Meg’s smile only grew as Shakespeare allowed her to hold him and didn't try to escape. Though she chuckled at his indignant reaction to being chipped. “Brave little guy. No fear at all about what happened.” she noted as she set him back down, giving him a soft stroke down the back before moving to carefully getting the next prairie dog.
" I'm actually pretty surprised." Chet observed, his eyebrows raised at how small a reaction Shakespeare had given.
The other two were not nearly as calm. The first one played dead as soon as Meg got anywhere near it, until Chet chipped it. It reacted to the chip like it had been attacked, squealing and scrambling out of Meg's hands to hide back in the pocket.
"That's more like it." Chet muttered.
“Yep. That's what I was expecting too.” Meg nodded, glad she had the gloves on as she quickly put the startled animal down. “I wonder why Shakespeare handled all this so calmly.” she commented before picking up Shelley. “Come here, little guy. Last one then you can go home.”
"He's just built differently, I guess." Chet joked, before realizing something. "Actually… he may be a different species, or something. We just wouldn't know."
Shelley reacted differently than Homer. She ran from Meg, skittering around the pocket, and tried to bite twice once she was cornered.
"Must have seen us do something to her friends and decided it wasn't for her." Chet chuckled.
“That's a possibility.” Meg nodded thoughtfully. “Could even be a mutation or something… it's probably too late to get a DNA sample, right?”
The first attempt at biting surprised her, but she had to admit it wasn't completely unexpected. Another reason why she had worn the gloves. But she finally managed to get a firm yet gentle hold on Shelley and brought the little animal up to Chet. “Well, I can't blame her for that but… still three is a good number to get data from and it won't take long.” she tried sway both Shelley and even herself.
Chet quickly pulled the trigger on the applicator, injecting the chip and causing Shelley to wriggle even more angrily. Once set down, though,she ran back into the pocket and hid.
"Well… I mean, we could figure out a way to get DNA samples. We'd just have to hold onto the three of them longer. Whadya think?" It didn't matter much to him, now that they were chipped. They could be let loose at any point. But the DNA was a good idea, and something he hadn't thought of.
Meg quickly let Shelley go as soon as Chet was done and leaned back, relaxing a bit now that the injections were over. “Yeah, but I'm a little concerned about keeping them too long. They need food and water and we don't know what that is yet.” she reminded. “Maybe… I think we can get DNA from hair samples instead of trying to get blood samples…”
"Do you have an easy way to collect those?" Chet was a bit unsure about how to go about collecting fur samples, but Artemis spoke up.
"I can add functions to the chips if you connect me to them."
"Are you sure? They're pretty basic trackers." Chet started to step over to her, only to have Artemis zip over to him instead.
"Probably. I would have to modify the programming a little, but it's possible I can get them to identify DNA sequencing."
Meg shrugged, about to suggest a possible answer when Artemis chimed in. “That would be great, Artemis.” she smiled at the news. “Can you still connect to the chips when they're already injected?”
Chet handed Artemis the applicator, which currently held the tracking device for the chips. Artemis seemingly stared at the ground, holding the device in her crab-like hands, before looking up at Meg. "Done. And with a little tinkering…. done." She smiled and projected a hologram of a DNA strand in the air in front of her. "I'll work on sequencing this and we can compare them all, but they should be good to be let go now."
Chet smiled, shaking his head a little. The AI was such a huge help. He stepped over to the tent door and unsealed the entrance, letting in sunlight and air, before stepping out of the way to keep packing his bags with tools. "I guess we just let them go then, huh?"
“Artemis, you are amazing.” Meg smiled, genuinely impressed by how efficiently the AI could do things that she knew she couldn't.
“If we can get them out of the tent now that we scared Homer and Shelley so much.” she nodded. She was still wearing the gloves so she could grab Shelley again, and she was sure neither of them would have a problem with Shakespeare.
"I'm defragging more and more each night and my thoughts are becoming clearer." the AI responded cheerily. In other words, she was slowly regaining processes as she continued clearing problems from the crash.
