Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- outpost_2:storyline:tales_from_new_terra [2015/12/04 15:29] – vagabond
+++ outpost_2:storyline:tales_from_new_terra [2016/10/12 21:32] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ====== Tales From New Terra ======
-** Work In Progress **
+Tales From New Terra are a set of vignettes written by J. Steven York to supplement the novella. The vignettes were originally contained in the Outpost 2 electronic help manual that shipped with the game were placed in the structure/unit detail pages.
+The vignettes are separated into two sections, structures and vehicles. A couple of units do not have their own vignettes. See the notes at the bottom of the page for more details.
+===== Structures =====
 ==== Agridome ====
@@ Line 40: / Line 44: @@
 He felt one of the other Grubs move in behind him, Wasner, he thought.  As they'd often practiced, Wasner quickly pulled his visor down for him and sealed it so Pavlo wouldn't have to take his hands off his controls.  They were almost to the Spaceport now.
-Ahead of them Pavlo could see that the emergency lock was closed.  Flashing lights warned about the disaster on the other side, but instead of flames, he could see frost on the bulkhead windows.  What was that about?
+Ahead of them Pavlo could see that the emergency lock was closed.  Flashing lights warned about the disaster on the other side, but instead of flames, he could see //frost// on the bulkhead windows.  What was that about?
 He slowed the truck.  Something was wrong about this, but what?  Then he saw the bulkhead starting to buckle outward.
@@ Line 48: / Line 52: @@
 The seam at the top of the bulkhead cracked like an eggshell, vapor under incredible pressure sprayed out of the crack and along the peak of the tunnel roof, and suddenly the top of the tunnel flashed into white-hot flame.
-The truck turned, too slowly, their suits were already charring, melting from the indirect heat, and Pavlo could see that even the rocks were burning.
+The truck turned, too slowly, their suits were already charring, melting from the indirect heat, and Pavlo could see that even the //rocks// were burning.
 The tunnel flickered away.  The truck hovered in the middle of the simulator dome, the Grubs on the truck shaking their heads like sleepwalkers waking from a dream.
@@ Line 54: / Line 58: @@
 The door cracked open, and Captain Fifield stepped trough.  She put her fists on her hips and looked them over disapprovingly.  "People, we don't even have a Spaceport yet, and one just killed you!  Spaceports mean fuel, cryogenic gases, and in this case, liquid oxygen.  Never approach the Spaceport along the side where the cryo tanks are buried."
-She looked at Pavlo.  "That means left tunnel, Pavlo."  She clapped her hands twice.  "Let's run this one again people, and see how far you can get before you're killed next time!"
+She looked at Pavlo.  "That means //left// tunnel, Pavlo."  She clapped her hands twice.  "Let's run this one again people, and see how far you can get before you're killed next time!"
 ==== Factory, Arachnid ====
@@ Line 101: / Line 105: @@
 ==== Factory, Structure ====
+{{ outpost_2:plym03.png}}
+{{ outpost)2:eden03.png}}
 Brook Panati sat on the railing of a catwalk overlooking the factory floor.  He watched as the automatic machinery below busily produced a new Agridome kit.
@@ Line 247: / Line 255: @@
 ==== Guard Post ====
+{{ outpost_2:plym11.png}}
+{{ outpost_2:plym04.png}}
 Emma steered the already damaged Scout around a boulder just as it exploded from the impact of a Rail Gun shell.  It had been an uneventful trip back from a mine where she'd been collecting rock samples, until she'd picked up an Eden Lynx somewhere a few kilometers back.  A few more kilometers and she would have been safely back to Plymouth.  Now she couldn't seem to shake her deadly tormentor.
@@ Line 263: / Line 275: @@
 ==== Laboratory, Basic ====
+{{ outpost_2:eden02.png}}
+{{ outpost_2:plym02.png}}
 He heard the voice in the distance, "Calvin, you in there?"
@@ Line 364: / Line 380: @@
 ==== Magma Well ====
+{{ outpost_2:eden08.png}}
 Duncan Loo stared into the angry face of the engineer.  Duncan had been at the remote Magma Well mining station only a few hours, and he'd already managed to cause a problem, though he couldn't for the life of him figure out how.  He bent down to pick up the geologist’s hammer he'd dropped on the metal walkway.  As he did, he could feel his face warmed by radiated energy from the massive magma conduit near him.
@@ Line 539: / Line 557: @@
 So Kraft waited, for what, it wasn't sure.  But somewhere in the depths of its consciousness, an unoccupied portion of Kraft's intelligence started planning a way to escape.
