Another new chapter... and another old one. Enjoy it.
##############
Eric Hunt was sitting in an armchair, relaxing from the long hours of work on the ice moon. He smiled and thought about the short tour on their new ‘home’ for the next months.
‘Full Earth gravity.’ he thought,
‘A crew with crazy robots to ask for help.
Rooms large enough to stretch yourself without knocking something over.
Hot showers for everyone!’
“Damned, I think everyone of us will be spoiled for future missions. Unless we can persuade ESA to rent these catgirls for other missions too!” he said to the people at the table. “Did I mention that I would not have thought that this would increase our working speed that much?”
“Yes, you did.” Masuno said and grinned. “At least once per day. I must admit I would never have guessed you can get used to a station full of catgirls and flying robots. Oh sorry, flying Exocomps!”
“These Exocomps were really a bit strange” Eric said, thinking back to his first direct meeting with one of the small drones. “I thought the catgirls were mad when they told me to scold it.”
“Hey it worked” Masuno replied, “these clever little bastards might be curious as hell, but they are also really cute.”
He laughed as he suddenly noticed a single Exocomp rubbing against his leg and purring. “Yeah, we all love you too” he told the drone and pet it.
“And as everyone can see, the insanity of Fenspace is contagious” Eric added with a grin, “Two months ago no one would have thought about speaking and petting flying drones. But I think Mrs. Meier managed to settle in even better.”
Sarah Meier’s face turned a deep, hot red. “It was... it was an accident... I was just very tired... you know, we had worked overtime!”
“Hey, you decided yourself that you wanted to take a nap on the couch in the room near the cafeteria.” Masuno was certainly having fun with the discussion. “And you two certainly looked cute!”
“To be honest the catgirls here told me that the couch in the room was really for people that want to take a quick nap” Eric added, “and the catgirl that was found sleeping with you on the couch said it had been also very tired and didn’t noticed you were no catgirl.”
Sarahs face became even more red as she thought about quickly leaving the table.
“But lets talk about something different”, Eric tried to help Sarah, “did someone found the missing ice anchor?”
The ice anchors were long pipes that were using a chemical reaction to melt into the ice of the moon and anchor themselves with a few barbs there.
“Sorry boss” Masuno replied, “we looked everywhere and counted the deployed anchors twice, but one of them is still missing. Maybe they accidently put it in the cargo for our ships second turn?”
~***~
Somewhere, in an empty supply modules on Jenga was a strange meeting happening. The module was new and would not be used by the catgirl inhabitants for quite some time. There was still some infrastructure of the module missing, Serina had said the Exocomps had too many other things in mind at the moment to finish it.
But in one corner of the module, behind a few solid steel plates which would cover the floor in the coming months a small group of Exocomps was floating around a long pipe... one with an ESA logo on it.
Eight Exocomps were rushing up and down, showering the device with low powered sensor beams from all kind of angles, shivering in excitement from time to time.
New tech!
New tech they hadn’t seen before!
New tech without Handwavium!
A puzzle.
A new puzzle!
The had to solve it!
The catgirls had told them that their guests did not wanted them to help with their work, and that they should not interfere with it. It was a selfish thing to keep the work for themselves, but there were not all that bad. And luckily they stopped working at some time, which had given the group the possibility to get this artifact without interfering with their work!
After a few hours, they were finished with all their measurements and moved their work to a small and secret playground on the Grid. They had learned over the years from the catgirls that it was quite fun to work with simulations.
You could only topple a large mountain of Christmas packages once, but you could do it as often and as spectacular as you liked on the Grid.
Quickly a virtual copy of the sensor data they had gathered appeared in front of their virtual avatars. The Exocomps activated a physics simulation and added water as the ground.
Then they watched the staff sinking in the waves of their simulated ocean.
Something wasn’t right.
Cold... much colder... much much colder!
The simulation started anew, this time with a ground of ice below the staff. It stood on its tiny legs, until one of the Exocomps pushed the button at the top, activating the chemical mix inside.
Ice began to melt... and after a moment the simulated staff fell to the side.
The Exocomps were puzzled, viewing their sensor readings of the astronauts work on the moon again. Just as they decided to start another simulation run, Cortana's avatar suddenly appeared over them.
“What the hell is going on here” Cortana thundered.
The Exocomps were shocked, one of them quickly vanished the simulated artifact and tried to look unsuspicious.
“Do not think I have not seen what you did here. How did you get such a good reading on this anchors... wait a moment, you did it?”
Cortana began to trace the connection of the Exocomp back, which quickly lead her into a very new module. It took her a moment to a few cameras and upload the firmware for them.
“How could you? You have stolen from our guests!”
That confused the Exocomps for a moment. Hadn’t the guests said that this were the place for their spare parts? How could borrowing a spare part be wrong?
Cortana sighed about the communication between the little drones.
“You will give it back immediately, and you will do it in person. If they ban ALL of your kind from their working area, it will be your fault.”
Their brothers might be banned from the icy moon too? Suddenly the Exocomps were a bit worried.