Chet nodded, and walked around the aide of the tent, out of sight of the pocket. "I wonder if-"
He didn't have to wonder for long. As soon as there was a clear line of sight to the door, Shelley took off, sprinting across the open floor and out into the dirt, where she quickly disappeared. Shakespeare followed, but more sedately, sniffing things as he went. Homer seemed the most reluctant, but once Shakespeare got halfway across the tent, the last prairie-dog took off after a sprint and was out the door.
"Well. There's that."
“That's great news.” Meg grinned at Artemis, glad she was healing in her own way from the damage and her trauma from the crash. She wasn't entirely sure how much she was healing personally from it but it was definitely easier for her to focus on her job as a survivalist… and now with her and Chet acknowledging the potential relationship between them was also something to help both of them move on.
She had just stood up to gather her supplies for the day when Shelley bolted past her and out of the tent. Followed shortly by Shakespeare and Homer. She blinked, trying to process what happened, before laughing at Chet’s last comment. “Uh, yeah. Problem solved.” she nodded.
Chet shook his head, chuckling at the situation. "Their tracking patterns should be visible on your HUD, if you want to keep track of that. If not, they can be pulled up later."
He gathered his tool bag, the nano-forge, and a ration pack, and packed it all in the pod. He had the Joule and his fusion knife, so he was relatively ready to go after a few minutes.
Something about their earlier conversation held him back a moment, though.
"I'll, uh… I'll have my visor and earpiece on me at all times, so… if you need anything, lemme know." He knew better than to treat her with kid gloves, after all the competence she had shown, but still… "You've got the Magax and your knives, right?"
“Got it.” Meg nodded as she grabbed her gear for the day as well. Her bag wasn't as full as Chet’s was since she told him to take the forge, but she still had the same basic equipment; her visor, the earpiece, the gloves, a ration pack, her notebook, and the first aid kit.
She smiled at his reminder and how much he cared about her safety, finding it very sweet of him. “They’re all on my belt.” she assured as she tapped the Magax at her side. “And I’ll have mine on too so you can check in anytime.”
She would be fine. He knew that. Still, Chet found himself reassured by the weapons. He gave her a nod, before holding up a fist. The smile that slid over his face was tinged heavily with fondness. "Survivors?"
“Survivors.” Meg smiled sweetly as she returned the gesture. “You be careful out there too. And stay in touch.” she added, placing her hand on his shoulder and giving an affectionate squeeze.
Chet turned to go, but froze when her hand landed on his shoulder. He glanced back at her, the smile on his face warm, before reaching up to squeeze her hand back. "Will do."
He lingered, for just a moment longer, before stepping up into the pod.
A few minutes later, and he'd made good headway, making his way back towards the crash site, and all that lovely scrap.
…………
Coming over the rise that lead to the crater half an hour later, Chet was struck by the scale of it all. It took his breath away, looking at all the shattered pieces of the Deus, scattered in the dirt, and realizing he could easily be just another piece of wreckage. Meg could be buried in the detritus of the crushed ship, and even Artemis-… Well. He was glad he'd been able to pull the AI from her living hell.
He clicked the comms and spoke around the lump in his throat. "Made it safe. Ping me in a couple hours, or if you need something. Gonna try to focus."
He took one last long look, thanking whatever force had allowed him and Meg to live, and then swallowed hard. A deep breath, a clench of his jaw, and Chet zeroed in.
Time to get to work.
Meg watched Chet climb into the pod and waved as he drove off before turning to Artemis. “Come on, Arty. Let's see how the rest of the traps did.” she smiled, already leading the way and turning on the tracker. Of course, she was also looking forward to what else she could learn from the little aliens about surviving on this planet.
The day seemed like it flew,.and before Chet knew it, the sun was setting. He packed the pod, surveying what he'd managed to get done with a tired smile on his face. A glance at the list widened the smile a bit.