-==== Smelter ====
+==== Smelter, Common & Rare Ore ====
 "Don't go that way, it's radioactive!"  Actually, all the areas of the smelter that handled radioactives were safely locked behind doors and lots of warning signs, but he felt that such arbitrary warnings gave him the upper hand over annoying visitors, and this woman was definitely annoying.  He closed the inspection port and climbed down the access ladder.
@@ Line 545: / Line 563: @@
 The woman looked a little pale.  "I'm sorry.  I've never been to a smelter before.  I was just curious."
-He turned his nose up.  "You know 'bout curiosity and dead cats and things like that.  You stay close to me, and you might get out of the building alive."  It was Ernie's opinion that such dire warnings discouraged uninvited repeat visits.  He marched rapidly on his rounds, as fast as his long legs would carry him, and the woman trotted to keep up.
+He turned his nose up.  "You know 'bout curiosity and dead cats and things like that.  You stay close to me, and you //might// get out of the building alive."  It was Ernie's opinion that such dire warnings discouraged uninvited repeat visits.  He marched rapidly on his rounds, as fast as his long legs would carry him, and the woman trotted to keep up.
 "Now, Mr. Ngot, about my request."
@@ Line 553: / Line 571: @@
 "And platinum," she said helpfully.
-"Gold, silver, and platinum, to make jewelry for the consumer goods store."
+"Gold, silver, and platinum, to make //jewelry// for the consumer goods store."
 She smiled hopefully.  "That's right."
@@ Line 607: / Line 625: @@
 ==== Spaceport ====
+{{ outpost_2:eden05.png}}
+{{ outpost_2:plym08.png}}
+Carol Rajesh nervously watched the telescopic feed from the Observatory.  The descending RLV had just fired its main engines and was beginning to slow.  She knew that if she simply opened one of the blast shields over her office window, she could probably see it with her naked eyes.
+Somehow, she was more comfortable not doing that.  She'd been fine when the RLV had taken off from her launch pad two days before on its maiden voyage.  Oh, she'd been nervous enough, and darned proud when it had reached orbit without a hitch and deployed its payload, but this was different.
+Carol launched rockets from her Spaceport all the time.  They did a countdown, the engines fired, the rocket climbed, and they never saw it again.  But this one was coming back, engines firing, and it was going to land, like a video of a launch played backwards, it was going to land on her launch pad.
+It was unnatural.  It was going to take some getting used to.  //No,// she thought as she headed down to the control room in the safety shelter.  She was //never// going to get used to it.
+==== Storage Tanks, Common & Rare Metals ====
+The corridor was filled with rumbles and clanking as the dreaded Eden Parasite-flyer clamped onto the building's roof.  Juno "Tank" Steele turned his piercing blue eyes toward the ceiling, set his muscular jaw and hoisted his twin chrome-plated Splurge Rifles to firing position.
+"Come home to papa," he growled, "and we'll all be home for supper."
+More mechanical sounds as the Parasite-flyer's boarding gangway drilled through the hull beyond the next bulkhead.
+Tank thumbed the releases and flipped his wrists, causing the rifles to cock with a metallic ker-shick.
+There was a loud boom, and the pressure door at the end of the corridor popped outward half a meter, blown out of its frame, and fell to the deck in a billowing cloud of white smoke.
+Tank didn't flinch, but took two powerful steps closer, big guns at ready.
+A tall, dark shape moved out of the smoke.  A cape swirled, and small, sinister eyes peered at him from the depths of a hideous, perpetually sneering breathing mask.  //It was Axen Moon, the Dark Elder himself!//
+"So," boomed the Dark Elder, "the great Tank Steele.  We finally meet."  He wheezed behind the mask.  "For the last time!"  He pulled a huge pulse cannon from under his cape and aimed it squarely at Tank.
+Tank just narrowed his eyes and smiled.  It was the kind of smile that made children cry and paint peel.  "You can say that again, you walking trash can.  Get ready to check out of this hotel."  He scanned the air around the Dark Elder, and saw a slight shimmering there.  "That goes double for your alien Shade buddies too!  Show yourselves!"
+On either side of the Elder, dark spidery shapes shimmered into existence, tentacles waving like black ropes.  One of them pointed an alien weapon at Tank.  "No uncontrolled human has ever seen us and lived.  You will be no exception.  Prepare to die, human!"
+Tank chuckled.  He'd aimed his guns at the spot where he'd known the Shades would appear.  "Not on my shift!  Eat hot metal slurry, extra-New-Terrestrial scum!"
+The aliens screamed as boiling slurry covered their grotesque bodies.  Their skins split and peeled away, revealing shapes of blinding light, shapes that screamed as they swooped upward through the ceiling, like hellish ghosts.