##############
Eric Hunt was sitting in an armchair, relaxing from the long hours of work on the ice moon. He smiled and thought about the short tour on their new ‘home’ for the next months.
‘Full Earth gravity.’ he thought,
‘A crew with crazy robots to ask for help.
Rooms large enough to stretch yourself without knocking something over.
Hot showers for everyone!’
“Damned, I think everyone of us will be spoiled for future missions. Unless we can persuade ESA to rent these catgirls for other missions too!” he said to the people at the table. “Did I mention that I would not have thought that this would increase our working speed that much?”
“Yes, you did.” Masuno said and grinned. “At least once per day. I must admit I would never have guessed you can get used to a station full of catgirls and flying robots. Oh sorry, flying Exocomps!”
“These Exocomps were really a bit strange” Eric said, thinking back to his first direct meeting with one of the small drones. “I thought the catgirls were mad when they told me to scold it.”
“Hey it worked” Masuno replied, “these clever little bastards might be curious as hell, but they are also really cute.”
He laughed as he suddenly noticed a single Exocomp rubbing against his leg and purring. “Yeah, we all love you too” he told the drone and pet it.
“And as everyone can see, the insanity of Fenspace is contagious” Eric added with a grin, “Two months ago no one would have thought about speaking and petting flying drones. But I think Mrs. Meier managed to settle in even better.”
Sarah Meier’s face turned a deep, hot red. “It was... it was an accident... I was just very tired... you know, we had worked overtime!”
“Hey, you decided yourself that you wanted to take a nap on the couch in the room near the cafeteria.” Masuno was certainly having fun with the discussion. “And you two certainly looked cute!”
“To be honest the catgirls here told me that the couch in the room was really for people that want to take a quick nap” Eric added, “and the catgirl that was found sleeping with you on the couch said it had been also very tired and didn’t noticed you were no catgirl.”
Sarahs face became even more red as she thought about quickly leaving the table.
“But lets talk about something different”, Eric tried to help Sarah, “did someone found the missing ice anchor?”
The ice anchors were long pipes that were using a chemical reaction to melt into the ice of the moon and anchor themselves with a few barbs there.
“Sorry boss” Masuno replied, “we looked everywhere and counted the deployed anchors twice, but one of them is still missing. Maybe they accidently put it in the cargo for our ships second turn?”
~***~
Somewhere, in an empty supply modules on Jenga was a strange meeting happening. The module was new and would not be used by the catgirl inhabitants for quite some time. There was still some infrastructure of the module missing, Serina had said the Exocomps had too many other things in mind at the moment to finish it.
But in one corner of the module, behind a few solid steel plates which would cover the floor in the coming months a small group of Exocomps was floating around a long pipe... one with an ESA logo on it.
Eight Exocomps were rushing up and down, showering the device with low powered sensor beams from all kind of angles, shivering in excitement from time to time.
New tech!
New tech they hadn’t seen before!
New tech without Handwavium!
A puzzle.
A new puzzle!
The had to solve it!
The catgirls had told them that their guests did not wanted them to help with their work, and that they should not interfere with it. It was a selfish thing to keep the work for themselves, but there were not all that bad. And luckily they stopped working at some time, which had given the group the possibility to get this artifact without interfering with their work!
After a few hours, they were finished with all their measurements and moved their work to a small and secret playground on the Grid. They had learned over the years from the catgirls that it was quite fun to work with simulations.
You could only topple a large mountain of Christmas packages once, but you could do it as often and as spectacular as you liked on the Grid.
Quickly a virtual copy of the sensor data they had gathered appeared in front of their virtual avatars. The Exocomps activated a physics simulation and added water as the ground.
Then they watched the staff sinking in the waves of their simulated ocean.
Something wasn’t right.
Cold... much colder... much much colder!
The simulation started anew, this time with a ground of ice below the staff. It stood on its tiny legs, until one of the Exocomps pushed the button at the top, activating the chemical mix inside.
Ice began to melt... and after a moment the simulated staff fell to the side.
The Exocomps were puzzled, viewing their sensor readings of the astronauts work on the moon again. Just as they decided to start another simulation run, Cortana's avatar suddenly appeared over them.
“What the hell is going on here” Cortana thundered.
The Exocomps were shocked, one of them quickly vanished the simulated artifact and tried to look unsuspicious.
“Do not think I have not seen what you did here. How did you get such a good reading on this anchors... wait a moment, you did it?”
Cortana began to trace the connection of the Exocomp back, which quickly lead her into a very new module. It took her a moment to a few cameras and upload the firmware for them.
“How could you? You have stolen from our guests!”
That confused the Exocomps for a moment. Hadn’t the guests said that this were the place for their spare parts? How could borrowing a spare part be wrong?
Cortana sighed about the communication between the little drones.
“You will give it back immediately, and you will do it in person. If they ban ALL of your kind from their working area, it will be your fault.”
Their brothers might be banned from the icy moon too? Suddenly the Exocomps were a bit worried.