Project List:
Schematics for food storage
Big Nano-forge
Smithing tools
Transmitter
Airlock/Gate
Big waste reclamator
Bedsteads
Storage units
Design mag-lev
Mag crane
Bigger fusion blade
Non-lethal options
Towing
Track animal feeding habits
FARM
Waste reclamator/toilet
Auto-tiller
Harvester
Irrigation
Additionally, he'd managed to get a good start on the big nano-forge. He had his little area, his "shop", set up in one of the bigger pieces of wreckage. Pieces of the nano-forge were beginning to take shape.
But Chet was tired. Having to do this all.by hand was exhausting, and he was only now realizing how much he needed to rest.
Meg had had to call him a couple times, and each time, he found himself jerked out of deep concentration with no concept of how much time had passed.
So he was ready to go home. He opened the comms. "Headed your way, Meg."
……….
The half hour drive was a fight to stay awake, the rumbling and sitting still working together to try to knock Chet out. But he made it, with no incident.
When the pod door opened, Chet would have appeared dead tired. Sweaty, covered in ash and dust and dirt and metal shavings, and moving with the stiffness of a man not used to swinging a hammer for hours, he nevertheless conjured up a smile for Meg. "Made it."
Meg believed she had spent her day productively. She had spent some time carefully and quietly observing the Prairie dogs from a safe distance as she took notes on the things they ate and made sure to grab plenty of samples of the wildlife flora around the area, carefully organizing them in separate pockets on her pack as not to confuse them.
As she had reset some of her remaining traps, she made sure to check if any that had been caught were dead and not faking, resulting in her bringing back two more Prairie dogs while the rest were set free. Of course, she had asked Artemis's opinions and analysis of a fair amount of the plants they had gathered, but she didn't want Artemis to feel like she was taking advantage of the AI.
When she got Chet’s call about him coming back to camp, she had just finished laying out the samples on a tarp and had started to draw them, making notes on identifying them for future reference. At some point, she had started a few rough sketches of things before Chet arrived.
“Welcome back.” Meg smiled back as she turned to face him. “You look exhausted and like you need a shower.” she pointed out, half teasing as she walked over to the pod to help him.
Artemis had been busy today too. She had made herself intimately acquainted with every inch of their little campsite, working the perimeter sensors and learning the area down to the minutiae. She had taken soil samples, done tons of seismic scans, and tracked the movement of the sun across the sky. Trying to build a new compass was going to be interesting, without the concept of cardinal directions.
She had been impressed with Meg's tracking and gather skills. She'd been able to track the prairie-dogs through the chips, and had been beaming that to Meg's HUD all day, but the way the survivalist knew how to follow the little animals without spooking them was… alien to Artemis.
She had done her best to carefully and completely analyze the plants Meg had collected. She knew Meg wasn't asking much, but Artemis was more than glad to help this way. Together, they had identified 5 plants that would be edible to humans raw, a further 7 that could be eaten after cooking, and 13 more they couldn't use. Artemis had catalogued them, taking snapshots and labeling them with the names Meg came up with. Part of the AI felt like Meg spending time drawing them was a waste of time, since she could just identify them from her memory banks, but… well, Chet would be more interested in Meg's method, and human art was also a bit baffling to Artemis. So she said nothing.
Chet drove up eventually, Artemis was glad he was ok. He'd been rather quiet all day, and Meg had needed to check on him a few times. Hopefully he'd been busy.
………
Chet chuckled at Meg's teasing, nodding slowly. "A shower sounds great. Help me unload this stuff and I'll go get cleaned up, I know I stink." He handed her the mini-forge and his pack, which was full of stuff. Behind him, there were several larger pieces that he'd forged during the day. He grabbed several of what looked like rails and headed into the tent.
"Check what's in the backpack. I worked on less-lethal options for self-defence today- I was smithing all day, but that left a ton of time to work on smaller projects while all that metal was heating up. There are a couple of tazers, as well as that bigger fusion blade I was planning on making." Sure enough, there were two compact tazers in the pack, clearly marked, as well as what looked like a large machete with a small fusion generator in the hilt. Upon activation, it blazed the same as the smaller fusion knife Chet had on him.