+Tank lowered his smoking guns slightly and walked forward, smiling at the Dark Elder.  "Now, Amigo, we finish this man-to-can.  What do you say?"
+The Dark Elder holstered his cannon and slowly raised his hands in front of him, evil energies crackling between his fingertips.  He said, "Outflow chute is clogged.  Pressure reaching critical levels."
+Juno Steele shook his head, and let a long, heartfelt sigh escape from his lips.  He looked up from the inventory reports on his ClipCom, ran his fingers over his bald spot, then tapped the icon that initiated a manual backflush of Slurry Tank 4.
+He slumped back into his battered chair and sighed again.  Juno Steele did a lot of sighing.  "I have //definitely// got the most boring job in Plymouth."
+==== Tokamak Fusion Reactor ====
+Kelso didn't like dealing with the Masters, and he especially didn't like dealing with them here.  The Tokamak building was dark, cavernous, and most of all, empty.  His every footstep seemed to echo forever.  Though the air was breathable, it was cold and stale.  This was a place where people were reluctantly tolerated, not welcomed.
+He found his contact on the lower levels, outside the fat ring of the reactor containment vessel.  He knew the man only as "Scratch," probably a nickname derived from the long, thin scar that ran from the edge of his left eyebrow, around the eye socket, and down his left cheek.  Scratch nodded in greeting.
+"Got the stuff?"  He asked.
+Kelso nodded.  "It's in the cargo lock downstairs, 500 pounds of assorted rations."  He handed Scratch a hard copy of the inventory.
+Scratch scanned the list.  "I'm gonna want to check this."
+Kelso rolled his eyes.  "Can't you just trust me on this one?  I want to get out of here.  This place gives me the creepers."  He shivered.  "Why we gotta meet here, anyway?"
+Scratch smiled.  It was a very dangerous-looking expression on his face.  "You remember, Kelso, I don't exist anymore.  Eden thinks I'm dead, and I want to keep it that way.  This is the one place in the colony we can meet and I know there's no chance of running into somebody who will recognize me."
+Kelso shivered again.  "Well, I don't like it."  He shrugged dejectedly.  "Come on, let's go have a look at the stuff."
+Suddenly, lights began to flash, and a warning siren sounded.  Scratch jumped at the noise, and his tough act vanished; he looked ready to bolt.  "What's that?  Something wrong with the reactor?"
+"Containment breach," said Kelso.  "Bad."
+"Should we run?"
+Kelso just stared at the man.  "No time," he said.
+==== Trade Center ====
+Axen leaned back in the big chair and checked off the last item on his ClipCom.  They'd have to bring in their respective leaders, of course, go through all the political motions for show, but the real work was done.
+He looked up at Emma's face projected on the big screen.  Her expression showed the same satisfaction that he felt.
+He nodded.  "There we have it then, a trade agreement, and a mutual defense treaty against the Toho Aligned Colonies."
+Emma smiled.  "At last.  We've been at this for weeks.  I don't know when was the last time I saw my lab."  She looked into the screen.  "You alone?"
+He looked around to be sure.  "Yes."
+"Nguyen, is he still chasing that foolish terraforming notion?"
+Axen chuckled, glad to have good news.  "He's been so busy worrying about the TAC and maintaining a favorable balance of trade with the other colonies that I don't think he'll ever get around to it."
+"Let's hope not."
+"Amen."
+==== University ====
+Del Palus peered around the corner of the darkened corridor.  "It's clear.  Let's go."
+He crept around the corner, Mic Duval right behind him lugging the heavy bag he'd been given.  "Are you sure this is okay?"
+Mic was a newbie, needed to be broken in.  "Of course it's not okay.  That's the whole point.  It's a great tradition of the University that, on the week of their graduation, each senior has to pull a major prank on one of his or her professors.  Graduating senior.  That's me."
+"But I'm an incoming freshman."
+"Yeah, it is an honor to be chosen, isn't it?  Trust, me, this is part of the tradition.  Someday, it'll be your turn."
+Mic didn't look convinced.  "If I live that long.  Now, are you going to tell me what we're doing?"
+"We're going to set a little trap in Professor Anthony's office.  He's one of the part-time instructors, so we have to have to have our prank set for him.  Next time he makes one of his irregular visits, 'bam!'"
+Mic looked nervously at his shoulder bag.  "'Bam?'  We aren't going to blow him up, are we?"
+"Of course not.  Not literally anyway.  Nothing more than a few small shaped charges for artistic effect."  He had Mic put the bag down in the corridor outside Anthony's office.  "You see, Anthony made his reputation in rapid synthesis of aerogels.  He's the inventor of the StickyFoam weapon.  It's a rapidly expanding aerogel, very strong, though short-lived."
