*

Sarah: "have you tried to decelerate?"

Spaceship AI: *yes, all deceleration fuel has been used, our previous speed was a magnitude higher captain*

Sarah: "hmm... we should have got rid of the extra mass earlier and then decelerated..."

Spaceship AI: *that could have compromised the integrity of the spaceship and would have taken a lot of heavy tools, not to mention that would also leave a high speed metal meteor free, any error in removing the extra mass and the entire front of the spaceship would have been ripped apart*

Sarah: "sigh... we better hope that Rose gave us a valid course then..."

Spaceship AI: *that seems to be the case*

Sarah: "hah... I'm gonna take a nap- huh?"

At that moment, the spaceship seemed to go through jelly for a few moments, and decelerated a bit.

Sarah: "what happened?!"

Spaceship AI: *our speed has gone down to 150000Km/h, at our current speed we'll arrive in five days*

Sarah: "yes, but what caused the deceleration?"

Spaceship AI: *it seemed like compressed gravity..., if I had to guess I would say that Rose helped us*

Sarah nodded: "that makes sense" Sarah looked at the huge oceanic planet "Erik said the lifeforms are hostile, we need to be ready... Spaceship, give me a recounting of the weapons onboard"

Spaceship AI: *understood, eight colonist issued projectile rifles, four flare launchers, twelve pepper grenades, twenty flare grenades, a chainsaw for collecting resources, should be able to cut armor, and finally, there is an Instalaza plasma grenade launcher, effective up to five kilometers*

Sarah: "a launcher? never seen it"

Spaceship AI: *while Leo renovated my body, I also discovered some things that were hidden, in the security compartment there was one hidden inside a wall with an access panel*.

Sarah: "Hmm interesting, but Erik did say they were underwater creatures though, a torpedo launcher would have been better in that case, how many shots does it have?"

Spaceship AI: *fifteen rocket propelled plasma grenades, and five antipersonnel airburst rockets*

Sarah: "hmm... that ain't much but it ain't little either, it will have to do, by the way, will you survive the impact?"

Spaceship AI: *unlikely captain, the central computer of the spaceship won't survive the impact*

Sarah: "oh, that's unfortunate, make a copy of yourself and priority data on the emergency black box, prioritize the information over your backup, I can always program a new AI, but the data is essential to my future research"

Spaceship AI: *...yes, I understand, it was an honor captain*

Sarah: "hmm sure, same here"

--- Manufacture base ---

Erik woke up from a power nap on a corner as the bots had just finished all the repairs in the plasma manufacture.

Rose: "well well~ who decided to wake up, haha~"

Erik rolled his eyes: "I just slept one hour... is it done?"

Rose looked at the house sized machine: "yep, ready to use"

Erik: "so... I wanted to ask but, why doing all this, can't you use the synthesizers?"

Rose: "to make things out of steel or the basic periodic table maybe, but... there are way more elements that you humans don't know about, your planet is an amalgamation of stardust but there's more than that, at extreme pressures and gravity, materials humans don't know about are created, and once you can arrange particles where you want and with the level of energy you want, then you can even copy the patterns of bio alloys"

Erik: "oh, I know about that, in some exoplanets there are even rains made up of diamonds"

Rose: "well yes that is indeed the case, but if the rain is diamonds, imagine life evolves there, what will they eat?"

Erik: "hmm the carbon in diamonds maybe? they would still need lots of other nutrients though..."

Rose: "well, let's say it eats lead ore, not only could it use the lead to create an armor to protect against radiation, but it could also use the sulphuric acid generated to dissolve other substances, there are lots of species of rock eating species, in fact, most are versions of evolved extremophile organisms, you can make air and water out of rocks, you just need the correct ones"

Erik: "Okay... I knew that already, though I didn't think an animal would be able to pull something like that, so what you were trying to say is that humans don't know everything, and that there are bioalloys all over the universe still undiscovered?"

Rose shrugged: "yeah, something like that...ugh..."

Erik: "are you okay?"

Rose: "...not really, by the way, I decelerated your girlfriend's spaceship, she will arrive in five days"

Erik: "is that the reason for your headaches?"

Rose: "not entirely sure, we are gonna have to get to an access facility and go down, something is definitely wrong..."