The rails dropped off, Chet went back for something a little bigger. This piece had hammer marks, showing it had been forged over heat rather than in the nano-forge. It was much too big to have come from the little forge, anyway. When he set it down, it looked remarkably like a toilet. The 'seat' was much smoother than the rest, and had clearly been fabbed up and then attached.
"The rails are the bedsteads we were thinking of putting together. They link up at the corners and we can fab slats to support some kind of mattress. And this? This is a waste-reclamator, tooled specifically to handle human waste." He smiled widely at Meg. "A self-cleaning toilet, in other words. The outside I had to make by hand, but the internal works are all fabbed up, so it should work fine. Now you just gotta decide where you want me to put it." He grabbed a change of clothes and the all-in-one soap, and headed towards the shower. "There's one more thing in the pod, if you wouldn't mind getting it. It should just roll out easily."
It was the auto-tiller, which looked like a big wheel with spikes on it. Strangely simple, but then, it had a control panel too, so there was clearly more to it than what met the eye.
“Sure.” Meg nodded, already moving to help Chet unload. “You definitely were productive. Look at all this.” she grinned as she looked at everything he made. “This is so great.”
She carefully unloaded everything he brought out and brought most of it into their tent.
“Well, I don't mind the sleeping pockets but it will be nice to have a normal bed again.” she admitted, as she helped him with the rails. Though she couldn't help smiling when he pulled out the human waste reclaimer. “Never thought I'd be happy to see a toilet out here.” she giggled. “But Artemis was doing a lot of scanning earlier so she probably has a good idea where we can put this.”
She nodded as Chet went to get cleaned up. “I’ll get it. You can show me how to use it tomorrow. For now, you just have a relaxing shower and I’ll make dinner.”
Meg's praise made some of the exhaustion melt off of Chet. He beamed as she looked over everything. "Did my best. Once I can get the big nano-forge going, we'll be able to really start building."
He glanced over at Artemis as he walked towards the shower. "You're welcome to give ideas, but the waste reclamator doesn't have to go anywhere specific. Just wherever Meg decides she wants the bathroom. Though it would likely be helpful to have waterflow, and we've got the sink faucet already in place." The shower and the sink faucet were separated, just so someone could be in the shower at the same time as someone using the sink, without having to be right near each other. Chet hadn't built any kind of a sink bowl yet, so it was just the faucet sticking up out of the ground on a pipe at the moment.
He stepped behind the curtain to the shower, his face beginning to flush as Meg mentioned dinner. Something about her offer just struck him as… so domestic.
It was sweet, and he appreciated it.
The hot water was heavenly as he washed off the grime and soaped up. The ash from the crash site had begun to work its way into his scalp, so that took a bit. When he finally felt clean enough, he stepped out of the stream of water and reached for his towel… only to realize he hadn't grabbed one.
Great.
"Hey, uh, Artemis? Can you grab me a towel?" He had his comms earpiece out, so he had to shout over the curtain, hoping the AI would hear him.
She did not.
Meg blushed a little as she heard Chet talking to Artemis about still leaving the decision up to her. It was so sweet of him… but she definitely wasn't going to turn down Artemis making suggestions.
As she worked on cleaning the two freshly caught prairie dogs, Meg had the idea of making some protective gear for Chet when he was smithing. Obviously, he had the tools he needed but considering how he was covered in ash and metal flecks… he needed something to protect himself with.
The prairie dogs were cooking nicely and she had started trying to cook a couple of the seven cookable plants she had found when she heard Chet call out for some help. She bit her lip to keep from laughing at the situation before standing up to get a towel for him since she noticed Artemis either ignoring him or just didn't hear him.
“Here's your towel, Chet.” she called out from the outside of the shower station, just sticking it and her hand inside for him.