+Del reached into the bag and pulled out a canister with an electronic device attached to the top.  "I've been exploring the same areas, trying to improve StickyFoam.  This is what I've come up with so far.  Expands even more rapidly, could be just as strong if I mixed in the Buckytubes, and indefinitely stable.  Unfortunately, the expansion ratio isn't large enough to make it a useful weapon."  He shook the canister.  "But this has enough to fill the professor's office solid.  Unlike StickyFoam, it's translucent, like solid smoke."  He removed a bag of tiny silver disks from the larger duffel.  "As an added bonus, I'll rig charges just big enough to toss all his furniture into the air just as the stuff hardens."
+Del used a hacked keycard to open the door.  "Okay, all you have to do is stand guard while I set things.  Got it?"
+Mic nodded.  Del slipped inside, sat the canister in the middle of the floor, and started placing the little disks under all the furniture legs.  He was almost finished when he heard Mic's voice hissing in a loud whisper from outside.  "Somebody's coming!"
+Del looked around.  All the furniture was done, and he'd even placed disks to toss some stacks of papers into the air as well.  All he had to do was place the trigger, and he could do that on the way out.
+He sat the little motion detector on the floor in front of the door.  He didn't want Anthony to actually get inside.  It would be triggered as the door started to open.
+"It's Anthony!  Get out!"
+Del cursed under his breath, fumbled with the trigger, and sprinted for the door, accidentally stepping on the little box as he did.
+There was a loud "pop."  Del was first tossed headlong through the door, then stopped suddenly, as through by a great hand.  He hung in mid air, his body parallel with the floor.
+Mic sat on the far side of the corridor looking at him in horror.  Del looked back into the room, and saw the lower half of his body embedded in the aerogel.
+This is very //embarrassing//, he thought.
+He looked up at the man approaching from down the corridor, and put on his best brownnosing smile.  "Good evening, Professor Anthony!  What brings you out at this hour?"
+===== Vehicles =====
+==== Cargo Truck ====
+Tolo huddled in the truck's tiny emergency passenger cabin, squirmed uncomfortably in his pressure suit, and watched the displays on the service console.  He shouldn't be here, he knew.  The trucks were automated, he was a mechanic, not a driver, and the runs didn't get any more dangerous than this one.
+He'd catch hell from the shop foreman, if he lived that long, if any of them did.  Never mind.  If this cargo of parts for their orbit shuttle didn't make it through, they were all just biding their time waiting for the Reaper anyway
+"Enemy units at bearing 320," the truck's computer reported.  "Taking evasive action."  There was a change in the drone of the motors as they turned.
+Then, a crack like lightning, a smell of ozone and burning plastic, and the hiss of escaping air.  Tolo slammed down the faceplate on his helmet.  The truck’s voice came through his speakers: "Damage to main energy transfer systems.  Losing power at critical rate."
+He cursed and triggered both the airlock doors at once.  There was so little pressure left that there was only a quiet "whoosh" as they did so.  He grabbed his tool box and climbed out onto the fender skirt.  In the distance he could see several enemy combat vehicles rolling along a low rise, their turrets flashing as they fired at unseen targets.  He ignored them.
+//This// is why he had come.  "Hang in there, baby," he whispered as he swung open the volt-sink cover.  "Hang in there."
+==== Construction Vehicle (ConVec) ====
+"Teacher, look, it's the ConVec!"  Rob Blish broke away from his classmates and pressed his nose against the view port, watching the huge vehicle picking daintily at the structure kit it had just spread out on the ground.  Robby was taken with all vehicles, but ConVecs were his special favorites.
+The robot teacher whirred to a stop just up the corridor and circled back, rounding up stray children as it did so.  "Robby Blish," it scolded in its monotone, "others are waiting for you.  We'll be late for lunch."
+Robby didn't move.  "This is the best part; it's starting to unfold the geodesic trusses.  By this afternoon, we'll be able to tell what the building is going to be.  What do you think it is going to be?"
+Several other children had wandered over to the port to join him.  The teacher made an electronic noise that Robby had come to think of as a sigh.  "Working," it said, "one moment."
+There was a communications chirp, and another voice came from the teacher, not flat, but warm and friendly, with its funny computer accent.  He recognized it as one of the Savant computers from the Command Center.  It had talked to them during their tour last quarter.
+"Good question, Robby.  This is an important structure for all of you.  Many of you will be spending a lot of time there.  It's the colony's new University."
+Robby pulled his nose away from the view port with a start.  "What?  More school!"