Erik: "okay... is there any near where Sarah will land? you know, for multitasking"

Rose narrowed her eyes: "....yes, in fact, it's the main one, the area should be full of debris though, thousands of lizardmen spaceships were taken down in that area, so we might find some useful scraps too"

Erik: "see? multitasking, how long would it take to get there?"

Rose: "hmm at max speed... around a month, but I wanna make something first"

Erik: "what?"

Rose: "some big worker and fighter drones, even the submarine we are using ain't that big, we'll need quite the army if we ever wanna hunt some big prey in the deep to properly evolve you and the octopeople further, also to reinforce the base"

Erik: "reinforce? did something happen?"

Rose: "Nah, not really, just some critters, but I do need to build a lot of things, and since the ice seems to be retreating, I will start building that surface base you wanted soon too"

Erik: "oh, that's neat"

Rose: "also..." she motioned to the side, and Erik saw four bots carrying some kind of pumping equipment "why don't you go install that on Molly, you wanted to make some cheese right~?"

Erik: "yes! thanks Rose~" Erik grabbed the entire equipment and easily carried it all by himself with his extremely toned body.

Meanwhile, Rose was grabbing her chest as she muttered: "what could be wrong... it shouldn't hurt so much..."

Erik quickly carried the equipment to the huge hangar, by now Molly had already been secured to the floor just in case, and most octopeople were finally able to relax, and eat as much meat as they wanted, in the corners, there were even quite a bit of soldiers that were fucking, as the stress of fighting was now gone.

Erik got close to Molly and her face looked fearful, Erik could see an antenna placed on top of her massive head.

Erik: "so Rose did install the control antenna in the end... it doesn't feel right..."

Rose: [your left arm was eaten by one of her daughters though? seems like you forgot already]

Erik: "oh Rose... well, It wasn't her fault"

Rose: [...yeah sure, have fun]

Erik: "oh, I sure will"

Erik approached Molly's head and placed his hand on it, while he looked up at one of Molly's car sized eyes.

Erik: "be a good girl and we'll care for you, now I just need some milk okay"

Erik only said so like when people talk to their dogs, but Molly seemed to understand as her enormous pupils contracted slightly.

Erik: "you are a clever girl huh, that makes this easier" Erik showed the equipment to her "now I'm gonna use this to milk you okay? don't worry, I will leave some for your daughters" and proceeded to carry the milking equipment to Molly's pouch, where her udders were.

Meanwhile, Molly had been observing the surroundings, she was scared of the shiny bots that had stabbed something on her head and immobilized her body, but she quite wanted to tear the octopeople in the room to pieces and eat them, but they didn't fear her at all, even reproducing inside her nest and completely disregarding her. She was seething in anger, but there was nothing she could do, she had given up on escaping long ago, and this creature seemed to even know how to open the doors that kept her prisoner, they had even defended her, and healed her wounds, she was extremely confused why they hadn't killed her yet.

Finally, she was confused the most about Erik, he was clearly from a different species from the others, and she had seen him annihilate entire hordes of hostile predators with his strange arm, not only that, he reeked of the blood of her daughters, but even then he didn't even show the least of hostility to her, and now he seemed to want to collect semen from her, she could see the octopeople reproducing all around after all.

Her species could reproduce either by parthenogenesis and clone itself as she had been doing, or by sexual reproduction, but her daughters couldn't take her in anymore, so she wondered what that thing he was carrying was.

Erik got closer to the pouch area, and saw a huge car sized dick emerge and fall to the floor.

Erik shrugged and walked past it: "she must be excited I guess" lifting a big scale, and entering the pouch, the babies were sleeping in a corner inside, so Erik carefully cleaned four of the huge basketball sized nipples, and added the suction system on them, quickly seeing milk being pumped out "hehe~ it works! your milk is quite bitter, but if processed I could make some ghee butter, maybe some ice cream, and sadly only fresh cheese... mold would be a bad idea on this planet it seems... sigh, a pity... at least the lemon trees haven't mutated, need the acid to make my cheese" he looked at the babies in the corner "well... There's another way too, but... let's just use lemon juice... for now...". he touched his belly, now slightly plumper as the pregnancy progressed "can't wait to have babies of my own..."