The clatter of heavy metal rang through the air, explosions rocked the surrounding terrain. Mercilessly, artillery reduced the coral formations around us to their basic parts, dust and calcium. Only a four meter thick wall of it was allowed to stand around our base, and only for the time being.

Of course, we’d had the Determinators do a sweep with sonar equipment to be sure there weren’t any surprises hidden within the layer, but to all accounts it appeared safe.

Which only meant that we still started with fabricating an assortment of experimental plas-steel walls behind them. No reason to take chances. I was eager to see how well our new pre-fab walls would perform, but not so much so to be willing to have Spindlies throw themselves against it.

They were short segments, three meters tall and two meters wide, but only a half meter thick. Surprisingly, they were very light for their mass, and if they worked well they would undoubtedly become our go-to construction material for any forward operating bases in the future.

The other construction taking place was from the Emet’s fabricator, which was eagerly consuming any and all materials we put into it to extrude construction material. It was a quantity over quality approach, and since we didn’t need any repairs performed, the small manufacturing yard was taking shape rapidly. We fed it scrap metal as we found it, something that was plentiful underneath the layers of coral.

Our encampment was resting atop what was once a car factory on the edge of town. By now, most of the structure had been crushed underneath layers upon layers of heavy calcium, but that didn’t mean the components weren’t useful.

“Alright, I want all of the steel in this structure turned up and fed into the Emet’s bottomless stomach by morning,” I heard one of the team leaders coordinating with our more construction savvy teams. They were Legion, however I was surprised to learn that we’d had a construction specialist at all. I’d have figured that Bulwark would have been far too appetizing an offer for them to pass up.

Turns out, though, that Doug pouched them early. That, and they are more at home with our approach to construction than the more permit and straight-rail protocols that Bulwark used.

The group operated a larger version of exo-suits, rather than full mechs. It allowed them greater range of mobility, and the multiple limbs operated at stunning efficiency. The lower halves connected at the feet, an attached tri-tread base that gave them ease of mobility in any direction. Crane arms extended from over their backs, aiding in the heavier workloads they were needing.

It was impressive watching the twenty people cutting cubes out of concrete, pulling rebar and steel beams from the rubble and hacking them into bite-sized bits for Emet’s fabrication yard.

Very quickly, the command structure was proving an invaluable addition. There were two Ogre’s with much less advanced fab-units that were now slaved to the main base. Together, they churned out more basic pieces required of the base. Bricks, panels, less delicate parts of more complicated machines. Amusingly, the basic fabricators were building more complex fabricators that would then compose a much more complex assembly line, capable of dismantling and rebuilding based off of the raw materials being fed in.

The brain of all of that was still Emet, and the first buildings were beginning to spring up. Six towers ringed the base, our hexagonal layout affording us easy expandability while also granting us security. Two were finished, one east, the other west, and also bore an auto-turret on top of either one, and a bunker-style room just beneath that where our more vulnerable lookouts could take a look at the surroundings.

Thus far, things were looking eerily clear. There were very few Spindlies out and about, though they were far denser more towards the north east, the coast itself.

Which, as the sun drifted over the horizon, was painted in a bath of color. Flaring lights pulsed across the alien landscape around us, ethereal bursts of steam gleamed in fluorescent lights cast by living coral and plants.

The ocean itself, at least in so far as the beach, was likewise alive with shimmering lights. It was beautiful, and I realized then that the night would not be a dark one here, not in Damond.

It was possible that whatever was out there was more active in this bioluminescent shadow of the day. Wolves had been less active at night, perhaps the opposite was true here, then.

Or, perhaps, we hadn’t been noticed ye-

“Oh fuc-” I heard someone begin to shout, only for a massive explosion and a plume of fire to erupt a two hundred meters to our west. Pitch black flame erupted into the air, and a wave of heat washed over my armor, the senses of which prickled against my skin. It turned the fading light into a bright day, a storm of light.

“Holy shit, what was that?” Daniel asked, startled as his mechs guns came to bear.

Patrick took a breath, “Yikes. Uh, somehow there was still a gas-station that hadn’t exploded, I guess? I’d have thought the meteor would have cracked it at the least.”

Exasperatedly, I said, “Well, I doubt we’ll run into another one at least. If you can, bring up a map of the area, test any spots that supposedly had a gas-station and hit them early. I don’t want a team sitting near one when they ask for artillery support.”