+==== Earthworker ====
+"This is not going to work," said Wu Chen.  He was looking out the forward window of the Evacuation Transport as it rumbled down the hills toward the upper Wells Lowlands and the wide lava flows that were closing in from either side.  Though the dim light of pre-dawn revealed little of the terrain, he could see the lights of the other vehicles in the group bobbing ahead of him, and the twin, spreading lakes of lava glowing a dull orange in the darkness.
+Emma Burke leaned on the back of his chair and peered at the approaching doom.  "It's going to be a close thing, Wu.  The good news is, since we're the last transport in the convoy, if anything goes wrong, we won't have long to feel guilty about it."
+Wu wanted to say something, but couldn't come up with the right words.  He knew she blamed herself for their situation.  She'd predicted the eruption of Mt. Glenn to the north, but not so soon, and had failed to anticipate the simultaneous eruption of Mt. Komarov to the southeast.  That the geological databases from Earth had provided no data for erupting volcanoes so close to one another seemed to offer her no comfort.
+"Pay no attention to the assistant behind the curtain," he finally said.  "I'm just a pessimist at heart.  We'll make it boss; we always do."
+But she said nothing, and he couldn't think of anything else to comfort her.  He'd read of the mythical Atlas, who was said to bear the weight of the Earth on his mighty shoulders.  It seemed, at times, as though Emma Burke carried the weight of New Terra on hers.
+As Wu watched, the dark gap between the lava flows narrowed, and as it did, the horizon grew brighter.  Finally New Terra's sun peeked over the edge of the world, and the valley below began to brighten, the glow of the lava fading, the rocks and distant hills throwing long shadows, but something else became visible as well, a pair of long, parallel lines crossing the valley right between the flows, and at the end of each, a vehicle, their lights bright white against the early morning red.  "Earthworkers!" He said.  "They sent back Earthworkers from the new colony site to build Lava Walls!"  He shook his fists in triumph.  "We're gonna make it after all!"
+Emma moved forward and slumped into the next seat, that great weight gone from her shoulders, if only for a moment.  She looked over and smiled wearily.  "You know, pup, you're right.  You are a pessimist."
+==== Evacuation Transport ====
+{{ outpost_2:plym01.png}}
+{{ outpost_2:eden01.png}}
+"I'm sorry to bother you, Elder Moon, but I thought you might be able to calm her.  None of us have done much good."  Axen Moon followed the little man named Paris through the narrow corridor that connected the transport's five tiny living compartments.  The walls were so close that Axen's wide shoulders barely cleared.  Somewhere a baby was crying.  It seemed to him it had been crying for about a week now.
+He studied the back of Paris' round, balding head with contempt.  Despite being chosen from the 99th percentile of human genetic potential in some critical area, he was a toady.  The top 1 percent of toadies, Axen supposed.
+Still, the last thing he wanted was to be trapped in an E.T. with someone who'd been driven insane by the conditions, and even toadies had their uses.
+As they approached the front compartment, he could hear the woman's voice, repeating over and over, "38, 38, 38 ..."  He carefully snaked his way through occupied sleeping hammocks and stacks of supplies.
+The woman huddled in a corner near a small view point.  She was barely out of her teens, her long, blond hair hanging around her face in tangles.  On the bulkhead next to her, hash-marks had been scratched into the structure with some sharp object.
+He knelt at her side and smiled.  He didn't feel like smiling at her, or anyone, after their long confinement, but he was a politician first and foremost.  She turned as he touched her shoulder, and her eyes widened as she recognized him.
+"Is there a problem?"  He forced his tone to remain pleasant.
+"Elder!  Did I do something to disturb you?"
+"People were concerned for you.  You were talking ..."
+"Was I talking?  It’s hard to tell."  There was a slightly wild look in her eyes that worried Axen.
+"You kept saying '38.'"
+"38.  Of course."  She looked out the window and seemed to forget that he was there.
+"What does it mean - 38?"
+"Days."  She sighed.  "Days since any of us has had a bath."
+There were 25 people on the Evac Transport, and none of them escaped the sound of Axen Moon's laughter.
+==== Geothermal Constructor (GeoCon) ====
+See Geothermal Plant.
+==== Repair Vehicle ====
+Gloria Watt waited until the Garage crew was changing to slip through the big outer doors and into the bay where the Repair Vehicle sat unused, by anyone but her, that is.  She ducked under the machine’s repair booms and past the drone bay doors to reach the fabrication unit on the rear.
+Checking once more to see that nobody was watching, she removed a magnidriver from the pocket above her suit's right knee and opened the latches.  The service panel swung open, and she climbed in to get access to the small-parts hopper.  She felt inside.  As expected, it was full.  She unhooked a bag from her belt, and removed the first handful of recently fabricated "parts."
+They were tiny replicas of Eden vehicles, ConVecs, SULVs, Tigers, and even the Repair Vehicle itself, all produced from her programs by the vehicle's 3-D lithography unit.  She scooped them up handful after handful, until the bin was empty.  She checked twice, not wanting to leave any evidence.
+Then she carefully climbed down and took a step back so she could close the panel.  She bumped into somebody.
+Gloria turned and looked into the face of a Volunteer Guardsman.  She smiled sheepishly.  "Oh-oh," she said, not even sure his radio would be on the same short-range channel.  "Busted."
+The Guardsman raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms across his chest.  "I've been looking for you for a while," he said.
+She held the bag at her side, trying to hide it behind one leg.  "I was just - testing out the unit."
+He nodded.  "We know.  You've been testing it out a lot.  That's why the Council wants to talk to you."
+"The Council?  Look, this isn't that big a deal.  Can't you just give me a warning or something?"
+He held out a hand toward the bag.  "Can I see?"
+Reluctantly, she handed him the bag.  He reached out and pulled out a little plastic Earthworker, perfect in every detail.  He held it up in the palm of his hand.  "These things have been making a lot of kids happy."
+That wasn't what she'd been expecting to hear.  "Happy?"
+"You've been trading them to people for ration points, they give them to kids, kids are happy, Colonists are happy, Council is happy.  Plus there are all the other things you've been making - dolls, combs, games - they all make people happy.  But we can't have you sneaking around the Garage late at night, can we?"
+She ducked her head nervously.  "I guess not."
+"So the Council wanted me to find out who was doing it, so they could make your business legitimate."
+"I'm not busted?"
+"They want to talk to you about working in the new Consumer Goods Factory."
+==== Robo-Dozer ====
+It was Penny Hill's first day in the Garage.  She was fresh out of tech training, and a little in awe of everything.  She'd wanted to be a mechanic since her father had taken her for a ride in a Cargo Truck when she was a little girl.  Now, her dream was becoming a reality.  Old Tolo, the head mechanic and Garage foreman, was just completing her tour of the facility.
+The Garage was a sizable structure, one of the biggest pressurized spaces in the colony, but today it was crowded with vehicles in various stages of repair.  "So, where do I start?"
+Tolo smiled, and a scar puckered across his left cheek.  Tolo was something of a legend, the only mechanic to be decorated as a war hero.  "Got just the job for you, something you can prove yourself with."  She followed him between a pair of parked Tiger combat vehicles to the back corner of the Garage.  There, looking worn and tired, was an ancient Robo-Dozer.
+She looked at him questioningly.  "You want me to fix this?"
+He shook his head.  "I want you to dismantle it.  Save any useful parts, and send the rest to the GORF for recycling."
+She looked up at the Dozer.  It was a big job, but she could handle it.  But where to start?  As Tolo watched her closely, she climbed up onto the Dozer's track and wiped some of the dust off its frame with her hand.  On the faded yellow paint was painted a large black number 1.  She blinked in surprise.
+"This is Number 1, the original Dozer brought from old Earth."  She'd watched this same Dozer at work a dozen times throughout her young life.  She ran her hands along the metal, knowing that it had been assembled hundreds of years ago on a dead world.  She turned to face Tolo.  "I can't disassemble this."
+Tolo just looked at her.  "It's your job."
+"I can't."
+"And if it means you'll lose your job?"
+She hesitated only a moment to square her shoulders.  "I'm sorry, I just can't."
+Tolo cracked a smile.  "Brave lady.  Stick by your principles no matter what.  I like that.  You pass the test."
+She looked at him, confused.
+"Get down from there," he said.  "We'll find you a real job.  I got a Scout just came in that needs its drive overhauled."
+She shook her head.  "It was just a test?"
+He chuckled.  "Chairman told me I could keep old Number 1 around just as long as she was useful.  Well, you can see she's still got a use, as long as there are new recruits to evaluate."
+==== Robo-Miner ====
+See Magma Well.
+==== Robo-Surveyor ====
+Herman sat in the darkened and nearly empty Command Center, waiting out the last few minutes of his shift at survey duty.  On his console, a panoramic map was scattered with small yellow icons.  Each represented a Robo-Surveyor searching for Rare Ore, and all of them were coming up empty.  The techs were begging for Rare Ores, and unless they could be found, the Spaceport program was going to grind to a halt.
+Behind him, Herman heard the door cycle.  It had to be Hake Lakoff, his relief.  "Howdy, Hake," he said without looking.