“Sure thing.” Patrick punched in new coordinates, the mechs in the center of the base, swiveling their varying tools for long-range destruction, “Well, brace, just in case.”

“We can’t have a second to just relax after-” Fran started, then the artillery fired and I could see a stance of rigid annoyance on her mesh and exo-suit body. “Nevermind.” She shook her head, making an aggrevied sigh. There were plenty of us who were getting sick of the constant barrage and explosions.

“Sorry, Ma’am,” Patrick said, no particularly sky-filling explosions replying back to his love letters, “We’ll be able to stop for a bit in another fifteen minutes or so.”

“It’s fine,” Fran said helplessly, “I know it can’t be helped.”

“Some peace and quiet would be nice, though,” Terry added, “Well, we’ve almost got a fifty meter area around us cleared out. Our ‘Raijin Field’ should be ready to set up after that. That should give us some room to work with.”

“Wait, what did you call it?” I heard someone else ask with a chuckle, “Did you seriously just call your own invention Lightning God Field?”

“Uh… Thunder God Field, actually,” corrected Terry, “But yes, yes I did.”

“That’s a high bar,” Richard chuckled, “We’ll see what it does.”

“It’s gonna be good.” Terry promised, and I got the feeling he was rubbing his hands together maniacally.

I shook my head, smiling at their antics. Thus far, things were doing better than we’d expected. There were a few fatalities, but far fewer than I’d feared we’d have sustained. And, everything was shaping up quite nicely.

The next two hours had passed fairly uneventfully, the fabricators having finished building bunkers and varying barracks in the large forward operations area we’d set up. The bulk of all residential buildings were built near the center of the formation. The first of such structures was a single floor, just meant to give people a place to rest in the meantime. The second received a much more deft touch, digging down two basement floors and reinforced by plas-steel on the walls and what would be the base floor. It would serve to be the primary home of the Legion and the volunteers while we were here.

The first building was then converted to a general armory, partitioned into four sections to make access from any direction fast and easy. The Ogre’s unpacked ammo bunks, the power supplies on them linked to a generator that Terry had set up. Now that they weren’t running wholly on batteries, it was a non-issue for people to get into them and withdraw or replace magazines at will. It took a certain amount of power to keep the storage space in tact, and none of them were especially inexpensive. But the trade off in being able to house a massive quantity of shells made up for the extra layer in logistics.

They weren’t, however, very good for anything more complex than a bullet. The matter was stored like a blueprint, and while I wasn’t sure how all of the mass and weight of the items placed into them was resolved, it seemed that the more complex a device or object placed in it, the more energy it took to maintain the object, or withdraw it. If you didn’t have the energy to maintain it anymore, the system would fail, often explosively. Hence, there were safeguards built in to expel anything if the storage unit hit a certain level of power.

Which, the more you added, the higher that certain level of power became. We were still experimenting with the technology to find the limits, and so we decided to keep it to a very safe threshold.

Regardless, not having to cart around an additional fifty Ogre’s, minimum, filled with potentially volatile ammunition was an incredible relief on our resources.

Of the spent shells from the artillery team, many were simply fed straight into the fabrication yard when we’d gotten them active. By now, we had a few Ogre’s that had been tasked with ferrying those resources. Now freed up, we would be able to use them in any operations in the area if we needed to range farther afield.

All-in-all, we were trying to reuse and recycle all of our gear out here. We didn’t know how long this would take, but we did know that we’d be better off not having to rely on rearming from home.

“And we’re live! Everyone, make sure you log into the ‘Friendlies’ system or when you walk out there you’ll be getting the jolt of a lifetime.” Terry spoke, a series of disks resting atop the cracked and powderized ground around us. Several of the disks floated over the ground, moving otwards and away from others just like it. They were assorted in larger hexagonal patterns, all the way out to the less carefully cleared fields of coral fifty meters away. I wasn’t the only one interested in the system, and after having logged myself as a friendly I watched the Raijin Field set itself up.

‘God damn I love technology.’ I smiled, seeing laser sights appear on the edges of the small objects, spinning around rapidly for a few seconds before all at once the disks stopped. Their lasers pointed to their neighbors as a long, straight arm emerged from the same side. They had one side of the arm cut out, revealing a sinous wire beneath. Each arm pushed a connector out to their neighbor, spinning as they made contact to affix the wires together, then they would simply disconnect and drop the wire through the gap that ran the length of the arm.