+"Arr, me bucko, searchin' for buried treasure is what we be doing.  Gold, nickel, uranium, doubloons!"
+Herman groaned.  "Have you been watching movies again, Hake?"  He knew the answer already.  Much of the cultural database that had been brought from Earth was still a corrupted and unreadable mess, but Hake had recently discovered that the collection of 20th century pirate movies had somehow escaped the accident intact.
+Hake sat down at in the chair next to him and swiveled to look over the map.  "Things don't look so good matey.  Ol' Blackbeard hid his treasure well."
+Herman slumped back in the chair.  "We need a hit, and we need one fast."  He indicated a cluster of markers in the northwest quadrant.  "I'm hoping one of these is it, but I have only one Robo-Surveyor available.  Which one will it be?"
+Hake studied the map intently, then pointed to a location where two surface faults crossed right by a marker.  "To find a chest o' treasure, any pirate knows, 'X' marks the spot."
+Herman considered that for a moment.  He didn't have any better ideas.  Well, if you can't beat them, join them.  He punched up a control pad and redirected the Robo-Surveyor.  "Hoist the jib, bucko.  We be setting sail."
+==== Scout ====
+Scout 7 had a name, though Scout 7 didn't know it had a name.  Some wag mechanic had painted "Rover" on Scout 7's flank, but Scout 7's - Rover's - limited computer intelligence didn't make it aware of that.  Rover's intelligence was directed in very specific ways, into navigation sensors, guidance systems, and drive circuits that allowed it to traverse the rocky landscape of New Terra's equatorial highlands, and into the array of sensitive instruments, its eyes and ears, that allowed Rover to locate and track threats.
+Right now, Rover was tracking a tiny electromagnetic disturbance.  It could have been nothing, a fluctuation of New Terra's magnetic field, piezoelectricity generated by fault movement, or even a leak in Rover's own internal shielding, but Rover had been tracking it for the better part of a day, tireless and determined.
+The signal was stronger now.  Rover was very close.  The Scout moved slowly up a steep ridge, picking its way around boulders larger than the vehicle itself.  Stronger now, but Rover felt no excitement, no fear; that wasn't part of its programming.
+Rover topped the ridge, and immediately the threat was apparent.  One, two, three targets, enemy heavy combat units, heavily shielded, worked their way slowly up a gully.  Immediately Rover sent the signal back to base, quickly beaming all the information it could collect about the threat.  One of those pieces of information was about the weapons turrets that were now homing in on Rover's position.
+Self-preservation was part of Rover's programming, but not the most important part.  Human operators could have ordered Rover to safety, but their slower brains were just beginning to respond to the signals it was sending.  A sensor detected a target lock, and finally, Rover's programming instructed it to move to safety.
+But fast as Rover was, Lasers were faster.  Even as Rover's armor was boiling off as plasma, it was sending the final alarm, "We're under attack!"
+And then Rover was no more, and it didn't know that either.
+==== Spider ====
+Jix Oltion watched as hurricane winds ripped his wheat crop out by the roots, and knew that was the least of his problems.  The crops could be replanted, the holes meteors had punched in the Agridome could be repaired, but unless he could get to an airlock quickly, Jix was going to be very permanently dead.
+He grabbed a breathing mask from a red emergency locker and slapped it over his face.  It might buy him only 30 extra seconds of consciousness, but those seconds might be the difference between life and death.
+He'd been out in the dome, inspecting the new irrigation tubes, exposed, on foot, and far from any shelter, when the meteors had hit.  He ran as hard as he could for the far end of the dome, wind-whipped corn stalks lashing at his exposed arms.  He could feel the pressure dropping, tugging at his skin, making him feel like an expanding balloon, and knew that he'd never make it to shelter.  Gasping, he stumbled and fell, knowing that he'd never get up again.
+Then the wind stopped.  For several minutes he just laid there, catching his breath and looking up at the overhead tracks and lighting panels.  Then he glanced over at the nearest of the large window panels to see who his saviors were.
+Then he started to laugh uncontrollably.  As he watched the Spiders clambering over the ripped hull, spreading patching material, stitching the rent plates back together with carbon fiber webs, he could think only one thing: farmers and bugs were supposed to be natural enemies.
+==== Combat Chassis, Heaver (Tiger) ====
+The fighting was close now.  Up in the structures, Mort Paris couldn't hear the tanks in New Terra's thin atmosphere, but down here in the tunnels, it was different.  The walls echoed with the sound of their treads, and the explosions made the ground ring like a bell.  Accumulated dust rained down from the conduits that snaked along the roof of the tunnel.  He wished he'd been able to take a scooter, but he'd never gotten the hang of operating one while wearing a pressure suit.
+Inside that suit he was drenched with sweat, and his breath came in gasps.  He wasn't a hero, he was an administrator.  It was just that, when he'd heard there were still kids in the Nursery, there hadn't been any other candidates.  Right then, he'd have given anything to turn back, to forget that overheard comment, but his feet kept moving him into danger.
+He trotted up the ramp into the Nursery.  The place was a blasted chaos, a gaping hole ripped in the hull just inside the safety airlock.  As he passed the hole, he stopped and leaned out.  The fighting wasn't close, it was here.  A phalanx of friendly armored units rolled past, a pair each of Lynx and Panthers, their big tires kicking up rooster-tails of dust, and right behind them, a lumbering Tiger, its hull and turrets blackened from multiple hits, but still fighting.  An enemy Lynx raced from behind the University and paused for a moment before being blasted into ruin by fire from the assembled friendlies.  Then the building shook from a series of explosions, suggesting that more enemies were near.
+Just beyond the bulkhead, he knew, was the locker room, where the emergency gear was stored, and where the kids would be, if they were still alive.  He had to pry the door open with a piece of metal salvaged from the wreckage.  Inside, a chunk of the roof had collapsed, lockers stood open, disaster gear thrown about.  Then something in the corner moved.
+He found two boys who looked to be three or four years old, huddled in their transparent rescue balls.  The colony couldn't afford to keep spacesuits in all the sizes needed by growing children, so the rescue balls were provided as a substitute.  They were pressurized to keep the kids alive, but they severely limited mobility.  In theory, an adult would always be around to carry the children to safety.  In theory.  He looked down at their tear-streaked faces and cursed shortcuts, the very shortcuts his department had approved a few years earlier.
+He grabbed a carry-strap in each hand and half-carried, half-dragged the two boys through the lock.  Another explosion rocked the building, and the floor tilted suddenly, as though one of the foundation pylons had collapsed.
+With no time to waste, he let the boys roll down the ramp into the tunnel.  Not the best ride, but it was quick, and bruises would heal.  The alternative was much more permanent.
+His heart sank as he thought of the long tunnels back to the Command Center.  The Evac Transports wouldn't wait forever, but there was no choice.  He put his head down, grabbed the straps on the rescue balls, and slid them along the slick floor as quickly as he could.
+With his eyes on his own feet, and not enough air to carry the sound, he didn't hear the service cart until it was right in front of him.  A woman he didn't immediately recognize sat in the driver's seat.  It didn't matter.  She was an angel as far as he was concerned.  Without a word, she helped him load the kids into the rear cargo bin.  She climbed back into her seat, and he was about to join her, when the tunnel roof behind him collapsed.
+He was pelted with rock and thrown against the far wall.  He looked up, and the service cart appeared to be okay.  Then he looked back to see what had happened.
+A good 50 meters of tunnel had caved in, forming a ramp of debris from the surface down to the tunnel floor, a ramp that was occupied by a fast-moving enemy Tiger.
+Mort looked back at the woman and waved her on.  There was no way she could outrun it, and the straight tunnel would put her in gun range for at least another half kilometer.  The Tiger was on the tunnel floor now, and moving his way, more cautiously now.  The big turrets were turning toward them, the ugly muzzles of the weapons swinging into view.
+Mort didn't know what to do.  He was unarmed, helpless against the big vehicle.  So he did the only thing he could.  He stood in the middle of the tunnel and held out his hands: "Stop!"
+To his surprise, it did stop, long enough for the muzzles of the weapons to train directly on him.  So close was he to the monster's treads that the two weapons had him in a deadly cross-fire.
+He looked back.  The cart was stuck in loose debris, its wheels spinning.  He could see the two boys in their rescue balls, eyes wide looking at the Tiger.
+In the Tiger, electronic eyes must have been looking back, and through them, a human operator, for no computer would have done what came next.
+The Tiger, which could have crushed Mort Paris flat, blown him to plasma, killed him any of a hundred ways, began to back away.  The treads churned as it turned and began to climb back out of the tunnel.
+===== Notes =====
+Tales From New Terra Vignettes were not written for the following units:
+  * Light Combat Chassis (Lynx)
+  * Medium Combat Chassis (Panther)
+  * Scorpion
+Vignettes are shared for the following combos:
+  * Magma Well and Robo-Miner
+  * GeoCon and Geothermal Plant
 ----
+ - //Go Back to [[outpost_2:storyline]]//\\
+ - //Go Back to [[http://wiki.outpost2.net/doku.php?id=start|Wiki Home Page]]//