They’d repeat the process six times, one for each direction of the hexagonal shape.

“That’s kinda cute,” Alice commented, “It almost looks like they’re dancing.”

“It does, like ballroom stuff though, not square dancing,” Jeremy stroked his bristly beard, “So, what’s it actually do, though?”

Terry answered by throwing a chunk of coral out to the field. As it landed, I felt the air charge with static, the metal objects tagging it with laser sights first. Curious, I tapped into their network, wondering what the process was.

At least two of the mines had to agree that something wasn’t on the friendly list. Five decided that whatever this was didn’t belong.

There was a loud crack as the nearest mines pulsed, a vibrant bolt of blue flaring into existence for a milisecond. The coral exploaded into fragments.

“Holy shit.” The thunderous quality of the noise rumbled through the air, “Did you just make lightning?”

“No, no, that’s still crazy high power,” Terry waved it off, “We’re closer than humanity has ever gotten, though. Admittedly I’m using some pretty sketc-experimental generators, but these will help for the hopefully short bursts when something slips past the turrets.”

“Terry, you’re not using untested equipment on our first expedition, are you?” Fran asked, her voice all cheer, but the sense of warning clear with it.

“O-of course not. I tested this before we left.” He chuckled nervously.

“How many times?” Alice dryly asked.

“Well, would you look at the time, gotta get back to work now!” Terry laughed, evading the conversation.

I looked out to the field, and nodded appreciatively. This would work nicely, I think. Now we would just have to find out where the cores in the area were and what else lived in the area.

Gunfire went off on the other side of the base, a turret coming alive rapidly, spitting a stream of bullets without warning.

I turned my gaze in that direction, frowning as I saw a singular Spindlie moving towards us. It virtually exploded under the shower of the three spinning barrels, modified since we’d gotten here to add extra oomph to guarantee a rapid kill.

“False alarm,” I said, “Just a single biotic wandering in.”

From on top of the next on the Emet, I could see a fair distance all around, and most of the base. And yet, even after all of the noise we’d been making, I couldn’t see a single sign of any kind of resistance.

Our antics, all of our focus and amusements, I knew it was to distract us from the very uncomfortable truth.

We couldn’t have been undetected. That either meant that the Gen 2 biotics weren’t here, or… we were being ignored.

It was dark out, now, though the world was bathed in the shimmering biolumensence around us. Further afield, we still had artillery launching test shots, but no other gas station seemed to have managed to survive. In another hour or so I’d have them stand down and get some food and sleep, but for now, it was just as well that we were testing the area.

It was during such a sweep when a shell hit the beach area, a standard one that we’d grown used too now.

This time, something was different. We could all feel something shift in the air, and the artillery ceased fire at once. A low rolling groan resounded from the direction of the beach.

A deep bass tremor rolled through the ground, and through the building. Even from this far away, I felt like it must have been a fairly large creature.

“Safe to say we found something new,” Richard clicked his tongue.

“By hitting it in the face with an artillery shell, probably,” Daniel chuckled, “I can’t wait to see what it is, though. Finally get to do something.”

As he spoke, though, we felt something more. The vibrations grew stronger, deepening.

‘No, not deeper,’ I thought, parsing the noises apart, ‘There are more of them.’

“Looks like we’re going to be getting some visitors.” I turned my attention to the teams, “Alright, now everyone’s on active duty. We’ll see what’s in store first and then move from there.”

After affirmations to my first order, I turned my attention to Strauss, “Pick a few teams to head that wall with you. We still have no idea what we’re dealing with, so take people who are quick on their feet.”

“Heard,” The man set off, immediately collecting three teams as he went. By the time he’d hit the wall, he had six altogether. The rest of the groups began to assort themselves on other stations, the plas-steel walls giving ample space for cat-walks. Mechs stood on larger platforms at the center of each wall; these ones had no dedicated artillery pieces, and would be better suited to direct conflict.

“Let's see what you look like this time.” I glared in the direction of the beach, six Determinators each on the various sections of the walls. If we were very lucky, we’d be able to deal with them and push for the hives. After all, this was a far more hardened position than what the salt beetles had dealt with in Gilramore. Now, we’d see how different the biotics could be at Gen 2.